I understand that last fall, some issues and questions arose around who was and wasn't qualified to run for vestry. This prompted the vestry to take a closer look at the parish by-laws, the diocesan canons, and the denominational canons on membership. I am grateful that the vestry leadership decided to postpone a vote on this matter until after I arrived, as your new rector. This allowed me to provide some commentary and interpretation on the canons and some of the theological intent behind them.
At the July vestry meeting, the seven members of the vestry present unanimously passed a revision to our by-laws on membership and qualifications of vestry members (the four members who were absent had seen the revisions ahead of time and had ample opportunity to give input).
The full text of what our by-laws on membership and qualifications of vestry members now state are as follows:
ARTICLE 2
Members of the Parish
Members of the Parish are those whose baptisms have been recorded in the parish’s Canonical Register of Baptized Persons, who have received Holy Communion in this Parish at least three times during the preceding year, and who participate in Parish life. Members of the Parish are entitled to participate fully in the life of the Parish, including speaking - but not voting - in Parish meetings and elections.
Voting Members of the Parish are those members who, additionally, have made a mature public affirmation of their faith (either through being baptized as an adult, or being confirmed or received as an adult if baptized as a child), who have been faithful in corporate worship (unless for good cause prevented) and in working, praying, and giving for the spread of the Kingdom of God, and who are at least 16 years old. They must, also, be listed in the Treasurer’s books as a contributor within the previous 12 months, and have been a member of the Parish for at least six months.
ARTICLE 4
Qualifications of Vestry Members
Vestry members and candidates other than the Rector shall be lay persons who are voting members of the Parish. Additionally, during the 12 month period before the announcement of election (60 days prior to the second Sunday in Advent), vestry candidates and members must have contributed to the undesignated fund or building fund of the parish.
There are two areas of membership by-laws that often cause consternation -- in all Episcopal churches, not just St. John's. These are financial giving requirements and what is involved in officially becoming an Episcopalian. Allow me to speak on these two topics in St. John's current context, given the wording of the new by-laws.
Financial Giving Requirements
One of the things these revisions attempt to address is the concern over the requirement about making financial contributions in order to be a voting member and to run for the vestry.
While the by-laws still say that you must be a contributor of record to be a voting member of the parish or to serve on the vestry, we expanded the time period in which the person must have contributed from six (6) months to twelve (12) months, to ensure that those who pay their pledge in one lump sum were not inadvertently disqualified from running for vestry if they happened to have made their contribution more than six months before the election.
We also changed the requirement that to be a voting member, the person must have contributed to the undesignated fund of the parish. Instead, the by-laws now state more generally that a voting member must be listed as “a contributor” on the treasurer’s books. This means they must have given some amount of money to the church, in any area of the church’s ministry. If someone has given to the flower fund or to the shelter ministry or to the music fund, that qualifies them to be a voting member, even if they have not been giving to the undesignated or general fund of the parish.
However, the assumption behind the revisions in these by-laws is that serving on the vestry requires a higher level of commitment. Thus, there is an additional requirement that in order to qualify to serve on the vestry, the person must meet all the qualifications to be a voting member AND have contributed to the undesignated fund or to the building fund within the past 12 months. Making a pledge to either of these funds is considered a higher level of commitment than giving to a specific ministry because it shows a commitment to the wider work of the parish, not just to one specific area. It shows a willingness to trust the leadership to allocate funds as necessary for the functioning of the church’s ministries rather than saying, “I only want my money to go to the music ministry.”
Notice what the new by-laws do NOT say:
1. They do not say that you have to be a “regular” or “consistent” giver, just that you must have contributed at some time in the past year.
2. They do not specify the amount that you have to give. Technically, giving one dollar per year would meet this requirement. (Of course, the stewardship team would encourage everyone to give more than one dollar per year, but the idea is that we don’t want to disqualify anyone based on financial means: even a homeless person could spare one dollar to show a commitment to the church.)
I understand that requiring a financial contribution to be a voting member or a vestry candidate has been a point of contention for some. If this is true for you, you are not alone.
Because of language in the denominational canons that “communicants in good standing” – which is essentially the category from the denominational canons we’re using to define a “voting member” at St. John’s – must be “faithful in corporate worship, unless for good cause prevented, and… in working, praying, and giving for the spread of the Kingdom of God” (Canon 1.17.3, emphasis added), it is common across The Episcopal Church for there to be a requirement that one must be giving financially to the church in order to serve in a leadership capacity, since “giving” in this canon is widely interpreted to mean giving financially.
This requirement causes many people to bristle, as it did me when I first learned of it in another congregation. You’re requiring that I give money in order to participate? Would Jesus have placed such a restriction on his followers? This can come across as smacking of precisely the kind of exclusivism and elitism in organized religion that Jesus spoke against. Didn’t Jesus preach an open acceptance of all, no matter what their financial situation might be?
Yes, of course he did. But remember the story of the widow’s mite in Luke 21:1-4: he also praised a poor woman for giving money to the temple. There is an assumption in Jesus’s teachings that giving one’s money to support the work of God in the world is a given. Yes, he’s outraged when he comes across the misuse of money within the religious institution, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t advocate financially supporting one’s religious community. Indeed, Jesus himself was able to live the itinerant lifestyle he did because of the financial support of his followers! Luke 8:1-3 tells us:
“Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.” (emphasis added)
The story of the widow’s mite shows us that Jesus was more interested in the internal level of commitment than the outward sum of money given, but the fact remains that he does see financial giving as a measure of commitment. In Matthew 6:21, he says:
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
A more accurate translation of the Greek would be:
“Where your money is, there your heart will be also.”
The Greek really is that blunt. The translators sugar-coated it a bit by using the more generic English word “treasure,” but Jesus is specifically talking about money in this passage. He’s saying that your heart, what you care about, will follow what you give your money to, not the other way around.
Think about the ways you’ve seen this play out in the world. If your money goes toward an expensive new computer, your heart breaks when the computer breaks. If you give a lot of money to your alma mater, you’re suddenly a lot more interested in improvements to campus, or the success of the football team. When you invest your money in something, you become emotionally attached to it. In common parlance, we even use the financial word “investment” to describe things we care about: “I’m invested in the success of this new community initiative.” We may or may not be contributing financially to the thing we're talking about, but we use a financial term to describe our interest, our concern, the fact that we care about it. This is an indicator of the inherent link Jesus points out between our financial giving and our emotional attachments.
So, requiring that voting members and vestry candidates be giving financially to the parish is a way of ensuring that they are invested – both literally and emotionally – in the well-being of this community, that they have a “dog in the fight,” so to speak. We want to ensure that the people who are making decisions about the way our congregation spends money feel a sense of ownership and connection to that money, because it will make them better stewards. (It’s a lot easier to be loose with other people’s money than with your own!)
Finally, why does the giving need to be documented and identifiable? It is certainly true that people who attend regularly and put cash in the offering plate that is not traceable back to them have contributed to the finances of the church just as much as someone who wrote a check. But accountability in our common life is important. It’s why we have internal controls on the handling of money within the congregation – because although we wouldn’t want to think someone would intentionally steal money from the church, just as we wouldn’t want to think someone would intentionally lie about giving money to the church in order to qualify for the vestry – it could happen. We are not being good stewards of the money entrusted to us if we do not take proper safeguards to protect it. Think of the requirement that the giving be identifiable to you as a safeguard against dishonesty, in the way that financial internal controls are a safeguard against theft. Ideally, you wouldn’t need either, but because we live in a fallen world, we use both.
As a community of disciples of Jesus Christ, we remain committed to welcoming every person who walks in our doors as we would welcome Christ himself, and to creating an atmosphere where every person feels they are a part of our community, regardless of whether they are giving financially or not. But the by-laws -- guided by precedent at the denominational level, which takes priority over any local parish by-laws -- stipulate that the people who participate in the decision-making process about the way the congregation is run and funds are spent should be people who are “invested” both literally and emotionally in this congregation.
Officially Joining the Episcopal Church
The canons of our denomination state that
“It is expected that all adult members of this Church, after appropriate instruction, will have made a mature public affirmation of their faith and commitment to the responsibilities of their Baptism and will have been confirmed or received by the laying on of hands by a Bishop of this Church or by a Bishop of a Church in communion with this Church. Those who have previously made a mature public commitment in another Church may be received by the laying on of hands by a Bishop of this Church, rather than confirmed” (Canon 1.17.1c).
The language in our by-laws that requires voting members (and vestry candidates) to have made “a mature public affirmation of their faith” comes from this canon at the denominational level.
Basically, having made “a mature public affirmation of your faith” means that you have made an informed, adult decision to be a Christian and you have sealed that commitment through participating in a public liturgy in front of your church community. You do this through baptism if you choose the faith for yourself and are baptized as an adult, or, if you were baptized as a child, you do this when you come to “own” the faith for yourself through the rite of confirmation.
So, what if you were baptized as an adult in another denomination (for example, Baptist), or you were baptized as a child and confirmed in another denomination (for example, Presbyterian)?
The Episcopal Church is actually the only denomination of Christianity that requires the “laying on of hands by a Bishop” for confirmation. Since some other Protestant denominations don’t have bishops, and some denominations that do have bishops don’t require that the bishop participate in the confirmation service, but allow the local priest or pastor to confirm, we bring everyone into compliance with this canon of our denomination by having the bishop lay hands on everyone who joins the Episcopal Church.
This does mean that everyone who wants to join the Episcopal Church, regardless of whether they have been previously baptized or confirmed in another denomination, needs to go through a ritual where a bishop lays hands on them. This may seem like an unnecessary a liturgical hoop to jump through, but the symbolism of it is actually quite profound.
Laying on of hands by a bishop symbolizes a connection back to the earliest apostles. We believe that our church has maintained the historic episcopate, which means that our bishops can trace their lineage all the way back to the first apostles. Jesus commissioned Peter and the other disciples to continue his ministry in his name. After the first Resurrection appearances, he breathed on them to give them the Holy Spirit. From there, the Bible speaks of Peter and the other disciples laying hands on others to commission them. We believe that those leaders then laid hands on other leaders, who then laid hands on other leaders, and so on and so on throughout the centuries, all the way up to today, so that when Bishop Mary touches your head at your baptism, confirmation or reception into the Episcopal Church, you are being linked all the way back to the first apostles.
Some denominations require only the ordained clergy to be joined into this line of “historic succession” of the apostles. But in our church, ALL members are connected to the apostolic succession by the laying on of hands by a bishop. This affirms our theology that although we function according to the four orders of ministry (lay, decaon, priest, and bishop), we are all equally commissioned by God to serve him.
My understanding of the line about voting members and vestry candidates having made a “mature public affirmation of faith” in the new by-laws, and I discussed this with the vestry before the vote, is that in order to fulfill that requirement, one must be in compliance with our denominational Canon 1.17.1c.
So, if you haven’t yet received the laying on of hands by a bishop and officially joined the Episcopal Church and are interested in serving in parish leadership as a voting member or candidate for the vestry, please speak with me. I will be offering an adult education class this fall to prepare adults for baptism, confirmation, or reception the next time Bishop Mary visits St. John’s. I promise you that the class will be an enlightening and spiritually enriching experience for all participants, no matter how much you already know about the Episcopal Church or how long you've been at St. John's.
