Provincial Council Meeting
Episcopal House in Newark
Friday, October 03, 2008
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- Present: Kim Byham, Louie Crew, Dahn Gandell, Rt. Rev. Michael Garrison, Chuck Perfater,
- Dorothy-Jane Porpeglia, Michael Rehill, Petero Sabune, Tim Schenck, Laurie Wozniak
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Absent: Rt. Rev. George Councell, Martha Gardner, Peter Hausman
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9:00 am: Opening prayer by Petero Sabune.
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We approved the minutes of our meeting on February 8, 2008.
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We accepted the treasurer's report subject to audit.
Budget
Every fall it is the obligation of each of the provinces to formulate a budget that goes before the Provincial Leadership Conference in December. In this meeting the PLC will act to approve the distribution of the allocated TEC funds for each province. Our amount will be in the neighborhood of $22,000.
We are concerned that in past years we have always had an advocate at the Church Center for the provinces, first Pat Mordecai followed by Jim Lemler. In the revised leadership structure at the Church Center, no one has emerged as the new advocate for the provinces. Chuck Perfater has spoken to Terry Parsons asking her to serve as our advocate. Terry, who reports to Tony Daniels, will speak to Kurt Barnes on behalf of the Provinces. The Provinces need a combined amount $600,000 per triennium.
We need advocates on the on Executive Council’s Administration & Finance Committee (A&F). Petero Sabune and Kim Byham will advocate for us at Executive Council. The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS) budget is very tight right now. A&F has been drawing too much from the principal investments for several years, as steadily advised to do. Given the current disaster on the stock market, we are likely to face severe cuts in available funds.
Chuck Perfater said that many expect that coordinator positions to disappear if we don’t get assistance from the DFMS budget.
Petero Sabune said that the Episcopal Church (TEC) still needs the provincial structure. The Church Center have been reorganized into to regional offices, but they cannot adequately substitute for the provinces.
Michael Rehill feels those who reorganized the Church Center forgot the provinces; Kim Byham thinks the substitution was planned.
Kim Byham noted that the power center in TEC has shifted from the East to the West, stating, however, that the more functional provinces are in the East.
Louie Crew questioned whether we ought to champion a structure that works well in only half of the geography of TEC.
Michael Rehill and Chuck Perfater feel that most provinces work quite well. However, when the Presiding Bishop (PB) served as Bishop of Nevada, Province 8 had a coordinator whose work was not accepted well by the bishops. Katharine Jefferts Schori took to her work as PB her understanding of the dysfunction of the provincial structures.
Michael Rehill: A tremendous PB but will make some mistakes. It appears that the provincial role was not a part of the conversation towards reorganization. Our reps to Executive Council need to advocate for us. Province 9 is one of the strongest. Province 8 is having the most difficulty.
Chuck Perfater: Patricia Erskine, now their coordinator (she came from the Convocation in Europe) will likely have a strong and positive influence.
Michael Rehill: We will see what comes out of A&F and adjust our expectations. The canons require provinces even if we are stripped of our programs to perform the following tasks, at a minimum:
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pre-convention meetings,
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elections
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staffing a provincial court.
Additional use of provinces has varied from PB to PB. Some have concluded that provinces are the most efficient way to deliver services. The dioceses of each province are assessed a proportionate amount to support the Province. Provincial support must be at least half of the cost of funding the cost of the coordinator.
Most of work in the provinces is independent of the Church Center. The $600,000 becomes vulnerable in tight economic times, especially since provincial programs are largely out of sight at the Church Center and thus out of mind of the TEC budget.
Report on the House of Bishops:
Bishop Garrison reported that Bishop Sisk is leading the bishops of New York to coordinate advocacy in the state government in Albany. New York bishops met in May and will meet again at end of October. Ms. Damrius (Demi) McGuire, interfaith lobbyist in Albany, is an Episcopalian. You may reach her at 518-339-5040
Bishop Garrison found the Lambeth Conference 2008 “frustrating and inspiring.” Bible study was across all lines. He was at the same table with Gregory Venables, Archbishop of the Southern Cone, who is making steady invasions into TEC to encourage defections from TEC. The conference also made extensive use of Indaba groups, an African method of trying to solve community problems by allowing everyone to speak and to come to some kind of resolution. 40 people crowded into a very small room for Bishop Garrison’s meeting. Bishop Garrison felt the Indaba process was overburdened when the conference organizers overlaid it with the western need to make reports. The conversation became strained and channeled: participants became task oriented rather than reflective.
Bishop Garrison said that the Archbishop of Canterbury frequently referred to those who chose not to be there, namely a large group who organized a rival a Global Anglican Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem instead. Never once did the Archbishop mention the bishop whom he himself excluded from the Lambeth Conference – the Bishop of Vermont, Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson.
The House of Bishops met in Salt Lake City September 17-19. About 40 came early to organize ‘bishops for a just world,’ an advocacy initiative. At this meeting the new Bishop of Rochester’s wife, Raja Singh, spoke about the Dalits in India.
The House of Bishops also had a post-Lambeth reflection time, which they did not have in 1998.
The House of Bishops deposed the Bishop of Pittsburgh, Robert Duncan. The Presiding Bishop is positioned to reorganize the remnant by calling for a convention to elect new deputies and new members of the Standing Committee to replace any who have left the Episcopal Church. (As we received this report, the Diocese of Pittsburgh was meeting and voted to leave TEC).
Bishop Garrison rejoiced in Albany’s remaining with Province 2, and Albany’s participation in the Province 2 event tomorrow at Trinity Cathedral in Trenton.
Tim Schenck highlighted the reconciling role of Province by the potential to serve as networks of reconciliation…..
Petero Sabune said that if it were not for the Province, Demi McGuire could not do her advocacy on our behalf in Albany.
Report on Executive Council
Kim Byham: The TEC reorganization has been disastrous at best. The whole atmosphere at the Church Center manifests a general depression among the staff. Many of the best and top people have chosen to leave. Many who one would hope would have left have chosen to stay. The situation is analogous to the invasion of Iraq: everyone knew Saddam was bad; we were told his removal would be quick and that it would not cost much. We were told that the reorganization of the Church Center would not cost much, with the exception of getting rid of a lot of secretaries, but the reorganization has not reduced cost, except that many positions have not been filled.
Ironically, the Church Center needs to hire a third ecumenical person to be in the New York to take advantage of NY having moved out two ecumenical leaders out of New York. Kim Byham said, “I love the PB 99% of the time, but the reorganization has been poorly managed. From the beginning, they either had no plan or chose not to share the plan. I was one of three people who voted against the reorganization.”
New regional offices are now open in Omaha and Los Angeles. Another is planned for Seattle. One envisioned for Atlanta is no longer anticipated.
Much space has been vacated at The Church Center. The entire Church center was recently renovated by Executive Council with designs to work for special needs of departments that have now been dispatched elsewhere, and in some cases the space must be reorganized at great expense to be available for rent. If re-designed, we would have at least one floor to be rented out. Although our location is desirable, some potential renters do not want to share space conspicuously dedicated to church use. The Ad Council of America is currently our only tenant.
Petero Sabune: “I disagree with Kim. I believe the reorganizing was way overdue. We talked about it but never did anything about it. It’s untrue that the PB does not like New York. Almost every week she attends a different church in New York City. People don’t like change.”.
In the reorganization, Linda Watt and the four Center Directors are staying in New York.
The reorganization is an ongoing process. The PB wants to know how well it is happening. She has hired Rosemari Sullivan, past secretary of General Convention, to confer extensively with all the members of Executive Council to evaluate the reorganization.
Petero Sabune reported that David Betge, Southern Africa leader, has died. Betge has been a champion of the poor, and served as Dean of the Province of South Africa.
Petero Sabune serves as Executive Council’s liaison to the Anglican Church of Canada The Canadian Primate and the Canadian Prime Minister recently apologized public for the abuse of Natives children in schools jointly run by the church and the government.
Executive Council will meet in Montana in two weeks, to address the budget, among other things.
Kim Byham noted that the plan to have Rosemari Sullivan survey members of Executive Council came from Executive Council, not from the PB, because there has been feeling that the appropriate canonical role of Executive Council needs to be addressed. The PB is assuming many of the roles canonically assigned to the Council. Rosemari Sullivan is looking at the canonical issues, not the interpersonal issues
Provincial Leadership Conference
Michael Rehill: “The Provincial Leadership Conference met in May in Atlanta, the most moving of all I have attended for 10 years. We spent a day at the Martin Luther King Center. I never felt sadder about the state of our country than in Atlanta. Many of us who shared the dream were aware starkly of how little has changed in the last 40 years. Racism permeates the American experience. I wish that every young person in America could go through that experience.”
Chuck Perfater: “A subscript is to have everyone who has a half day to spend to do that.
The May meeting provided an introduction in two or three ways to the increasing scope of technology. The December meeting at General Theological Seminary will focus on how the provinces can take advantage of web-casting. We had too much to digest in the May meeting.”
Stewardship Workshop:
The province held a stewardship workshop in July, as follow-up for a previous one here in Newark. More this afternoon (see below).
Our Lambeth Reflections Gathering, October 4th at Trinity Cathedral in Trenton
Chuck Perfater reported that 110 have already registered. We expect that number to go to 125. The primary speakers: Professor Gordon Graham, Princeton Theological Seminary, Bishop William Love, Bishop Gene Robinson, and Bishop Chilton Knudsen. We expect Bishop Ottley and Bishop Walker from Long Island, Bishop Garrison, Bishop Whalon, Bishop Beckwith, Bishop Councell, and Bishop Romero.
Allie Graham, student worker at Lambeth, will also reflect. (She is unrelated to Professor Gordon Graham).
Unfortunately neither Trinity Institute nor the Communications Department at the Church Center is able to provide video or audio records of the conference.
Tim Schenk’s report on Episcopal Life
Jerry Hames has retired. At first it appeared that there would not be another editor, that the position would just remain vacant. The Board of Governors was not consulted and is up in arms.
Our boards talked about the importance of an editor and editorial independence, and we talked with Episcopal Communicators as well as with Linda Watt. The editor’s position was restored.
In June we met with the new editor Solange De Santis, from Canada. Like Hames, De Santes was previously editor of newspaper of the Anglican Communion of Canada.
Soon after the Board’s meeting, Bob Williams resigned as chief communications officer at the Church Center. He is now Canon for Community Relations in the Diocese of Los Angeles. The Rev. Kris Lee is serving as interim director of communications at the Church Center.
Louie Crew expressed concern that the communications staff does not draw on the expertise of members of the Standing Commission on Communications.
We have had two issues of InProv2 since our last meeting. See http://www.province2.org/index.html. The fall issue is not yet online.
Executive Coordinator’s Report. See handout.
Kim Byham will chair the Spring Synod, May 7-9, 2009 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Albany. The registration fee is $95 per person. Four workshops are anticipated, on
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the Anglican Covenant
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pensions for lay ; medical for clergy
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ecumenical issues
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TBA as primary issues emerge
Our Province 2 nominating committee needs to meet and nominate persons for:
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President of the Provincial Council.
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Secretary of the Provincial Council. Louie Crew has chosen not to run for re-election.
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Treasurer of the Provincial Council. Peter Hausman will not run for re-election. The Rev. Gerry Keucher has been successfully recruited to run for treasurer.
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A lay representative to Executive Council. Kim Byham’s term will expire at the end of General Convention.
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A lay representative to this body. Dahn Gandell is eligible to run again. She was appointed earlier to fill the unexpired term of David Robinson, who moved out of the province.
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A Chancellor. The new president will appoint the chancellor, and the board must confirm the appointment.
Chuck Perfater circulated copies of the latest version of the calendar of official events at General Convention 2009. Louie Crew invited all to contribute items for his calendar of unofficial events, at http://rci.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/cal09.html. Send details to him at lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu
Province Night:
Deputies and others from Province 2 will gather on Tuesday July 14. A dinner cruise with dinner is being considered, approximately $100 per person. Electra and Horn Blower both offer such cruses in the range of $7,600.
We unanimously passed a resolution to subsidize the Province cruise so that persons will pay no more that $50 (only $5 for Haitians). We anticipate that the subsidy could require up to $5000 out of the province’s funds.
Previously we budgeted for $4,000 for our expenses at General Convention. We unanimously approved allowing up $6,000 for theses expenses.
We unanimously renewed our coordinator’s contract.
Next Provincial Council Meeting: Friday, February 6th, at Episcopal House in Newark.
Greg Bazilla, chaplain at Rutgers, was to be here but could not make it. Nor could Leslie Adams. We unanimously agreed to underwrite the $285 registration for Hei-yue Pang at the conference “See the Light” scheduled for late December in Colorado.
12:15: Lunch:
Council Meeting with Network Chairs 1p.m
Network chairs present:
We welcomed our guests and all introduced ourselves.
Prison Network
See Petero Sabune’s handout.
Petero Sabune showed us a thick Extensive Manual on Prison Ministry, prepared by the Province 2 Prison Network & Trinity, Wall Street. The manual emphasizes transparency and flexibility. He will explore whether the manual might be made available on the Province 2 website.
Immigration Network:
The Immigration Network started monthly meetings on Nov. 9, 2007.
Petero Sabune recommended that we read Jason Riley’s Let Them In, which makes a case for open borders. It’s available from Penguin Books. See http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781592403493,00.html
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), a branch of Homeland Security, will arrest and deport immigrants. That used to be job of INS, but INS is constrained to give a hearing to immigrants before deporting them. ICE is not required to give a hearing.
There are participants in the network from the dioceses of Long Island, New York, New Jersey, and Newark. Quakers are also very active in the network.
Petero Sabune noted that even President Bush has acknowledged that the U.S. economy could not function at the top or bottom without the currently immigrant population; witness landscaping; witness Silicon Valley.
The Church Center has recently hired Deborah Stein to replace Richard Parkins, who recently retired, as our officer for immigration.
Upcoming Events
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Lambeth Reflections Day. October 4, 2008, at Trinity Cathedral in Trenton, 10a-4p.
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May 7th and 8th, 2009, (Mother’s Day weekend), the Synod…to be held, at the Crown Plaza in Albany.
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A Convocation for the province in spring of 2010. The theme would be ministry development. It will be an event for anyone involved in formation activities. The council authorized Chuck Perfater to start planning, and we authorized use of from $5,000 to $6,000 in that effort. He will review possibilities for April or May. There is a great facility in Binghamton, but it is not the best location for people flying in from outside the country. The Doubletree in Syracuse seems more promising. Registrants will need to pay $100-120 per night for the hotel.
Dahn Gandell, Sue Legnani, Donna Devlin and possibly someone from Albany will serve with Chuck Perfater on the planning committee. Others might be added later. Typically the planners will have one meeting on site, and all other meetings by conference call.
Higher Education Report
Greg Bezilla cannot be here but filed a report, q.v. We funded registration for Hei-Yu Pang (above) to attend a higher education network.
Ministry Development Network.
Connie White reported that the Network has met twice since the last meeting of Province 2 Council. See her paper report. She also circulated notes from the last two meetings of the Network, which has been circulated to the four dioceses who have been involved (New York, Long Island, Newark, and New Jersey)
We all need to be better at recruitment.
Chuck Perfater spoke again on web-casting technology (see notes on his comments in the morning, above).
Haiti Network.
Doris Crawford reported that donations may be sent to respond to current crisis in Haiti, and Petero Sabune circulated a list of supportive agencies.
Parish partnerships between Haiti and TEC are the major route for support. Perhaps individual TEC parishes need to adopt individual Haiti parishes.
In January the House of Bishops met in Haiti. We might ask for a minimal amount for bishops to give supporting Haitians.
Kyle Evans, a US missionary, is about to spend a year in Haiti, has requested the Province to provide $3k out of the $24k she needs to raise.
We passed unanimously a resolution to grant the $3,000 requested by Kyle Evans to help with expenses as she serves as a missionary in Haiti. We will also ask Kyle Evans to write reports for InProv 2. Those reports will help get speaking engagements for later). We also want her clarify how we can further serve her. Sue Legnani will be in touch with Kyle to discuss how our Christian Education Network can have mutual exchange with those in Haiti responsible for Christian Education..
Some time ago, Province 2 gave funds for a truck for the Diocese of Haiti to use in selling and delivering clean water. During the recent hurricane, the truck‘s transmission was burned out trying to get out of the mud. Chuck Perfater will contact Oge Beauvoir to determine how much it will cost to get the water truck operational. We unanimously authorized up to $1,000 for that expense. (Subsequent findings suggest it will cost far more than $1000 to get the truck repaired.)
Note that the same amount, $1,000, is all that it takes to underwrite the education of a seminarian for a whole year.
The Haiti Connection (Episcopalians and Presbyterians) will meet in Haiti in November.
[Note: At this point Michael Rehill received word that Bishop Bennison has just been sentenced to be deposed. Michael Rehill, Chancellor to the Standing Committee, left our meeting, and Chuck Perfater chaired the rest of our time together. – LC]
Stewardship
Ross Wisnewski reported on the stewardship conference. She wants a subsequent workshop to connect stewardship and evangelism.
At the stewardship conference Terry Parsons shared her current project, a personal financial literacy package, to be offered to congregations so parishioners can know where their money is and what their future looks like. We need to move from a personal package to a parish package.
The next stewardship conference will be held early in the summer of 2009, and it will include material on stewardship for children.
There needs to be money for mission and ministry. Stewardship is far more than “our roof leaks and our boiler needs to be replaced”. In fact, the latter is really a poor example of good stewardship. We need to love our mission and ministry more than we love our buildings.
The Brotherhood of St. Andrew
Bob Dennis noted:
35 chapters of the Brotherhood in Long Island, including 7 new
8 chapters in the Diocese of New York
9 chapters in the Diocese of New Jersey
5 chapters in the Diocese of Albany
1 chapter in the Diocese of Newark
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Daughters of the King is twice the size of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew
The Brotherhood focuses on evangelism and outreach. The Brotherhood focuses on faith. Too often Episcopalians do not talk about faith. Bob Dennis stressed that we need to promote this men’s ministry, or our congregations will continue to diminish.
The Brotherhood is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. Chuck Perfater noted that Bob Dennis always reports growth in his ministry.
Christian Formation Network, Sue Legnani
See handouts.
It is sad that our conference in the spring was canceled. Pat Mitchell and Don Carlson gave feedback about why. We will fold those understanding into our planning of the next conference in 2010.
The far ends of the province are not going to travel any distance, especially for a 1-day conference. We need to be more savvy about web casting.
Most urgent right now is that we to come up with a date for the Convocation so we can book the hotel in 2010. (Subsequent to the meeting Chuck made a tentative booking of the Doubletree in Syracuse for May 13-15, 2010)
Episcopal Council for Childhood Education. (ECCE) Donna Devlin.
ECCE meets as an entire group once every 18 months, next on October 16-18, 2008. Jeffry Harre is now the person in charge; Budd Holland will retire on April 1, 2009. ECCE continues to work on a living document for the entire church with the resources for Christian education, life-long. When we met both with the children’s group and the adult group, our goal was to come up with names of groups who have programs for invisible groups, such as those in recovery, those newly out of prison, those who work with lgbts, and others. Please contribute to our list of resources. Our children’s section wants to annotate a bibliography. We want to make that kind of information available throughout the province. We continue to work on original curricula in Spanish, not just materials translated from English
[send statement on lgbt resources in Spanish.]
At our October meeting, we wanted to unveil a revitalized Treasure Magazine, but won’t have that all together in time. It is almost ready. The issue will focus on The Sudan.
Youth Ministry
This network hoped to have a representative here today, but did not bring it off. Canon Don Carlson filed a report (q.v.). The network meets 2-3 times per year. They were active at the Episcopal Youth Event (EYE) at Trinity University in San Antonio last summer. They will organize representatives for General Convention from each province. We in Province 2 have 9 applications, including two from the Convocation in Europe.
No one is left on TEC staff handling youth ministry. Tom Chu and Betsy Boyd have both left, and Terry Parsons has been moved to an unrelated assignment.
Next summer a youth group will work in Relief in Camp Coast Care. See handout.
The youth group is very dedicated to its goals.
We adjourned at 3:30p.
Respectfully submitted, Louie Crew, Secretary
To download a pdf of these minutes, click here.
Episcopal Dioceses of Albany, Central
New York, Haiti, Long
Island, Newark,
New Jersey, New
York,
Rochester, Virgin Islands, Western
New York, and the Convocation
of American Churches in Europe
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