Bishop Stacy Sauls, chief operating officer of the Episcopal Church, sent the following e-mail to the church’s staff yesterday in the employee newsletter. In it he discusses the role of the Church Center staff:
Not Being Overcome by Fear
Our attention as a staff will undoubtedly become increasingly focused on General Convention as we enter the homestretch to July. Some of that attention will be on various resolutions reflecting things that we as a staff are working on. Some of it will be on what it feels like to be micromanaged by a committee of over a thousand people. A great deal of it, no doubt, will be on the budget and the budget’s consequences for the work we do and on our livelihoods. There is no doubt that General Convention is an anxious time for the staff of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. It is for the Church as a whole, too. And it is even more anxious at this moment of fundamental change, and indeed, crisis.
With that in mind, it is perhaps a good time to remind you of something I said when I first had the chance to address you as a staff last September.
I believe The Episcopal Church is being called to a great adventure at this particular moment, the adventure of reforming the Church for a world unlike any it has ever tried to serve before. All of us, to one extent or another, are having a hard time letting go of what we have known in favor of grasping what is becoming and, indeed, shaping what is becoming. It is true at all levels of the Church’s leadership. It is true of bishops, dioceses, congregations, and individual members. It is true of the General Convention. It is true of us as a staff. It would be untruthful of me to tell you there was no element of risk in this adventure before us. In truth, I think there is a great deal of risk in it.
The very name of our organization, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society is adventurous. Being a missionary is inherently adventurous. What we are setting out to become is a domestic and foreign missionary society in a much more fundamental way than a mere corporate name, in a much more adventurous way than we are currently doing, in a much more risky way than we have had to do before. I think the world’s salvation may be in that. I know ours is.
We as the staff of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society have the opportunity to lead that adventure, and I am determined that we will. Leadership is risky business as I have certainly found out in the last few days. It is dangerous. I have found that out, too. But the adventure is going to be a lot more fun, I promise you, than attempting to cling to an old way of doing ministry that no longer matters. We might be able to prop up the system we have for a few years more, but the new world God is creating is coming nevertheless. God’s word to us at this moment, I am absolutely convinced is, “Go for it.” For the truth is that we as the DFMS staff will either shape the future or have it shaped for us. And if it is shaped for us, it will then be imposed on us. We have before us the opportunity to shape our own future or stand passively by and let others do that for us. I just don’t think passivity is a very healthy spiritual position to be in. And, as you have heard me say, working for the Church ought not be a spiritually damaging experience. Whether it is or not is largely up to us.
This is where we now find ourselves. What are we going to take the opportunity to shape? Will be “go for it” or not? Will we lead or be led? Will we serve or hide? Will we be active or passive? What the Church needs from us right now is leadership. We have work to do.
So, here’s one other excerpt from my September address to you, then my new colleagues and now my trusted colleagues.
Here’s what really matters. Going for it is always better than not. Adventure is always better than safety. Safety, it seems to me, is at the root of a lot of boredom, a lot of status quo, a lot of disease, and a lot of stuck, but not much at the root of God. That is why it never ceases to amaze me that so much about religion is about playing it safe. Now what I’m about to say, I realize, may be heretical. This, you will come to realize, is not unusual. What is interesting to me is that the word safe is the noun form of the verb to save. Religion may be mostly about being safe. Faith, on the other hand, is not. Faith is about adventure. In truth it involves no small amount of risk. The risks can be material or spiritual, often both.
Being safe is, of course, one metaphor the Bible uses to describe the experience of God, but it is not the only one, and I don’t even think it is the main one. The main one is much more about risking and adventuring. Abraham and Sarah were called to leave their safety in Ur to seek an adventure in God’s promise of a new life. Moses is called to leave the safety of tending his father-in-law’s flocks into a very risky confrontation with Pharaoh. The Hebrew people were called to leave the safety of their lives in Egypt to seek the more difficult path of freedom. Amos was called to leave the safety of dressing sycamore trees to speak on behalf of justice. Jeremiah was called out of the safety of the womb to speak dangerous truth to power. Andrew, Peter, James, and John were called to leave the safety of what they were used to for the adventure of what they were not. I find myself a lot more interested in the adventuring than in the saving. In fact, I think adventure and being saved in the truest sense are actually the same thing.
All this has something to do with why the most prevalent angelic message in the Bible is this: Do not be afraid. It is what the angel told Mary when God had an adventure to propose to her. It is what the angels told the shepherds when suggesting they leave their flocks behind to go in search of something else. It is what the angels told the women who found the tomb empty on the first Easter. Like Mary and the shepherds and the woman at the tomb, it helps to be reminded of this basic message: Do not be afraid, or in other words, “Go for it.” Go for it because what is safe and secure is an illusion, and illusions are never of God. God is in the adventure.
When the people of God choose adventure, there will always be someone urging what is safe instead. Sometimes they will actually do everything they can to prevent the adventure. Safety is admittedly tempting. I just don’t see much evidence that God is much in it. It was the adventure of the Exodus that became the standard for the people of Israel. I’m not sure I can think of a time when Jesus ever chose to play it safe. None of the people we regard as saints were much about safety. “Fear not,” the angels always say, which of course doesn’t mean not to feel fear. It means not to be overcome by it.
Peace,
+Stacy
What are your thoughts about his e-mail?