From Jon Delano, Coordinator, Project CREED & President, Diocesan Council
October 29, 2019
At Diocesan Convention in mid-November, the lay & clergy deputies of this diocese will be asked to approve three resolutions and several proposed Constitutional changes recommended by the four Working Groups of Project CREED (Committee to Re-envision the Diocese of Pittsburgh).
As the coordinator of Project CREED, I want to share the results of this nearly year-long review and links so that you can examine the results that have already been sent to all deputies, clergy, and wardens in the diocese.
Prompted by Bishop McConnell, the Standing Committee, with the support of the Diocesan Council and Board of Trustees, initiated this review to see how we can better live out the words of our mission to Love, Serve, and Heal by focusing on four aspects of our work as individuals, parishes, and a diocese.
An amazing group of 66 volunteers — 45 lay and 21 clergy — gathered many times both as one large group and in their four working groups to make concrete recommendations in the areas of Communications, New Ministries, Reaching out to Neighbors, and Governance. The goal was to develop at least one specific task for each of our parishes and the diocese.
Here is a summary of the three recommendations on Communications, New Ministries, and Reaching Out to Neighbors with a link to the specific resolution or document.
Communications: If approved by convention, each parish will identify a communications point person; there will be a diocesan-wide training session on websites, information content, and social media; parishes will identify individuals in their midst to serve as reporters and editors in sharing stories; and the diocese will establish an ongoing Communications Steering Committee to assist ongoing and new communication initiatives. Click here for the Communications resolution.
New Ministries: If approved by convention, each parish (through their clergy and lay leaders) will encourage new lay-led ministry initiatives, including new ministries that are inter-parish, inter-denominational, and inter-organizational; each parish will encourage a greater diversity of leadership in new ministries with respect to race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, marital or family status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disabilities, or age with particular attention to historically under-represented populations; and each parish will encourage lay-led Morning Prayer (or other Daily Office services) when clergy cannot be present and congregations desire it. Click here for the New Ministries resolution.
Reaching Out to Neighbors: If approved by convention, each parish will develop a “Be in the Community Day” to collectively leave church property to be as one with neighbors, including meeting neighbors of different faiths or no faith for conversation; each parish will designate a point person to provide and update information for a parish ministry resource directory which will be part of a diocesan resource directory to encourage sharing information so that individuals can be more involved in community outreach. Click here for the Reaching Out to Neighbors resolution.
Changes in the governance structure of this diocese were unanimously recommended by the Governance Working Group, comprising leaders from most of the governing bodies of the diocese. Because we are a much smaller diocese compared to many, the general thinking was that we should look for ways to down-size our governing bodies. In the end, we did that for the Board of Trustees and Diocesan Council, but left the structure and election process intact for the remaining elective bodies, including the Cathedral Chapter, Commission on Ministry, Constitution & Canons, Disciplinary Board, and Growth Fund.
Because changes in governance require constitutional amendments, which must be approved by two subsequent conventions with with no modifications to the wording of the proposed changes, the changes will need diocesan convention approval in both 2019 and 2020 before they can take effect in 2021. Next year, the canons will also need to be modified to implement the changes.
Here is a brief summary of the Governance recommendations with links to both the recommendations and the constitutional amendments needed to change the governance structure.
Governance:
Board of Trustees: If approved by Convention this year and next year, the Board of Trustees will be reduced in size from 16 to 12 lay members with four members elected at-large by convention, four members elected by districts (one from each), and four members appointed by the bishop. Each member will serve a 3-year term. Currently, the convention elects 7 members, the bishop appoints 5 members, and the districts elect 4 members.
Diocesan Council: If approved by convention this year and next year, the Diocesan Council will be reduced from 18 members to 14 members. Eight of those 14 members will be the four lay and four clergy members elected to Standing Committee. Four of those 14 members will be lay deputies elected by districts (one from each). Each member so elected will serve a 4-year term. The bishop and the chancellor by virtue of their offices would be the remaining two members on Council. Currently, the membership on Council is elected by district — two lay and one clergy per district — with six additional voting members sitting by virtue of their offices. In effect, this is a partial merger of Council and Standing Committee, but with district lay representation to guarantee geographic diversity and to maintain the two-thirds Lay representation on Council.
Standing Committee: If approved by convention this year and next year, no parish in the diocese shall have more than two members (clergy and/or lay) at the same time serving on the 8-member Standing Committee. Currently, there is no limitation which allows for the possibility of just a few parishes dominating the Committee. While Council and Trustees have members elected by district, which guarantees geographic diversity, Standing Committee members are elected at-large by convention.
Click here for the recommendations from the Governance Working Group.
Click here for the proposed constitutional amendments from the Committee on Constitution and Canons.
I hope this summary is helpful to you. While each of us may have additional good ideas in each of these four specific areas tackled by Project CREED, I was impressed by the “common sense” consensus that each Working Group brought to this mission. Again, special thanks to each of the 66 members of Project CREED, the incredible diocesan staff, all the members of the current governing boards, our hard-working consultant Judy Stark, and (of course) Bishop McConnell who had the willingness and faith to encourage this diocesan review!
If you have any questions at all, please feel free to get in touch with me at jon.delano@verizon.net.
Respectfully submitted,
Jon Delano
Coordinator, Project CREED
President, Diocesan Council