Category Archives: Grace Church

Disruption and the Call to Mission: Rector’s Annual Report for 2022

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Whether or not you have an account on Twitter, you’ve probably heard something about the turmoil in the company and on the platform since its sale. I’ve been on twitter since 2011 and over the years, I have taken advantage of the ability to connect with diverse people across the world and with varied interests. I have gotten to know Episcopalians across the country and Anglicans all over the world. I’ve been able to connect with thoughtful Christians from other traditions, with academic communities like historians and religious studies scholars. I have learned a great deal, received and offered support in challenging times. In spite of the disinformation and toxicity often prevalent there, I have also used it as a primary source of news, especially as events unfolded in real time. Like many others, I am worried about the future of the platform, and of those communities of which I was a part. Will I lose touch with many of those people? Will the knowledge I gained from them no longer be available to me? Will I stay, or like so many others, will I seek out different means of making connection, learning and growing as Twitter changes and perhaps collapses?

It strikes me that there are lessons for the church in the collapse of Twitter. For many of us on the platform, we were active in spite of the challenges it presented—the racism, the trolls, the bullying, the lies. In and amongst all of that, there emerged places of joy, fun, support, wisdom. And we feel the uncertainty and the loss as we wonder whether other venues might offer similar opportunities for relationship, connection, joy, and learning. Likewise, we are beginning to discover that in the wake of all the disruption caused by the pandemic, the church, Grace Church can continue to be a place of spiritual sustenance and deep, meaningful relationships, that we continue to attract newcomers who are seeking connection with others and with Christ, and that there are new opportunities to reach out into the community and the world to share the Good News.

I would like to express my immense gratitude to Grace’s staff—first and foremost to Parish Administrator Christina. We all know how hard she works and her deep commitment to Grace’s ministry and to its members. Her administrative skills and her deep knowledge of Grace make my job much easier. Our musicians, Berkley and Mark contribute so much to our worship and to our congregation. Their flexibility and creativity over the last years have helped to make our worship a means of encountering Jesus Christ, whether in-person or remote. We have learned over the course of the pandemic the importance of continuing to offer a live-stream experience, and our tech team, led by James Waldo with the assistance of Steve, Marshall, and Clay, help us connect with our members who are unable or uncomfortable attending in-person worship. Mary Ann Nannassy, who is working in the kitchen today, has helped to build community by organizing coffee hour each week and providing space for relationship-building. George Decker, who came on board this year, and some of you are meeting for the first time today has been an invaluable addition to staff as our Communications Coordinator. Vikki Enright and her team of volunteers continue to feed the hungry through our Food Pantry. Her hard work, resilience, and adaptability have led the pantry through these difficult years and she is a powerful witness to our church’s commitment to outreach and to serving the most vulnerable in our city and county.

I would also like to extend a word of thanks to our clergy. Deacon Carol continues to support my ministry and the people of Grace in countless ways, small and large. Her pastoral gifts help us all to keep connected and her contributions to our worship are often noticed by me only when she is away, as she has been several times this past year supporting Bishop Lee’s visitations to other parishes. John Francis has brought energy and creativity to our team. The relationships he has developed in the past have brought new experiences and new visibility to Grace, through the visit last month of Shane Claiborne, and on Friday night of Bill Miller. With the help of volunteers, he has successfully restarted our Christian Formation program for children. I look forward to supporting his ministry and growth in the coming year.

Among the transitions that we will experience this year is David Lyon’s stepping away from active leadership in parish administration. A Vestry member, then treasurer for three years during an especially difficult period, then Senior Warden for two, and in 2022 a return gig as Treasurer. I think we can all say, “Well, done, Good and faithful servant”—and that he deserves his rest from the labors and spreadsheets. Tom Felhofer has served as Assistant Treasurer for the last year and will be moving into the Treasurer spot.

At the heart of our common life and ministry are, the people of Grace. Our lay leadership continues to excel. I’m deeply grateful for Jane Hamblen’s leadership as Senior Warden. Her wisdom, sensitivity, and attention to detail complement my own strengths and make up for some of my weaknesses. As junior warden, Kara Pagano has put her unique stamp on the position and on Grace. She has led the effort to create a Parish Life Committee and to offer opportunities outside of Sunday morning for people to connect with each other. I would like to thank outgoing vestry members: John Johnson and Mike Edwards who have helped to lead the parish over the last years, asking challenging questions, offering the wisdom and insight of many years of work in complex organizations outside of the church. Thanks as well to Suzy Buenger, who was elected to fill a partial term and could have stepped down but agreed to run for a full three-year term. 

There are challenges ahead. As detailed in the report from the Roof Committee, we are looking at a significant fundraising and construction project in the next few years. We don’t know exactly how much time we have but the wise course forward is likely to move ahead now rather than wait. We have the expertise in the congregation and connections in the community to help us achieve our goals, to hand down to future generations a structurally-sound building and to ensure that our beautiful church will remain in excellent condition as it approaches the 200th anniversary of its construction. 

We are discerning what God is calling us to in the coming years. The departure of the men’s shelter at the beginning of the pandemic left not only empty space in our building but also meant that a ministry at the heart of our identity, and our standing in the community left our hearts empty as well. The conversations that have occurred over the last month with widespread congregational participation will help us listen to the Holy Spirit and discern new opportunities. The changing fabric of the city, new patterns of work and life caused by the pandemic, the deep racial and economic inequalities, and the challenges of affordable housing are issues shared by many cities throughout the country and world. How can Grace Church be model of Christ’s love in the heart of the city?

One way we do that is through our space. Once again, we opened our doors to the community on this past election day. Thanks to the spontaneous efforts of a group led by Steve Webster, we offered Grace as a place of spiritual respite and comfort on a very stressful day. Even if only a few people came through ours that day, it was an important witness and gift to the community. We don’t know how many lives are touched by our presence on the square. The gardens, now expertly overseen by John Andrews are a place of welcome for all.  

I recently had a conversation with Christian Overland, Director and CEO of the Wisconsin Historical Society during which he updated me about plans for the new history museum. They hope to begin construction a year from now. That project promises to bring new life to the top of State St. and our block of N. Carroll and we will be involved as planning for the museum proceeds.

In your Annual Meeting packet is information about Land Acknowledgement. To talk about our property without reference to its history before the lots were purchased in 1847 is to erase thousands of years of earlier human presence on the land and the forced removal of the Ho-Chunk. As you know, over the last two years we have been learning about Native American history and about the Native American communities of Wisconsin. That work continues as we will welcome Mark Charles, co-author of Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery for a series of events in January. We are also exploring what sort of restorative actions we might take that would support the thriving of Native Americans in Wisconsin.

Another area where I have spent considerable time and energy over the last year and will continue to demand my attention in the coming year is the Wisconsin Episcopal Trialogue. The three dioceses of Wisconsin are discerning the future of the Episcopal Church in this state. I am helping to lead one of the task forces involved in these conversations: The Parish and Regional Engagement Task Force. Considerable work has occurred behind the scenes and in the next few months, much more information will emerge. A decision on whether to move forward on re-unification will probably come some time in the spring of 2023. If the decision is to move ahead, votes will be taken at the three conventions next fall. 

We may mourn what we lost over the past three years; we may struggle to understand all that is taking place in the world around us, we may worry about what is to come. I think it’s appropriate that our Annual Meeting takes place on Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday. Just as it brings to an end the liturgical year and looks ahead to the Season of Advent, it is also a reminder that Grace Church, is held in God’s hand, under the reign of Christ, that whatever might come, Christ will continue to reign. May we go forward into the new year in the sure and certain faith that Christ reigns, and may we commit ourselves and Grace to work toward the coming of his reign in our lives and in our city.

Acknowledging our History, Acknowledging the Land

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Grace, Madison explores Native American issues including land acknowledgement

Over the last eight years, the Creating More Just Community Task Force of Grace Episcopal Church has been engaged in education and advocacy around racism in the United States and In Madison. We hosted speakers for community-wide events, became involved in faith-based community organizing groups like MOSES and WISDOM working on criminal justice reform. We have marched, hosted candidate forums, and held series of dialogues on racism for parishioners and community members. That work continues.

In 2021, we have broadened our interests. Thanks in part to several of us attending the Wisconsin Council of Churches Annual Meeting, where the Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs, Program Director for Racial Justice for the Minnesota Council of Churches and a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans was keynote speaker. His passionate address led us to wonder how we might begin to engage with Native Americans as citizens of Wisconsin and as members of Grace Episcopal Church. 

We are fortunate to have members who have worked on Native American issues professionally and who have deep personal relationships with members of several tribes across the state. Early in 2021, several of the most knowledgeable Grace members and I met with Ada Deer, Professor Emerita of Social Work at UW Madison and former Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs in the Clinton Administration. She is a member of the Menominee Tribe. We discussed with her how the conversations at Grace might take place, what some of the important issues are, and what potential challenges we might face as we began our work.

Eventually, an invitation was issued for interested people to gather via zoom for an initial conversation and planning session. Around twenty people joined us for our first conversation that offered opportunities for us to get to know each other, learn a little about our interest and background related to Native American history, religion, and culture, and to begin to think about how we might help Grace Church as a whole become more informed and engaged with the complicated and tragic history of Christianity and especially the Episcopal Church’s relationships with Native Americans.

Over the last few months we have learned about the history of Native Americans in Wisconsin, especially the HoChunk and the Oneida. We have talked about the Doctrine of Discovery and the Episcopal Church’s official repudiation of it. We have reached out to the HoChunk and to Holy Apostles’ Episcopal Church in Oneida, WI. Our most recent meeting took place only a few days after the discovery of mass graves on the grounds of a former residential school in British Columbia, and we began asking questions about the Episcopal Church’s history of Native residential schools. 

On Tuesday, June 29, we met with Bill Quackenbush, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the HoChunk, to begin a conversation concerning land acknowledgment, one of the concrete ways churches, political entities, and organizations can begin to address their relationship with the people who lived on the land we now call home. We began at the Goodman Campus of Madison College (South Madison) which has a land acknowledgement plaque prominently placed. Then we came to Grace Church where we explored what land acknowledgement might look like at Grace and how our efforts to be a place of spiritual respite on Capitol Square might explicitly include an invitation to Wisconsin tribes. Finally, we ended at the Goodman Community Center, where we talked with Bill for two hours about HoChunk history, effigy mounds and burial sites, and the challenging but rewarding work of building relationships with Native Americans.

It is likely that as our work continues we will focus on several areas. 

  1. Land Acknowledgement—working on language, siting, and discussing scope of project
  2. Exploring the history of Episcopal residential schools. While records exist, there has not been any significant work done in telling the story of the schools and repenting for the damage done to lives and to indigenous cultures.
  3. Connecting with the Wisconsin Oneidas to learn about the history, traditions, and contemporary life of the Oneidas, who when the first group came to Wisconsin from New York in 1822, were the first Episcopalians in what is now the state of Wisconsin.
  4. Working with the Wisconsin Council of Churches to develop resources for congregations across the state to explore land acknowledgement and other Native American issues.

We expect that in the coming months, we will develop a road map other interested congregations might use with their own work. In the meantime, we encourage you to learn about the Doctrine of Discovery, the history of the Episcopal Church’s relationship with Native Americans, and about the Native Americans who are our neighbors and live throughout the state. For more information on these items, here are some resources:

Patty Loew, Indian Nations of Wisconsin. 2nd Edition. Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2013

L. Gordon McLester III, Laurence M. Hauptman, Judy Cornelius-Hawk, and Kenneth Hoyan House, eds., The Wisconsin Oneidas and the Episcopal Church: A Chain Linking Two Traditions. Indiana University Press, 2019

“The Episcopal Church exposes the Doctrine of Discovery”

Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery—The Beloved Community Initiative

Just last week, The Rev’d Tom Ferguson (former Interim Chaplain of St. Francis House Campus Ministry here at UW) wrote an essay calling for the Episcopal Church to address its history with Native Schools. At least 18 schools were operated by the Episcopal Church in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Protests, Pandemic, and Parish Ministry

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Over the past few days, I have struggled to put into writing the feelings that welled up in me when I arrived at Grace Church on Tuesday, June 2 and saw the devastation on Capitol Square and State St. from the riots the night before. It was the third morning in a row that I had come down to Grace, the first time since early March that I had been downtown on three consecutive days. I had come to make sure Grace Church property was ok. Fortunately, we were spared the violence and destruction.

But just a few feet away, it was a different story. The graffiti and broken windows along W. Mifflin St. and State St. continued onto N. Carroll with the History Museum also a target for protesters. Lady Forward on the Capitol was drenched in red paint.

I have watched in horror and anger as the scenes of violence and destruction fill our media. Peaceful protests against the murders of unarmed African American civilians by police have turned into violent rampages destroying property and the livelihoods of people who were already suffering from the economic impact of the pandemic. Instead of working to calm us and bring us together, the President seems to be fanning the flames of violence and uses teargas and brute force to clear a path for a photo op in front of an Episcopal church.

I have a profound sense of helplessness and foreboding as I witness events unfold both nationwide and here on Capitol Square. Grace Church has been a symbol of Christ’s love on the square for more than 150 years and we are called in this time to continue to share that love, to work for justice and reconciliation, and as we repent for our sins to ask God’s forgiveness and the strength to amend our lives.

Ever since I became Rector of Grace, I have been urging us to seek our mission in our neighborhood and we have done that. We have hosted the men’s homeless shelter for over 35 years, a food pantry for over 40, and in the last decade we have opened our doors to concerts, protesters, press conferences, and gatherings of all sorts. We are engaged in important anti-racism work through our Creating More Just Community task force and our Outreach Committee is exploring new ways of serving Christ in our neighborhood and throughout our city.

But as I’ve reflected on the images I’ve seen of the demonstrations and rioting, the looting, and as I’ve seen for myself the graffiti and boarded up windows on Capitol Square and State Street, I have been disturbed to the core of my being. I’ve never made much of those surveys that proclaim Madison’s desirability as a place to live but it has been my home for almost 11 years. I have loved living here. But the graffiti and broken windows remind me of the stark reality lying beneath the veneer of beauty, progressive politics, and gourmet restaurants. The deep racial and economic inequities of our city and county are the foundation on which everything else is built here. I’ve seen those realities first-hand as I’ve worked with homeless people and with people of color who are trying to make ends meet in an expensive city on minimum wage jobs or struggling with a criminal justice system. The violence that broke out in Madison earlier this week is a reflection of the violence we don’t see; the violence perpetrated by racism on the bodies and lives of African Americans every day, in the pricks of micro-aggressions and the institutional violence of schools that fail to educate African American children and an economy that discriminates in every way against African Americans.

In the middle of the chaos stands Grace Church, a silent symbol of Christ’s love and a testament to faithful generations who have worshipped here and supported our ministry over the decades. As I’ve said many times before, our spiritual ancestors who chose to build a church on Capitol Square had a particular vision of civic and religious community, one in which the Christianity of the mainline was a pillar of civic engagement, one of the ways in which community norms were maintained and articulated.

That nineteenth century vision of civic community has not survived into the twenty-first century. The political divisions that have been a hallmark of Wisconsin have torn at the fabric of our state and city. The vibrant public square envisioned by the first Madisonians and still evident from time to time in the recent past—the Dane County Farmer’s Market and Concerts on the Square being two examples—has crumbled under the divisions: competing demonstrations from different sides of the political spectrum. At times, we have sought to be a bridge across that divide but at the same time, we have consistently advocated for policies consistent with biblical concern for the stranger and alien, the widow and orphan, the poor and oppressed.

Events earlier this week in DC are evidence of another version of the relationship between the Episcopal Church and our political system—as a prop for violence, hatred, and corruption. If we cannot clearly and consistently preach Christ crucified, who was reconciling humans to each other and to God, who challenged the forces of violence, oppression, and empire, who himself died as a victim of injustice, oppression, and empire, we will no longer be faithful to the gospel with which we have been entrusted, to the God whose image we bear, and to the Christ who was executed because he challenged the powers and principalities.

I have remarked in sermons and conversations with others that COVID-19 has led to an abandonment of the public square. On the few times I visited Capitol Square over the last two months, the silence and emptiness of the square was palpable. Often, the only sound was the bells ringing the hours from Grace’s tower. The depopulation of the square was eerie; devoid of people, the square seemed like the set of a post-apocalyptic film. Our building is almost as empty as the square itself. Public worship is suspended; the homeless shelter has moved to the Warner Park Community Center; and our pantry is operating with a skeleton crew of volunteers.

But we cannot abandon our ministry and mission here. It is more important than ever. With our congregation dispersed throughout the city and the county and our meetings conducted almost entirely via the internet, it might be easy for us to adopt one of those clichés about the church being the people and not the building. We are a parish, which is not just a gathering of people. It is also tied to a location. In our case, it is tied to downtown, to Capitol Square.

Even in our current circumstances with no in-person worship and virtual gatherings, we are called to share the good news of Jesus Christ in our community. We are called to love our downtown neighbors. The frightening reality of looting and destruction is happening in our neighborhood. Our neighbors are hurting even as the demonstrations proclaim loudly the suffering and injustice borne by the African-American community here.

Madison will be hard-pressed to find a way forward after the events of this week. Fear and anger, the images imprinted on our brains will not go away as easily as graffiti removed or broken windows replaced.

In this moment, we are called to continue to witness to the love of Jesus Christ. We are called to continue to work for justice and reconciliation. We are called to be the church on the corner of N. Carroll and W. Washington. We are called to offer a vision of God’s beloved community that welcomes all and brings healing to the nation. We are called to weep, to lament, to mourn, and to be prophetic voices in our community, on the square.

 

Resources for thinking about re-opening the church

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Updated 12 May 2020

On May 13, I’m convening a conversation at Grace to begin thinking about worship, programming, fellowship, and other ministries when we are able to re-open the church. It’s likely that all aspects of our common life and ministry will be affected by COVID-19 for many months, requiring us to make significant changes. I think it’s important that we begin this conversation now because it will take some time for us to understand how radically our worship, fellowship, and programming will change for the foreseeable future.

We know that Governor Evers has extended the “Safer at Home” order until May 26. The state has also published a plan for staged re-opening called Badger Bounce Back: Badger_Bounceback_detailed. With the Governor’s order challenged by Republican legislators, it may be that the order will be deemed unconstitutional. We will need to plan for that as well. At the same time, our decisions will ultimately be guided by the instructions given us by Bishop Miller and the Diocese of Milwaukee.

Fortunately, there are already many resources available to help us have this conversation and to think about the implications for our buildings and programs. I’ve collected some of those here.

New as of May 12:

 

The Wisconsin Council of Churches has been widely shared: WCC Guide to Returning to Church – Ministry During COVID19

The Wisconsin Council of Churches has also prepared a document discussing music in particular: Returning to Church – Church Music final

One of the most useful pieces I’ve read is this: 24 Questions your church should answer before people return.

There’s a helpful article from the Episcopal News Service that surveys dioceses and parishes across the country:

 

What salsa dancing has taught me about church in the 21st Century: Annual Report 2019

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Another year of growth, with exciting new developments in our common life and ministry as we were reminded by the lovely slide show prepared by Arianna. Before going further, I would like to thank the staff—Christina, Ari, Pat, the folks in the kitchen, Berkley and Mark, Vikki, and especially Deacon Carol. And the outgoing wardens John and Greg, and vestry members Paula, Kabura, and John, who agreed to fill out the balance of Jarrod Irwin’s term.

It’s great that we are growing, especially because we are going against the trend of decline in the diocese, the Episcopal Church, and Christianity in the US. Growth brings challenges. As new members join us, and as visitors continue to explore connecting with us, we are reaching the limits of what we can do with our current staff and volunteer base. We began talking about the possibility of calling an Associate Rector, the budget that is being presented to the congregation today includes funding for such a position beginning on July 1, but our conversation should be driven not by financial worry but by our desires to deepen our relationships with each other, to reach out more effectively and creatively into our city and to respond faithfully and courageously to God’s call.

Bishop Search.

In the coming year, we will say good bye to Bishop Miller as he retires after 17 years as the Bishop of the Diocese of Milwaukee. We will also begin to make plans for our next bishop. Even now, that search process is taking shape. The Standing Committee of the Diocese, the entity with the responsibility for overseeing episcopal transitions, is in the process of selecting a search committee. It’s likely that the members of that body will be made public before the end of the year.

The search consultant, the Rev’d Dr. Anne Hallisey, will be in the Diocese in January, leading the clergy retreat from January 20-22, and then holding a retreat with the Search Committee January 24-25. It’s been a long time since we’ve had an episcopal search, so it’s worth reminding you of the process. There will be intensive study of the current state of the diocese. Members of the search committee will visit parishes, interview clergy and lay people. There will be a survey distributed that will solicit opinions about the state of the diocese, perceived needs, and what we might like to see in the next bishop. Eventually, a diocesan profile will be prepared, and the names of nominees solicited. The search committee will hold a retreat with select candidates, visit them in their contexts, do the necessary vetting process, and eventually publish the list of nominees. But even after that, there will be the possibility of additional nominees being brought forward. An election date will be set; the candidates will tour the diocese giving us the opportunity for us to get to know them. Finally, there will be an electing convention. The candidate who receives a majority of votes from both the clergy and the delegates elected by parishes, will be elected bishop; but their ordination will not take place until they receive a majority of consents from bishops and standing committees of the dioceses of the Episcopal Church. We don’t know the timeline for any of this, but it’s likely that the process of election will take most of the next year, and we won’t have a new bishop until some time in 2021.

Many of you may wonder what any of this has to Grace Church. We see the bishop only rarely; few of us are involved in any diocesan ministries or commissions, beyond the Haiti Project, Deacon Carol’s work with the Commission on Global Reconciliation, and our delegates’ attendance at diocesan convention. Still, we are not a stand-alone congregation. The search for a new bishop provides us an opportunity to intensify our engagement with the diocese, help shape its future, and allow other congregations and clergy learn from our experience in downtown Madison over the last decade.

I am completing my second term as a member of Diocesan Executive Council. In the last year, I was asked by the Bishop to participate in a subcommittee of that body whose task was to look at the relationship of the Diocesan Haiti Project with the diocese as a whole. As we worked, it became clear that the future viability of the Haiti Project would depend on a period of intense diocesan engagement with the Project, helping to develop new leadership, bring transparency and stability to its finances, and raise its visibility in the diocese. I volunteered to co-chair the Haiti Project Steering Committee for at least a year as we sought to build on its strengths and address some of its vulnerabilities. Our work is made more challenging by the difficult situation on the ground in Haiti. I expect to continue involvement in that work for the immediate future but hope that by the end of 2020, new leadership will be in place to work with a new bishop to shape the future relationship between the diocese and this crucial outreach ministry.

New Homeless Shelter.

As most of you know, for a number of years a group from Grace Church have been exploring a bundle of issues around the possible redevelopment of the West Wing and the future of the Men’s Drop-In Shelter that Grace has hosted since 1984. In addition, there have been questions about the impact of the proposed new historical museum on our property. Over the last year, we have taken a number of significant steps. As we continue to research future possibilities for the West Wing, we worked with a developer on the economic feasibility of a limited project that would add a floor and create a roofline that would match the nave. Unfortunately, that possibility while aesthetically pleasing is not feasible economically. We have not had significant conversations with the Museum project developers in the last year.

Much of our work has focused on exploring whether there is interest and energy in the wider community for a new, purpose-built shelter adequate to the needs of our unhoused neighbors. We contracted with Ms. Susan Schmitz, retired president of Downtown Madison, Inc, to help us discern whether a new shelter project might be welcomed by both the private and public sectors. Her initial contract is concluding and with her help we have decided to move forward with the formation of a steering committee that will continue our work and build coalitions with the ultimate goal of a purpose-built shelter. Along with her, we have met with city and county elected officials and staff, service providers, and other stakeholders. There seems to be significant interest and momentum building that over time could result in a new facility for people experiencing homelessness.

As that work proceeds, Grace Church will continue to be involved with representation on the steering committee and shepherding the process. It will undoubtedly take several years to reach completion and as we have watched the progress of the proposed Salvation Army redevelopment, we know that it will take a great deal of effort, political will, and careful listening.

With the new museum project and the potential shelter move, we will have to engage in simultaneous conversations about the future of our physical plant, especially the west wing, and how our ministry and mission might adapt to the changing needs of our neighborhood, and the changing built environment. As I have said many times over the years, the questions driving our conversations should begin with our careful attention to the movement of the Holy Spirit, and our faithfulness to Jesus’ call to us to share the good news. How can we be a blessing to our neighborhood, and how can our buildings be an agent of the church’s mission to reconcile humans with God?

I want to close with a story; it’s one I told the vestry a couple of months ago but I hope it will get you thinking as well. Corrie and I are ballroom dancers, and the demographics of ballroom dancing are pretty much like the demographics of the Episcopal Church; the vast majority of people at ballroom dances are over 50; except that is, for the young couples learning their wedding dance (sound familiar?). This summer, we decided to try something new—salsa and we went to a venue downtown that has an hour-long bachata or salsa lesson followed by live music. The demographics there were quite different—of the 100 or so who usually attend, no more than a handful were over 50, and in the group classes the same teacher offers at a studio, the difference is even more stark. We were usually more than 20 years older than anyone else in the room. But it’s not just about learning moves; the teacher has created community, making use of social media. They have regular social gatherings, they become friends and hang out together. My point is not that we need to start salsa classes or a jazz mass; my point is that community is being created in completely new ways now and often outside of traditional institutions like the church.

We have to take risks; we have to experiment; we have to continue to ask new questions and explore new approaches as we seek to deepen our relationships with each other and make connections with our neighbors who work and live in downtown Madison. In the last ten years, we have done that time and again, and while sometimes our efforts have faltered, we have also seen new life. My prayer for us as a congregation is that as we continue to discern God’s call, we have the courage to experiment, to take risks and to follow Jesus into the heart of the city, and into the heart of his love.

 

 

Reflections on a decade of shared ministry 5: The growing importance of anti-racism work

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As with any vocational transition, beginning a new call as rector brings with it all sorts of expectations and assumptions. There is the usual round of pastoral responsibilities, sacraments, preaching, pastoral care. There are the countless administrative tasks, and there are the unique emphases that are connected to the particular life and charisma of a congregation as well to its geographical location. I expected to be deeply involved in ministry and advocacy around homelessness when I was imagining what my ministry would be like at Grace. I should have expected that there would be a significant civic role as well, although as I point out in my previous post, how that role emerged and evolved over the decade of my ministry at Grace was surprising.

Even more surprising is the emergence of another significant aspect of my and Grace’s ministry: racism and racial inequity. It’s not that racism hadn’t been a concern of mine earlier in life. I had taken courses in African-American history, read James Cone and Katie Cannon, learned from African-American classmates in Divinity School. I had seen racism in Boston, moving there just a few years after the anti-bussing protests when passions still ran high and the effects of racism were obvious to anyone with eyes to see.

When we moved South in 1994, I encountered new forms of racism. At Sewanee, I taught at one of the bastions of the Lost Cause, where the Yankees’ dynamiting of the university’s cornerstone was recorded in the stained glass windows of the narthex of All Saints’ Chapel and a full-length portrait of Leonidas Polk, the “Battling Bishop” in his confederate gray uniform, prayer book in one hand and sword in the other, hung in Convocation Hall, where faculty meetings and important receptions took place. It was also a place where faculty had taken stands for racial justice during the Civil Rights Era, and the entire seminary faculty had walked out when the Board of Trustees refused to desegregate the Episcopal seminary in the fifties.

In Tennessee and South Carolina where I lived for a combined 15 years, II had seen first-hand the deep inequities between black and white, the chasm between the economic achievement, educational achievement, health and mortality. I also saw the segregation of churches, St. Philip’s was the largely African-American, small Episcopal Church that had been founded by the good people of Christ Church who didn’t want to worship with their African-American servants. In Greenville, I saw the sharp dividing line between rich white, and desperately poor African-American neighborhoods, the literal wall dividing them dividing two worlds as completely as the Berlin Wall used to divide that city.

I also dealt with the Episcopal Church’s uncomfortable and inadequate reckoning with its past. Many of those who worshiped at our churches owned the sub-standard properties that were rented to low-income people. Earlier generations had been plantation and slave owners, and their descendants continued to be members of our congregations and generous in their financial support.

I thought I had left all that behind when I moved to Madison. I quickly realized that Madison was deeply divided on racial lines, that African-Americans constituted a much higher percentage of people experiencing homelessness than they did in the overall population. I soon discerned how few African-Americans, other than homeless people were on the streets and sidewalks of downtown Madison. I understood racism was an important issue for the nation, for the church, for our society but there seemed to be other matters of greater urgency.

That all changed in 2013. In that year, the Wisconsin Council on Families and Children (now Kids Forward) issued its Race to Equity report that detailed the huge disparities in academic and economic achievement, incarceration rates, health outcomes and mortality rates between the white and African-American populations of Wisconsin and especially Dane County. Also that year, the Rev. Alex Gee, jr., wrote an article in the Wisconsin State Journal entitled “Justified Anger” in which he shared some of his experiences being an African-American man in Madison. Suddenly, the urgency and importance of addressing racism at Grace Church seemed paramount.

Over the next few years, a task force calling itself “Creating More Just Community” brought together Grace members who have a passion for working on issues related to racism. We brought in speakers; we explored making connections with our close neighbors at the Dane County Jail. We joined MOSES, a coalition of churches and religious communities, black and white, from across Dane County that works on issues of criminal justice. With them we hosted press conferences, even a forum for governor’s candidates during the most recent campaign. We have had a months-long parish-wide dialogue on racism that recently concluded; a program that we are now offering to other congregations.

We have done a great deal over the last six years, but looking back it seems like we haven’t done nearly enough, nor have we accomplished much. The racial inequities in our community are as profound as ever. As a congregation, we are as predominantly white as we have ever been. On top of all that, our nation is more divided than ever.

Still, I don’t regret any of what we’ve done. If I do have regrets, it’s that we haven’t done enough. It is work that must continue on the parish level, in the community, and in our hearts. It’s necessary work that is rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We cannot be faithful followers of him unless we engage with the racism in our nation’s past, our community’s present, and its lingering presence in American Christianity as it expressed and experienced at Grace and throughout the church. What form that work will take will be dependent on the people who lead it, the changing context in which we live, and historical developments that we can’t predict and for which we cannot plan.

Reflections on a decade of shared ministry 4: The Church in the midst of political conflict

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I don’t recall any conversations about politics as we were discerning my call to Grace Church in 2009. We were in the throes of the Great Recession, Obama had just become president, but Grace had other, more urgent issues that focused the attention of its lay leadership. As a newcomer to Madison, I recall paying very little attention to either local or state politics in 2009 and 2010. While I voted in the 2010 election, I don’t remember the campaigns even though that was the year that saw Scott Walker elected Governor.

All that changed in February 2011. On February 15, 2011, protesters from UW Madison walked down State St. to the Capitol and begin their sit-in. I could hear the sounds of the marchers as the neared the top of State Street. I didn’t really know what was happening although I knew about Governor’s plans to break the unions and transform the political culture of our state. For the next three weeks as protests grew and subsided and the Democratic senators fled the state to prevent a vote on the “Budget Repair” bill,  Grace Church found itself in the middle of the political conflict and division in our state. In many ways, it was the beginning of the deep division and conflict that has rent our nation over the last years.

I made a decision during the first few days of the protests that would change my ministry and completely transform the ministry and mission of Grace Church. With hundreds, then thousands, even tens of thousands of people protesting at the Capitol in the middle of February, I decided to open the doors of our church, inviting the protesters to come in for respite, warmth, and prayer. Within a few days, Grace became the staging ground for the religious community. We hosted press conferences and served as a gathering space for religious leaders and members of religious communities as they sought to make a public witness.

Ironically, after the Democratic senators finally returned, the Budget Repair bill was passed on Ash Wednesday. Our prayers to God during the Litany of Penitence at our 6 pm service that night were accompanied by the sounds of new protests gathering.

In the years that followed, beginning with Madison’s version of Occupy and “Walkerville,” continuing through the protests around police violence and the Trump presidency, Grace has continued to be a gathering place for religious voices calling for justice and an end to inequality and oppression. Now, when a rally or protest is planned, members come to me to ask if they can help make sure our doors are open and that we offer rest for tired feet and space for reflection and prayer.

Looking back from this vantage point, I’m surprised by the prominent role political witness has come to play in my ministry. I’m sure I’ve attended more protests in the last 10 years of my life than I did in my first fifty, probably ten times more. I’m also somewhat surprised by the ease with which the community at Grace has come to embrace this role. There were some nay-sayers at first, people worried about vandalism or theft, or the sheer toll of hundreds of people coming through our building on a wintry day. But as I point out whenever someone expresses concern, especially over the possibility that we are being partisan, we don’t have a choice in the matter. Whether or not we open our doors, we are making a political statement, or it will be interpreted as such. To offer hospitality to protesters, to offer our restrooms to the attendees at the first Latinx protest against was as necessary as it was the right thing to do.

I’m not particularly comfortable in the role of “activist” priest, if that’s the reputation I’ve developed. I’ve written and preached often about my conviction that our witness as individual Christians and as a church should be rooted in the gospel and communicated with religious language, that we should clearly articulate the theological basis of our position. As a congregation, we have done that in a number of documents, and I hope I have been clear about that in my sermons and posts here. I do believe that the church should be a place where people of different political views can come together to worship, that we ought to be a place where we can give voice to our different opinions and prayerfully discern what God is calling us to do. I also believe that following Jesus means speaking clearly on matters of justice and responding to the deep needs of our fellow human beings. But I worry that too often we lose focus on the centrality of Jesus Christ in our effort to build coalitions and participate in the political process. I also think that too often our political opinions are more important and more deeply-held than our religious commitments, that we don’t allow the Word of God to stand in judgment on us.

I hope, though it seems quite unlikely, that some day soon Grace will no longer need to serve as a gathering place for religious people who are challenging the powers and principalities, that we can return to a quieter time when it didn’t seem that the very Gospel of Jesus Christ was hanging in the balance every day. But such a development seems quite unlikely in our present moment. Instead, it’s much more likely that the cries of injustice will continue to be heard, and that they will come from more people who feel threatened. And as long as the cries rise up, Grace will provide a place of gathering, hope, and respite for people who are suffering and protesting injustice.

 

Reflections on a decade of shared ministry, 3: Homelessness, part 2

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The long quest for a day resource center for people experiencing homelessness could serve as a case study of how Madison’s political system, social service providers, and activists have failed the most vulnerable people in our community. It also provides lessons to anyone interested in developing new institutions or services in our city.

Back in 2011, I attended the first of a series of meetings of local political and civic leaders, service providers, and advocates that were convened to seek solutions to the lack of daytime resources for people experiencing homelessness. The problem became apparent because that the two places where many homeless people spent the days while the overnight shelters were closed were no longer available. The Capitol basement had been declared off-limits to homeless people during the protests in February and March, 2011, and the Central Library was about to close for two years of renovations. I was astounded when the meeting began with many of those present complaining about the then governor’s decision to close the Capitol—seemingly oblivious to the fact that the Capitol was a wholly inadequate space for a vulnerable population in need of many services. In other words, the urgency and extent of the need had gone unaddressed for decades. The stop-gap solutions that were in place were judged by many in the community to be perfectly adequate.

I’ve chronicled much of the story and my involvement in the efforts on this blog. Click on the Homelessness link and scroll down. Temporary shelters were funded for the winters of 2011-2012 and 2012-2013. The County put money its operating budget to fund operations of a shelter and secured capital funds to purchase and build out a property. There were a number of locations proposed over the years but all of them fell through because of various reasons, including poor planning and community engagement by county staff and elected officials, neighborhood opposition, and simply unsuitable locations. Many of us who were most actively involved in these efforts over the years grew angry, frustrated, and finally abandoned the quest. Fortunately others persisted and other agencies stepped, most notably Catholic Charities, who received the contract to operate the Day Resource Center. Finally, the Beacon opened in 2018 and is currently welcoming as many as 250 people daily for meals, showers, laundry, and to help them connect with services.

I say this is a case study in how Madison has thought about and responded to homelessness over the decades because there was no effort to examine the adequacy of our response to the community’s needs and no effort to seek better solutions. And there’s also the blame game, seeking to deflect responsibility for the problems we face from ourselves to others—whether it be the former governor, Chicago, or some other entity or individual. It was only when the stop-gap solution collapsed that we admitted the problem and began to seek new solutions and better alternatives.

In some respects, we are at the very same place with regard to the overnight shelters. The Salvation Army is developing plans for new facilities at their E. Washington Ave. property that would more adequately address the needs of the groups they serve there: single women and families. It is also becoming more clear by the day that the current Drop-In Shelter housed at Grace with additional space at St. John’s Lutheran Church and First United Methodist Church is inadequate to serve the number of homeless men in our community and to address their needs, providing assistance to help them find housing and connect them with services they need. For example, we lack the facilities to offer comfortable space for the one-on-one conversations with outreach workers and the building is only minimally accessible to people who lack mobility. It lacks air conditioning.

As we think about next steps in our response to the needs of our community, it is clear that the experience with the Day Resource Center will offer us important lessons as we seek to build community-wide support for significant changes in our system of emergency shelter. I, for one, look forward to this process.

Reflections on a decade of shared ministry 2: Homelessness, Part 1

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Among the things that attracted me to Grace Church was the presence of the men’s shelter and the possibility of re-engaging with ministry and advocacy around homelessness. Back in the 1980s when I was studying for the MDiv, I did my field education at First Baptist Church of Boston (this was long before I became Episcopalian). Part of my work there was to help the congregation think about how it might engage the growing homeless population in Boston’s Back Bay and to make connections with other churches and social service agencies who were responding to people experiencing homelessness. As my journey took me away from ministry and toward academics, and as we moved away from urban Boston, those experiences faded into the background and I was interested in seeing how things had changed in the 25 years that had passed since my time at First Baptist.

A couple of months after arriving at Grace and after learning about policies and procedures at the shelter and beginning to explore the larger context of homelessness, service providers, and advocacy in Madison, I made a phone call to an old friend back in Boston. Jim had been a classmate of mine at Harvard Divinity School and with another classmate had founded a shelter in the basement of a Harvard Square church while students. 25 years later, he was still running a shelter, this one in another church on the other side of Cambridge Common. I described to him what I had learned and said that it seemed like Madison was in a time-warp, that service providers, government, and advocates were doing and saying the sorts of things that we saw in Boston in the early 80s. Jim confirmed my suspicions and shared with me what he was doing in the shelter he operated and what a more humane system, focused on the dignity and improving the lives of the guests might look like.

In February 2010, 6 months after I arrived at Grace, an article describing conditions in the shelter at Grace was published in Isthmus.It unleashed a storm of controversy at Grace and among supporters and staff of Porchlight and homeless advocates. It caught the eye of people at Epic Software and eventually Epic funded a long-overdue and much-needed renovation of the facility.  They upgraded the kitchen, showers, repainted, replaced the flooring, provided new bunks and storage lockers. It was an transformation.

What it couldn’t was solve the underlying problems of the shelter space. It was and remains a church basement. It is minimally accessible for disabled people (a jerry-rigged system allows access via wheelchair). It isn’t large enough to accommodate the number of men seeking shelter there, so every night, a group walk from there several blocks to St. John’s Lutheran Church on E. Washington Ave., where they sleep on mats on the floor. In the winter, First Methodist Church also serves as an overflow shelter on weeknights. All guests pass through Grace for intake and the evening meal, returning for breakfast as well. When the doors of the shelter open in the evening, the men line up in Grace’s courtyard, where they wait unprotected from the weather.

The shelter came to Grace in the early 1980s on a one-year, temporary basis and has remained there because of complacency and the difficulty of developing alternative solutions. Over the years of my ministry, I have struggled with my own and Grace’s role in all of this. I have made mistakes as I seek to advocate for improved facilities while supporting the important work that takes place here. I have been the target of neighbors’ and community members’ ire because of the presence of the shelter at Grace and also the target of advocates’ anger and criticism because of the conditions in the shelter and the treatment of its guests by Porchlight staff.

But what has been most heartbreaking for me are the memories of the tragedies. One Christmas Eve early on in my ministry, I came out of the early service to find churchgoers standing around a homeless man who had been dropped off from a hospital stay. He was immobile, having seizures on the sidewalk. Shelter staff refused to help because he wasn’t ambulatory. We called 911 and when the ambulance and police came, they told us that while they would take him to the ER, it was very likely he would be brought back here that night.

Then there was the Polar Vortex of 2014, when a man died on the steps of Grace’s tower entry. He had come in to the shelter in -20 temperatures, and with a companion was walking over to one of the overflow shelters. He collapsed and died of heart failure. His death was a tragedy, but it also should have demonstrated to everyone the inadequacy of a system in which necessary and permanent shelters were labeled “overflow.”

You can read all of my blog posts on homelessness by clicking here. They are in reverse chronological order. If you’re interested in how my views have changed (if they have changed, you should start at the very beginning). I will continue my reflections on the last ten years in later posts, including the long struggle for a day resource center and what the future may hold.

Reflecting on a decade of shared ministry 1

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As I approach the tenth anniversary of my shared ministry with and at Grace Episcopal Church, I am amazed by what we have accomplished and by how much I have changed and learned over the years. I remember the fear and excitement I felt when I walked through the doors of Grace for the first time as its rector. I remember the challenges we faced, all of the uncertainty, all of the rebuilding of trust that needed to take place in the wake of the previous years’ trauma and conflict. I remember also those leaders who are no longer there, who have moved or passed on to the larger life, such as Sally Phelps who was Senior Warden for the first months of my tenure.

I like to tell people this. When I was working through the ordination process in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina from 2002-2005, if someone had asked me about my dream job, I would have replied, “a downtown historic church with an active homeless ministry in a city with a major university.” On August 1, 2009 I began working in my dream job. Ten years later, it still is. There are constantly new challenges, new people to meet, new opportunities for learning, new opportunities to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Days like today remind me of that.

It began with a meeting of the Community Advisory Team of the Beacon, the Day Resource Center operated by Catholic Charities. The effort to site and operate such a facility was a focus of my work for a couple of years as the lack of such a facility put enormous stress on downtown churches and put the lives of people experiencing homelessness at risk. At some point, I finally gave up as it seemed such a facility would never materialize, and then out of the blue, the miracle happened. A site was located, Catholic Charities received the contract to operate it, and now, nearly two years after it opened, it is seeing an average of over 200 guests a day. Supporting it, even if only by attending quarterly meetings of this group, is a blessing. Hearing about its successes and helping in some small to address challenges is incredibly rewarding.

In the office later, as I was working through the email accumulated over the weekend, I received a phone call from my friend and colleague, the chaplain at Capitol Lakes, who requested I come to administer last rites to an Episcopal resident. I walked the two blocks, administered the rite, and returned to the office and to that email inbox that had continued to grow.

Lunch was a lovely conversation with my downtown (Protestant) clergy colleagues. When I arrived in 2009, while I was warmly welcomed by my Episcopal colleagues, I had no contact with my neighbor clergy, except that I initiated. I resolved that I would reach out when new clergy came. Now, I’m the veteran. Of the other three at the table, one is in his fourth year; one started just a few weeks ago. In addition to the simple joy of getting to know each and spending some time together, we talked about the issues that we all share, most significantly, the challenges of ministry with and among people experiencing homelessness.

I’m writing this from a coffee shop on Monroe St., where I am holding open office hours on Tuesday afternoons throughout the summer. One of the emails I sent earlier in the day was to the chair of the Personnel Committee to let her know that I would be working on staff ministry reviews if I was undisturbed by visitors. Fortunately, for that task, I was able to finish the ones I was working on. By the way, the office hours experiment has been a success. Not only have I had visitors and conversations I would not otherwise have had, last week the presence of two newcomers to Madison and Grace, both recently retired, was an opportunity for them to connect with each other as well as with me. And in between visits, I’ve been able to get a lot of work done without the distractions of the office.

One of the things I did before beginning this post was to go back to my blog archives from 2009. I was curious whether I wrote much about the beginning of my ministry. The answer is no, except for in my sermons. The transition to full-time parish ministry wasn’t particularly difficult. What was challenging and unexpected was simply the level of administrative detail, the constant new challenges of ministry in an urban environment. Nothing could have prepared me for that or for the ways in which those challenges, and the changing city itself would affect my ministry.

In some essays over the next few weeks, I hope to reflect on some of the themes I detect in my and Grace’s shared ministry over the last decade: homelessness, our relationship with the political life of city, state, and nation, racism, and the transformation of American Christianity. All of these are themes I’ve preached and written about over the years, but I think it would be helpful for myself and others to reflect on them in light of our past experience as we think about the future.

The last ten years have been exciting and challenging. They have been difficult at times, and there were periods where we weren’t certain that Grace and I were a good fit. I have caused pain to others and have suffered some pain as well. But through it all I have sensed God’s presence in my life and in our common life, ministries, and outreach. We have sought to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ, to be his body in this place, and to be a place of healing, hope and witness to Christ’s redemptive love. I pray that we continue to do all of this in the years to come, with God’s help.