Ferguson and Policing in our Communities

The killing of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson has once again opened up important discussions about race, violence and the value of life in contemporary America.  The Grand Jury's decision yesterday not to indict Officer Wilson has added intensity to those discussions.

Many others have provided insights from a variety of perspectives.  Dean Mike Kinman at the Episcopal Cathedral in St. Louis has offered particularly good words on reconciliation, prayer and healing on his blog.  My thoughts and prayers continue to go out to Mr. Brown's family, Officer Wilson and his family, as well as the community of Ferguson and our nation.

Beyond the very important big picture questions that need to be addressed, this tragedy also provides us an opportunity to look at some of more mundane decisions communities make about their police departments.  As in many things, the devil is in the details, and since joining Sharon City Council last year, I have seen many structural pressures that help create situations like the one in Ferguson that can go wrong very quickly.

I do not mean to imply that racism, discrimination or other larger evils do not need to be dealt with.  But I also want to recognize the pressures on local municipalities make it more likely that a solo officer will have to make a difficult decision that could end in the loss of his own life or the life or someone else, and we should do everything we can not to put our police officers in those situations.

The first surprise to many may be that officers are mostly working by themselves.  We expect a solo state police officer at a speed trap, but the banter between partners in the squad car on many TV cop shows might lead us to believe that most local cruisers carry two officers.  In most communities I work with, a car has a single officer, even at night.  Back-up can be called in, but when situations go unexpectedly downhill, one person has to make the response, and his or her options may be limited.

Additionally, this solo officer in the car is increasingly unlikely to be integrated into that neighborhood.  Municipalities are dropping residency requirements for police (although Sharon, PA, has not) and, generally for good reasons, police do not often live in high crime areas.  The most significant issue in this disconnect, however, is the loss of beat officers or community police in areas requiring more intensive and frequent police intervention.   

These losses are primarily due to municipal finances.  As city tax bases shrink, fewer funds are available for safety services.  These pressures are compounded by changes in federal grants and the increasing costs of benefits for current and retired municipal police.

Amazingly, a the federal government will give local police forces tanks and other equipment more appropriate to fight the Nazis than to respond to a domestic violence call.  But getting funds for community police officers from the federal government is increasingly difficult.  Grants are scarcer and hurdles higher.   In Sharon a few years ago, city officials turned down one grant because they did not believe the city could guarantee that it could cover the costs of the grant's local requirements.

At the same time, municipalities have a harder and harder time funding police positions due to out of control health care and pension benefits.  Cities face similar burdens of all employers when health plans increase costs from 15-38% from one year to the next.  With medium-term union contracts and binding arbitration, many municipalities have no recourse when health care costs increase in a given year except raise taxes or cut positions.  Another large issue is  mandated pension benefits, especially for past city employees.  In Pennsylvania, all pensions to municipal employees must be defined benefit plans.  Not only is that expensive, but when the stock market dips, additional funds are required of the city to keep their existing pension obligations current.  In Sharon this year, the pension obligation was more than $300,000 over last year's.  In Reading, PA, pension obligations have meant a decrease in their police force from 200 officers to 160 officers.  (For more information on Pennsylvania's municipal pensions and what you can do, go to fixthenumbers.com.)

Fewer officers working alone with less time to spend getting to know people in high-crime neighborhoods makes it more likely that good officers end up in crisis situations.  This climate also means that some of the suggestions made after Ferguson are more difficult to implement.  Recruiting minority officers is not as easy as a TV talking head makes it sound.  The most likely way to recruit minority officers over the long-term is to have police officers present as positive role models where minority youth congregate, while affording the officers time to build relationships.  Such opportunities are slim when police only have time to drive up in their cruiser to respond to a call.  Police jobs also look less attractive to everyone when wages are low, risk is high, and new hires are the first to be laid off when health costs increase.   


Added to these pressures are the increasingly dangerous questions officers must ask about anyone they are stopping.  Not only are guns prevalent, but bullets designed to go through "bullet-proof" vests are also increasingly common.  Questionable activity requiring police response is frequently carried out by individuals under the influence, and different drugs lead people to act in radically different irrational ways.

So in addition to many suggestions offered elsewhere, here are a few things we can do to make a difference:

First, know your community.  Walk and drive around neighborhoods that you don't frequent.  Stop in and meet local shop owners and those running area social service agencies.  Build relationships with people in town, including people who you wouldn't meet in other places.

Second, find out about your local government.  Go to a city council or school board meeting.  Ask questions.  Talk to the police chief or the fire chief about what struggles the community is facing and what struggles their department is facing.  Then do what makes sense based on what you find out.

Third, pray.  Pray, and ask your church to pray, for our public safety officers, for all the needs of our communities, and for racial reconciliation in the U.S.  On his blog today, the Rev. Steve Pankey had this photo with the prayer for the First Sunday of Advent.  It might be a good place to start.

  
  

The Million Dollar Question

So here is the Acts 8 Million Dollar Question:

If you had a million dollars to help ‘proclaim resurrection in the Episcopal Church,’ where would it go and why?

This question would seem straightforward enough.  Just this week I have attended two different dinners for good causes, and St. John's, Sharon, PA, is in the midst of a capital campaign (which you can find out more about here).  Lots of resurrection is being proclaimed in various places, and a million dollars wouldn't hurt.

Honestly, though, I haven't seen the proclamation of resurrection ever stifled for lack of coin.  In my own experience, and in the experience of those I respect, money is rarely the problem.  What we usually lack comes down to one of three things: deep prayer, good ideas, and committed leadership.  When people are coming together for serious time in prayer and generating worthwhile ideas that competent people are willing to make happen, then God always seems to come up with the financing. 

In the Episcopal Church, we have unbelievable amounts of money at almost every level.  Where prayers, ideas and leadership are present, resurrection is evident in innumerable ministries.  Where the investment report is longer than the evangelism report, the church has problems.  So I wouldn't support a struggling church or ministry that would happily take the money instead of being forced to deepen their prayer life, generate new ideas and raise up new leadership to continue.

Making angels from money doesn't really work.

I'd spend the million trying to support the development of prayer, ideas, and leadership in the most effective way I can imagine.  My proposal would be the following:

• Buy and rehab a number of adjoining properties in an inner-city block (in some areas this would still cost the entire million or more, but in Sharon it could be done for a couple hundred thousand).  Use one of the buildings for a worship space and another for a large kitchen and dining room.
• Develop a rule of life including common worship throughout the day, at least one joint meal time, and service to the surrounding community.
• Invite diverse people from a variety of denominations, social-economic groups, ages, and family situations to come together as part of the community.
• Use some of the money for health care and other essential expenses for those who come and don't immediately find outside employment or who spend their time caring for the community unpaid ways.

Richmond Hill Chapel

If this sounds like some sort of monastery, that's because it is.  Throughout church history, the monasteries have been places where prayer has occurred, ideas have developed, and leaders have been formed.  More recently, places like Richmond Hill have adapted the historical model for effective ministry today.  Much of the resurrection proclaimed in darker periods of the church's life have come through the words and deeds of monastic or similar movements.   

Of course, if prayerful, creative, committed people decide to come together in some sort of Christian community, the money will follow.  But if I have to put my million someplace to proclaim resurrection in the Episcopal Church, that's where it's going.  

Do We Need More Participation in Churchwide Governance?

George Clifford has put up insightful reflections on the TREC report and meeting at Episcopal Cafe.  I agree with many of his points.  However, I want to address the following statement he makes about participation in diocesan, provincial and national structures: 

I'm guessing that fewer than 20,000 Episcopalians participate in diocesan, provincial, and national TEC affairs, i.e., less than one percent of TEC membership. Substantially increasing the level of participation and sense of ownership from among the 1.88 million non-involved Episcopalians requires enlisting them in meaningful and rewarding opportunities for worship and service. Current legislative and administrative agendas provide few such opportunities that most of the 1.88 million find attractive. I've not seen any report of the number of the people who participated in TREC's Churchwide meeting, but infer from the silence (always a dangerous way to draw a conclusion, no matter how tentative) that many fewer than 20,000 persons participated, either in person or via the internet.

This statement represents one way of thinking about our church structures beyond the local congregation that is prevalent in our church-wide conversation, but I think is unhelpful.  We do not need more participation in larger church structures.  We may need better representation by gifted people from across the widest spectrum of the church, but we don't need more of them participating, especially in legislative and administrative enterprises.

Our focus should be on finding the most effective way to provide the services a denominational (or diocesan) structure needs to provide for thriving congregations and mission enterprises (including social justice and evangelism efforts).  We want to free up as much of the time of our best leaders as possible to focus on their congregations and mission.  Every hour spent at a diocesan or church-wide meeting is an hour not spent on the front-line work of the church.  Certainly there is a value on being personally part of something beyond the local congregation, but for most people that should be gained through mission projects, retreats, or diocesan celebrations, and other events that people could easily invite their un-churched neighbors to be a part of (and we have too few of those). 

We need good, gifted people doing the important hard work of church governance and administration, and, as Bishop Rowe reminds us, we need both managers and leaders.  However, we don't need more of them then the minimum number necessary to get various voices heard, good ideas brought forth, wise decisions made, and the day-to-day implementation overseen.  Everyone else has other needed work to accomplish before the church can live into its calling.       

Parable of the Corn Fields

Last Sunday's Parable of the Vineyard (or Parable of the Wicked Tenants) got me thinking about how American Christianity is doing as stewards of God's vineyard.  So I adapted Jesus' parable to our current situation. (You can read the entire sermon this parable was part of here.)

A corn farmer had a farm that he leased out to tenants.  He put his Son in charge of tenant relations.  The tenants liked the Son, and they really liked the farmer’s land.  For years they produced bumper crops, and they shipped all the appropriate documentation, notarized and in triplicate, off to the farmer’s Son via Federal Express.  But their harvests were so large, they realized they didn’t have to plant all the fields to have as much produce as they needed.  So they planted less and less.  Eventually, the farm didn’t produce as much, but the tenants were happy, and they figured they could always plant more for the farmer if he needed it.  Harvests got smaller, but the tenants still took the same share.  Then one day the farmer’s Son came back for an inspection and found most of his fields overgrown with weeds while the tenants were in the barn gorging themselves on the seed corn.

What do you think will happen to these tenants?

God Provides -- Doggie-Doo Edition

Earlier this week while sitting in the stands at a soccer game, our little schnoodle Heidi decided to gnaw on her leash. This afternoon, the weakened leash finally broke. So at 8:30pm, I went to K-mart and bought a new leash so that Heidi and I could go out for our evening walk together.

Heidi

About a half-mile from home, Heidi stopped to do her business.  At that moment, I realized I hadn't attached the little clean-up bag carrier to the new leash. I searched my pockets for something I could use to pick up after her. (I couldn't leave such a gift on the funeral home lawn.) All I had was a movie stub, so, grateful that my small dog had small bowels, I gingerly grasped the product of a healthy canine digestive system in paper-covered fingers. 

The Missing Leash Attachment

After a few steps, I thought, "It really is a pretty good day if the worst thing that happens is carrying some recycled dog chow for a half-mile." Then I thought, "I just need to find a discarded dollar store bag stuck in the grass -- I'm sure God could provide one for me." About two steps later, on the lawn of St. Joseph's Church, a previously owned McDonald's cup was just waiting to be filled with the still warm treasure I carried so carefully. 

God's Provision

Moral of the story: if we offer up to God the crap we're carrying, he'll give us whatever we need.

A Response to TREC's Open Letter and Its Responses

After significant time and labor, the Task Force for Reimagining the Episcopal Church recently published an open letter.  Laying out TREC's current thinking and some inkling of what it plans to accomplish between now and convention, the letter covers a lot of ground and has engendered no small amount of discussion to date.  Without going at length into points already brought up by others, below are some of my musings about the letter itself, as well as the reactions to it so far.

1. Thank You, TREC.  This letter shows a lot of thoughtful discussion and a lot of hard work.  It also shows that you have been listening to feedback.  A number of points, such as the General Missionary Convocation, were mentioned in blog posts by a number of people early on in the process.  While not yet fleshed out, the inclusion of this idea shows an engagement in what you've been hearing.

2. The Lazarus Metaphor.  OK, maybe not what I would have chosen, but it seems clear enough.   The church is in pretty bad shape, (or we wouldn't have commissioned TREC at all), and Jesus wants the Episcopal Church to come out of our dark, badly-lit, 100-year old with leaky roofs and deferred maintenance tombs and take off whatever bindings stink of death so we can go about the business of living.  TREC says, "We believe Jesus is calling our church to new life and vitality, but the church is held back by its bindings—old ways of working that no longer serve us well."  We've put the obligatory scriptural passage at the top of a page of what should be practical proposals so we can show we are properly spiritual and churched.  Now let's move on.  Yet a lot of blog ink seems hung-up here.  Just because we are trained to push scriptural passages in all manner of directions and fight over our interpretations, maybe we can give TREC the benefit of the doubt on this one.  They could have chosen 2 Kings 2:23-24 to demonstrate that in the midst of change we dare not disrespect the _____ (PB, PHoD, General Convention, Executive Council, Founding Intent of Bishop William White, ABC, COD, or insert other favorite church leader here).

3. The Language of Organizational Management.  I've read a couple of places that people would rather not use business language in TREC's endeavor.  However, since they are trying to manage a rather complex organization, this language seems appropriate to me.  I don't agree with everything they say, but saying it in the right idioms seems more helpful than translating back and forth to a more familiar church dialect that isn't as clear.  I would say more specifics using the best secular language would probably be helpful.  Where TREC's letter is unclear, the business language is not the main problem.

4. Clear Effective Leadership.  One of the sentences in the report that has gotten little attention, but I think hits the heart of many of our problems is: "At the churchwide level, we must select and fully empower clear and effective leadership to define agendas, set direction, develop expertise around complex issues and their implications, make tough choices, and pursue bold and disruptive ideas where appropriate."  I would agree with TREC that clear and effective leadership is essential for us to move forward.  I think TREC's analysis of the issues facing us and the significant changes we will need to make is fairly accurate.  At this point, however, neither our church culture nor our structures are conducive to this kind of leadership.  TREC is trying to propose ways to assist the structures in developing that leadership, but the church also has to be willing to allow our culture to change, and to follow leadership that may be put forward.  (I'll look a little later at who that leadership could be.)

When we are honest, we realize that as a church, we don't like clear and effective leadership.  The Episcopal Church was formed out of a variety of compromises between clergy/lay leadership and New England/Mid-Atlantic/Southern state demographics and concerns layered on top of all the previous English via media compromises.  Except in cases of almost criminal misconduct, our bishops have little accountability to anyone, our rectors relish their independence from meddling Diocesan authorities, the wealthy laity of the past often had their church clergy almost on staff similar to their accountant or their attorney, and today's laity have often been formed in other traditions and want to follow God in whatever ways they think appropriate.  For the most part, as long as Sunday morning worship approximates a prayer book service, the rest is pretty much up for grabs.  This set-up is not a bad things, and can actually be our strength in many circumstances.

At the Episcopal Church-wide level, however, this attitude gives us our current administrative mess.  Historically, some group has gotten together because they feel strongly about some good thing and propose something.  No one at General Convention is really opposed, so they vote "Yes".  Pretty soon we have a new CCAB, which eventually gets a budget and work that must be done by some staff person, who is now accountable to some mishmash of the COO and the CCAB, but who is really passionate about the job they were hired to do and works mostly out of their own sense of call.  Over time, we have various large segments of the church that feel strongly about particular issues and have gotten them into the agenda without an overarching sense of how it fits the broader mission or relates to anything else.

If we are really honest about clear, effective leadership, part of what we will be doing is offering to give up the ability to use General Convention and the Episcopal Church to implement our own agendas, and that means that sometimes what is very important to us will not receive priority or funding.

Obviously, the direction for clear, effective leadership must be discerned through open, democratic processes that receive and are responsive to church-wide input.  Somehow General Convention has to be able to offer overall goals and directions, and Executive Council needs to structure its work to refine and better operationalize what General Convention proposes.  (If we assume incompetence in our next structure, nothing will work.)  But at the end of the day, if our leaders have the ability to implement bold and disruptive ideas to pursue the goals we give them, many of us will probably have hesitations, questions, concerns, and be, well, disrupted.  Many of us may see parts of what is most important to us accomplished by informal networks we support, but no longer by the church administrative structures or any CCAB that is in the church-wide budget.

I am concerned about our ability to live into such leadership. The anxiety of many TREC letter responses to having a strong leader who may not be their first choice is telling, as is the fact that such leadership is already possible, if more difficult, under our current structure (e.g. General Convention could have dismantled most CCAB's in 2012, but didn't).  TREC's vision is of a church that sets a direction and picks a leader to navigate our future, but we need to be willing to follow.

5. The Presiding Bishop is not that leader.  Like many others I do not agree that the Presiding Bishop is the person who should be the leader the church chooses.  Susan Snook's blog on the TREC letter lays out a good case for this (and for issues surrounding Executive Council, staffing and General Convention).  I am much more in favor of the third option TREC proposed in an earlier communique, with a scaled-back role for the PB and a Secretary General/Executive Director in charge of church staff and management.

I do have to say that I think what TREC is proposing with clearer lines of accountability would be an improvement over our current set-up (although the election process for the PB would have to be opened up to clergy and laity to go this route).  There are two significant problems with making the PB the CEO, as I see it, however.

First, I think we are limiting our pool of applicants for a very difficult job if we only consider bishops to be CEO.  Add to that the fact that many bishops are in dioceses with a handful of staff, and we have probably narrowed our search at any given time to less than a half-dozen people who might have the gifts and are at a place in their ministry to take a church-wide role. 

Second, the pastoral role for bishops and the sacramental role within the church are important functions that may not equate to the gifts needed to manage the church administration.  We may not want the our Presiding Bishop to be the kind of person who thinks getting an MBA is great fun, but our CEO probably needs one.
We can't expect the right pastoral and the right administrative leadership always to go hand-in-hand.

On a similar note, to the degree that the PB is equated with Church President, the President of the House of Deputies seems to be church Vice-President in TREC's letter.  This move is also a mistake.  PHoD presides over a fairly complicated legislative body, and those skills are also not necessarily the same as the ones needed in other areas of church governance.  The Vice-President of Executive Council should probably be someone who could be the President someday, not someone who will never able to be the President.  Make the best person (of any order) the Church's CEO, and let the legislative officers do their already very important and significant jobs.

6. Staff.  Like Crusty, I don't want my church to turn into Wall*Mart.  Nor do I want to have people on staff with no pension or benefits, or to squeeze every ounce of work from them for as little pay as humanly possible.  At the same time, we may want to be clearer about the fact that in this time of uncertainty, what we hire people to do may be changing dramatically and in short order.  It may be fairer to our employees to say that we are hiring someone for a year and then we will re-evaluate the position, rather then to give people an open-ended sense of their employment and then go in another direction while they are still unpacking.  The ability to change staff as needed is probably important, but we need to do that in just, equitable ways.

This brings two important points to mind, however.  First, if, as Susan Snook says, 108 out of 130 FTE's are support and administrative staff, do we require too much administration?  I'm not sure, but it seems like there are a lot of forms required by the church for all sorts of things that maybe aren't so important anymore (since, for instance, most weddings are recorded at the courthouse these days and not only in the parish register).  I'm sure many things are good, but is everything absolutely necessary at this point?  Just a thought.

Second, why is it so difficult to move between jobs within the church.  If someone is "hired" by the Episcopal Church for nine months or for a specific project part-time from their diocese or local church, why would they have to change status and become contractors?  Is there any way to be a little bit more like General Electric and smoothly transfer people from one division to another, rather than feeling like we all work for various mom and pop grocery stores that don't talk to each other?  I know this also is a change, but if we are committed to using differing gifts, thinking about us all as working for one church instead of thousands of congregations, dioceses, etc., might be helpful.  I'm not sure how to do this, but this might be something TREC or someone else could put forward at General Convention.

7. General Convention.  I think the move to a Missionary Convocation with governance people doing their thing on the side is a good idea.  Some of the other items, like the length of convention
and legislative committees may need to be rethought, especially if the leadership structure requires different emphases for convention, like a more informed electorate voting for Executive Council members.  Legislative committees will still need to get the work done, but debates/forums/candidates nights may be even more important activities.
  
Again, thank you, TREC, for your work, and for all the bloggers, comment-posters and others who are adding to this fruitful conversation.  For other perspectives on these questions, please click on the Acts8 BLOGFORCE logo below.

Why Anglicanism? A Practical Christianity

This week's Acts 8 Blogforce question is Why Anglicanism?  Specifically, what is important and special about the branch of Christianity we consider our own?  To me, the beauty of Anglicanism is the practical teachings and tools that help us develop a deeper relationship with God and a loving community with one another.

The roots of this practical, community-building Christianity go deep.  The early combination of Celtic and Roman Christianity helped shape Anglicanism's future direction.  From the Irish came a solid foundation of monasticism as the center of Christian life.  Monastery-based faith wasn't just a ritual system, but a all-encompassing way to live in community for God.  At the same time, some of the excesses of Celtic monasticism, like extreme penitential practices, were tempered by a more rational Roman Christianity.  As Benedictines cross the English Channel, they bring what Benedict called his "simple rule for beginners" to the monastic traditions on the north shore.  The strong Benedictine monasticism that takes root (and is later refreshed by Archbishops like Anselm and Lanfranc) ensured that a focus on living successfully in community is a central component of British Christianity.

The Venerable Bede's history is another example of this practical spiritual bent, even while he tells a story saturated in miracles.  Medieval English spiritual works give us concrete ways to deepen our relationship with God and with our neighbors.  The showings and spiritual direction of Dame Julian, and particularly the Cloud of Unknowing, written by an anonymous 14th Century English author, provide practical spiritual guidance.

The Elizabethan Settlement can be viewed as an intentional decision to create a practical church.  Eschewing (at least some) theological disputes, the Church of England almost adopts a mission to worship God in a way that helpfully brings together the people of England.  A more cynical slant might consider the church's mission as forming good subjects for the crown, but such mixed motives still require a church life that helps people live together in community.  The creation of The Book of Common Prayer is a concrete mechanism for bringing forth a church that allows everyone to pray together.  The prayer book takes the early monastic traditions and invites the entire church into the rhythms of its communal liturgy, envisioning a church that grows together practically in common worship.

As Hooker and other early Anglican apologists lay out their rationale for this new Protestant English Catholic project, they develop the three-legged stool of scripture, tradition and reason.  In opposition to more radical Anabaptists, Anglicans defend the traditions of the church that work. Every tradition need not be kept, but the ones that have a proven track record of helping people love God and their neighbor should be.  Then, of course, reason tells us that seeing what works in our current context also plays a role in decisions about our church structure and liturgical life.  These ideas are in opposition to Christian traditions that either over-emphasize tradition, whether it is still valuable or not, or that look primarily to dogmatic theological concepts whether a community can realistically be built around them or not.

The Caroline Divines continue this practical emphasis.  George Herbert, rose-colored glasses not withstanding, writes about how to pastor for the good of the small country town.  Later, the Oxford Movement uses high church practices as mechanisms for building inner-city religious community.

Our Anglican Churches today continue their five-century emphasis on bringing people together to form communities that effectively love God and neighbor.  We sustain a rich liturgical life that can bring people from a variety of circumstances for common prayer.  The ancient chants of the church are shared on Facebook and Rite I burial services are Skyped to relatives in far away places as scripture, tradition and reason inform the choices that build up the Body of Christ.  We incorporate spiritual directors, healing prayer teams, labyrinths, daily offices, small groups, and a wide variety other spiritual practices, outreach ministries, and fellowship opportunities not according to a theological master plan, but based on what helps the people in our pews learn to love God and each other better.  Of the smorgasbord of religious activities, what gains traction in our congregations is generally the practices that work, and many of those practices are not new to the Anglican Tradition.

Anglicanism is a rich tradition, with much to offer.  I'm a part of it because I have found no place else as effective at helping people grow together into a community that loves God and one another.