Our Episopal Default Future is a Racket We Should Divest

The reality is that we, like all denominational churches, face our default future. This reality isn't unique to us.

A friend recently gave me a copy of Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan's book THE THREE LAWS OF PERFORMANCE. In it Zaffron and Logan argue that all humans typically face and receive the futures that they believe will pass. They argue that this reality illusion has more power of humans than actual facts or reasons.

It is like this, how a situation occurs to you goes hand in hand with your actions. This is amplified by the fact that what we see is all there is, and the world seemingly revolves around us as individuals. David Foster Wallace in his Kenyan College Graduation speech offered this understanding of our self-centeredness. He believed that we are deluded by the lens by which we experience the world – this is part of our problem and it hides the most obvious realities. He wrote, "A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded… [because] everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence... Think about it: There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real” that it is difficult to hear the other voices. Wallace says, "As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head. In fact some of you are carrying on that conversation right now.”

Daniel Kahneman in his book THINKING FAST AND SLOW calls it "observation bias."

What these authors, economists, and business men are offering is the essential truth that we see the world as it occurs to us and therefore make actions that suit our observations.  We make our future - one way or the other.

The question that Bob Johansen, of Institute for the Future, is asking is what insights are you using to make your decisions.

So lets go back and think a bit about our Episcopal Church (or any denomination thinking about how to structure itself, judicatory, or congregation for that matter). This summer our Episcopal Church will meet in convention and ponder how to structure itself for mission.  It will ask the same questions it has been asking for two decades, and they are similar to all denominational churches in our time. In particular our church structure has spent enormous amounts of time and energy pondering what the future looks like - TREC. Now that TREC has returned with their version what structure could be the population of general convention is thinking - "no". There are other groups offering similar ideas as TREC. There are groups trying to amplify the work of all these people to convince the general-convention-going deputies that they need to vote positively to restructure the church.

But the deputies and bishops have not spent a lot of time on this. They have not spent three years reading and studying things, listening to consultants, dreaming about mission, and then attempting to build consensus in a wildly diverse group of people around common future scenarios of a mission church. This isn't to place a value on the lack of this work, but it is to point out that the deputy or bishop will vote based upon how the church occurs to them. And here is the rub.

The future is as it occurs and is already written by the deputies and bishops - and it isn't the future TREC or any other group is offering. The reason is that it is the default future. The deputies and bishops will vote, as all others have voted, and as of right now the vast majority of efforts towards restructuring will fail. The restructuring offers  a means to an end and that end is not how the deputies see the church; it isn't how it occurs to them. That is just the way it is.

70% of all change efforts fall short because those who are actually in charge of the change don't change but vote or act as the church has always occurred to them. 70% fall short despite our good intentions, sophisticated systems, we have put a great group of people in the room, we have a solid management plan, and good leaders who came up with TREC report (I am biased of course having been a member of the committee).

The reason is that what occurs to the vast numbers of deputies and bishops may be one of the following: a) all structure proposals fail b) I don't think our system is broken c) to change will remove power from me d) I like how things work e) our predecessors chose this system for a reason. Regardless of context, potential, crisis, problems, expressed concern about the continued loss of membership and money, or any other reason these 5 different ways in which the church occurs to the people will rule the day. The 5 different ways the church occurs to the deputies and bishops is not only a voting block to ensure no movement but it is an intimately strong web of occurrences that are not changed by reasonable argument, future forecast, power points, and graphs.

The traditional approach, Zaffron and Logan argue, is for us to make our case. Show our research. Offer a view of what is really happening. Look at the numbers. "See here it is," we might say, "it is clear." Current models for change management hold that people act based upon mental assets of skills, emotions, beliefs, values, attitudes, and knowledge. And the traditional approach is to use incentives, skill training, and motivation to manage the change. Zaffron and Logan point out that this is why the effort fails. None of this deals with how the actual church and future church occurs to the people who actually will be making a vote.

No matter how much money, resources, time we spend throwing at this problem we will fail because we have forgotten (as Simon Sinek points out) The Why.

The reality is that the unanimous vote in both houses to restructure was created by casting a vision of a future church that was involved in mission at all levels of the organization. People believed - even for a moment - that the possible was in fact, well, possible.

Over the last two decades the change efforts have failed at General Convention (not because they were bad ideas) because we never changed how the church occurred to those voting. Consequently, each effort that has failed has reinforced and strengthened the resistance to change. We are so focused on the what and the what has grown stronger and stronger and more resistant to change. Not only that - we benefit from keeping it this way.

We as a church, and General Convention (or any judicatory), have a racket. The first part of our racket is this: we have a complaint about how things work. Everyone is complaining. We heard it clearly at TREC, that everyone has problems with how things work - even if they denied publicly that this was true, we heard it privately over and over again. The second part of the racket is this: we write about it, talk about, speach-ify about it, call for change, we act hopeless and bewildered at how no one will change. The third element Zaffron and Logan offer is harder to see. We all see the above two behaviors of our Episcopal racket. The next behavior is the payoff. The payoff for our particular racket is that we get to be right, the depersonalized system is wrong, avoids the reality that we are part of the system, and we maintain control of our platform or place on the convention floor. The fourth behavior to our racket is the cost. The cost is that we remain hopeless to change anything, we continue to spend money and time with very little to show for it, we disenfranchise people across the church, and we harm the mission of Christ.

We have a default future and it is a racket that costs the mission of the church dearly and hurts the community and mission of Christ. We need to divest from this racket and this way that the church occurs to us. It is not what God intends.

Here is where that old maxim about the sea comes in, attributed to Antoine de Saint Exupery, "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

Jesus offered us a vision of nothing less than the reign of God. Jesus offered us plenteous redemption. Jesus offered us healing and forgiveness. Jesus offered us a share in his harvest ministry.  Jesus invited us to come along and to meet an intimate transformative God.  This vision held up against the way we do things today brings about change.

The solution to bringing about change will depend on Jesus' vision of the church and the following behaviors of its adherents. 

• We need to focus on the hopeful future potential of our church and our church's mission.
• We need to speak about the future (not the current state of affairs, not the problems, not the racket - for that we need to go to confession and seek amendment of life).
• We must paint a compelling and vibrant future together, speaking and listening one another into a conversion that seeks to be the community that Jesus inspired.

The challenge as we enter this season of preparation and debate will must be a season of inspiration and imagination. So I invite you to lift up your eyes. Take a look towards the horizon. What does a vibrant, beautiful, living, healthy and powerful church look like as it undertakes mission through evangelism and the service of neighbor? What does the future church look like as it sails into the contextual sea that surrounds you? Leave behind the vision of the church that occurs to you, and take up the future church that you are willing to work towards?

It will be those who can cast a vision of this future church who will win the day regarding the future shape of our organization. I believe it will be the bishop who can inspire us to imagine this future church who will be the next Presiding Bishop. We should demand inspiration and vision from our leaders. We should hope together to discover the open sea that is before us. 

I think that Jesus' vision of community is worth working together to bring to light. I think that vision, the one you have in your head right now, that church is worth the labor of change.

My Last Full Day in Cape Coast, Ghana, October 17

This morning began early. We had to all be ready for the bus to take us to the service at the Cathedral.  Yesterday I had been asked to preach at the service commemorating The Rev. Thomas Thompson and The Rev. Philip Quaque.  I thought it would be a little service; then a few of us would take the wreath over to his tomb and that would be that.

So here is the story in brief...The Rev. Thomas Thompson was an SPG missionary and he brought the Anglican Church to the Gold Coast during the slave trade era.  He essentially was a colonialist (SPG even had been given several plantations that profited from the slave trade).  It is REALLY a wild story.  So Thompson decides to take three eleven year old boys back with him to England to learn to be priests and then they could be sent back to spread Anglicanism throughout the area of Cape Coast.  Two of the boys died in transit the third was Philip.  He grew up in England, lost his tribal tongue and traditions and then married a white woman.  He completed his studies in England and he returned to the Gold Coast to start the church.  He was given a small room at the "slave" castle and a room from which to do services.  Just below the room were three dungeons housing over 1,000 men for shipping to the Caribbean and United States.  Philip had an awful time and really couldn't get much started; no one today is surprised. Beyond the slave trade issues, Philip's ministry was hampered by bad luck and a lack of funding.  Even his wife died in childbirth.  Philip did not give up though and did begin a small school.  Thompson (who had theologically defended slavery) and Quaque (who tried to do mission to a native population from a slave castle) are complicated figures in the least.

What was interesting is that as I would speak to our new friends here and I would say these two men are very complex figures in the history of this country and our own!  I would ask, how do you deal with the problems that flow through their narrative?  The answer was always the same.  Without Thompson there is no Quaque to bring the Anglican Church here, without them we might not be here.

God has a way of redeeming the world.  God has a way of redeeming us.

Philip remains highly regarded for being the first African ordained in the Anglican Church and the first African missionary.

The service was anything but small! There were a lot of people there. There were tons of school children for this is a holiday after they go to church.

We had a beautiful service.  I will upload my sermon; with translation.  And, some videos. Everyone was taking videos of the service...including the seminarians, so I joined in during the offertory.

When the service was over the Bishop led us out of the Cathedral and across the street to the slave castle where we laid a wreath at the tomb of Philip Quaque who is buried in the middle of the Cape Coast Castle compound.  It was truly powerful.  As I laid the wreath on the tomb I was so mindful of our own history in Texas with the slave trade and our part in participating in an abomination that is difficult to fathom and describe.

When the service was over our group received a free tour.  We started out with a video that described the world of Ghana prior to the arrival of the traders.  Then how the trading industry grew from gold and spices to people until it was a massive industry; the British, Portuguese, and Dutch even giving weapons to the people so they could be at war with one another and then turn their captives over to the slavers.  We then took a tour of the museum which was well done.

I wasn't allowed to take pictures. I will say that it was powerful and moving and sad.  One part of the museum was where we walked into a room that was built like a ship and learned about how the africans were crammed into the ship.

Then we walked out of that room onto an auction block - very moving indeed.  One of our group ask how many died and why did they keep doing it with so many deaths?  The answer was that, "Over half of the men and women taken into slavery every made it to an owner.  But the price was so high for the individual human beings that it remained a profitable export."

The castle was originally built by the Portuguese who lost it in war to the Swedes. The Swedes lost it to Norway and Norway in turn lost it to the British.  The British took over in 1664.  For over two hundred years they would house 200 men and women per cell rotating them out.  

Estimates of the number of slaves transported from Africa vary from 12 million to 25 million – one estimate says that in 1700, at the height of the slave trade, more than 650,000 slaves were exported in that year alone – but whatever the numbers, they're huge, and most of these slaves came from West Africa and the Congo-Angola region. The trade started in the 1500s and over the next 300 years they were shipped out in what has become known as the African Diaspora, with one-third ending up in Brazil, one-third in the Caribbean islands and the rest throughout the Americas. The slave trade did not completely end until the 1870s, though Britain abolished its slave trade in 1807, signaling an end to Cape Coast's role in transporting slaves.

There were over 40 such forts across the coast of Africa, 30 were in Ghana. Two are within a 30 minute drive from one another.

After we were finished began to make our way through the castle.  We first went past the trading room where the slavers would bargain for the shipment, then we made our way through to the court and then the living quarters.  

We then descended into the slave cells.  

Only after excavating underneath the human waste in 1974 did they realize there was a brick floor beneath.

The men were taken through a tunnel to the front of the fort.  The tunnel began in this room which is the sorting room.  Only the strongest were sold; the others were left to die in the cells. The guide reminded us that the slave trade was not just about slavery but the control of the population still at home through the means of torture and terror.  

We then went to the women's cells.  The cells were even worse for the women.  A greater percentage of the women died because of the illness and disease.

We then made our way out of The Door of No Return.  Here our pilgrimage walk ended.

We paused together and prayed asking God's forgiveness upon us and all humanity.  We were surrounded by fishermen.  We were quiet for a long time.

The guide told us to look up and there on top of the door on the outside was written "the door of return."  

We were told that in 1974 people began to make their way back to Ghana from the islands and the US and South America...everywhere people settled after slavery, and, they would make their return voyage home...so it is here that I begin our journey home as well.  

As I walked out I saw one of our members sitting and visiting and learning how to mend nets.  

I will post the sermon and some videos on my Facebook page soon.

Our Third Day in Cape Coast, Ghana, October 17

We were up early for a long day of visiting people today.  We were greeted with a bit of a rainy morning.

We began our day at an eye clinic which sees over 16,000 people a year and helps with every kind of thing you can imagine. They do basic eye care as well as surgery.  The staff is doing amazing work and the place was well cared for and in the process of expanding. They desperately need new equipment and would like to raise the money to get the equipment overseas.  They will need approximately 30,000 U.S. dollars to get everything in and set up.  This will enable them to do cataract surgery the way we do it in the U.S.  They have the trained doctors, just need to get the equipment here.  This is their cost for an up to date clinic.  They are continuing to add on. Amazing work...truly amazing.

We then made our way to St. Nicholas Seminary.  It was founded in 1975.  It is the center of training for West Africa. It is an Independent Anglican Seminary and its dean (Victor) has been elected the new bishop of the Cape Coast. He has served on the Anglican Doctrinal Commission, The Covenant Design Group, and now the Indaba group.  

Today Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Guinea, Sudan, and Western Sierra Leone all have students there.  It has raised up and trained 4 missionary bishops.  Currently there are 40 students. We were able to visit with them and they were wonderful!  They train men and women; though they don't have the dormitory space they would like. So, they are building the dormitory as we speak as well as a new chapel.

They were wonderful hosts and sang with us and we shared our experiences as leaders and as seminarians. I love spending time with seminarians anyway...so this was a delight.

We closed the day with a trip to one of the finest and best run boys school in Ghana...its name...you guessed it St. Nicholas.  It was begun as a school to raise up African priests.  Its first buildings were built in the afternoons by the students after class and can still be seen today.  They have all faiths at the school but have Anglican worship for all the main school events and on Sundays (with other worship provided).  Here are pictures of the school bell tower that rings the kids to awake and to class, the hand bell at the head's desk in the cafeteria, and a sign from the cafeteria that reads, "manners make the man."

We were able to go to the hotel for a little while. My friend the horse greeted me. We did a quick turnaround and were at a nice reception at the bishop's home to visit with the diocesan leaders.

Our First Day in Ghana: Monday, October 14

We slept well and were up and at breakfast which was a lovely omlette and fresh fruit with coffee.  We immediately packed up and got on the bus and headed to the Cathedral to greet the bishop, see the cathedral and to visit the tomb of the first African president of Ghana.

We arrived and took a tour of the cathedral.  The Anglican Church of West Africa was founded here in Ghana; we would find out that is was spicifically founded in the Gold Coast area.  

The great missionary work was undertaken by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG).  They sent out bishops who then raised up leaders and missionaries to further spread the Gospel throughout the mission districts. 

Trinity Church once collected rain water into a great cistern in order to provide clean water for the people.  Here is a picture of the rain gutter.

It also started schools.  While the cistern doesn't work anymore the diocese in Accra is growing and seeking to become self sufficient.  Below is a picture of one of the school houses and a picture of a few boys.  They were in trouble and so had been sent out to the carpark to get their hair cut.  The young man cutting the hair was doing a fine job and the boys were willing to visit and drag out the plan (skipping as much school as possible).

The next stop was the Presidential Tomb of Kwame Nkrumah.  While he was exiled after a coup (sponsored by the U.S.) he had been a builder of Ghana's future. He had built a great deal of infrastructure including a very important dam project. He was part of the Independence from the colonial power of Britain and proclaimed Ghanian Independence on the polo field - which is now the presidential tomb and museum complex.

We then visited with the Bishop Torto of Accra.  He is called Bishop Daniel (there are two bishop Daniels here in Ghana).  We greeted the bishop and talked about the mission of the communion and the mission of the Compass Rose Society.  Bishop Daniel has been a bishop for one year.  He was delightful.  We talked about his focus on liturgy (bringing in drums), mission and growth, and youth as his priorities.  The Diocese is engaging in a number of projects to increase the Independence of the diocese.  He said that the diocese was focused on empowerment of leaders, spirituality, financial stability, ecology and health.  He was presented with a Jerusalem made tile of the Compass Rose.  

We then went and had a traditional meal in Ghana outside under this stunning tree.  I had fish, pepper sauce, and banku (a dough you eat with your hands combining the peppers and fish together).  Kofi, our leader and a priest, seminary professor, and rector said, "You are a brave man."  It was good to be sure...though a little messy.

We then headed off to the Cape Coast.  Along the way there were many street vendors selling plantain chips, cd's, sweet rolls, nuts, clothing items, and souvenirs...all walking up and down the street.

It was a four hour bus drive to our hotel and we got in very late.  We arrived late and Bishop Daniel (of Cape Coast) was there to great us!  We ate a quick bite to eat after checking in and went to bed in order to get some rest.