Most of us have heard, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results." (Attributed to Albert Einstein) The Wharton School of Business offers guidance on how to reorganize for better results – how to streamline an endeavor, get rid of redundant functions, reduce overhead, and merge related roles.
Consider if you will, that we have been in a serious crisis of decline for 50 years. So have we streamlined our organization, eliminated redundant functions, reduced overhead and reversed the decline?
Not on your life! In 1962, when we stopped growing, our church’s total membership was 3.6 million baptized persons distributed through 93 domestic dioceses – simple math gives us an average of 38,700 baptized members per diocese. Now after 50 years of decline – we have added 6 new domestic dioceses for a total of 99. Meanwhile our church has shrunk to1.9 million active baptized members and the average per diocese is only 19,700 persons. Again simple math has 50% fewer people paying for the bishop’s budget. The overhead is greater and the people fewer. Wharton would give our leadership failing marks because they keep using the same old structure with the resulting continued decline.
Actually, 42% of our domestic dioceses are well below the average with less then 15,000 members and 29 dioceses have less then 10,000 members. Some analysts suggest “Communicants in Good Standing” as a more accurate statistic to consider; 48 dioceses have less then 10,000 communicants in good standing and 27 have less then 5,000 – several have less then 2,000 - which in some places would be one parish.
There are seven other sister churches in the Anglican Communion that approximate our size. All of them have fewer dioceses and more people per diocese. They average 21 dioceses each and have 80,000 baptized members per diocese. Unbelievable, we have five times the number of dioceses and 75% fewer members per diocese.
Using our sister Church’s standard of 80,000 members per diocese, we should have only 25 dioceses in our American Episcopal Church. Even using our 1962 numbers as a base, we would have 54 dioceses. Of course, the trouble with reorganizations is that someone always gets displaced, gets fired or gets hurt.
The bishops are the leaders of the church. Is it reasonable to expect 99 diocesan bishops to reorganize so that only 25 or even 54 are left standing? This is not to suggest that most bishops are in anyway nefarious or capricious. Most have accepted the election to leadership to do the right thing. However, nearly 600 good people have held the Episcopal Office during the last 50 years and under their collective leadership the situation only got worse.
If our goal is to increase the Kingdom, it is not happening by using a large part of our resources to maintain a plethora of dioceses, bishops and staffs. And if it is not our goal to increase the Kingdom, we have no need of a plethora of dioceses, bishops and staffs.
Bishops – you have been elected and consecrated to lead. So lead! Lead us away from the decline! Streamline our church, eliminated redundant functions, reduced overhead, merge with other dioceses! We are tired of 50% of the diocesan budget being used to support the bishop and staff. We want growing churches.
If our congregations fail; you, the bishops, have failed. We can not afford to do the “same old thing, over and over again.”
Rector@garygilbertson.org
Gary, thanks for the sanity, for the clear number comparison. I would like to see some bishops actually make a response to your essay.
ReplyDeleteGary, I would like to be the first (and perhaps the only) bishop to respond. I am very much in support of your thinking. I would like to see the Presiding Bishop stay as a Diocesan Bishop, sell 815, have no national staff,and much more lean thinking.
ReplyDeleteI did much to slim down diocesan spending and staff. My goal was to be a community of abundance rather than scarcity.
This may be better a topic for a future blog, but I can tell you that much of what I did was corrected by my successor and the "good old days" were brought back.
Bob, thanks for the response and looking forward to your blog post soon and voice of reform and reason.
ReplyDeleteI listened to a business consultant this morning, talking about Church finance. I suspect he would say that our current business model is insane, and that, out in the real world, it’s a guaranteed prescription for disaster. But everyone keeps waiting for someone else to do something or fix it.
ReplyDeleteProvocative and hope you will post to The Lead. Before you post I would revise to include by the name the seven sister churches to which you refer. Who are these? I think who matters to make sure we have an apples to apples comparison.
ReplyDeleteJoe, always glad to have you reading our blog. The seven sister churches in the Anglican Communion that approximate our size are Kenya, North India, South India, Rwanda, Southern Africa, Sudan and Tanzania. West Africa could also be added in with the result being the same. These sister churches range in membership size from 1 million to 2.5 million baptized persons. They average 21 dioceses each with 82,000 baptized members per diocese. It is interesting to note that we have better communications and roads in American and still need 100 jurisdictions that average fewer than 20,000 baptized each.
ReplyDeleteRector@garygilbertson.org
Gary, this is an outstanding article which should be required reading for every bishop in the church. I have championed your point both in my own articles and publiclly in years past. A Diocesan staffs are bloated while serving fewer and fewer people; if indeed they are serving and not self-serving. My question remains. What to Dioceses do for congregations. Bp. Shahan figured this out and did precisely that in Arizona.
ReplyDeleteTo Good Thunder. I believe that the Anglican Church of Kenya has 4 million members and perhaps even more members per bishop that the number you suggest.
ReplyDeleteBob, growth is good news. Thanks
ReplyDeleteIf pecusa is serious about wanting growing churches, pecusa must reject the current direction, return to the genuine gospel (not the really not inclusive parody of the gospel that is now in vogue), and get serious about evangelism and discipleship.
ReplyDeleteNow that is an interesting idea, “get serious about evangelism and discipleship.” Or even more interesting, “return to the genuine gospel.” Unless these things happen, it will make no difference if we have 10 diocese or 110 dioceses, we will die.
ReplyDeleteWhat if the National Church instituted an annual national performance ranking of Dioceses, based on how well a Diocese performs with growth as the primary factor? The survey could use baptized members, ASA and plate and pledge as the growth criteria. We now do this for teachers and schools. Why not Dioceses?
ReplyDeleteHow typically "Episcopal:" respond to a crisis of the sprint with a business like approach: "streamlined our organization, eliminated redundant functions, reduced overhead," etc. As if that will fill a church. If money was the problem,why isn't Trinity Wall Street a mega church? "Lean thinking" is ineffective - what we need is a reawakening, not a Bain Capitalist approach to church management.
ReplyDeleteChurches have a hard time functioning if they can't pay the light bill. And good clergy leaders don't come cheap.
ReplyDeleteRe. finance and spiritual leadership, I have found through 40 years of parochial, diocesan and national positions that many spiritual leaders also know how to inspire financial growth as a part of congregational spiritual growth. I know because I did it and helped many other motivated clergy and lay people do it. Tithing is nothing more or less than growth in money, personal confidence and corporate leadership. The greatest example was the work of PB John Allin with a very smart and dedicated group of lay and clergy leadership who designed and executed Venture in Mission with a goal of $100 million dollars and actualized total of$175 million, the single largest capital mission funding project of all denominations of the 20th Century. The updraft at the time was in the late '70's to mid '80's preceded warnings some of us made when the lessons of VIM were then being ignored and the a precipitous drop in all numbers began. To not know the connection between money leadership and spiritual vision is either never to have experienced it or never to have learned how to do it.
ReplyDelete“We Want Growing Churches” has been the occasion for numerous conversations – on line, email, and face to face – about the future of the American Episcopal Church. As one writer said, “The future is the past unless we change.” If the future is 50 more years of decline, we will be an asterisk in the history books.
ReplyDeleteSome of the more interesting ideas include: (1) Form a “54 and No More Society”, (2) Change custom or Canon so that no bishop could hold office until their successor is consecrated, (3) Require a one year interim period before the election process could begin, (4) Establish a cadre of trained interim bishops, (5) Require dioceses to publish a detailed disclosure of all anticipated costs covering the first 60 months of a new bishop, (6) Establish a procedure to vote “None of the Above” in all Episcopal elections, and (7) Set the bishops total compensation equal to the average of all rectors in the diocese.
Thanks to all of you for reading the article and for the spirited response.
Rector@garygilbertson.org