The recommendations also call for the elimination of all Standing Commissions, replacing them with task forces appointed by the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies.

In an earlier paper on church governance, TREC said it was weighing three options for distributing executive authority in the church. One model would have given Executive Council greater authority in the hiring and firing of the chief operating officer, chief financial officer and legal officer. Another would have vested authority for the day-to-day operation of the church in a General Secretary accountable to the Executive Council. The third option, which strengthens the executive authority of the Presiding Bishop, is the option the task force chose.

Recognizing the need for change, TREC leaders acknowledged The Episcopal Church's structures and governance processes reflect assumptions from previous eras that do not always fit with today's contexts.

They said General Convention has historically been most effective in evolving the church's position on large-scale issues (e.g., prayer book revision, reform of clergy formation and discipline canons, women's ordination, same sex blessings). While this should continue to be the primary role of General Convention, it lacked the ability to focus on the priorities that are most urgent at the local level, where much, if not most, of its primary mission and ministry take place.

INTERPRETATION. Most of TEC's 6,700 parishes could care a less about what goes on at 815, the church's national headquarters. Most resolutions passed at General Conventions are ignored or soon forgotten, except for hot button issues like sex and the role of women in the church.

The report went on to say that "the roles of the Executive Council and the Presiding Bishop's office are often ambiguous and unclear, and neither are structured, selected, or sized appropriately for their tasks in governance and execution."

They called for a new paradigm which included inspiring and provoking all members of the church to live fully into its mission of "restoring all people to unity with God and one another in Christ" (Book of Common Prayer, p. 855). THAT is not new. This has been a mantra of TEC's leadership for years. In truth, most people either don't know what it means, or if they do, how to implement what it means.

TREC leaders did say: "Key capabilities needed in today's missionary context include skills in ministry, community organization, reviving congregations, planting congregations, multicultural leadership, evangelism, Christian formation, reaching new generations, and reaching new populations. The expertise in these areas lies primarily at the grassroots level, but the church wide structure can foster mutual learning, especially on a peer-to-peer basis."

They also called for convening a General Missionary Convocation!

It should be noted that the former 20/20 vision to double the church by 2020 has floundered and gone nowhere. This would seem to be another reinvention of an old idea. Streamlining church governance and structures will effectively change nothing.

One paragraph -- calling for the addressing of priorities that would enable the church to be more effective by deep study and bold action regarding the sustainability of stipendiary clergy with its implications for clergy education and pension structures -- should send shivers down the spines of every cleric.

TRANSLATION. Smaller congregations are inevitable as parishioners age and die. Parishes will not be able to afford full time paid clergy (especially if they have seminary loans to pay off) and their congregations continue to shrink. The biggest building program for most churches will be columbarium's.

There is also a consideration of Diocesan viability, the number of dioceses, and assessment requirements/expectations needed in the future as dioceses wither and die. At least three dioceses have part time bishops. The median age of TEC's communicants now in the mid-60s and creeping upward.

As Springfield Bishop Dan Martins recently observed, "There is real doubt as to whether we will be able to sustain ministry in rural areas very much longer."

Parish viability, the number and geographic distribution of parishes, and fostering new church plants is being called for. Other ideas include reducing the size of the Executive Council from 40 to 21 members, and transitioning the mission or program-related staff of DFMS to a primarily contractor-only model.

Shrinkage is everywhere. TREC leadership did say that the process is underway and noted, "The Holy Spirit has breathed new life into the Church at countless times and in countless ways in the past, and the same Spirit will continue to do so in the future."

The deeper question is will the Holy Spirit bother with the Episcopal Church because of its abandonment of Scripture as authoritative and its brokering of pansexuality into the church.

VOL RESPONDS

The deep disjunction in this report is that what goes on at the national level bears no correlation to what goes on at the local level. Most Episcopalians don't know: if they do, they wouldn't care; if they knew, they would take to the hills. One Episcopalian wrote to VOL with this, "I am a member of an Episcopal church located in a rural community. We have a strong outreach program and a highly impressive series of classes, seminars and other activities. We operate in the black. Our average Sunday attendance is 133. Although our rector is a liberal, he has not once, in all the time I have been a member (seven years), mentioned the national church or the presiding bishop. In all that he does and says conforms to the Bible. If he were to speak of what is and has occurred on the national scene and take the national church's view, I would expect our local church to fall apart."

TREC leaders should take note.

Sunday worship in most Episcopal churches hasn't been a growth engine for decades and now isn't even a survival strategy. Even though it's the thing most mainline congregations do best, Sunday worship fails to reach younger populations and fails to retain the interest of older populations. Audience-style religion fails to transform lives.

To all intents, this TREC interim report is little more than pointing out the iceberg at the end of the inside passage or rearranging the deck chairs on the SS TEC.

The deeper truth, and really the only truth, is that the problem with TEC is that it is "re-imagining" itself with technical changes, but failing to look long and hard at the message being proclaimed from its pulpits.

Why is the Anglican Church in North America growing (now over 110,000) while TEC is in decline? Why has ACNA overtaken the Anglican Church of Canada in Average Sunday Attendance?

It's all about the message - one of the transforming love of Jesus Christ to all sinners. There is almost no difference in the way a TEC parish functions from that of an ACNA parish. A visitor would see no discernible difference in worship forms, liturgy (though there is a greater use of the 1928 Prayer Book in ACNA parishes). The difference is what is proclaimed from the pulpit each Sunday. Preaching endless sermons about inclusion, diversity, the joys of pansexuality, the need for women priests/bishops, the Five Marks of Mission, MDGs and a whole host of so-called hot button issues does not change lives just opinions and not always that.

TEC needs to radically rethink who they want as next generation priests. Second career aging lesbians won't cut it.

TREC leaders need to recognize that it is, by and large, Evangelical priests who can make churches grow. (Most of the mega-sized Church of England parishes in England are evangelical). TEC bishops need to repent of their attitude towards Trinity School for Ministry (TSM) and invite their graduates into their dioceses. Ditto for Nashotah House. There is an unwritten code that liberal and revisionist bishops won't allow TSM grads into their dioceses. They need to repent of that and change.

There needs to be an aggressive outreach to Millennials that Jesus is real and can change lives using all the social media now available. In the end, though, it is one-on-one encounters that will bring people in.

Thom Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door says that 82% of the unchurched are somewhat likely to attend church if invited. Those are pretty great odds don't you think? Unfortunately, only 2% of church going people ever invite someone to church in a given year. To make matters worse, 70% of unchurched people have never been invited to church in their whole lives. See more at: http://blog.d2design.com/practical-ways-to-reach-the-unchurched/#sthash.GuyAieDX.dpuf

It's as simple as Inviting people to church. It sounds obvious, but nobody is doing it. It's like a middle school dance. Everybody wants to dance, but nobody wants to ask.

Why Not? So if you're a person in the pew not inviting anyone to church, it's time to ask why not. Maybe you're scared they'll say no, maybe you're embarrassed of your church, and maybe you just don't think about it. Or maybe like a lot of us in Christian circles, you just don't have that many unchurched friends you can invite.

If you're embarrassed of your church, how come? Is this something you need to get over or is your church that bad? Maybe you need to step up and help your church become less embarrassing (after all, people who sit in the pew and complain are part of the problem), writes Rainer.

Stop talking about homosexual acceptance. Most Millennials have pretty well accepted that reality, but pushing it won't fill church pews.

Secondly, press the Great Commission. The church is not a social club. Be intentional about it and think of specific people you can start inviting. They need Jesus, too.

Other ideas. Create handy invite cards with times and directions. It's cheaper than you think: You can print 10,000 full-color, two sided business cards for well under $150. Have them available at all times. Not only does it make it easier to invite people, it's a handy reminder for the people who don't think about it.

Be active on social media. Everybody's on Facebook and Twitter these days -- it's a lot easier to throw out an invite if you can point to an active Facebook page or Twitter account. It can give a potential visitor that first introduction and they'll realize that church isn't so weird.

Make sure your service is visitor friendly. Do your people actually welcome visitors or do they scare them away (either from being too friendly or too distant)? Does the service drip with insider lingo and archaic traditions that are never explained? It can be as simple as inviting people to kneel instead of watching the entire congregation drop to their knees as if on invisible cue that leaves the visitor feeling creeped out.

There are a lot of ways your church can help your congregation invite people. Start brainstorming and get to work.

The people in the pews are a ready-made street team for your church. The bodies are there and Jesus gives the motivation (that great commission thing again). We just need to get to work.

Of course, for mainline denominations in decline, many believe the die has been caste. 50 years of decline won't be reversed overnight, if ever, and for the Episcopal Church it might be too late.

The Church will publish its final report and specific legislative proposals in December 2014.

END