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Two St. Louisans to help chart future for Episcopal Church

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 7, 2012 - Two St. Louis Episcopalians are among 24 people charged nationally with reorganizing the governance and structure of the Episcopal Church in the United States.

This historic task force was announced Wednesday. The Texas Diocese is the only other one to have more than one member.

“The sky’s the limit,” the Rev. Joseph Chambers, a campus minister, said about the new task’s force’s assignment. He’s raring to go and eager for the group’s still to be scheduled first meeting sometime in the New Year.

The Venerable Robert Anton Franken is the other St. Louisan appointed to the task force. (Venerable is a title given to an archdeacon, and Franken earned that years ago.) Last weekend the two St. Louisan received a call from the denomination’s House of Deputies president the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings inviting them to join the Task Force for Church Structural Reform.

The House of Delegates is composed of ordained priests and lay members, elected to represent each U.S. diocese. The other part of the governing body, the House of Bishops, is composed of ordained bishops. Each body meets just every three years at the denomination’s General Convention.  

Jennings asked the two St. Louisans to keep mum until the Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori, announced the list. That happened Wednesday from the church’s New York headquarters.

Last July, the General Convention in Indianapolis approved a “diverse” new task force “for reforming the Church’s structures, governance, and administration.” The task force is to present its suggestions at a special national meeting in November 2014. Task force recommendations for restructuring will then go in some form to the denomination’s General Convention in the summer of 2015.

“I’m open to new ideas and think we can do a lot of things for the church,” Chambers said. “I don’t know how much friction or speed bumps we will hit because of the church canons (laws) but I’ll try to be creative and infuse as much energy I can and consider today’s culture.” Chambers, a priest, is chaplain of campus ministry at Rockwell House, near Washington University. Before that, Chambers was a chaplain at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He was ordained six years ago.

As one who works with students, Chambers hopes the task force will prepare for the future.

“Just look how things have changed just in the last 20 years. Not just the internet and social media, it goes way beyond that,” Chambers said.

Baptized members on U.S. Episcopal Church rolls have dropped dramatically to fewer than 2 million. Nearly a half century ago, in 1965, the denomination’s membership stood at 3,615,000. The drop in birth rate among church members, a turn to more liberal ideas socially and theologically and the general diminished numbers of all mainline Protestant Churches have been given as reasons for the current count at 1,951,900.

Franken, who grew up in Seattle, was ordained a deacon in 1984. He began serving in that non-salaried ministry when he lived in Alaska. For the last 11 years, since his move to St. Louis, he has served the Missouri Episcopal diocese. By day Franken specializes in working one-on-one with CEOs, CFOs and other top executives of nonprofit hospital systems, mostly Catholic hospitals.

“I help them get better at their own leadership,” he said in an interview. He hopes some of those skills will help the task force. “Part of our task force’s (assignment) is to listen, to see the church’s needs. If we don’t listen, it won’t work.”

The denomination's current structure puts most of the church’s national policies and business decisions in the hands of those elected to its triennial general convention. The nearly two-weeklong sessions are expensive. In between meetings, an elected 20-member clerical and lay executive Ccouncil carries out the convention's ideas and ministry. 

The task force’s report, due out in two years, is supposed to challenge the church to restructure to be more effective but neither Franken nor Chambers have plans ready to unroll.  

“I’m open to ideas, want to be creative,” Chambers said in an interview from Rockwell House. As the spouse of the Rev. Amy Cortright, Christ Church Cathedral’s vicar, Chambers has added insight into church structure. Franken, who has worked in three diocese and converted from the Reform Church in America, expects that his experience will give him a broad view. He is the only deacon named on the task force.

“I am very pleased that there is a deacon on the task force and honored that it is me,” he said from his home office in the Central West End. “I think that I have always had a gift to be able to see options that are not necessarily obvious.” 

In addition to Chambers, eight other priests from across the nation will serve on the new task force. Also serving are four bishops Bishop Michael Bruce Curry of the diocese of North Carolina, Bishop C. Andrew Doyle of the diocese of Texas; Bishop Sean W. Rowe, of the diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves, diocese of El Camino Real. The others are lay persons.

Three of the total membership are under the age of 30; eight, including Chambers, in their 30s, five in their 40s; four in their 50s; and four, including Franken, are over 60.

“I am pleased that there are younger members than me. I’m 34,” Chambers, the campus chaplain, said.

Sixteen are men and eight are women. Nine are people of color.

To add breadth to the group, two members of other Anglican Communions will sit in on sessions, a bishop from the Anglican Church of Canada and a theologian from the Church of South India.

“I think we have exactly the right mix on the task force,” Franken said.

It took months to chose the task force from more than 500 nominations.

Wednesday, Schori praised the variety of talents the members will bring to the assignment.

“We pray that God’s creative spirit will be unleashed in the midst of this work to move us into God’s future with excitement, openness, and commitment to the opportunities before us,” she said.

Patricia Rice is a freelance writer based in St. Louis who has covered religion for many years. She also writes about cultural issues, including opera.