Bishop Robinson issues a challenge to all

By the time this message reaches you, we’ll be in the middle of the Easter season. As Christians, we believe that Easter trumps Good Friday, life triumphs over death, love dispels fear, and hope replaces anxiety. If we don’t believe that – and act it out in our lives and ministries, we might as well close up the pretty red doors of our churches and go home to a faithless world.

As I travel around the diocese, I hear two expressions of regret, time and time again, from large congregations and small. I want to challenge YOU to join me in doing something about that.

First, I hear many people lamenting the fact that financial realities forced us to eliminate from the diocesan budget the half-time youth and young adult ministries position dreamed of in our Reimagining the Diocese project. Why, many of you have asked, have we named youth and young adults as one of our three mission priorities, and then undercut it before it even gets out of the starting gate? Why say we value our young people and worry about keeping them in the Body, then put little funding towards this priority in our parish and diocesan budgets? Isn’t it time we put our money where our mouths are, some have asked? Indeed.

Second, vestries and bishop’s committees have lamented the fact they have to spend so much time worrying about local finances, that there is little time to lead the congregations in ministry – to one another and to the world. What if we had the resources we need, and could spend our time and energy reaching out to one another and to the world?  As far as I can tell, this is not a spending problem; expenses have been cut to barebone necessities in almost every congregation. No, this seems to be an income problem.

So I’ve been thinking. What if the Bishop “found” some money, and challenged the diocese to match that money, dollar for dollar, in order to fund a half-time Youth and Young Adult Ministries Missioner and a half-time Stewardship Missioner, for a period of three years. These missioners would not be at Diocesan House much, but rather in local congregations helping local leadership respond to these two needs.

I have been impressed, even moved, by your efforts to fund your ministries. Some of you have gone into reserves and endowment in order to continue your mission.  The Bishop ought to be willing to do the same. And I am. I am going to invest in our future by going into funds given to the Bishop (not the diocese) over the years. I now pledge $50,000 per year for three years, to fund half the cost of these two part-time missioners, provided that it is matched by the diocese.

Now for the challenge:  I need FIFTY of YOU to pledge $1,000 per year for three years toward these ministries. There are many individuals in the diocese who could make such a pledge. Groups could, too: a youth group, a vestry, an ECW or other women’s group, an EFM group, or a local men’s group might make such a commitment.  A small congregation might want to do it as a whole. 

This is not an effort to build a bigger diocesan staff.  This is an effort to assist YOU in the ministry in your local congregation, and to secure the resources for all of your ministries to one another and to the world.  These missioners would work locally in our five mission centers and in individual congregations, not pushing a pre-planned diocesan “program,” but rather helping you develop youth ministry and stewardship in YOUR congregation, based on the particulars of your situation and opportunities. 

Youth ministry will look different in each location.  Not every parish has the critical mass necessary for a regularly scheduled youth group.  So how does a congregation use its acolyte program for “youth ministry”?  How might confirmation preparation enliven our young people for the ministries they are called to, right now?  How might congregations in college towns enliven their outreach to students?  How might those who are college-aged or in their twenties, but not in college, be more meaningfully included in the life of our congregations?  A Youth and Young Adult Missioner could help you answer those questions for yourself.

As we all know, stewardship doesn’t just happen around every-member-canvass time, and it involves a lot more than money.  But it IS also about money.  (More than one-sixth of all of Jesus’ words, and one-third of the parables, are about possessions and wealth, and their effects on our souls.)  A Stewardship Missioner can assist you in talking better about the sharing of our resources, one with another, for the doing of ministry.  For those of you needing, or already in, capital campaigns, the Stewardship (and development) Missioner could assist you in those efforts, bringing real (and free) expertise, compliments of your brothers and sisters in the diocese.  I have the opportunity to hire just such a person (led to me, by God, I believe), who comes with development experience and skills, as well as an abiding and deep spirituality.  He feels called to be with us here in New Hampshire, and I feel called to make it possible for him to work with YOU.

When you elected me to be your bishop, you asked that I LEAD you, not just manage you; to be proactive, not merely reactive; to remind you of the hope and promise of God’s abundance that is within you as Christians, not giving in to the fear and anxiety of scarcity.  And so I am going to put my money where my mouth is, and I challenge you to do the same.  And if you cannot give at this time, then I challenge you to pray fervently and often for the success of this effort and the ministry it could generate.

Talk with your brothers and sisters in Christ, where you live and worship, and see who might be able to help.  Some of you – and there are more of you than you’d like to admit! –  will be able to pledge $1,000 for each of three years.  (Mark and I will do so, in grateful thanksgiving for our life and ministry in your midst.  So now we need only 49 more!)  Some of you will want to talk with a small grouping in your congregation, and together pledge $1,000.  Small congregations may want to work as a whole.  Some will not be able to pledge $1,000, but will be welcome to participate at a lesser level.  (As with ANY pledge, if circumstances in future years make it impossible to fulfill your pledge, that is not a problem.)  But don’t just do this by yourself – do what New Englanders NEVER want to do:  talk about it with one another, discern together whether or not you want to join this extra effort, and imagine together what good might come from such an effort.

This doesn’t have to be complicated, and it needn’t take us long to do.  After you’ve thought and prayed about it, after you’ve talked with one another, simply write me a letter indicating how much you are pledging to this Missioners Fund for each of the next three years, beginning in this calendar year.

With the knowledge, assurance, and comfort of the Resurrection, Jesus’ disciples did astounding things in the world.  You and I are called and empowered by Him to do no less.  While others fight over human sexuality, let us get on with the mission and ministry of the Church here in New Hampshire!

Your brother in Christ,

+Gene