Rector’s 2006 Report
First published at the Parish Meeting, December 3, 2006

A Wider Vision of Pohick’s Mission

Two episodes this past year have helped me to view our ministry at Pohick Church in a much wider context than ever before.

The first of these took place during my retreat at Taizé last Spring. Nestled near a remote French village, Taizé has a resident population of only a few hundred people. Yet in the course of a year, tens of thousands of pilgrims visit there from every continent. Most of them stay for only a week. Yet in that time, through corporate prayer, Bible study, and small group reflection, they return to their homes around the world strengthened and renewed for Christian ministry.

And so, when Pope John Paul II visited Taizé some twenty years ago, he remarked, “One passes through Taizé as one passes close to a spring of water. The traveler stops, quenches his thirst,and continues on his way. The brothers of the community, you know, do not want to keep you. They want, in prayer and silence, to enable you to drink the living water promised by Christ, to know his joy, to discern his presence, to respond to his call, then to set out again to witness to his love and to serve your brothers and sisters in your parishes, your schools, your universities, and in all your places of work.”

In reflecting upon these words, as well as upon my own time at Taizé, I was able to confront one of my own frustrations of parish ministry - namely, the ever more transient nature of our community. More and more, new families join us, immerse themselves in our community life, only to be transferred somewhere else after a year or two. Likewise, as I’ve noted in previous reports, many long-time parishioners have increasingly decided to retire to quieter (and cheaper) pastures outside of Northern Virginia. All the while, the accelerated demands of employers have left many of us relatively little time for family life, church community life - even sleep!

Yet when viewed in light of the ongoing ministry at Taizé, these frustrations were exposed to me as both nearsighted and selfish. They are selfish because they are based upon a desire to expand our base institution as rapidly as possible. They are nearsighted because they overlook the many ways that Pohick Church, like Taizé, has enabled Christian ministry far beyond its walls.

This last insight was driven home to me during the second of the above mentioned episodes. It happened at a wedding I recently performed for a Pohick family who had long since moved away (I had known them as a seminarian). The guest list contained a veritable Who’s Who of non-resident Pohickians, some of whom I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Now scattered around the country, they came up to me one by one, telling me how much Pohick Church had meant to them in their spiritual formation, and how they continue to read the Pohick Post every month. Many of them are now pillars within their new congregations, serving as Lay Readers, Vestrymen, Sunday School teachers, and other positions of leadership.

I must say, this veritable “Cloud of Witnesses” overwhelmed me. Like the final scene in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” these encounters opened my eyes to the truth that the ministries of Pohick Church extend far beyond what we normally see on any given Sunday morning. They run deep and wide, touching lives in ways that we may not even begin to fathom this side of heaven.

This basic insight is one that I should have grasped long ago. After all, for twelve years I too was a “non-resident Pohickian.” Moreover, much of what I offered my congregations in those dozen years came not from the seminary classroom, but from my two years of mentoring at Pohick. Indeed, Pohick seminarians are among those who have greatly benefitted from their time among us; they too have gone on to provide leadership in the wider church (one of them, Larry Benfield, who was a year behind me at Pohick, was recently elected Bishop of Arkansas).

Thus duly chastened for my pride and spiritual myopia, I would now like to suggest to you a more complete and accurate vision of the basic character of Pohick Church: it is not merely a worshiping congregation that seeks to serve Christ in its local community (though that is certainly an important part of who we are); it is also a missionary training center for ministers (both ordained and lay) who may be sent out into the world at a moment’s notice.

I think this view of our congregation not only better reflects the reality of our transient membership (which is not likely to change in the near future), but also calls us to be more outward looking than we can sometimes be. That is to say, when one of our member families announces they are moving out of the area, we should not just mourn their departure, but we should rejoice that new missionary doors have opened for them. It would not be too dramatic to say that we should send them each off with a missionary charge - as well as with the pledge of our continued prayers and support as they enter their new mission field.

Because this view acknowledges the outward flow of a portion of our membership, it also reminds us to “pray the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into the harvest” (Matt 9:38). Of course, we should supplement these prayers by intentionally working to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ by word and deed within our communities, inviting our neighbors into the Christian worship, ministry and fellowship we share at Pohick.

By staying focused on our Christian mission, I believe the institutional growth many of us seek (expanded facilities, new ministry areas, etc.) will follow - as indeed it always has when we’ve been mission-minded in our approach to living out the Gospel. But we will need to persevere with patience, recognizing that we are not just building up the local ministries of Pohick Church, but also the extended ministries of parishioners we have sent out into the larger mission field.

Controversy within the Anglican Communion

As we all know, there have been many distractions to our Christian mission of late. While not originating from within us, the controversies that have risen within our denomination have certainly led to distress within our membership. Yet while I have endeavored to keep our congregation focused upon our Christian mission, I also do not believe these matters should be ignored. We must address them as a congregation not merely because they have escalated to an international magnitude, but because the questions posed in the present dispute concern the very contents of the Christian Gospel we seek to preach. As I have sought to outline in my class on Anglicanism, the basis of the current international uproar is not principally about a single moral issue, but about how we as Anglicans/Episcopalians arrive at theological conclusions. At odds are two different approaches.

The first looks to Scripture as its principle authority, holding that it contains the unique revelation of the Triune God - God the Father our Creator, God the Son our Redeemer, God the Holy Spirit our Sanctifier - as well as all things necessary for salvation (including a description of what it means to lead a moral life). Secondly, the assembled Councils of the Church employ God-illumined reason to interpret especially those parts of Scripture that seem unclear or contradictory. Finally, the tradition of the Church (including experience, untested tradition in the present tense) provides a measure of guidance in this interpretive process. This has been the prototypically Anglican/Episcopalian way of doing theology.

The second approach, which is derived from the nineteenth-century German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, essentially turns the first on its head. It places a premium on the experience of the individual believer. Scripture here is valued less for its contents than for its ability to serve as a springboard to launch the believer into a spiritual connection with the Risen Christ, through which the believer can discern hidden truths that transcend Scripture.

Of course, Christian mystics have employed a much milder variation of the second approach for many centuries, but, recognizing the human capacity for self-delusion, they have typically measured their potential spiritual insights against a plainer reading of the biblical text. In its more modern (or postmodern) version, however, this way of doing theology gives the believer’s subjective experience of the “Risen Christ” priority over the “Jesus” of the text.

The present controversy over issues of human sexuality, I believe, stems from a clash between these two approaches.

On this reading, the Primates’ acceptance of the Windsor Report essentially reasserted the first approach and called the leadership of the Episcopal Church to return to it (or remain steadfast in it), particularly with respect to the current issue.

At the 2005 Diocesan Council, Bishop Lee and the Diocese of Virginia embraced the Windsor Report, thereby committing themselves to the typically Anglican/Episcopalian way of doing theology.

It is not at all clear that the 2006 General Convention did the same.

Because of this, the pathway ahead for reconciliation between the Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican Communion is uncertain. This leaves dioceses and parishes (including our own) caught in a difficult situation. Some churches and dioceses are taking (or have taken) steps to leave the Episcopal Church and come under the authority of a bishop from another Province or even the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. Sadly, this has led to church property disputes, clergy defrockings, and many hard feelings.

Because of parishioner concerns over all these recent events, the Vestry and I felt the need to survey the wider congregation about their feelings as a prelude to any larger pastoral response. Unfortunately, this instrument itself caused some distress among parishioners. Given the divisiveness of the issue, this may have been unavoidable. As a way of diminishing some of this distress, it is worth restating from the letter that accompanied the survey that the instrument was distributed as a means of listening to the concerns of our parishioners, not as a way for the Vestry to somehow preposition the parish toward some predetermined course of action.

A summary of the survey results is being released today, and the complete statistics and comments (unattributed) will be made available in the parish office for those interested.

After the responses were initially compiled, the Vestry prayerfully reflected upon them for several weeks prior to meeting in special session for discussion (the first such meeting of my tenure). Given the deep-seated feelings expressed in many of the comments, the Vestry decided that they should offer a special parish forum where members might express their concerns to them in a small-group setting. That forum has been set for Sunday, December 17 at 10:15 am.

At my suggestion, the Vestry has also agreed that I invite Bp. Jones to meet with them, not only to share with him these concerns, but to receive the benefit of his wisdom and experience in navigating these difficult waters. That meeting will take place in January. Likewise, the Primates’ meeting in February will hopefully also provide some additional guidance.

In the meantime, this parish, through its representatives at Diocesan Council, has already joined with our bishops and diocese in affirming its commitment to the recommendations of the Windsor Report. As Rector, I likewise continue to endorse this Report.

I ask all the congregation to keep this matter in your prayers, as well as to share your reflections with the Vestry at the forum later this month. At the same time, I hope that this issue will not so dominate our thoughts that we are distracted from the larger Christian mission to which we have been called at Pohick.

Back to Mission

And so I conclude these remarks by offering thanks to God for all the wonderful ministry done this past year by all of you, especially by Jane, my co-worker in Christ, by Arienne, our dedicated seminarian, and by our faithful Church Staff, our Wardens, Vestry and the many other ministry leaders of our congregation.

Please take some time to read through the individual descriptions of the good work that has been done here over this past year, noting also the ministry challenges that still remain.