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It’s an honor to be called to serve as your diocesan Canon for Faith, Leadership, and Collaboration. I was already the Director of the School for Christian Faith and Leadership, so the first two parts of the title haven’t changed much. I will continue to direct the School, now alongside my wonderful colleague Amanda Anderson, who will take on the administration of the School. I will also work with congregations in transition and priests seeking new calls.

The collaboration piece is new, both for me and for EDOW at the diocesan level. As a diocese, we have recognized for a while that for many of our congregations the old norm of “one priest, one parish” is no longer a reality. In this, we join the rest of the wider Episcopal church, where a majority of congregations now have either a rector or vicar who works less than full time or no settled clergy leadership. This reality, in combination with a decline in the overall number of available clergy, means that we need to rethink the role and deployment of clergy and how multiple congregations can be served by one priest or a pastoral team. At the same time, other areas of parish life, including care of buildings and grounds, office tasks, and financial administration, seem ripe for the possibility of resource sharing.

As we listen to the experiences of our congregations, a few things are clear. Every context is different, bringing its own unique mix of gifts and challenges. One thing our congregations share almost universally is a desire to maintain autonomy, worship traditions, and roots in their particular geographic and cultural communities. At the same time, the burdens of buildings and the rising costs of just about everything are taking up too much of our most faithful leaders’ time and energy.

So my role, in collaboration with my fellow good people of EDOW, is to explore creative models for collaboration, particularly but not exclusively for congregations not currently served by a full-time rector. We’ll start with local context, hopes, and dreams. We’ll imagine possibilities and assess available resources for making them happen. We’ll pray over possible scenarios and ask God where we might be called to flexibility and new vision. We’ll learn from the good efforts already underway here in EDOW and around the Anglican world. Our EDOW colleague Greg Syler, who has done much work in this area, has a great article featured in this month’s ECF Vital Practices describing models he has researched.

Participation in collaborative structures will be voluntary. No one wants to take on a group project with someone who doesn’t want to be there. We will try things, reflecting and adjusting as we go. Not everything will work as planned. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we will discover together ways to strengthen one another to enable us to serve God’s people in this time and place.

I’ve felt a call to serve the church in this particular area for as long as I’ve been serving congregations. I’m thrilled to have the chance to do it with you!

The Rev. Anna B. Olson
Canon for Faith, Leadership, and Collaboration