We are still living the beauty of Christmas and the Magi are on final approach. Hopefully, congregational leaders—lay and ordained— have had some space and time for family and feasting, for recovery and rest. An article in "The Atlantic" called these days, the "dead week." Not the best choice of words, perhaps, but the author describes well the non-days between Christmas wonder and a New Year.
"Christmas is over and we have arrived at the most wonderful time of the year—nominally still the holidays, but also the opposite of a holiday, a blank space stretching between Christmas and New Year’s Eve when nothing makes sense and time loses its meaning. For many of us, this is the only time of year when it feels possible, and even encouraged, to do nothing. I look forward to it all year long."
But perhaps you, too, have discovered that holy leisure is the ground of creativity. We are never just resting. Often, we are clearing the internal decks to make space for new priorities and challenges. Out of my sugarplum dreams, a question has slowly surfaced that I ask you all with great hope and expectation. So, what's your plan for Annual Meeting?
- Will it be in-person after the Sunday service?
- Will it be entirely online on a different day of the week?
- Will it be the pre-COVID version or will you keep some adaptation discovered in the past two years?
I'm curious because it feels like 2023 is another "fresh start." We have a new sense of what is essential, don't we? We can all run a stream-lined version. What do we want to put back? How is this compulsory gathering an opportunity to reflect together on the God who has brought us this far? How can budget, elections and reports reinvigorate mission and invite deeper engagement?
I don't have the answers to those questions—yet! At St. John's in Ashfield, before the pandemic, we used to have a sit-down meal after the service in our parish house. It was lovely and intimate (read: less well-attended than we'd hoped) and run with loving attention to the clock. But at our December vestry meeting, we noted that we're not really ready for that. So we are trying a new thing—integrating the work of the meeting into the Sunday service.
I've been binging YouTube videos of Episcopal congregations who have done this well—and not so well. Perhaps, you have already tried this. (I'd be grateful for some best practices, if you've got any.) Stitching it all together feels very challenging—like performing surgery on a healthy body. But the process is requiring me to return to the essential of both things—the heart of the Eucharist and the responsibility of the vestry to communicate the health of the Body of Christ in Ashfield.
I am sitting with the questions right now—with the meeting agenda and the BCP. It's still early enough to enjoy the challenge and share several drafts with wardens who are wiser than I and better at taking the pulse of the Body. Between the three of us, and the Liturgy Team, we will get there by January 28th. I really want this integration to testify to the reality that everything we do is connected. The legal entity of St. John's Episcopal Church may be constituted by officers and vestry but they are believers—people committed to God's mission in this place. I bless God for each of them (and the unknown soul who will run for Junior Warden, please!)
My hope for all of you is the same joy I feel in getting an Annual Meeting "do-over"—in imagining and cutting and pasting my way to something that will reflect who we are now in our common life of prayer and mission.
In the Holy Name of JESUS,
Vicki+
