I found especially helpful his chapter on alternatives for multi-site congregations and his chapter on new church planting. These are areas where books are usually written to advocate one method as the best way. Schaller shows us the alternatives and the best strategies to carry out these alternatives. His observations on new church planting confirm much of the strategy that we developed on the 2020 Taskforce for the Episcopal Church.

Reason for Hope?

You might think this work would give me hope as an Episcopalian, but it does not. In fact, the opposite is true for the foreseeable future. The reason I feel this reaction is that the turnaround Schaller offers is based on the ability of denominational leaders to start with an honest appraisal of their true situation. This gives me hope for Methodist, Lutherans and some Presbyterians, but not for ECUSA.

The present crisis in the Episcopal Church has created a situation that reinforces a strong mindset of denial among our national leaders and an almost pathological need to keep saying, "all is well." This work demands an accurate assessment and this demands leaders who are willing to be truth-tellers to our people. Our present leaders seem more concerned with political spin and staying on message.

This does not mean that the information is not out their for us to see. Thanks to Charles Fulton and Kirk Hadaway of our national staff, the bad news is printed and available directly on the church's website. These leaders should be commended for their efforts to help our local, regional and national leaders make good decisions based on good data. No, the problem isn't that it is not there, the problem is that our present leaders choose to either ignore it or take parts of it to spin to their political agenda. For example, our leaders are quick to tell us that the loss of over 30,000 in average attendance in 2003 can't be blamed on decisions at our 2003 General Convention because actually there was a small turndown already in 2002. Instead of simple truth telling that we had a turn down in 2003 that probably could be expected because of the controversial nature of our decisions, we get political spin. What our leaders should be more concerned about is whether the 30,000 represent the effects of only ½ of the year. After all, General Convention did not happen until late August so the 30,000 for that year could represent a much steeper loss over the next 12 months. The failure of many dioceses to correctly anticipate their financial shortfalls for 2004 can easily be explained by their failure to understand their 2003 turndown only reflected a half of a year trend, not its effects for a full year's budget. 2004 information should clarify this for us.

Denial

Our particular level of denial is made worse by the fact that our present presiding Bishop is a generally sanguine and optimistic personality who operates with a high level of detachment from others. In other words, he sees the world the way he chooses to see it. This personality style served him well during his first five years as he helped our church turn around its direction by affirmation, encouragement and his ability to draw a diversity of people together around common direction while ignoring negative feedback. This same temperament serves him poorly in the midst of conflict. Put simple, he actually believes that there is a diverse center that is unaffected by this current conflict. He is projecting his own internal detachment into the institution as a whole. Of course, this only fuels the denial in the system.

The question that Schaller's work raise for Episcopalians could be expressed this way. The information to turn around our church is out there. Will our next generation of leaders be able to take advantage of this?

They will if they want to and start with a realistic assessment of our present situation. Unfortunately, our current crisis and conflict that has been extended to our 2006 General Convention (when we will select our next generation of national leaders) creates a context where such realistic leadership will probably not emerge. It bodes more for selecting leaders who promise to "ease our pain."

Denial is a powerful tool that helps people and organizations avoid pain. It does not allow them to cure the illness that causes the pain. Pain is the body's message that something is not right. This is as true for the Body of Christ as it is for the human body. We deny it at our own peril.

Mainline turnaround? Episcopalians should not count on it. Our current direction parallels the course already set by Unitarians and Congregationalist. Of course, the Unitarians and Congregationalists within ECUSA are probably resigned to this direction anyway. If current trends continue, soon the diverse center will become the diverse remnant.

The Rev. Kevin Martin heads Vital Ministries in Plano, Texas