Why I am not giving to the"Bless, 2019 Annual Appeal."

On Holy Saturday I received, as did many of us Episcopalians, I suppose, “Bless, 2019 Annual Appeal” from the Episcopal Church Center. I am only now able to get around to responding to this.

I have decided not to respond by supporting this fund. Here is why:

According to the Presiding Bishop’s Cover Letter (on the inside of the front cover of the Appeal booklet), “The General Convention of our Church gave us a goal of raising $1 million over the 2019-2021 triennium, with every dollar going to support the collective ministries of a Church…”

The booklet then features seven individuals whose work blesses and is a blessing. These are people engaged in the “collective ministries” of the Church. I know several of them personally, and they are wonderful people doing really good and important work. They are indeed a blessing and blessed.

Still there are problems with this appeal.

(i) Nothing indicates what the relation is between the funds given and any of these ministries. A number of these are paid employees of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. At least one is a Diocesan staff officer. Several serve in federal chaplaincies and are (I assume) paid by the government.

My sense is this funding request is unrelated to the specific stories being told, rather the funding is to augment the general budget. That is both good and bad. Good, because I would hate to think that these specific ministries were on the line if the funding did not come in. Bad because there is a disconnect between the asking and the stories.

(ii) The general budget of the Episcopal Church is underwritten primarily by diocesan support, investment income, and services rendered. This million-dollar goal, over a three-year period, is primarily meant to offer individuals a way to personally give to the work of TEC. In some ways that is commendable and there are some individuals who will want to do this. But the literature does not point out the fact that we already give by way of our pledges to the church, in that some portion of our parish income goes to the diocese, and the diocese pays into the work of the whole church. That is, the literature for this million-dollar fund does not connect it to the funding we already give. The answer to the question, “did you give to the Episcopal Church” is already yes. But many Episcopalians don’t know it. A teaching moment passed.

(iii) My sense is we would be better advised to relate these ministries described in the funding plea to the reason for contributing to your parish, so that parishioners can see the direct relation between their offerings and the work of the whole church.

(iv) If this funding program is meant to reach people who do not otherwise give to the church, fine, but if so, say so. Make this fund an opportunity for thanksgiving by those who do not already give by way of their pledge or offering through the parish.

Unfortunately, this request comes with only a vague connection to the realities of either the breadth of ministries in the church or the budgetary needs to support them. A rather large portion of the TEC budget concerns administration costs, which have little funding appeal. So it is indeed much more interesting to highlight ministries of blessing. But it does seem to me that unless we can see meetings of various committees, costs of support staff, funding of mission by dioceses, as blessings as well, we are not making a compelling case for funding through this project. This funding proposal is for the general budget of the church, not just the work of easily identified blessings.

I believe the funding of the church is the funding of an instrument of blessing and that the accountability for that funding is not by way of highlighting the “easy” avenues of blessing, but by highlighting the blessing that is the whole thing. Meetings of ecumenical committees, committees studying prayer book issues, coordination of particular sorts of ministries (campus ministry, hospital chaplaincies, etc), investment committees, etc. all need to be brought into the ring of blessings.

So, thanks but no thanks. I already give to the work of TEC, and I pay attention to that giving. And, indeed, I see that as supporting a blessing that blesses.

This project needs more work.

The First “Annual Appeal”, passing the plate for a second offering.

In the mail yesterday I received a “Dear Friends” letter from the Presiding Bishop introducing the first Episcopal Church Annual Appeal. I suspect you did too. With it came a one page double sided summary of the ministries that the Appeal would support. It came on All Saints Day. 

The Presiding Bishop is a wonderful source for enthusiasm in The Episcopal Church and I am usually ready to take his lead in working to motivate the Church to action in the world. But I was strangely unmoved by this letter and the materials that accompanied it. Why?  Well, as I returned again and again to the appeal materials several things stood out.

(1) There was a disconnect between the content of the summary page and the photo of the Presiding Bishop and a group of young people.  It’s a great picture. There is no note as to what the picture is about, except the delight of the PB with young people. That is, of course, worthy of sending around. But there is no link between that image and any of the ministries described.

(2) The undated letter gives several other examples of ministries that would benefit from the Appeal... including the Office of Government Relations, Armed Forces and Federal Ministries programs, and Evangelism Ministries. Of these only the Evangelism ministry is mentioned in the accompanying one-page double-sided info piece.  In the letter, the PB asks, “Why do I make this appeal now?”  The answer is, “The dioceses of our Church are generous in their giving to support churchwide ministry, and income from endowments is steady: however, the work before us requires more.”  

(3) The three ministries mentioned in the letter are churchwide ministries with budget line items as part of the General Convention budget. Now a great deal of energy goes into producing the General Convention Budget and the askings from the dioceses to support that budget. As dioceses we have already given for the budget of churchwide offices, and through General Convention, we prioritized the work and the funding. We have already given at the office. By extension I have already given to this budget through the offerings I make in my parish.  So this is an “above and beyond” sort of asking. The letter does not suggest new programs or activities above and beyond those envisioned in the general budget. Rather the suggestion is that what we already have agreed to do “requires more.”

This seems to mean that the Presiding Bishop, the President of the House of Deputies, Executive Council and staff have determined that the limits of funding imposed by the Church’s budgeting process need to be overturned.  This seems to me to require more explanation than the statement that “the work before us requires more.” Is this additional funding going to result in a larger staff? Or the greater use of contract-workers? How will these new funds be folded into the existing budget and the priorities of the General Convention?  If there is new money for Creation-care work, how is that reflected in the existing Episcopal Church efforts? 

(3) The list of ministries/programs in the double-sided one-page piece that accompanies the letter are all efforts in which “more” might be very useful. The brochure or booklet that gives more stories and information about these ministries can be found online, but the letter refers to it as if it were available with the mailing. “Please prayerfully read the stories in this booklet about these ministries...” The booklet is not part of the mailing.

(4) The letter also says, “you can make your gift here online.”  Well, “here” is the letter, which may be on the internet, but was sent to me (and you) by land mail, and the editors forgot to include the online address.  It is found, rather, on the accompanying two-sided sheet. It is www.episcopalchurch/give/annual-appeal.  You can go there and give your money, but if you want the brochure/booklet you have to go elsewhere, namely to https://www.episcopalchurch.org/files/documents/annual_appeal_booklett_web.pdf 
The site refers to it as a brochure. The title of the document calls it a booklet. Oh well.

All in all the appeal is troubling. It is confusingly presented, with little more than a restatement of programs already part of the budgeted life of the Episcopal Church as its justification. There is no real effort to present compelling reasons for passing the plate a second time. These are not special programs or unique and unpredicted opportunities. 

We should hope for better than this.

What gives? And why? Salaries for PB and other executives in The Episcopal Church.

The salaries for the Presiding Bishop and other executives of the Episcopal Church are posted online for our information. The big five are as follows:

"Presiding Bishop 291,832
Chief Financial Officer  235,448
Executive Officer  213,282
Chief Operating Officer 204,000
President, House of Deputies, Volunteer"

The designation of the PoHD as "volunteer" is really misleading. The PoHB is unpaid, not volunteer. That person may, among several persons, have volunteered to serve. These persons were then candidates for election. But the PoHD was elected by the House of Deputies. That distinction makes it not a matter of personal will alone, but community decision. 
 
A good deal of discussion has gone on regarding a resolution to pay the President of the House of Deputies (PoHD) a salary. The resolution (A028) if passed would require further determination of actual pay and benefits for the PoHD, but up to $900,000 has been earmarked for that from the three year budget proposed at General Convention.

The total paid out per year for the the four already paid, plus something like $250,000 to $300,000 for the PoHD, brings in the annual salaries of these five (if PoHD is funded) at roughly $1,200,000 per year. 

Leading up to the 2015 General Convention there was a study done to "re-vision" the church. While it can be argued that the current Presiding Bishop has re-visioned the Episcopal Church as "a branch of the Jesus Movement," the more prosaic re-visioning has not been as dramatic.  This resolution expands the number of paid chief executive officers soon after the effort was made to reduce the bureaucratic bloat. 

Perhaps a better way to approach the issue of appropriate payment for the DFMS chief officers would be to have a line item for paying chief corporate officers, and let the Executive Council,as the Board of Directors, determine how to use the funds.

From out here in the small town on the bay, by the big water, I fail to see just why the Presiding Bishop ought to receive $290,000 a year or just why we need both an Executive Officer and a Chief Operating Officer, or why the rather sizeable support staff doesn't reduce the work load for the PoHD, thereby making the argument for paying the PoHD upwards to $300,000 a year a bit of a reach (that being the budgeted "outside figure" being proposed).

But I can say this: From here it may smell like the Episcopal Church, but it doesn't smell much like the Jesus Movement.