Governance Team Update

As most of you know, in Anglican church governance, duties are divided between clergy and laity. The clergy, under the bishop, is responsible for the theological direction of the church. This encompasses how we worship, what we teach, and how we seek to spread the Gospel. The vestry (or parish council) is a group of lay people selected by the congregation who have a different, but complementary duty.

The vestry is responsible for the “temporal affairs” of the church. This means that this group is responsible for our budget, business decisions, and policies and bylaws. In a rough sense, you can say that the clergy set the identity and vision of the church and the people, through the vestry, choose how to spend money to enact this identity and vision. Together, they balance each other, so that both clergy and laity have a voice at the table.

Incarnation is currently a mission in the Diocese of Christ our Hope, rather than a full-fledged congregation. We will likely make the transition from mission to congregation in 2022, which will entail the selection of our first official vestry! At that point, we will ask people to submit names, so that we can begin the selection process.

In the meantime, though, the role of the vestry has been fulfilled by our governance team, which has acted as a “proto-vestry.” The only real differences between our governance team and a vestry are term-length (the governance team will disband when we transition from mission to congregation) and selection process. Rather than receiving names nominated by the people, this group internally selects its new members.

In the summer of 2019, I asked Ruthie Byrne, Elizabeth Ellwanger, Ken Fitchett, Ed Hardy, and Chris Heidenthal to be our initial governance team. Since then, whenever there has been a vacancy, the group has selected several potential new members from the members of the church, prayed over the names, and then drawn lots to choose the new members. With the departure of Ruthie and Chris from the team, both Connie Beekman and Elizabeth Hammon were added in this way. The current team is now Connie Beekman, Elizabeth Ellwanger, Ken Fitchett, and Ed Hardy, and they drew lots again at our last meeting (after praying over the names!). Brannon McDaniel and Kristi Hall will be joining the team at our next meeting in October.

If you would like to know more about the business side of the church, and how it functions, please approach one of these people! They are the representatives of the people who govern the church’s resources and help establish healthy policies. And if you want more information about how the entire system functions, please do not hesitate to email me!

In Christ,
Steven+