Diocesan Assembly Registration Materials Available

Cleveland OH October 1-3
The 46th Diocesan Assembly will be held in Cleveland OH Oct 1-3.
The Assembly web page can be used to register and access Assembly reports and materials.
A block of rooms is available at the discounted rate of $99 per night until Sept 10 (subject to availability) at the Doubletree Hotel in Independence OH. The hotel can be contacted at 216-447-1300, group code is Diocese of the Midwest.

VIDEO PROFILES URBAN MINISTRY

St Gregory of Nyssa Saturday Lunch Program, Columbus OH

The Parish Health Ministry recently completed an editted eight minute video profiling the Saturday Lunch Program at St. Gregory of Nyssa parish in Columbus OH.

While this video should be of interest to parishes of all types it will be particularly informative to urban parishes in the Diocese. 

Lessons Useful for Parishes of All Sizes and Situations
The video describes a transformation that began with serving doughnuts to homeless persons near the church and has grown to include a full meal each Saturday in the church hall, job training, classes in Orthodoxy and a seamless relationship where neighborhood people give back to the parish by assisting with parish projects.
The conditions and needs surrounding your parish community are likely different -- but the self emptying motivation to embrace the needs of neighbors can be a helpful inspiration to all Diocesan parishes.

Click here for the video.

The video requires a high speed connection. It will stream and begin playing once about 10% of the file has downloaded. (1-2 minutes for most of you.)

ASSEMBLY AGENDA BEING PLANNED

Delegates to Review Progress on Parish Health Projects

A financial resolution to provide continued funding for the experimental Parish Health Ministry will be on the agenda of the upcoming Diocesan Assembly.

Also included on the agenda will be briefings on important Parish Health Ministry projects including: 

• Discussion of a proposed clergy compensation policy (see article below)
• Recommendations on the diocesan lay catechist program.
• Previews of late vocations on-line learning tools.
• Parish financial auditing handbook.
• Parish manual for implementing policies for sexual misconduct. (Partial materials are becoming available at this location. More will follow shortly.)
• New materials/ tools for explaining the basis and the basics of personal evangelization.

The full report for this year's activities of the Parish Health Ministry can be found here.

CLERGY COMPENSATION POLICY COMMITTEE MEETS

Proposed Diocesan Policy to Be Discussed at Cleveland Diocesan Assembly

Fifty one usable responses were received from rectors participating in the Diocesan Clergy Compensation survey.
A summary of the averages and medians calculated from the 51 usable responses from the Clergy Compensation survey can be found here.

At the Diocesan Assembly the Clergy Compensation Committee  (Fr. Andrew Yavornitzky, Fr. Andrew Clements & Sam D'Fantis) will present a proposed policy based on this data, the practices of other Christian bodies, compensation data for similar vocations and US census household income data.

It is assumed that the policy will need discussion by parishes as to how to transition toward achieving it. During 2008, Deans will work with rectors and parish council's to determine how to improve the policy and to understand the realities of making it work with a goal of adopting the policy  at the 2008 Diocesan Assembly.

The draft of the policy will not be available in time for pre-assembly mailing but should be available prior to the assembly on the Diocesan webpage.

AMERICAN SAINTS CHURCH SCHOOL BOOKLET AVAILABLE

Provide Info & Creative Activities for North American Saints
The OCA Department of religious Education has published a new booklet providing information on twelve North American Saints.

Designed for family or classroom use the free 74 page booklet can be downloaded from the DRE website here.
If you haven't Visited this site in awhile you may want to take a good look around. The site offers 122 lessons, 15 mini units,and 182 teacher resources. The web location is http://dce.oca.org

PRAYER FOR OPENING CHURCH SCHOOL

Last autumn we visited Holy Trinity Parish in Overland Park KS on the first day of church school.
The parish uses an opening prayer, originally offered in the Antiochian Archdiocese as we recall, for the church school year that engages students parents, and teachers and reminds each of their important role in Orthodox Christian formation.

The prayer has been approved for use in all parishes within the Diocese by His Eminence Archbishop JOB.
The prayer can be found here.

CHURCH SCHOOL TEACHERS TRAINING

Cincinnati October 12
The Columbus Deanery will offer an OCEC Church School teachers certification course at Christ the Savior-Holy Spirit parish in Cincinnati on Saturday October 12. Registration cost is $25.
For more info click here.

UNDERSTANDING EVANGELIZATION

We recently noticed this fine passage on evangelism in a parish bulletin. Though the author is not Orthodox his perspective is very Orthodox.
Evangelism - seeking God's kingdom   "To 'seek first' this kingdom is to desire as of first importance the spread of the reign of Jesus Christ.  ...   
Why do we desire the spread of the gospel throughout the world?  Not out of a sinful imperialism or triumphalism, whether for ourselves or the church or even 'Christianity'.  Nor just because evangelism is part of our Christian obedience (though it is).  But especially because the glory of God and of his Christ is at stake.  God is King, has inaugurated his saving reign through Christ, and has a right to rule in the lives of his creatures.  Our ambition, then, is to seek first his kingdom, to cherish the passionate desire that his name should receive from men the honour which is due to it."  (John Stott, THE MESSAGE OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT)

BARRIERS TO EVANGELIZATION

At the recent "Breaking Our Insularity" Workshop the issue of sharing our faith with others was explored throughout the day. One person summed up the dilemma well.

"Lots of people in the area are aware of our parish hall and reception center but few people know about our Church".

Participants were asked, "Why aren't we as Orthodox more effective at evangelizing?" Of course the discussion did not solve the problem but quickly summarized an array of issues. Among the points offered:

• Ethnic insularity -- We see the church as belonging to a select group; we don't understand why others would be interested.
• Paying the Bills - Our primary motivation is supporting the sagging parish budget rather than opening people  to God's Kingdom.
• Fear of marketing - We somehow equate competent , graceful efforts to build awareness in our parish community and to share the "Good News" with twisting arms, invading people's privacy and "marketing".
• (Seeming) changeless nature of Church -- Makes us (wrongly) afraid to try new things and take risks. 
• Don't know what works -- We all fear failure. As a result we don't try. When we try we're often ineffective. When we occasionally are successful we don't share approaches that work --to help others be more effective. We then give up --retreating into our shell/"insularity".
• Don't know our faith - Because too few laypersons work as hard at understanding our faith as we should, we're often afraid that we simply can't answer the questions of seekers/inquirers.  (There is of course no quick fix for this very real issue, however the 'Intro to Orthodoxy/Inquirers" Powerpoint summarizes info that our most successful "evangelizers" share with interested persons.)
• "Our parish isn't ready" - Often priests and parishioners defer efforts to invite others to examine Orthodoxy because they fear their parish won't "measure up" to the expectations of inquirers. No parish, of course, is a perfect example of the body of Christ. Since growth in numbers is clearly a by-product of growing in a relationship with God many parishes need to focus inwardly before expanding efforts to invite others in.  But most need to focus both inwardly and outwardly in tandem.

Additional perspectives are available in the article Evangelization by Allurement by Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky.

Better Tools and Training Needed
One of the most important statements made by (multiple) workshop attendees was the need for better tools and training in the right and wrong approaches for Orthodox evangelization in America.  The Diocese will be offering a series of tools and video training for personal and parish evangelization activities.

Stay tuned.

Mission Miscellany

Mission Needs

We have 13 missions in our Diocese. Many are small and struggling. In addition to your prayers and financial contributions they could use your help. At long last we've created a list of needed articles from our mission parishes. Click here to see what's on their list and if your parish can help.

Mission By Laws
The Mission Development committee and the Archbishop have completed a set of mission by laws that will be the standard for new missions and missions that do not yet have bylaws. They can be found here.

Mission Department Report
The report of the Mission department can be found here.

Thank you for reading these letters and for the many encouraging comments.   

In Christ, 

Joe Kormos, Parish Health Facilitator
Diocese of Midwest