Leadership Journal

A church can sink in a hurry. Ours did. We never would have predicted it.

A year ago, Trinity Episcopal Church was a vibrant parish. While the congregation contained both conservatives and liberals, we had a peaceful and healthy coexistence. The pastoral staff identified themselves as evangelical, as did most of the Christian education workers, and (in the spirit of full disclosure) so did I, a seminary-educated layman who served on the church board. The Vestry—the governing board—well represented the theological make-up of the congregation, with a 10-4 conservative majority.

Now a year later—September 2004—the entire pastoral staff is gone, attendance is down 75 percent, most of the Christian education leaders have either left the church or are hesitant to sign up for another year of duty. The parish is deeply discouraged, mission giving is down, and the near future of the parish looks bleak, financially and spiritually.

While a number of incidents conspired to sink the hundred-year-old Trinity, for the sake of this article, I'd like to look at our leadership. Our pastor, Father Collin Shaw, is neither evil nor incompetent. He was largely responsible in his eight years of ministry for the overall vigor of the congregation as it existed on August 5, 2003. In the months that followed, he often led with political and spiritual savvy. But in the end, some of the mistakes he, and those of us in leadership, made proved to be terribly damaging.

All names have been changed in this article because I see no need to hurt or embarrass anyone at Trinity, especially Father Collin. Like the captain of the Titanic, he is a good man and a good leader whose mistakes in judgment contributed significantly to the capsizing of the good ship Trinity. Perhaps these errors will be instructive for other churches heading into treacherous seas.

The precipitating event was international news. On August 5, at its 2003 national gathering, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ecusa) elected to the office of bishop Gene Robinson, a man who had left his wife and children and was living with a homosexual partner.

In addition, the convention agreed to let dioceses create experimental services that would bless same-sex unions. One side celebrated a victory for human rights. The other was appalled at the blatant repudiation of biblical ethics. The vote created a rift among both American Episcopalians and the body to which ecusa is a "constituent member," the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The Primates—heads of Anglican provinces worldwide—gathered in Canterbury in October and declared unanimously that ecusa's actions were divisive and that it should not proceed with Robinson's ordination. In November, a handful of ecusa bishops (including the presiding bishop, Frank Griswold) defied the admonitions of the worldwide Communion, laid hands on Robinson and made him a bishop.

The international reverberations are still being felt. But for Trinity Church, the crisis has been primarily ...