Interview Story - Overcame Challenge

When I was Assistant to the Bishop for Education and Spiritual Formation in the Diocese of Indianapolis, I saw how smaller, less-resourced churches in the diocese struggled when facing clergy transitions or required outside consultants for strategic planning, conflict resolution, etc. Simply put, these congregations fell further and further behind in mission and growth because they did not have the same access to trained facilitators for congregational development when they needed help the most.

I saw an opportunity to use my ability to create new programs and to work collaboratively to build a support system for these congregations. I researched what other dioceses were doing to address such challenges. Unfortunately, I didn’t find much help. So I knew I would have to be especially creative. After accounting for our own considerable resources as a diocese with an endowment (and with 3 endowed parishes), I sat down with my colleague, the Canon for Congregational Development.

We recognized that we could create skilled facilitators by recruiting and teaching members of these congregations specific skills. These lay consultants could in turn teach their church leadership.

At the next cabinet meeting, we explained the problem to the bishop and presented a 3 step strategy:

• To use the Diocesan School for Ministry, presently undergoing revision and expansion, to provide administrative and financial structure for a training program for lay consultants
• To negotiate with the Trustee Leadership Development Program, a Lilly Endowment-funded program whose leaders were active Episcopalians and who had expertise in educational training and facilitation, to develop a program proprietary to the Diocese;
• To communicate the benefits of this plan to the diocesan household and to propose a budget increase to cover the costs of the program the bishop agreed to support this plan. With the help of our staff, in the next 12 months, we created this structure and set aside the required funds.

As a result, the following year we had a cohort of 15 persons who had been nominated by their rectors/priests-in-charge to be trained and deployed for specific ministries of consultation. And in 18 months we had successfully deployed many of these persons to assist congregations with specific needs in congregational growth and development. This program has continued to be supported by our diocese, though I am proud to say that our cohorts have gotten smaller. As these trained lay consultants shared their expertise, local support systems grew stronger.