Friends,

One of the things that has surprised me the most in my ministry thus far is how much I have grown to truly appreciate the institution of the Episcopal Church. And I want to be clear, by institution, I mean all of the bureaucracy, paperwork, committee structures, finances, conventions with too many speakers and resolutions, strategic plans, and stewardship campaigns and all of the other stuff that people often do not like about Church. Jesus didn’t talk about these things, and as an overly naive and idealistic seminarian, I thought I could go through ministry without having to sully my spirit with the slippery slope of the sin that is fundraising, trying to increase budgets and building an endowment.

Slowly, I thought of it as a sort of necessary evil, and now I see it as something refreshingly honest. We need money and politics in order to function, and sometimes Churches can lean so heavily on these things that we begin to resemble the very structures Jesus railed against in the Gospels, so I understand the sentiment in trying to avoid them, but I think that might ultimately be vane exercise. We can try to somehow opt out of the money bit by ignoring it, but that is ultimately a road that will lead to closure, and if it doesn’t then it is probably a sign of extreme privilege. If you don’t have a substantial benefactor and if you want your ministry to thrive, you have to talk about money and put some effort into raising it for your ministries.

The same goes with politics. We could try to opt out of politics by having such a tightly woven theology that there is no room for deviation. Alternatively, you could be so loose that anything goes, so you never actually have to discuss disagreement, which doesn’t seem like diversity at all, but just semi-social individualism. We are not like either of those extremes, so people often disagree, which leads to debates, compromises, hurt feelings, and sometimes tip-toeing around sensitive topics. When these political things pop up, we could split off and form a new Church, but then it would just be a matter of time until the new iteration has to deal with disagreement and conflict. Politics can feel like a four letter word, but it’s really just the practice of dealing with each other.

If you all have worked with me at all, you might be surprised that I have such an appreciation for the institution of the Church, because I actively seem to hate it so much, and I am not very good at it. Personally, I don’t see these things as mutually exclusive. When I go to the Diocesan Convention this fall, it will be like a festival celebrating the institution of the Church, and most people eat it up, while I writhe in my seat counting down the minutes until I am free. Despite my aversion, I find something profoundly honest in the midst of those meetings, debates, and speeches. As a Church we have no illusions that we are doing things perfectly. We are not God’s infallible voice in this realm. Instead, we are a group of different faithful people trying our best. We don’t hide the fact that we have financial systems, and actively want to grow our organization. We try to confront the hard truths of our past and present, while simultaneously celebrating the saints who have come before us and encouraging each other in our ministry. I hate meetings, especially when they are in ball rooms of hotels or convention centers, but I am so thankful that they happen.

I started at an odd time in the life of St. Luke’s. In other Churches you could kind of ride the wave of the institutional knowledge of the people around you, and with little effort you could maintain the status quo. I would tweak things as I could, but there was never a sense of rush to get something off of the ground. Since we had to turn everything back on after the pandemic we did not have the luxury riding the wave of routine. Some of the strongest committees are still working on coming back, and being part of building them back from the ground up has made me so thankful for them. I was suspicious that we need an Admin, Buildings and Grounds Committee when I first started, but now I can say that I desperate to have them back now that I understand how this stuff works. Once again, this isn’t my strength, nor is it something I enjoy, but it is a worthwhile thing.

With all of this preface in place, I have every intention of shamelessly building the institution of the Church in the coming years, but I want you to know what my hope is in that effort. In addition to trying to do the institutional stuff today, I did something so much more important. I helped the Day School kids get out of their cars so I could start learning all of the new names, and so they would feel comfortable at their new school. This was also the day where we made lunch for all of the Day School teachers and the timing was perfect. While I was grilling in the alley, all of the parents were picking up their children, and I got to chat with them and they asked lots of questions about the Church. Yesterday at noon, Richard McFarland and I did something essential, and we celebrated the Eucharist at noon and prayed for those in need. While I could have been spending time catching up on my vacation e-mails on Monday and Tuesday, I went and visited a couple of people at the hospital when they asked for company. Along the way, I got to talk to a stellar young person about their call to ministry. My hope is that in the coming couple of years things will be running well enough to where I can focus on these more essential tasks. It is just going to take time to get there.

We need to do Church politics well, because we have to get along, and we need to do the money bit well, so we can do ministry out of a sense of abundance, rather than scarcity. In the same way, we should not be ashamed to try to raise funds for our ministry, but when going about these things we must do so with humility, so institutions grow for the sake of the Gospel and not for growth’s sake.

Blessings,

Nick