A Draft TEC

Grand Strategy
by
Ted Mollegen

Senior Deputy
L-3, CT for GC2015
Nominee for Executive Council




1
August 7, 2014
Rev. 4

Introduction
The Episcopal Church (TEC) needs an effective Grand Strategy because it has been
in numerical decline since 1965. This document outlines a practical way to reverse
that decline.
Although this document is in slide format, it is expected to read on a laptop or
desktop computer monitor, or on paper, rather than by being projected on a big
screen before an audience.

This document contains the opinions of the author, speaking only for himself.

This document contains many ideas that may be useful to the reader, without the
readers necessarily buying in to the whole draft grand strategy. The reader is
advised to make notes of ideas that may be immediately useful in the readers own
immediate context (diocese or congregation).

Please help refine this document by sending your comments and suggestions to the
author. See the last page for details.
2
Outline
What is a Grand Strategy?
A Draft TEC Grand Strategy for Today
TECs Status Today
TECs Context Today
TECs Present Trends
Primers on Church Planting and on Re-
Starts
Appendix: How to build a Grand Strategy
Links/Bibliography
3
What is a Grand Strategy?
A strategy is a scheme for using cause-and-effect relationships to
obtain a desired outcome.
A Grand Strategy is an overall approach for guiding/controlling
an organizations future. It guides decision-making at lower
levels. It does not itself consist of detailed plans.
An example: the US Civil War. The Norths desired outcome
included: (a) preservation of the Union and (b) to a lesser extent,
the ending of slavery. The Norths Grand Strategy was to encircle
the South so as to cut-off foreign assistance that might counter the
Norths much greater industrial might, and then to divide the
South into pieces. The North blockaded the Souths Atlantic and
Gulf ports, cutting off almost all of the Souths foreign trade.
Then they fought their way down the Ohio-Mississippi river
system to the Gulf, cutting off any assistance to the South from
the West (especially Texas, a Confederate state). Then Gen.
Sherman swept east from the Mississippi Delta toward Atlanta
and Gen. Grant drove south through Virginia and East Tennessee
toward Atlanta.
4
Characteristics of a Good Grand Strategy
A good Grand Strategy can be expressed in very
few words.
A good Grand Strategy is based not only on the
present, but also on the foreseeable future. (A
quarterback doesnt throw the ball to where the
receiver is now, but to where the receiver will be
when the ball comes down.)
A sign of good leadership is that the plan is
appropriately adjusted as the situation develops.
5
TEC Strategic Objectives and
Draft Grand Strategy - Page 1 of 5
.
6
Turn around TECs long-term persistent numerical decline.
This is absolutely critical. Use:
church planting,
generational targeting, particularly:
campus ministries, and
singles under age 35 (who may be parents of families with children).
effectiveness improvement at diocesan and congregational levels (See slide
9 below)
Use outside money for church planting, for widespread campus
ministries, and for congregational turn-arounds;
Get outside money via the TEC Development Office and
comparable diocesan and congregational development efforts.
Church growth and church redevelopment should be a high
priority for the TEC Development Office.


TEC Strategic Objectives and
Draft Grand Strategy - Page 2 of 5
7
Improve diocesan effectiveness in leading mission
- See The Fly in the Ointment: Why Denominations Arent Helping Their
Congregations And How They Can by J. Russell Crabtree (2008). The
author is a Presbyterian minister with congregational experience who now
has a management consulting firm. His clients include PCUSA and TEC
entities. This book is now used at TECs College for Bishops and will also
be helpful to lay leaders at both the diocesan and congregational levels.
Improve congregational effectiveness in carrying out mission
- See Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is
Transforming the Faith, by Diana Butler Bass (2006). Contains lots of
good examples for improving whats going on in congregations. (See slide
22.)
- See Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a
New Spiritual Awakening, also by Dr. Bass (February 2012). (See slide
27.)
TEC Strategic Objectives and
Draft Grand Strategy Page 3 of 5
8
Find out more about what all generations today, especially the
under-35s, want and need, and experiment with ways of
addressing same. This probably involves the use of service music
which does not involve a pipe organ and does involve drums, an
electronic keyboard, and stringed instruments.
Attract, engage, and incorporate under-35s, especially via well-
funded campus ministry, and by congregational attitude
change.
Campus ministry is a good source of future clergy and can
also experientially help counter the intellectual forces of
atheism that frequent college campuses.
TEC congregations are often-to-usually found to be
unfriendly by single under-35s, who constitute the majority of
under-35s.
TEC Strategic Objectives and
Draft Grand Strategy Page 4 of 5
.
9
Connect at all levels to steady outside sources of money
Churchwide level gift solicitation (TEC Development Office)
Diocesan gift solicitation (diocesan development staff)
Congregational-level income producing activities, e.g.
Nursery and/or preschools
kickstarter.com and similar
Teach tithing:
Theologically
By successive annual percentage steps
On websites at all levels of TEC, add donation links to the descriptions of
dedicated projects and programs.
Continue/grow TECs support for social service and social justice
programs at all organizational levels, but increase evangelism and
church growth efforts to equal the social efforts.

TEC Strategic Objectives and
Draft Grand Strategy - Page 5 of 5
10
Address regional changes in the need for church
buildings. Some regions need more church buildings
and some need fewer. Both needs must be attended to.
When creating new buildings, dont build future empty-
during-the-week structures keep the infrastructure
footprint light. Create flexible space, and/or use
someone elses flexible space

A Call to Our Churchs Leaders
at All Levels
11
Mentally try on this draft Grand Strategy to see if you
can discern your own role in carrying out the strategy.
I believe that most of you will be able to do this.
Whether you yourself can or not, please discuss with
your colleagues what your role might be.
Consider what obstacles you will encounter and how to
deal with them:
-- Overwhelm some obstacles
-- Go around others
Pray for Gods guidance in this venture.

Supporting Ideas and Data
12
The subsequent pages provide support for the ideas in the Draft
TEC Grand Strategy
TECs Present Context

In the sunbelt, evangelicalism
In the North, secularism, with a touch of hedonism
In the North, the word tithe is almost never heard, even in
churches
throughout the US, materialistic hedonism
economic stress throughout society (except for the top 1%)
the younger a person is, the more likely they are to identify
with spirituality but not with organized religion.
religion itself is increasingly under attack in universities,
colleges, and the public media.
TEC is accused by splinter-Anglicans of having deserted
biblical teachings, when it is actually they who have done so.
13
Another Look at TECs Present Condition

TECs 2012 condition is described in the 2012 Blue Book reports of (a) the State of
the Church Committee and of (b) the Standing Commission on Mission &
Evangelism, although both missed some of the points below:
- There is continuing long-term shrinkage, ignored except for necessary cost-cutting.
- While the historical source of new Episcopalians has been that they were born to
existing Episcopalians, this is no longer true. Worse still, the average age of TEC
members is now well past the child-bearing years.
- There is a serious dearth in TEC of under-35 adults (a majority of whom are single),
indicating that there will be continuing membership declines as older generations die
off.
- Congregations are usually focused on attracting young families, but are usually
focused only on traditional-model nuclear families.
- Congregations virtually ignore: single under-35s (many of whom may be unmarried
parents), Hispanics (the fastest-growing US population segment), and African-
Americans.
- The figure on 2012 Blue Book page 50 indicates that about 2/3 of our
congregations were started before the Great Depression. For most, this
indicates the age of the present building. A high percentage of these need
major renovations (if such havent been done since about 1965 or so).
- In some congregations there are major gaps (more than five to one ratio) between
how many people the building is designed to seat and how few people come on
Sunday. This mismatch represents very poor stewardship at the diocesan level.

14
TEC Growth/Decline per TECs
Director of Congregational Research
Page 1 of 2
(emphasis added)

The [last] ten years of change in ASA [Average Sunday Attendance] is disturbing, I agree.
However, I am not sure that projections based primarily on the last 9 years would be all that
helpful. After some growth in the previous ten years, ASA had begun to show modest decline as
early as 2002. Starting in 2003 and for the next 5 years or so the pattern got much worse (and
stayed that way) as the effects of General Convention 2003 and conflict within congregations and
dioceses worked themselves out. Many churches lost a substantial number of members due to the
controversy, quite a few congregations split and a number of congregations were allowed to take
their property and participants out of the Episcopal Church (including our largest congregation as
measured by ASAChrist Church, Plano). We also had some changes in the larger culture that
negatively affected all mainline denominations and the impact of an aging constituency and fewer
younger members joining. Following the large losses in 2003-2007, the pattern would not have
looked so bad in 2008, 2009 and 2010 if we had not had to deal with San Joaquin, Pittsburgh and
Fort Worth (Quincy is minor) in successive years. The disaffected congregations were zeroed out
in those years in terms of the Parochial Report, even though they are not considered closed. So
what about 2011? Returns from over 82% of congregations show that there will be a slight
increase. This is due in large part to the Christmas Effect of counting Christmas Eve services
along with attendance on Christmas day (a Sunday). But even without the Christmas Effect, the
declines in 2011 would have been much less than previous years.












15
TEC Growth/Decline per TECs
Director of Congregational Research
Page 2 of 2
(emphasis added)
Yes, declines have been very bad, and are likely to continue to be serious, but not necessarily as
bad as in recent years. That being said, I do not think a reasonable projection in ASA to 2020 and
beyond can be made for another two years. 2011 will look abnormally good, 2012 will look
abnormally bad (no Christmas effect resulting in two years of decline combined in one year) and
then there will be a normal year in 2013. If you want to do it before then, I would use
membershipwhich is less sensitive to immediate changes, but shows the same basic trend. Here
too, things look better in 2011 than in the previous nine years. Similarly, giving and
congregational/diocesan income seem to have improved in 2011.
Dr. Kirk Hadaway 5/31/2012
TEC Director of Congregational Research

-------------------------------------------------------
Since Dr. Hadaways May 2012 comments above, the leaders of the Diocese of South Carolina
have attempted to have that Diocese secede from TEC, increasing the rate of our membership
decline.







16
The Fastest Ways to Get TEC Growth
Page 1 of 2








The 2020 Task Force concluded that by far the
fastest and most reliable way to get church growth
is by church planting.
Report of the 2020 Task Force, October 2001


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was the Secretary of the 2020 Task Force. Its report may be found on
page 133ff of the Blue Book for GC 2003 or on my website at
www.mollegen.net/2020TF

Almost 15 years ago, GC 2000 adopted a growth
goal and commissioned the 20/20 Task Force to
figure out how to meet it. (GC2000-A034)


17
The Fastest Ways to Get TEC Growth
Page 2 of 2
Congregations should initiate services (late Saturday
afternoon and/or Sunday morning) that are tailored for
under-35s:
Music that under-35s find appealing (see slide 8, above)
Sermon styles that they find appealing
Use of silences to permit reflection
Use of short testimonies from lay members

Saturday afternoon services typically increase attendance
of families whose kids have Sunday morning athletic
activities.

In areas of high population density, different
congregations may be started which use different
approaches to appeal to the under-35s.







18
TECs Present Trends
Part 1 of 3
According to author Diana Butler Bass in her February 2012 book Christianity
after Religion (meaning after institutionalized religion), the world and all its
religions are in the midst of a massive transformation from the institutional
hierarchical religious institutions of the last several hundred years to a new more-
personalized and spiritualistic religious pattern. The shift is from

believing ! behaving ! belonging

to a new pattern of

belonging ! behaving ! believing

where the ! symbol means leads to. If her view is even partially correct
and I think it is correct -- then shouldnt our new Grand Strategy respond to the
change that is going on? Otherwise, we will redefine TEC to fit the world as it
was, not to fit the new world that is appearing all around us.

Note that ones sense of belonging is strongly influenced by whether one is
moved by the style of music used in the worship services. 19
TECs Present Trends
Part 2 of 3


Religious educational institutions are under severe economic
pressures. One Episcopal seminary recently had to sell part of its
campus in order to survive.
Under-35s are largely absent from TECs mind. They are
unsought-after, and are mostly single, a big change from two
generations ago. Most congregations dont know how to make
singles feel comfortable and typically dont even think about
making singles feel comfortable. Singles, who make up over
half the population, are just about invisible to TEC.
Facebook facilitated several Arab Spring revolutions, but TEC
seems barely aware of Facebook.
YouTube is another way to communicate, cheaply and effectively,
with the post-physical-book generations. TEC seldom uses it.
(For a pleasant exception, see the 2012 Blue Book report of the Standing Commission on
Mission & Evangelism on page 497ff. It has links to six videos that are part of its report, and the
one on Latino/Hispanic ministry is simply terrific. )
20
TECs Present Trends
Part 3 of 3

TEC has recently demonstrated that we (finally) have an effective
Development Office. In December 2013, the Presiding Bishop
announced that the Development Office had obtained a signed pledge of
$5-million to benefit the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti.

Approval of the Development Office was controversial at GC2012,
because an earlier effort to establish an effective Office failed. However,
under its present manager, Ms. Elizabeth Lowell, the Office has quite
visibly succeeded. Ms. Lowell has long career experience in this type of
work.

I hope that raising major funds for church planting and parish turn-
arounds will become a high priority for the Development Office in the
near future. Without such funds, I doubt that a turn-around in TECs
numerical decline can be accomplished in the next decade.

For those who are not familiar with the nature of a Development office, see
www.mollegen.net/GC2012/DevOfficeCase.pptx
21
TECs Present Context is Changing

As the economy improves, migration to the Sunbelt will pick up
again
- well-to-do retirees in the massive Boomer generation
- companies that want to escape snow-days
e.g., trucking, warehouses/distribution centers, etc.

This will cause
- more growth in existing Sunbelt congregations
- opportunities for more church plants
- a need for more new church buildings
- a greater need in the North and the upper Mid-West for
physical infrastructure consolidation and/or liquidation

22
A Primer on Church Planting
Part 1 of 3

Church Planting is not broadly well-understood in TEC (see below). Church Planting requires lots
of money.

At the time of the 2020 Task Force (2000-2001), the fastest growing TEC dioceses were Texas,
Virginia, and Tennessee. All three had steady streams of new church plants and all three were
paying for the new church plants from non-budgetary funds donated by big givers with whom
the respective bishops had developed dependable funding relationships.

For each new start, decide at the beginning what the target size is. The Episcopal Church
Building Fund (ECBF) can help you do this. For a family size church, have one church planter.
For program size, from the beginning have one clergy church planter plus one lay or clergy
program leader (usually musician/choirmaster or Christian education leader.)

One of the best places to locate new church plants is in areas where farmland regularly is being
converted into housing developments. Buy the land before ground is broken for the first new
house, and put up a big sign that says a new Episcopal Church will be built here. However, dont
start construction until the new congregation has grown to about the size you have chosen,
presumably program or corporate/resource size. 10 acres is a good lot size to pick because it will
support buildings for a program-sized congregation, including parking. Dont start putting up
buildings until the congregation has gotten close to the size you have aimed for. If the new start
doesnt work, the diocese can sell the unused land, usually at a profit, and then use the money to
buy land for another new start somewhere else.

23
A Primer on Church Planting
Part 2 of 3

Church planters, who have a tough job, do better when they have a qualified
coach with whom they are in regular contact. Texas and Virginia each had a
dedicated coach on diocesan staff. Tennessee was too small to have an expert
coach on the bishops staff, so they sequenced things so that the planter who
started a church last year would be both leading his own plant, plus also
coaching the planter who was starting a new plant in the present. In the
professional field of organizational training, this is called the daisy-chain
approach, and it is frowned upon because if one of the planters introduces a bad
idea, it gets passed on. The daisy chain approach can be used if there is some
way of insuring that bad ideas dont enter the system and/or get passed on. This
needed quality control can be established by sharing one coach among several
dioceses, and/or by having a Church Center staff member serve as a coach for
several new starts scattered among several dioceses, using a lot of video
conferences with the planters in each given year group, supplemented by one-
on-one teleconferences and quarterly group face-to-face meetings.





24
A Primer on Church Planting
Part 3 of 3

In some dioceses where church-planting is an on-going process, to help get
a new start going, borrowing of lay-leader families from adjacent larger
congregations is intentionally arranged. The intended length of the loan
is 3 to 5 years. At the end of the intended loan period, some such families
return to their prior congregation, some stay in the new one, and some go
on to another new start. Such borrowing may also be applicable in
church turn-arounds.

For further information on church planting, contact the Rev. Tom Brackett
at the Episcopal Church Center, 646-203-6266 or
tbrackett@episcopalchurch org, and/or see the 2020 Task Force Report at
www.mollegen.net/2020TF

25
Church Turn-Arounds/Re-Starts
Part 1 of 2

Church revitalization is the polite (and somewhat opaque)
term for church turn-arounds. Another term is re-starts.
Turn-arounds are a lot harder to accomplish than new starts.
About half as many priests are qualified to lead turn-arounds as to
lead new church plants. The reason is that whatever is causing the
present decline probably lies in deep-seated unrecognized motivations
of the present opinion leaders in the sick congregation, and that
sickness must be cured (or the sick people dispersed) before a healthy
congregation can be built.
If you cant find someone who is truly qualified, then have the
wisdom to shut the failing operation down. An alternative to this is to
arrange a merger with another weak congregation, but only if the
merger effort is led by a truly transformative leader.
Obviously its better to do re-starts than closures, so lets
look more closely at how to do re-starts.
26
Church Turn-Arounds/Re-Starts
Part 2 of 2

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27
1. Hospitality
2. Discernment
3. Healing
4. Contemplation
5. Testimony
6. Diversity
7. Justice
8. Worship
9. Reflection
10. Beauty
Strategically Important Observations
Part 1 of 2

The restructuring planned for GC2015 wont turn
around TECs negative growth trend unless it
incorporates the church growth/redevelopment
principles of this document. Cost-cutting is clearly
necessary for TEC, but it basically consists of
treating only the results of decline, not the root
causes. TEC needs to find and counter the root
causes of decline, while concurrently taking action to
get positive growth going again.

Put differently, weve got to start taking the Great
Commission seriously.
28
Strategically Important Observations
Part 2 of 2

Relocating the Episcopal Church Center out of
NYC would involve major costs, with
minimal -- if any -- long term benefits.

Advocates of such a relocation should buttress
their arguments by citing what benefits would
be gained.
29
A Word from American Management Guru
Peter Drucker

Good management doesnt consist of saving
money -- good management consists of
spending money in the right places.
30
Some Definitions


Subsidiarity is the principle that each internal function in a
hierarchical/layered organization should be performed at the best
level for it in the organization

Cost-shifting means moving costs from one organization to
another.
31
Some Observations -- Part 1 of 2
The present (2013-2015) TEC Budget adopted at GC2012 seems
to have approached the need for budget reduction by shifting
costs out of the DFMS budget (by cutting ECC staff) while
saying that certain functions are better done closer to the grass-
roots, invoking the concept of subsidiarity.

In fact, this is cost-shifting from expensive expert central staff to
dispersed, usually-untrained or self-trained unpaid local staff.
This reduces costs at the DFMS level, but it also lowers the
quality of services received at the lower levels of TEC. I think of
this as false subsidiarity. Another term also comes to mind:
unfunded mandates. Why dont we be more honest with
ourselves about whats going on?
32
Some Observations -- Part 2 of 2
Its just cost-cutting if you only reduce the payroll $$ in the
upper levels of an organization. Its subsidiarity only if you
move both the work and the $$ to a lower level of the
organization.

Cost-cutting is easier to plan than subsidiarity because all you
have to do is cut payrolls.

Subsidiarity is harder because you have to identify how the work
will get done and by whom at what cost in some lower level in
the organization and then help the newly tasked to know the
what, why, and how of their new jobs.
33
Evangelism and Church Growth Not the
Same Thing, but Hand-in-Hand Partners
A good approach is to use church growth principles to get people
into the congregation and then teach them an appreciation for
true Anglicanism.
This is much more than teaching people who theologically
are still Baptists how to use Prayer Books. You havent
completed the job until youve taught them what the bible
really is, and how to react to it with intellectual integrity.
Teach them about the bible, not just whats in it. Otherwise
they are likely to interpret it as though it were a 20
th
-Century
history book and/or Gods behavior manual.
The relationship between church growth and evangelism is
that church growth can be an excellent first step in
evangelism just dont forget to complete the job!
34
Church Leader and Church Member Happiness
People are happiest when:
They know what they are supposed to be doing
They know how to do it well
They are supported in doing their work
They believe that what they are doing is important to:
God
Their supervisors and the higher-ups in the organization
The people who benefit from their work (i.e., the end-users of their
work)
Their family, their friends and their community
They feel appreciated
They are growing in capability and effectiveness
Following this documents Grand Strategy will lead to happier
church leaders and church members
35
Being Customer-Oriented
Anyone who uses your work is your customer:
When you fill out paperwork, the person who uses it is your customer
When you give a talk, the people in your audience are your customers
When you write a memo or a press release, the people who read it are your
customers. So are the people who wanted you to write the press release or
memo.
You should want all your customers to be delighted with your product or
service. (This is just a specific instance of the Golden Rule.)
Regularly ask your customers how they like your product or service, and
how you can make it more pleasing to them.
By the above definition, God and all Gods children are the
Churchs customers.
36
Better Balance Needed
Because of TECs continuing numerical decline, we must strike a better
balance between our emphasis on
- improving social justice and social services
- propagating the faith.
No matter how one does the analysis, TEC at the churchwide level is putting
far more effort, time, and money into social justice and social service than in
responding to the Great Commission. Analyses of the January 2012 draft
budget comparing totals for each of the Five Anglican Marks of mission were
performed in early 2012 in different ways by (a) Arizona Clergy Deputy the
Rev. Susan Snook, (b) by Bp Steve Lane, the vice-chair of PB&F and (c) the
Episcopal Church Center Chief Operating Officer, Bp Stacy Sauls. The
conclusion that there is nowhere near a balance between the categories
cited above in the first bullet stands out in all three of these analyses.

Those members who are most interested in supporting social service should
keep in mind that if TEC keeps getting smaller and smaller, then TEC will
be able to do less and less social service/social justice work. Much better
propagation of the faith is a necessary foundation for continuing and/or
expanding our work in social service/social justice.
37
Adopt a More Proactive Attitude
If you need more money, then go out and get it. At the top TEC level, the
TEC Development Office is raising significant new money. At the diocesan
and congregational levels, the Episcopal Church Foundation (ECF) will help
you get started .
Maybe the church cant afford what we need to do, but God can.
Not only the whole DFMS, but also the individual dioceses should have
Development Offices. (This can be a part-time job in a small diocese.) The
ELCA Development Office has a more than 12 to 1 payoff ratio. The
Episcopal Church Foundation (ECF) will help you get started.
Remember this important leadership principle:
If you always do what you always did,
Youll always get what you always got.

And as a good therapist recommends, If you want to feel better, then do
something to feel better about.
38
A Fertile but Untapped Resource Our
Seminarians
39
We can use seminarians to brainstorm how better to approach the
under-30 generation . Seminarians under age 30 can also more readily
assess what will work for the under-30 age group, and what wont work.
We can also include seminarians in evaluating new approaches . See
2012 Deputy Liza Andersons Blue Book Cliff Notes for how one
young adult views whats in the Blue Book. (See Links, the final page in this
presentation.)
It will be much easier to teach seminarians how to do effective personal
evangelism than any other demographic segment in TEC, especially our
over-40s. The best evangelists are new converts, because they can tell
how they found their life change to be a big improvement. Many
seminarians have relatively recently re-directed their lives into a deeper
and strong relationship with our Lord and our God (by going to
seminary), and in this sense are new converts.

Organizational Life Cycle Theory
40
The Life Cycle Theory of Organizations comes to us from the field of
business management. They got it from the field of biology, where it is
known as evolution, the survival of the fittest.
TEC is shrinking because mainline Protestant churches are no longer the
fittest in our environment. TEC must learn how to grow or TEC will die.
While TEC does have competitors that are churches (CANA comes to
mind) but our most threatening competitors are the many non-religious
and anti-religious materialistic forces in society, many of which are
driven by profit-oriented corporations who want to sell us myriads of
things a materialistic approach to what often really are spiritual needs.
Organizations survive by adapting to changes in their environment, an
especially tricky proposition today because our environments are changing
rapidly as technology changes faster and faster, and as our competitors
copy more and more quickly what succeeds and also more and more
quickly invent their own technological improvements.
TEC must more aggressively improve itself or it will slowly die.
The Episcopal Church Offers a Better Way
of Being Catholic
41
IMO, one of the strategic objectives of TEC should be to establish and implement a plan for
aggressively marketing TEC to disaffected Roman Catholics. TEC is both catholic -- small
"c" -- and protestant: we have many institutional features and all the sacraments of the
church of the early and middle centuries, but we have avoided such latter-day aberrations as:
Mariolatry; misogyny; forced and unpopular clerical celibacy; widespread, persistent, and
covertly-protected clergy ephebophilia; rejection of the most effective and convenient forms
of birth control; and church leadership which both excludes and insultingly devalues lay
leadership and women, and which is determinedly and unconscionably hostile to sexual
minorities. One of the worst aberrations is so-called Papal Infallibility -- a hubris-encrusted
doctrine which has led to required belief in such non-biblically-based doctrines as the
Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By today's
standards of belief, today's Roman Catholic Church would have to excommunicate the
church of the early centuries. IMO, we should intentionally offer clear-sighted disaffected
Roman Catholics a spiritual home that is more rational, more historically-catholic, much
more loving, and less hubris-encrusted, and which demonstrably values all orders of
ministry in all people. Remembering that the Protestant Reformation led to RCC
improvements in response, we should keep in mind that a welcoming initiative directed to
disaffected Roman Catholics may lead to improvements in how the RCC handles itself.
(However, I wont be holding my breath waiting for this to happen. It took them almost 500
years to follow us in worshiping in the language of the congregation.)
Responding to Diana Butler Basss Book
Christianity After Religion
.
42
I personally am at a loss regarding how to address Dr. Basss vision of a new Great
Awakening described in this book. Im a native of the Silent Generation (born
between 1927 and 1945), so I dont feel at home in the world Dr. Bass is describing.
Heres what I suggest:
Ask each of TECs three largest seminaries on the same day to
convene a morning brainstorming/analytical session of their students under age 30 who have read
and reflected upon this book
after lunch, have a second session of the same students process the results of their brainstorming
session and develop an outline plan for TECs response to the book.
have the Executive Councils Committee on Strategic Planning compare and contrast the three
plans from the three seminary meetings and combine them into a recommended overall strategy
for proceeding.
ask Executive Council as a whole to review and modify the results of its committee as they see fit
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Readers of this document may feel that this scheme is half-baked, but it is a way to proceed, it wont take
long (maybe three weeks), it wont take many person-hours, and it will give us a generation-appropriate
strategy for addressing both the under-30s and the on-going changes in our society. However, seminarians
are not representative of the whole generation, so other inputs should be developed as well.]


Designing/Redesigning Future Church
Buildings
43
Lets not be in the business of constructing soon-to-be-out-of-date church
buildings.
Plan to share space with organizations that dont need buildings during the
same hours that your church does. Examples might include:
private or public schools (including pre-schools)
movie theaters
sports arenas
synagogues
In the Middle Ages, cathedrals didnt have fixed pews. The chapel at the
Diocese of Texass Camp Allen doesnt have fixed pews either. Its seating
can be set up for large or relatively small groups to worship in, or for secular
groups to have business meetings, such as corporate shareholders meetings
and corporate management retreats. It has projectors that are unobtrusive and
screens that can be dropped into place only when needed.
Use the building design advice and assistance of the Episcopal Church
Building Fund (ECBF). Thats what they do and theyre good at it.
Dealing with Empty, Crumbling and/or
Near-Empty Church Buildings Part 1 of 2
44
Truly empty church buildings are a cash-flow sink and an investment sink because
the buildings are not only depreciating but also are continuing to have ownership
costs such as insurance and minimal-but-still-present energy costs. Insurance
costs go up rapidly for unoccupied buildings, especially because sprinkler systems
dont work when the buildings interior temperatures are below freezing. Empty
buildings are more subject to break-ins, which speed-up depreciation. Either use
the buildings or sell them and invest the proceeds in a new church start elsewhere
in the diocese.
Or in the case of congregations that attempted to secede, lease-to-sell the buildings
back to the people who used to occupy them. A good model agreement was
entered into in Northern Virginia, where the diocese and the secessionist
congregation agreed for that congregation to take over the use of the buildings and
to pay operating costs (insurance, energy, etc.). The congregation agreed not to
affiliate with another denomination for five years, and both the congregation and
TEC agreed not to publicly criticize each other.
Dealing with Empty, Crumbling and/or
Near-Empty Church Buildings Part 2 of 2
.
45
Im using the term near-empty but there may be a more gracious term that I havent thought of yet.
Im thinking of the situation where there is a very large building and a very small congregation
which cant afford to take proper care of the building. Sooner or later, theres going to be a serious
problem with the building and the diocese is suddenly going to have to intercede, likely at
substantial expense to the diocese. Wouldnt it be better to intercede before the inevitable major
problem occurs?
One way would be for the diocesan canons to specify that when a congregations Average Sunday
Attendance (ASA) falls below say, 25% of the churchs seating capacity for three years in a row, the
congregation is placed in an Intervention-Needed status.
The congregation is then given notice that within four months its vestry must have chosen one of the
following three approaches, in consultation with the Bishop and the Standing Committee:
Adopt an authorized growth plan, which the bishop and diocesan staff may have helped the
rector and vestry prepare and for which the bishop and diocesan staff will provide assistance in
implementation.
Adopt an authorized facility-sharing plan with another worshiping community to share a
facility and facility costs, such that the result is economically viable.
Establish a merger plan with another Episcopal or in-communion congregation.
Each such plan will have milestones, which if not met will cause the congregation to come under
closer diocesan control.
Note: in the business community, continuously pouring money into continuously substandard operations
is known as backing your losers. In the church, its known as being caring, but its very poor mission
strategy, not to mention poor stewardship.


b
Laying the Foundations for Future Reunion
Part 1 of 2
46
Reunion with the recently schismatic ex-Episcopalians wont happen overnight, but we can begin laying
the foundations now.
Think separately of the schism-leaders (mostly clergy) and the schism-followers (some clergy, but
mostly laity).
The schism-leaders had to work themselves up into an emotional tizzy to justify to themselves breaking
their ordination vows. Reversing their schism decision will not come easy for them. An organized return
to TEC may need to wait until the leaders of schismatic organizational units (dioceses and/or
congregations) are replaced by their successors. This is already beginning to happen.
However, the followers of the schism-leaders may individually much sooner be ready to return when:
Their church building is returned to TEC
The broad society (including themselves) concludes that gay marriages in fact have not harmed traditional
marriages
Members of their own expanding number of descendents include some who are GLBT
When it is more broadly recognized that the main effect of the effort to replace TEC as the US member of the
Anglican Communion has been to contribute to dividing the Anglican Communion
TEC is more broadly recognized as a leader in inter-communion agreements, especially if/when such
agreements are made with the PCUSA and/or the UMC.
TEC recognizes that lease-to-buy agreements with some secessionist congregations can be a win-win
solution
TEC recognizes that the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral should apply to relationships with :
CANA
The Reformed Episcopal Church
Other breakaway groups


Laying the Foundations for Future Reunion
Part 2 of 2
47
Assign a blue-ribbon Task Force to design and test approaches to
departed Episcopalians and report back to Executive Council.
Then Ex Council should make appropriate recommendations to
GC2018
These approaches should include providing explicit paths for
reunion with
Departed dioceses
Departed congregations
(including their deserted property)
Departed priests/deacons
Departed parishioners (should formal reception be
considered necessary, or can it be forgone?)
Improving Your Parish Website Part 1 of 3
.
48
The parish home page should convey the sense of a warm caring community for both
families and singles. A photo of a Baptism is a great choice for the home page. The photo
of the church building may make present church members feel warm and fuzzy, but to
people who have just moved into the area, it may convey were a century or so out of
date or (especially to financially savvy onlookers) our old building is a money-pit.
Say: Our kids love to come because we have a great Sunday School and youth group.
Convey that worshippers here usually feel that they have experienced deeply meaningful
and joyful contact with the Divine. (PS: The services and the individuals coffee-hour
conversations must convey that also, not just the website.)
Convey that providing the visitor with the experience of God is of utmost importance to us.
We dont ask people to subscribe to a list of theological propositions -- this isnt the 16
th

Century. A goodly number of us here probably couldnt agree to all the standard
propositions anyway.
Convey that there is continuing education for all ages. Dont use the current buzz-word
formation which can be heard as brainwashing. If calling it education isnt adequate
for you, call it something like education with experiential aspects.
The photo of the church building belongs in the directions to the church section, and the
directions should end by describing where the entrance to the parking lot is, and which
door you should use to get into the building.
Improving Your Parish Website Part 2 of 3
49
Convey that families here includes: single-parent families, nuclear families,
unmarried couples (with or without children), and singles. Dont make singles
activities sound like find-a-mate sessions; you dont want to covey that theres
something wrong with being single.
Have a comparisons section: TEC compared to others. We represent the
historical church brought up to the 21
st
century. Also see earlier slide 40 a
better way of being catholic.
TEC is jointly governed by four orders of ministry, providing a check and balance
system among the four orders:
Bishops in the Historic Succession
Priests and Deacons ordained by bishops in the Historic Succession
Lay people in Mutual Ministry (lay people participating in leadership)
Until the ELCA received the historic succession from TEC in a recent
agreement, TEC was the only major US Church with these characteristics.
Convey that we wear our name tags to all church events. This is single most
important thing that a congregation can do to make newcomers and visitors feel
that you truly want to include them. (Dont say it unless you do it.) Its very
important, so do it.
Improving Your Parish Website Part 3 of 3
.
50
Make sure that the words spirit and spiritual appear somewhere on the
homepage (so that a seekers search engine can find your website.)
Remember that the basic question in the back of the mind of a seeker or a
website visitor is likely to be: What things that are meaningful to me are going
on in this church?
On the whole, we need better answers than we usually give to that question.
Good answers may depend on whether the seeker is a boomer, millennial, silent-
generation person, Anglo, Latino/Hispanic, etc.
We also need to counter mistaken impressions that people may have:
Christianity is NOT anti-gay
Christianity is NOT anti-evolution
Our Churches DO NOT care more about their clergy than they do about their children
Our Churches DO NOT deny their faults rather than fixing them
Henry VIII DID NOT establish the C of E because he wanted a divorce . [Being a good
Roman Catholic, Henry sought an annulment. His request was denied because the Pope was
under the control of King Philip of Spain, a political enemy of Henry.]

The Make It Happen Attitude
.
51
- Ive headed two organizations whose motto was Make It
Happen (MIH). One of them grew from 56 to over 1500
employees under my leadership as CEO. The second grew
from zero to over 100.
- MIH means to focus on results. It doesnt say, Try your
hardest, or Do your best. Such slogans allow room for
failure to get results.
- MIH doesnt necessarily mean Do it yourself. MIH means
Get the needed results to happen. The tone is proactive and
results-oriented.
- Any organization can benefit from this attitude.


The Job of the Designated Leader
Part 1 of 2
.
52
- Get a good set of Goals and Grand Strategy created and promulgated. The
leader doesnt have to create these items him- or herself, but the leader has to
make sure that a good set of them is created by someone. Then keep
communicating them -- it will take a while for people to realize that youre
serious about it.*
- The leader must not only say over and over again where were going, the leader
must continuously point the way. (Oh, by the way, Follow Jesus carries the
connotation that Jesus is on the move.)
- Set the organization in motion toward the goals and keep it in motion.
- Having a good grand strategy will make budgeting a lot easier.
- Make adjustments when appropriate.
- Keep an eye on:
- Progress toward the goals
- The environment -- it will change.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* For more info, read Leading Change by Prof. John Kotter, Harvard Business School Press


The Job of the Designated Leader
Part 2 of 2
.
53
- Make sure that best practices are continuously sought out, adopted, and
continuously improved.
- Occasionally look back over your shoulder. If theres nobody following, then
youre not leading, youre just somebody out for a walk.
- Understand and promulgate your organizations Critical Success Factors.
(CSFs). These are the factors which are both necessary and sufficient for the
organization to reach its goals. If you dont know what the CSFs are for your
organization, have a retreat for you and your top-level leaders/managers to
define the CSFs.
- If you have a list of more than eight or nine CSFs, you have too many, and
need to do some consolidating. (For instance, just list regulatory
compliance rather than listing all the regulations.)
- This really works. In addition to being part of the Grand Strategy it tells your
people whats important.
- Evangelism is an often-overlooked Critical Success Factor for the Episcopal
Church.



-
A Call to Rectors
54
With your Bishops permission, prepare your congregation for the
experiment of saying trust in rather than believe in in the creeds for
a season. The authority for this translation is explained in Chapter 4,
Believing, in Dr. Diana Butler Basss 2012 book.
In parallel with the preceding, engage your congregations lay leaders in
studying Dr. Basss 2006 book, repeatedly asking the question, How
does this idea apply to our parish as we live out our role in carrying out
Gods Mission? (See slide 27.)
Share your experiences with your bishops and clergy colleagues;
encourage each other.
Look for the signs of Dr. Basss new Great Awakening* and respond
accordingly.
Pray for Gods guidance in this venture.
=======================================================
* Described in Dr. Basss 2012 book.
A Call to TECs Top-Level Leaders*
55
Pray for Gods guidance in this venture.
Participate in refining this draft grand
strategy.
Lets Make It Happen.
=======================================================
* Presiding Officers, Bishops & Deputies, CCAB Leaders, diocesan Executive Council & Standing
Committee members, parish Senior and Junior Wardens, parish vestries, etc.
Post Script for Dioceses and
Congregations
56
Dioceses can and probably should develop their own written Grand
Strategies. These will hopefully be compatible with TECs Grand
Strategy, but will not necessarily be just a miniaturized version of
TECs. Dioceses generally will be subject to the same external forces
as TEC , but probably with local differences. (New occasions teach
new duties, as someone once said.)
The present document can serve (a) as a model or (b) just as a source of
information and ideas, or (c) perhaps a mixture of both.
The same idea applies to congregations. One senior warden has already
asked for permission to distribute this document to her vestry as a
things to think about resource. I of course said Yes, and asked for
any helpful feedback that might result from the experience.
Appendix
57
The following pages describe a process for developing a Grand Strategy.
Steps in Developing
a Grand Strategy Step 1 of 5

1. Gather and organize data on:
- the present status &
- the projected near-future
of:
- the organization &
- its context

============================================================
Note that projections often dont precisely come true, but that having
projections still sheds a lot of light on whats going on. Usually, reality
is somewhat worse than the projections.
Another way of stating Step 1 is: Develop a conceptual model of
how the organizations internal and external driving forces influence
and/or determine its future.

.

58
2. Keep segmenting the picture from Step 1 until the
population in each segment is relatively
homogeneous.

===========================================================
Example: Look at TEC as having segments of:
The Builder Generations (G.I. + Silent)
The Boomers (just beginning to retire)
Gen X
Young Adults (aka Gen Y or Millennials)
Etc.


.

59
Steps in Developing
a Grand Strategy Step 2 of 5

Steps in Developing a Grand Strategy
Step 2 of 5 contd

===========================================================
Another example: look at US Hispanics/Latinos, the fastest
growing US population segment):
First generation immigrants
Second generation have some English; prefer to worship in
Spanish
Third generation prefer English most of the time but still
prefer to worship in Spanish
Fourth generation dont understand spoken Spanish
Note that a majority of US Latinos/Hispanics were born in
the US.


60
3. Using cause-and-effect relationships, decide how to
maximize gains and minimize losses in the most
influential segments. Each cause-and-effect relationship may be
in any one or more of the following domains:
physical
rational
(subconscious) psychological
sociological
economic
spiritual


Diana Butler Basss book Christianity after Religion says that we
must move from working primarily in the second and third domains
to primarily in the fourth and sixth domains. (See slide 41.)

The use of social media may be a good tool to add to our toolbox for
leveraging cause-and-effect relationships.


.
61
Steps in Developing
a Grand Strategy Step 3 of 3

How Does One Implement
a Grand Strategy?

Try to convert both your supporters and your
opponents. Start by making them feel listened to.


"They may forget what you said,
they may forget what you did,
but they will never forget
how you made them feel."
- Maya Angelou

62
Authors Qualifications
63
CEO of two fast-growth companies. One grew from 56 to
over 1500 employees under my leadership, the other from
zero to over 100.
Active in TEC at congregational, diocesan, and
churchwide levels:
Deputy at GC1991-2015; Alternate 1982-1988
TEC Executive Council 2003-2009
CT Stewardship Chairman 6 years
CT Executive Council 15 years
Member two Standing Commissions
Member 1997-2003 Joint Nominating Committee for the Election
of the Presiding Bishop
For more info, see www.mollegen.net

In Closing
Please post comments and suggestions about this document on
the HoBD list. That way others can comment on your
thoughts, and the more thinking we get applied to these issues,
the better off TEC will be.

If you want to write me privately, my email address is
tmollegen@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading this. Thanks even more if you submit
suggestions!
Ted Mollegen
Senior Deputy




64
Links

The authors email address is tmollegen@gmail.com Your comments
and suggestions are invited.

A GC2012 companion document is entitled The Case for an
Episcopal Church Development Office Now is available on the
web at
www.mollegen.net/GC2012/DevOfficeCase.pptx
The document may be helpful to those planning diocesan
development offices.

CT Deputy (2012) Liza Andersons Cliff Notes on the 2012 Blue
Book:
http://www.mollegen.net/GC2012/Lizas_BlueBook_notes.pdf






65
Annotated Bibliography
The Fly in the Ointment: Why Denominations Arent
Helping Their Congregations And How They Can by
J. Russell Crabtree (2008).
Christianity after Religion (meaning after
institutionalized religion) by Dr. Diana Butler Bass
(February 2012)
Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood
Church is Transforming the Faith= Dr. Diana Butler Bass
(2006)
Diverting the Protestant Mainstream: Sources of growth
and Opportunities for Change by C. Kirk Hadaway and
David A. Roozen, Abington Press, 1995



66