Donning my hazmat clericals, I want to discuss the tendentious topic of church music, specifically, how to make church musical singable.

I am of the view that tunes sung in church are culturally neutral. Just as a hymn is a song of praise to God, music appropriate for singing in church is any song that praises God, whether that be Gregorian chant, monophonic or polyphonic liturgical music, folk, jazz, rock and roll, or whatever style of music the congregation prefers.

Many have said that if our church would simply add contemporary music to our service or a worship service that features predominantly contemporary music, then “our” church would grow. However, “contemporary music” in a religious setting can have two completely opposite meanings. It can mean difficult atonal Mass settings by avant-garde classical composers or it can mean a sort of soft rock “praise music” of a very specific kind. I am not lobbying for your church to use any particular style of music. I am recommending that, when it comes to music sung in your church, you consider several basic questions to guide you.

Question 1: Who Is Your Target Population?

Remember the Peter Drucker question: Who is our customer? Who is our target population? Whom are we aiming to reach? The issue with respect to music is not: What do I as the canonically authorized person in charge of the musician like? Instead, ask this question: What kind of music will help the people who are our target audience to engage the presence of God? Some people simply don’t like contemporary (pop) styles of music. Other people don’t like hymns. Many people like certain hymns but don’t really like more modern atonal arrangements to hymns.

The core value to be affirmed is to be culturally connected to our target population. The church is a missionary community that must engage the culture at the culture’s starting point. Thus, we begin with the hearer and ask how we can best communicate with this certain type of hearer. Music is not a unilateral act. It is participatory in nature. Music that is inaccessible to the worshiper fails to allow the worshiper to participate in worship.

An individual congregation might choose to limit its musical expressions to classical music and hymns, but if there are no other Episcopal churches in the area that offer alternative musical styles, then a large portion of the surrounding population may, in fact, be missed. Or, a church might offer multiple services, aimed at reaching different constituencies. One size does not fit all.

Question 2: What Style of Music Do Your Major Stakeholders Deem Appropriate for Singing in Church?

Not only should music be culturally connected to the target population, but it should also be culturally connected to the institutional culture. The kind of music that a person enjoys listening to or singing for pleasure may not be the kind of music that person believes is appropriate for worship. Although I enjoy listening to Willie Nelson sing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” I may not have a sense of fulfilling worship by having sung that song on Sunday morning.

Try this exercise several Sundays. Make a list of each musical piece that your church sings in the worship service. Which hymns or songs does the congregation seem to sing well? Do they sing the responses or leave the service music to the choir? When people leave church, do they have smiles on their faces or are they somber? 

Question 3: Can We as a Congregation Do This Music Well?

Some hymns are simply too difficult for the average person to sing. The musical arrangement of some hymns may be too difficult for an individual organist or keyboardist to play. When a priest friend of mine first arrived at a new parish in New York City in the 1980s, she reported that the only hymn the congregation sang really well was “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.” Rather than have the congregation sing a variety of hymns poorly, this smart priest had them sing “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” every Sunday. Instead of it becoming boring to parishioners, they sang it with gusto each Sunday, until the hymn attained something like “theme song” status among them. The Promise Keepers movement was tremendously successful in getting men to sing hymns. The hymns that they would sing were pitched several keys lower than found in standard hymnals, and the arrangements were more contemporary in their orchestration. 

Question 4: Does the Congregation Know this Hymn?

How often do you introduce music, and how often do people get to sing hymns or songs that are particularly beloved by the congregation? If you will reduce the number of hymns and repeat the singing of certain hymns that are special to your congregation, people will be able to sing more vibrantly, and worship will be much more satisfying.

Three Suggestions for Enhancing the Singing

First, as a priest and musician I have three other suggestions to help enhance the quality of singing. First, I am a capable singer and can sight-read music. However, I also know that if I am sight-reading music, I am not worshiping. When I am sight-reading, I am focusing on the notes rather than worshiping God through the music. Part of the power of our liturgy is that, Sunday after Sunday, we pray prayers and the Eucharistic prayer that saints have sung and prayed for centuries. Because we know the words so intimately, and the music so well, God’s Spirit joins our spirit, and worship occurs.

Second, always end the service with a “war horse” — a tried and true hymn or spiritual song that the congregation loves. You want to give people a song or hymn that they will hum as they leave. Most churches sing too many unfamiliar and difficult hymns and as a result reduce congregational participation. The liturgy ceases to be the “work of the people,” and music-making becomes the province of professional musicians.

Third, consider surveying parishioners and asking for their 20 most favorite hymns or Christian songs. Pick the top 20 hymns and have one of those favorite hymns each Sunday. Don’t worry whether the words fit the theme of the sermon. The chances are highly likely that the majority of your congregation will leave the worship service humming the final hymn, and thus taking the hymn home.

Forty-seven seconds. If you are a preacher — or, really, any kind of public speaker, you have 47 seconds to catch your listener’s attention. How do I know that? Keep reading and you’ll find out.

The typical sermon in the typical Episcopal church today is the lecture-style, talking head sermon. The preacher who wishes to catch the attention of listeners in this media-soaked age, when the typical attention span is subconsciously trained by our surfing the internet, has approximately 47 seconds to catch her hearers’ attention, faces a tremendously daunting task. Yet, if the church is to reach this generation of communication-rich patrons, its bearers of the Word of God must find ways to do so effectively.

The average pew holds a wide range of people who receive information differently. People learn in a variety of styles. Most people will have one predominant style of learning. Knowing that there are different kinds of learners, and responding to them accordingly, will allow the preacher to engage more people. Learning styles fall into three basic groups: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic.[1]

Auditory learners — or listeners — prefer to hear books rather than read them. Auditory learners will respond to stories that touch the imagination. They learn best when the speaker “paints a picture with words.” Instead of telling a story about sitting around a cabin in the winter, describe the rustic setting of the cabin, the smell of the fire, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and the still, crisp chill in the air that hasn’t been replaced by the warmth of the fire. Telling stories is a powerful way to engage the listeners in the congregation.

Next, some people in the congregation will be visual learners, or watchers. If the auditory learner prefers to learn how to get from point A to point B by hearing step-by-step instructions, the visual learner wants to see a map. In church, the colors of the procession or the artwork in the sanctuary speak to them — saying more, sometimes, than the appointed lessons. The expressions on the faces of choir members mean as much to a visual learner as the music being sung. Visual learners need “visual aids” to be drawn into the sermon. For example, in order to engage the visual learner in a story about a baseball player, the preacher might step away from the pulpit and pantomime the motions of the batter. Another way to engage the visual learner is to print a simple bullet outline of the day’s sermon in the service bulletin with questions to reflect on.

The kinesthetic learner wants to be actively and physically involved in the service. The preacher engages the kinesthetic learner by offering this kind of learner a sense of participation in the sermon. It is helpful for the preacher to engage the kinesthetic learner through physical actions. If a drama is used for a setup or illustration for the sermon, the kinesthetic learner will learn better by some sort of active participation. The “worship aerobics” of frequent standing and kneeling so common in many Episcopal churches is particularly meaningful to kinesthetic learners. Laughter (when it is an appropriate reaction to a colorful story told by the preacher) is another favorite way for kinesthetic learners to be involved in the worship.

Preachers constantly miss opportunities to engage the congregation physically. In a sermon about the woman who was healed by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment, the preacher might ask each person to take another person’s hand and meditate for several moments on the power of touch. Or the preacher might ask everyone to turn and meditate for several moments on a Bible scene depicted in one of the sanctuary’s stained-glass windows (an exercise that also will engage the interest of visual learners).

Murray Frick proposes six styles of sermons that allow the preacher to engage different styles of learners in different ways.[2] For those who think that presenting different styles of sermons is new or improper or “dumbing down,” he directs the preacher to “the classic book on communication — the Bible . . . Jesus himself used a variety of learning experiences to teach people around him. He drew in the sand, pointed to a withered tree, held up a coin, welcomed children to his side, and washed his disciples’ feet.”[3] The Bible is full of all forms of communication: dramatic storytelling, dialogue, letters, object lessons, and emotionally powerful stories. To engage this generation of learners who learn in a variety of ways, each sermon must connect with the hearers, the watchers, and the touchers.

The Teaser

How can the preacher make the congregation on a Sunday morning look forward to hearing the sermon? Talk show hosts do it, TV announcers do it, and podcasters do it all the time. They have a technique for building anticipation and encouraging the listener to stay tuned through the commercial break and into the next episode. It’s called a teaser. Just before the commercial break, the announcer will give a short statement of something to look forward to in the next segment. But the teaser is not just an announcement; it has a twist to it, a question that will be answered in the next segment. It “hooks” the listener to want to stay tuned to the same radio station, not turn off the podcast, or change channels.

We can use this same technique on Sunday morning to entice the members in the congregation to want to listen a bit more closely to the sermon.

The way it works is that at the beginning of the service, before the opening hymn, the officiant stands facing the worshipers, greets them, and gives a short-note, teaser that gives the congregation a highlight of the sermon and a cue of what to listen for in the sermon.

Here’s an example.

Good morning, and welcome to the Church of the Epiphany. In our sermon today, we continue our sermon on “Tough Questions that People ask of Christians.” Today, Father Chris deals with the question of whether moral people will go to heaven. He will examine things we can be certain about and things that are a mystery. What are those things? Stay tuned.

Here’s another.

Good morning, and welcome to St. Luke’s. In our sermon today, we deal with the spiritual discipline of fasting and why it is good for our souls. To answer that question, we’ll be asking another question of whether you suffer from nomophobia. Once you learn what it is, you’ll find out why fasting is a cure for nomophobia. Stay tuned.

How do you come up with a teaser that will catch people’s attention? You need to summarize the sermon in one sentence. If you can’t distill your sermon to one sentence, your hearers won’t be able to do that, either. If you don’t have a one-sentence summary, chances are that you have not worked long enough on your sermon, and you will wander, and your sermon will be longer and will be less likely to catch and keep your hearers’ attention.

Here’s a teaser that will be discussed later in this essay. “What does Sir Paul McCartney understand about forgiveness that Frank Sinatra, Marvin Gaye, and Elvis do not? [slight pause] Stay tuned.”

Here’s another teaser.

Good morning, and welcome to St. John’s Episcopal Church. Today we celebrate All Saints Day. In our sermon today, we will look to that wonderful theologian Stevie Wonder to help us put this day in perspective. You may be asking, “What does Stevie Wonder have to do with All Saints?’ [slight pause] Stay tuned.” The preacher then will use his song “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours).

I introduced this teaser exercise in the church where I have been serving as the interim rector. I’ve had approximately 30 people tell me that they look forward to my “little introduction” every Sunday.

Clergy have differing opinions on when to make the announcements. Some prefer to give the announcements at the beginning or the end of the service so as not to “interrupt the flow” of worship. I prefer that announcements happen after the passing of the peace, because it already interrupts the flow, and I think the congregation appreciates having a break in the service.

If you prefer the announcements at the beginning or the end of the service, I recommend not making the announcements at the beginning. For most churches, announcements are a generally low-energy thing to do during the service. The beginning of the service is a high-energy time. Don’t have a low-energy element at a high-energy time. Having a short teaser can enhance that high-energy time for the congregation. Just remember to keep the teaser short and succinct.

The First 47 Seconds

Let’s return to the challenge of needing to catch the attention of the average lister within 47 seconds. If the sermon starts out weak, the preacher will have a hard time recapturing his hearers’ attention.

As is true of the teaser, the purpose of the sermon’s introduction is to convince the listener to hang around mentally, to want to hear what the preacher has to say. You may have prepared a powerful sermon, but if you’ve lost the attention of your parishioners in the first 47 seconds, you won’t have them present to hear the good things you have to say. Here are eight ways to capture their attention.

• Begin the sermon with energy. Don’t chit chat as an attempt to warm up the congregation. If you preach from a text or an outline, memorize both the introduction and the conclusion. You want to have eye contact with the congregation at those important times in the sermon.
• Don’t give a history of your sermon. A big mistake that younger preachers make — and sometimes older ones as well — is to stand at the pulpit and say, “You know, I really wrestled with these propers this week.” First of all, most churchgoers have no idea what “propers” are. (They are the readings appointed for that Sunday.) Second, people don’t really care about the process of writing your sermon; they came to hear the sermon.
• Begin the sermon with a compelling story that will grab your listeners’ attention. People will remember an interesting story long after they have forgotten the point you were trying to make without a story to illustrate.
• Begin with a two-part story. A two-part story is a variation of telling a compelling story. The first part is told at the beginning of the sermon. Just as a good joke needs to set up the hearer for the punch line, the first part of the story sets up the hearer to anticipate the outcome. The outcome is the good news from the sermon for the day. The structure is thus: (1) first half of the story, (2) exegetical commentary, (3) then the concluding outcome that illustrates the good news of God’s hand at work.
• When you reach the pulpit, take a breath before you begin. Let your presence as God’s agent fill the room. Appropriate silence can be powerful.
• Make a statement, a question, or an assertion that will capture people’s attention. This statement would reflect your one-sentence summary of your sermon.

Statement: “I suspect that few people here know what the letters ‘DTR’ stand for when used in social media. These letters can strike fear in the heart of a young man in a relationship. The letters stand for ‘Define the Relationship.’ They are used when the woman wants the man to define whether he is not committed to the relationship and whether this relationship is headed toward marriage.” Then, the preacher can talk about defining our relationship with Jesus Christ. The allusion is to John 21, when Jesus asks the disciple Peter, “Do you love me?”

Question: “What is so good about Good Friday?” The preacher can then proceed to a sermon on Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

Assertion: “We hear a lot of politicians, actors, other famous people apologizing for something they did wrong. But, often these apologies don’t sound like real apologies. Why is that? Sir Paul McCartney understands something about contrition that Frank Sinatra, Marvin Gaye, and Elvis do not. Do you remember Paul McCartney’s song ‘Yesterday’? Paul McCartney’s original version said, ‘I did something wrong, and now I long for yesterday.’ Frank Sinatra, Marvin Gaye, and Elvis all sang McCartney’s song, and all three changed the words to, ‘I must have done something wrong.’ McCartney told Stephen Colbert that all three should have owned up to what they did.” The preacher can then discuss what most modern apologies lack, namely ownership and contrition, and the Christian approach to real repentance and forgiveness.

• If you want to tell a joke as the introduction, make sure it illustrates or serves as a segue to the one-sentence summary of your sermon. The preacher is not to be a stand-up comedian, but humor can be used in service of the truth that you as the preacher are proclaiming.
• Don’t begin your sermons the same way every Sunday. Remember, the object of the introduction is to instill expectation among the congregation for what is to follow. Don’t be predictable.

Using Personal Illustrations

Preachers disagree on whether to use personal illustrations in a sermon. I believe that, for the preacher, personal life illustrations are a necessary and helpful part of a preacher’s toolbox. The purpose of the sermon is to engage the listener with God’s work in the world and in the everyday lives of people. For the preacher to tell personal stories of how the gospel truth that she is, in fact, proclaiming touches her everyday life gives greater credence to the gospel truth that she is proclaiming. Not to tell personal stories sends a message that the gospel is not really relevant to how people live and reduces the gospel to a series of propositions to be believed rather than a way to live.

Preaching From a Text, Outline, or No Text

There is no best approach to preaching. In fact, it is helpful for people to hear different voices and different styles of preaching. If you are your church’s sole preacher, consider trying different methods of preaching. In this section, we will look at three approaches to the supporting aids for preaching the sermon: (1) preaching from a text; (2) preaching from a written outline; and (3) preaching without either written text or written outline.

1. Preaching from a text. I suspect that most of us who are preachers began with preaching from a text. There are several benefits to preaching from a text. A text will keep the preacher from wandering off-topic. It can make for a more efficient use of words. Further, it allows the preacher to articulate theological and historical points very specifically. Having the text gives the preacher something to fall back on when memory fails.

Preaching from a text has several drawbacks. A text usually has a different cadence than preaching from notes or an outline. Often our reading what we wrote sounds more stilted than how we would say it if we didn’t have the text as a crutch. One of the problems of preaching from a text is that it usually comes across more like reading an essay. People know when they are being read to and when they are being communicated with. When the preacher preaches from a text, he can become text-bound, and the constant looking down at the text and then back up to the congregation can be very distracting. Also, when preaching with a text, the preacher is susceptible to getting lost and can result in the preacher saying things in the heat of the moment that he later will wish he hadn’t.

2. Preaching from a written outline. This can often be more effective than preaching from a written text. It allows the preacher to read several passages without being too distracting. If you are preaching from a written outline, be sure to print your outline on a piece of paper that is no wider than your church’s worship bulletin and place it on top of the bulletin as you preach. That you are preaching from an outline will be less obvious to the congregation.
3. Preaching without either written text or written outline. I believe this is most effective in communicating with the congregation. This method allows the preacher to look the congregation in the eye and not encumbered by reading an outline. This method is to preach without notes altogether. This does not mean the preacher is preaching extemporaneously. It does mean that it is necessary to have a method. Certainly, preaching without notes allows the preacher to generate more emotion and engage the congregation more directly.

Preaching without notes is not the same as extemporaneous preaching. There are, indeed, underlying notes, but those notes are in the preacher’s head. This approach takes more preparation, but the rewards are worth the effort.

Preaching without notes or text has several advantages.

First, preaching without notes frees the preacher’s hands. Researchers have shown that people who “talk with their hands” tend to be perceived as better communicators. As the hands are free to move, the speaker becomes more expressive.

Second, preaching without notes frees the preacher’s feet. Slight movement from side to side keeps the preacher from coming across as a “talking head.” Freedom to move around a bit allows the preacher to be more animated.

Third, preaching without notes frees the preacher’s eyes. Because the preacher’s eyes are not bound to a text, the preacher is free to look at the people that she is trying to communicate with. The next time you have a conversation with another person, notice how often you are engaging the person with whom you are conversing. A conversation without the two conversers ever having eye contact is more like two monologues than real dialogue. The preacher is trying to make parishioners engage in internal conversations with God that the preacher is setting up. For the preacher to make eye contact with listeners during her sermon communicates earnestness and relationship.

Here are a few things to consider that will help in your sermon presentation.

• Be willing to out different styles of preaching.
• Consider having a small group of people meet with you to provide feedback on your style of preaching and your content. Would you want to come hear yourself preach?
• Watch your sermons several times. Ask yourself if your hand gestures were helpful or hindering.
• Remove “uh” and “um” and “like” from your delivery. These are called “filler words.” We use them when we are rattled and uncertain in our delivery, and our listeners know it.
• Silence isn’t always a bad thing. If we talk too fast, people will have a hard time following us. Try listener to yourself in the pulpit. Are the acoustics in your worship space lively? Too lively? Rooms that are good for music are often not good for preaching. Your church may need to have a sound technician assess the sound effectiveness of your worship space. If you have a large worship space, you may need to slow the speed of your delivery,
• As you watch yourself preach, ask the question, “Where was the good news in this sermon?
• Do you detect the one-sentence summary in this sermon?
• Compare the introduction and conclusion. Does what you said in the introduction match what you said in the conclusion?

[1] Murray Frick, Reach the Back Row (Loveland, CO: Vital Ministry, 1999), 13-18.

[2] Ibid., 21ff.

[3] Ibid., 22.

Every person responsible for leading a vestry — whether rector, vicar, priest in charge, deacon in charge, or lay leader in charge of a congregation — ought to ask three questions that should give you a sense of urgency:

1. Who formed these vestry members? Chances are, someone besides you will have formed them. It may have been a church that was larger than yours whose organizational structure and financial resources were vastly different from yours. These new vestry members need to be formed to understand the current context for ministry.
2. What do they know about church and vestry leadership? Sometimes people bring knowledge from their business or nonprofit experience that simply don’t apply to this church. Some people think they know things like the diocesan canons, but they may misapprehend how those canons apply in your context. Sometimes they served on a vestry in another diocese, which had different canons. Do they know how to read a balance sheet, or do they know how many restricted funds the church has?
3. What am I going to do about it? You as the rector have the responsibility for forming and informing your vestry members, whether they are experienced or complete neophytes.

This essay will describe a programmatic approach to forming vestry members that will enable newly elected vestry members, as well as experienced vestry members, to serve thoughtfully, ably, and knowledgably.

First, we will discuss the differences between vestry orientation and vestry retreats, why each is important and what should be the desired results of each. Next, we will consider three shifts that need to occur in the thinking of new and not-so-new vestry members. Finally, we will look at some important things that church leaders ought to know about church leadership if they want to be effective.

Here we go.

Three programmatic components of formation for vestry members: orientation, retreats, and regular meetings.

Vestry Orientation. First, every new vestry member, whether experienced or novice, should be provided an orientation session before the vestry holds its first meeting. Having all vestry members attend ensures that everyone has the same information on expectations about how the vestry functions. Continuing members are able to share their knowledge about different aspects of how the vestry actually operates.

Here are the basic areas to be covered in this orientation session:

• What do diocesan and denominational church canons say about the vestry? Often vestry members never see those canons until there is a conflict in the congregation. People hear second- and third-hand what the canons purportedly say; often this information is simply not true.
• What are the offices of the vestry, who holds those offices, and what are their job descriptions? Senior warden, junior warden, clerk, treasurer, and chancellor are the most common offices, but your church may have others.
• Who is authorized to represent the church in business affairs? It is not the rector or vicar.
• Financial fiduciary responsibility of the vestry. This includes such topics as financial safeguards that the vestry has adopted, the necessity of conducting a financial audit, what insurance coverage the church has, and the rector’s ministry fund and policy regarding its use (it is a “ministry fund” and not a “discretionary fund” or the priest’s “slush fund”).
• How to read a balance sheet. Many new vestry members’ eyes glaze over when looking at a balance sheet.
• How to read a monthly treasurer’s report.
• What are the church’s designated fund accounts, stock accounts, trust funds, and who authorizes spending.
• Is the church incorporated, and does it have bylaws that govern business affairs?

Annual Vestry Retreat

Later in the year, vestry members should go on retreat together. It is tempting for the vestry to want to conduct business at this retreat. Resist this temptation. Spiritual formation of the vestry and forming a vision are top priorities. Also, much of the real work of this retreat is accomplished by the relationship-building that occurs between sessions and during meals.

Some attention might be paid to topics, such as What is the vision of our parish, and how do we fulfill it? — which might lead to some brainstorming.

Ideally, this should be led by an outside person. Smaller churches might arrange for their rectors to trade off leading each other’s retreat.

Vestry Meetings

Intentional vestry formation should take place at every– — or almost every– — vestry meeting. The vestry should see itself as a learning community or a community of disciples in which formation is just as important as conducting business. See my book Beyond Business as Usual for ideas on how to organize and conduct a productive vestry meeting.

Three shifts in thinking

Often people are elected to serve on a vestry without understanding that some of the ways they currently think need to change. Here are three.

1. Shift from a micro to a macro perspective.

This means thinking less about what one likes about the church to a concern for its health and well-being.

For example, giving in the church is steady for five years, but average Sunday attendance decreases by 20 percent in that same five-year period. The church has three Sunday services, and the decline in attendance is spread across the three services. Because the remaining congregants continue to increase each year, the congregation doesn’t recognize that the church is actually in decline.

2. Shift in developing a new skill set: perceiving the church as a more complex organization than the average church member sees.

The average church member is aware only of personal preferences, rather than seeing a collection of factors that affect the health and vitality of the church.

Imagine a church with a robust youth group of 15 teenagers. The vestry is proud of this youth group. Lurking out of sight are two pre-teenagers. The prescient vestry member will raise an alarm that, without some effective evangelism, in three to four years this successful youth ministry will be limping along.

3. Shift in consequences for your words and actions.

Most involved parishioners have pretty strong and deeply held opinions about how the church ought to run. Many of these parishioners have circles of relationships around them with people who share their views and help elect them to the vestry. These people with their opinions see themselves as representing the people — their “interest group” — who helped get them elected. In reality, these new vestry members now represent the church as a whole; they do not represent the choir, or young moms, or the youth group. They were elected to the vestry by the whole church and represent the concerns of the whole church.

Leadership thinking

A third component of forming effective vestry members is helping them think like leaders. A person who serves on a vestry needs to think about things in the church that most parishioners don’t need to think about. think differently. Here are seven areas of leadership thinking that every church leader should take to heart.

1. Leaders are not the people with the loudest voices.

I was asked to lead a vestry retreat once and asked the rector if he had any leaders on his vestry. “Leaders?” he replied. “None, but I have a bunch of loud voices.”

Many people want to get on the vestry because the want to “fix the church.” The church may need fixing, but many people with that mindset simply want people to hear their opinions, rather than being a servant leader.

2. Leaders show up.

Woody Allen said that “90 percent of life is showing up.” Vestry leadership represents the lowest level of commitment in the parish. People notice whether vestry members attend major parish events. When leaders don’t show up at major parish events, such as Shrove Tuesday Pancake Suppers, Good Friday services, and parish clean-up days, their absence sends a very clear message that this parish event is not very important. At each vestry meeting, the rector should review future events, discussing which events require all vestry members to attend.

3. Mission is where the action is.

The Great Commission should make it clear that the church should be about mission. People are more excited about mission than maintenance. Leaders do need to get the maintenance done, but that’s only the beginning of being an effective parish.

One of the worst stewardship campaigns I led was for the first church I served. I chose the theme of “Moving from Maintenance to Mission.”

What was so wrong with this theme? First, it was insulting to the hard work that many people were engaged in to keep this little parish afloat. Second, and most important for me to learn, these church leaders were afraid the bishop was going to close their church. To keep the doors of the church open — maintenance — was considered to be a success.

There are better ways to phrase this noble ideal. A church can focus on outreach even without money. The church’s most precious gift is its people. Often, churches may not give much money to missions and outreach, but below the surface that church will have parishioners who volunteer in many community service organizations. Have a series of interviews at Sunday services, highlighting the volunteer ministry that flows from your small church.

4. Leaders are aware of intangibles.

The church does not sell goods and services. We don’t sell widgets, baptisms, weddings, or funerals. If the church sells anything, it sells things that can’t be seen: peace, joy, love, hope, assurance. Here are ten intangibles that vestry members should have on their minds regularly.

Pay attention to the intuitive members of the vestry. Intuitive people often sense things that others don’t. Be careful, however. Intuitive people can be very right, but they can also be very wrong.

5. Leaders reflect and evaluate regularly.

Years ago, a fellow priest drew a contrast between small churches and large churches. He said small churches plan to try and large churches plan to succeed.

In other words, large churches build success into their planning. He said large churches plan for the follow-up to the event rather than just the event. They plan for what will happen next and regularly reflect on what went well and what needed improving.

Most church programs cannot be used out of the box. They need to be adapted to the local situation or the theological emphasis of a church. But don’t change things just because you can. Chances are that your change may not work. If you want to use a program, find a church in your denominational tribe and ask what went well and what didn’t and whether the church would use this program again.

6. The way a vestry functions changes with the size of the church.

If your church has only one priest on staff, the vestry usually functions as the unpaid staff of the parish. As the church grows, the vestry needs to relinquish some of the administrative control it exercised when the church was smaller.

Similarly, if you have vestry members who served on vestries at other churches, they need to avoid seeing your church through presuppositions they hold from their prior church experience.

7. Four essential components of leadership thinking

Peter Drucker, who has consulted with hundreds of nonprofits, gives four essential components of leadership thinking. This is extremely important for any vestry wanting to plan for the future.

Define the current reality.

Max DePree has said that the first task of leadership is to define reality. You need to ask yourself and others, What is our current reality? Your ability to articulate the reality of the current situation will affect not only the solutions you form, but people’s willingness to follow you as well. If you paint a picture of current reality that doesn’t make sense, they will follow you no further. Thus, it is important that you define current reality in a way that makes sense to your followers.

Try this exercise with your new vestry when you first meet. In fact, do this exercise every year at the new vestry’s first meeting.

larger buy, sell, or hold? Collect the cards, read aloud the different answers, and ask vestry members to discuss their choices.

Account for what is happening.

How did we get here? “The past is the key to our future,” said anthropologist Louis Leakey. It is important to know the background of an organization, ministry, or program. Knowing the seminal stories of the church and telling those stories will help people to understand how they got to a place, as well as their place in the future of the congregation. Placing members within the context of the salvation history of the church gives their individual role dignity, meaning, and significance.

Know where the organization is heading.

Look at the number of members, baptisms, average Sunday attendance, and giving for the previous seven years, omitting 2020 and 2021 for COVID. What will our church look like if this trend continues for 10 years?

Make plans — and hold people accountable.

Finally, make plans based on the first three components. Many people are very good at identifying the problem. Many people can make plans, but not all can execute those plans. I’ve seen numerous carefully developed strategic plans that ended up on the shelf, with the church doing business as it was before the strategic planning. The day will be won by the leaders who can hold themselves and those they lead accountable. The leader keeps people on task by holding them accountable. Finally, bless the people and celebrate their successes.

There are two aspects of accountability:

• The first is what we normally think about accountability: holding people’s feet to the fire. And there’s more to supervision than holding people’s feet to the fire. That is by continually telling people that what they do matters. That is where the kingdom of God comes in.
• The second is to affirm what people are doing. Notice accomplishments and successes. When we affirm people, we also are telling them that what they do matters. Max DePree said, “The first task of the leader is to define reality, and last is to say thank you … and often.”

The calling of a new rector is a discernment process for both the candidate and the search committee. I have participated in four rector searches as a candidate and overseen numerous searches as a canon to the ordinary. I have found that most of the emphasis seems to be on the search committee and its discernment of which priest God might be calling to serve a church as rector.

While it is true that the candidate does not really have a call to serve a given parish until that parish does, in fact, extend a call, that does not mean the candidate is a passive responder to the lead of the search committee/vestry. In most searches I have overseen, the priest responds to the questions of the search committee but seldom has any really searching questions about being a good fit.

Two complementary needs are at work in the relationship between a prospective rector and the search committee, as well as the vestry:

1. The search committee needs to know if the prospective rector’s vision, personal ministry goals, and leadership style is compatible with its sense of the parish.

A word to the wise about vision: when asked, “What is your vision for our parish?” the wise priest will respond, “I don’t have a vision for your parish. The parish vision is already written on the hearts of your parishioners. It is passed silently from generation to generation. My task is to listen to your stories and together discern and articulate what that vision is.”

2. And the priest needs to know whether parishioners will allow this prospective rector to lead them in a direction that they actually want to go. The priest needs to learn the lay of the land. What drives these parishioners? What are their hopes and dreams? What are their perceived needs?

The purpose of this essay is to provide the prospective rector with a good beginning to that listening. Here is an exercise for the prospective candidate to learn things about the parish.

Ask the search committee or vestry to set aside an hour for this exercise. Set up all the chairs in a circle. Here are the questions.

1. Go around the circle and ask: How long have you been coming to St. Paul’s? What attracted you to St. Paul’s? What keeps you here? The answer to this question will give the candidate a sense of what attracts people to this church and how the church might have changed over the years.
2. You say you want a priest who is collaborative. What do you mean by “collaborative”? Give me some examples. Also, give me some examples, without naming names, of times in the near past when the rector was not This is a sensitive question. The candidate should guide this conversation very gently. This question will probably raise issues of conflict in the congregation. When a search committee says things like “We want a collaborative leader,” “We want a more traditional priest,” or “We want a rector who won’t come in and change everything,” its members have in mind a specific conflict.
3. Tell me three things going well at St. Paul’s. Tell me three things that can be improved. As leaders in the congregation, these men and women will have the most acute understanding of the general health of the congregation, as well as the beginning of a to-do list for the new rector. The candidate should also consider asking what specific recommendations they suggest to improve or remedy those shortcomings.
4. What do people say about St. Paul’s at the local coffee shop? This question asks about the reach or influence of the church in the community. If the candidate has time before meeting with the vestry/search committee, consider going to a local coffee shop and grocery store and ask for directions to St. Paul’s.
5. Who are the parish heroes? Why are they remembered fondly? These questions give the candidate an understanding of what the church values.
6. What stories can you tell me about St. Paul’s at its best, or when you were most proud of your church? This question speaks to the vision of the parish and reveals when the church was living into its vision. Members may not be able to articulate their vision, or they may have a vision statement, but this question will reveal whether their vision statement accords with their self-understanding of God’s divine purpose for their church.
7. What have been the major arguments in the church in the past decade? Awareness of church conflict will give the prospective rector insight into the vision of the parish by revealing times when this parish did not live into the aspirations of its vision statement.

One final word to the priest about the search: you are discerning a call, not interviewing for a job. These questions are aimed at helping you discern whether the church’s vision of God’s purpose in calling this church into existence is compatible with the priest’s understanding of a call to live out the vision that God has given her as a leader in the church.

In this final part, I present a set of resources to help the interim rector in this interim time to motivate the church and its leaders to commit to faithfulness between the departure of the previous rector and the calling of the successor.

Resource 1: Sermon — How to Thrive in this In-Between Time

Introduction — Welcome to the St. Swithin’s Episcopal Church 6.1. What I mean by St. Swithin’s 6.1 is that St. Swithin’s has had six rectors, Mother Betsy being the sixth. Each of our rectors has stamped the church with unique gifts, interests, and foibles. As interim rector I am the point 1 of St. Swithin’s 6.1. I’m here, but generations to come will not pay much attention to me. It’s like asking, “What were the significant accomplishments of a particular vice president of the United States?” For example, who was the Vice President under Jimmy Carter? Who can tell us who was the Vice President under Jimmy Carter? [Walter Mondale]

So, St. Swithin’s 6.1 is an in-between time, in-between rectors. And that raises the question, what do we do during this in-between time, this St. Swithin’s 6.1 time?

Isaiah and Judah’s In-Between Time

That is the question that Isaiah was responding to in our Old Testament lesson today. Isaiah is writing to the kingdom of Judah who are in exile in Babylon. The 10 northern tribes of Israel have intermingled with their Assyrian conquerors such that they have essentially disappeared as an identifiable people group. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had conquered the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem as its capital in 587 B.C. The “brightest and the best” of these southern tribes have been exiled to Babylon, leaving the oldsters, women, and enfeebled people in Jerusalem. Isaiah is telling these exiles that the exile to Babylon will not be permanent and thus, how to thrive in this in-between time.

Listen to what Isaiah says:

Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.

Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Isa. 58: 4-7, NRSV)

Isaiah is reminding them of why God sent them into exile in the first place. They had ignored the poor and the homeless. Their fasts were perfunctory, arguing over the proper way to fast while ignoring the true fast of God’s righteous care for the poor and needy.

He is telling them, go back to the basics, or as Micah would say, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” He’s telling them that is not rocket science. Isaiah is saying we don’t need high-falutin’ temple sacrifices and mega fasts. Rather, live the heart of God in your everyday life. Nothing new. Just the basics.

Does that sound familiar to anyone?

When St. Swithin’s Returned to Itself

How many of you were here before Fr. Bill Cavanaugh was called as rector?

You will recall that at the time, St. Swithin’s was going through a rough period, the congregation was dispirited, the church had been in attendance decline and financial decline for several years, they were in conflict with their rector, and had asked the bishop to intervene.

I want to tell you a story that illustrates the challenges the church was facing. An awful thing was happening at the church: neighborhood children were playing in the church’s playground without permission! Now, this was not the wonderful playground we have today; it was a pretty tired playground, and some parishioners were concerned about the church’s risk of being sued if a child were to get hurt.

Emotions were flying high. The church was stuck. The bishop suggested they work with a consultant, James Hanover, a Presbyterian pastor who would help them work through their major issues.

James Hanover helped them to get unstuck and heal from the conflict they had been living through. They held meetings where they listened to each other, Bible studies. He got them to focus outwardly rather than inwardly as a church, asking why God had put them here rather than navel-gazing in a “woe is me” way. He asked them, “If St. Swithin’s were to disappear, would anyone miss it?” He then challenged them to build a church that people would miss if it were to disappear.

They returned to the basics. Together they determined that God had called St. Swithin’s to be servants of God, the parish, and the world.

So simple. Nothing earth-shattering, but earth-shattering in its truth for St. Swithin’s. It was like a light switch had been turned on.

But there’s more to this story. At the same time, in 2002, as the church was winding up its work with James Hanover, the church went on its first mission trip to Honduras.

Timing is important. Then, in 2004, two years later, St. Swithin’s found and called a rector whose gospel and servant values aligned with the church’s. In 2002, the people of St. Swithin’s embraced the peculiar charism of this church: Servants of our God, our Parish, and our Community. And then they, you, were able to call the rector who also embraced those charisms.

So, how do we apply these principles from our reading in Isaiah, as well as from the life of our church?

First, we must embrace God’s call on our life again as a parish. We, in fact, did that last week. We know who we are: servants of our God, our Parish, and our Community. Repeat that after me.

Second, we obey. We live into our identity. We keep caring for the poor and needy around us. We continue to go on our mission trips, both local and foreign. To care for each other. We continue to study the Bible in groups and in one-to-one pairings, in several men’s Bible studies and women’s Bible studies, and a whole array of classes on Sunday mornings. These basic spiritual disciplines will sustain us during this in-between time.

And third is to pray — regularly. Pray for unity in our church, and unity among our vestry and search committee. These two basic practices of hearing and obeying will allow us to hear the Lord together in the call of our next rector. As St. Paul says, “He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it until the day of redemption.”

Practicing these basic spiritual disciplines of hearing, obeying, and praying will give us peace and confidence that God will bring us the right choice for our next rector. As the blessing we receive Sunday after Sunday gives us: The peace of God, which passes all understanding, [will] keep our hearts and our minds in the knowledge and love of God.

And when we do these things, what is God’s promise? Isaiah tells us,

then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.

That is God’s word to us this day.

Exercises That Will to Help the Vestry, Search Committee, and Staff “Define Reality”

1. What Do These Numbers Mean?

Create a graph of the following numbers for the last ten 10 years of your church: membership, average Sunday attendance, and giving. Is the church in decline or growth? Does the trend of the church match your feelings about the church? If not, why not? If there is a significant decline or growth, how do you account for that sudden shift?

2. Is Your Church Internally Focused or Externally Focused?

This is a variation on the above previous exercise and helps to show to what extent your church is internally focused or externally focused. A priest friend once told me, “If your Altar Guild is the strongest ministry in your church, your church is probably in trouble.”

List all the ministries of the church. In a second column list the number of people in the church reached by each ministry. In a third column list the number of people reached by those ministries who are not members of the church.

Total the numbers in the second and third columns. You will find that if the number reached outside the church by your church’s ministries is fifteen 15 percent or more, then your church is likely growing. These ministries don’t have to be evangelistic in nature; they can be social outreach ministries as well.

3. Is St. Swithin’s a Five-Star Church?

If St. Swithin’s were a restaurant, how many stars would we be rated in the following service areas?

★= Poor.                   ★★★★★= Excellent

How many stars would your church rate in the following categories?

Appearance              Greeting

Parking                      Music

Ushers                        Sermon

Greeters                     Nursery

4. Buy, Sell, or Hold?

This is a great exercise to do with the vestry, the staff, and with the search committee. “If you held shares in St. Swithin’s Church, would you buy, sell, or hold your shares?”

This exercise reveals the confidence that this group of leaders has in the direction or future of the church, and can open up very fruitful discussions about the current reality.