Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 6, 1994 TAG: 9402030034
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cody Lowe
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Michael Brown's mission was to shatter the starchy part of the stereotype. In just two days, he had Episcopalians clapping, swaying their hips, tapping their toes well before the cocktail hour.
From the opening Eucharist of the 75th Annual Council of the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia held last weekend in Blacksburg, Brown - who was in charge of music for most of the assembly - showed he was in the transformation business.
With a little prodding, the council congregation joined in "When the Saints Go Marchin' In," "Blessed Assurance," "Amen," "Amazing Grace." They applauded Brown's Christian re-arrangement of Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven."
Though a few never caught the spirit - even resented its intrusion, maybe - Brown, minister of music at Roanoke's Church of the Holy Spirit, was a crowd-pleaser.
The generally up-tempo, gospel-influenced music was a welcome counterpoint of spiritual joy to the more somber business the delegates had to attend to.
The money report was sobering. Though slightly more than half the congregations in the diocese are increasing their giving this year, a fifth are giving less. Despite deep and widespread sentiment in the diocese to hire a youth specialist, increase staff at the Bishop Marmion Resource Center and do more with college ministries, there was no money to do that, delegates were told.
As it turned out, the insistence of the delegates that a youth ministry be started was compelling enough - and some last-minute pledges large enough - for the budget committee to pare and squeeze and free up $8,500 to pay for a youth specialist this year.
Despite that good news, the diocese's financial condition remains what Bishop A. Heath Light called a disaster.
As has become a pattern in recent years, the diocese is using up non-recurring funds - assets that are unlikely to be replaced - to make up for a shortfall in donations from the parishes. About $60,000 of the $855,000 budget will be paid for that way this year.
"We are eating our seed to continue the work of the church at this level," Robert K. Miller told the assembly.
There is a "frustrating . . . sense of survival mentality" in the diocese, Light said, much of which emanates from the persistent budgeting crises.
Though the bishop was advised by one panel to forget dealing with the crass materialistic side of his job and focus on spiritual leadership of the diocese, finances will continue to be a thorn.
In the coming year, communicants throughout the region likely will be asked - either by their lay or clerical leadership - to give more money. The request could be through a capital campaign that would fund not only expansion of diocesan facilities but benefit some sort of social cause.
A national expert on church administration also told the delegates that any initiative to face the challenges the church will meet in coming decades would require new, larger monetary commitments.
This year, though, in spite of the powerful financial strain Episcopalians in the region are feeling, many of the delegates were even more concerned about the need for spiritual renewal.
When the diocese's long-range planning committee last year asked vestries what concerns were most important to them, "spiritual hunger" and "vision" topped the list of responses.
Both are difficult to address, to put hands on, to design a goal-oriented program for.
And maybe they are conditions that parishes - in a denomination that is becoming more and more congregationally driven - must take the lead in satisfying, rather than looking to the diocese for the answers.
Spiritual hunger, like our physical need for food, cannot be satisfied for long by one great banquet. It requires a steady, regular nourishment, usually out of one's own kitchen.
by CNB