Episcopal Church Releases “Sweet Sixteen” Budget Bracket

I imagine there will be some strongly worded resolutions encouraging the ending of poverty.  That should do the trick.

Ya know, when I was younger, I thought Cheech & Chong’s Basketball Jones was about a guy named Jones who liked hoops. 

Today, I’m getting it.  I’m finally getting it.

I love how “Gay Stuff” comes out of nowhere - a real Cinderella story! They were so, so close!

Everyone knows that when the initial seeds are made they try to set up the coaches with their former assistants/players to play head to head. It’s obvious there should have been a match between the Church Pension Fund and Lawyers Fees. The committee had a lapse of judgement there.

Yeh, but then mean old Kentucky wins it all, trampling the Cinderella story into the ground.

Oh well, maybe next year!

Sarah, by “mean old Kentucky” do you mean that paid 815 player from Lexington?

Couldn’t be any clearer, Greg!

From the Dean of Bexley Hall Seminary (one of the links Greg provides up top):

And let’s look where there are increases. In all of the usual places, naturally. The Office of the Presiding bishop has $364,000 in additional staff. The President of the House of Deputies has $212,000 in additional staff. Neither of these offices lost anybody in the 2009 bloodletting, and they get increases here. The Controller’s office at 815 adds $421,000 in staff, Human Resources at 815 (despite laying off a lot of people on the national staff the past four years) adds $271,000 in staff, the Treasurer’s office $120,000. That’s $1.4 million in added staff costs.

Wonder which denizen of 815 got to cut down the net?  Or did the whole staff just surge out onto the court and tear down the entire frame and basket?

And I thought Gay Stuff would have been a slam dunk to take it all.

But then again, maybe the brackets were unfair, because the two finalists are made up of the same players.

Funniest thing I’ve seen in months.  All that’s missing are the seeds.  “Gay Stuff” must have been a “1;” evangelism and church growth lowly 16 and 15 seeds, . . .

seems to much like our government!

Like ALOT!

Pure genius. In TEc, it doesn’t have to be March for there to be madness.

I just read through the links Greg included at the top. I thought I saw this movie in Anaheim in 2009 but now I realize this is the sequel. Glad to be watching from a safe distance when the monster turns on its maker/enablers.  Hopefully Ann Fontaine will be sitting nearby to warn and explain when the scariest parts are coming up.

Maybe TEC realized that whatever passes for Christian “formation” with them is already being carried out by the public school system. Smart move on their part not to fund a redundancy.

[14] it’s hard to feel sorry for the “useful idiots” when they are suddenly jolted out of their fantasy world.

My team, the “MDGs,” started the season so strongly!

I feel for you paradoxymoron—I had thought my team, Youth Programs, was in an extremely strong position and judging by its locker room chatter was going to really take it to its competition.

But it got taken out in the first round by Muslim Outreach, which didn’t even make it to the semis.

I guess Youth Programs’ tough talk was just empty trash talk.

Ya know, when I was younger, I thought Cheech & Chong’s Basketball Jones was about a guy named Jones who liked hoops. 

As I recall, his name was Tyrone Shoelaces.

And I thought Gay Stuff would have been a slam dunk to take it all.

I think you’re forgetting the axiom that the CoE woud rather give up any one of its 39 articles than 1/39th of its funding.  TEc is no different, it’s moreso.

Brilliant!!

When you can get the Arcus Foundation <a >to kick in $404,000</a> for “gay stuff” you can spend the people’s tithe money on things like 815 salaries.

Let’s try that link again (please bring back the option to preview before posting):

When you can get the Arcus Foundation to kick in $404,000 for “gay stuff,” you can spend the people’s tithe money on 815 salaries.

I still say the team with the best long range prospects is Church Pension Fund.  This is a rebuilding year for them.  But with the big hits taken by Youth Programs and Evangelism, lets face it, in 5 years, the average age of a GC deputy will be about 72, and then just watch and see what kind of fan support Church Pension Fund sees.  And it has the bucks to buy major players, while the rest of the franchises are facing near bankruptcy, except for Gay Stuff with its outside funding sources.  But I still think that with the rule changes that get implemented by an aging TEC, Church Pension Fund will out-muscle Gay Stuff and dominate the league from 2017 to 2028 with old money.  In 2028, the diocese of Haiti will be larger than the other 109 dioceses combined, and at that point, I expect a resurgence of Ending Poverty, Hunger Relief and similar worthwhile programs to dominate the elite 8 and final 4 for at least a decade.

Brilliant!  And after I stopped laughing I had to shudder at what a disturbingly true picture of TEC it really is.

For all of our TEC blather about “being prophetic,” we have here an actual bit o’ prophetic insight.  When GG first put this piece up, I thought, “Hey, funny.”  But the outcome of the TEC budget process shows that GG’s insight was inspired... it turned out to be the truth. 

Just go to the ENS comments and see how even TEC loyalists are reading the cold, harsh numbers.  The 815 bureaucracy is being funded - indeed, enhanced! - everything programmatic is on the chopping block.

Reality today is making it increasingy difficult to write satire, as what one might think of as satire becomes reality.

Where the spirit(s) move, catch the wind or follow the smoke from the sage. The trail leads to salaries.

Well, we could have predicted this had we known that the church stewardship course at the Good Shepherd School of Theology was based on an economic text authored by Rufus T Firefly, the former president of Freedonia (land of the brave and free).

Unfortunately for youth ministry, there are no millionaires among teenage kids living in poverty interested in funding their programs.  Unlike the millionaires of another social group who are putting up the funds to fly TEC deputies hither and yon to rewrite marriage liturgies, and indaba their agenda throughout the Global South.

Don+ at #26, we feel your pain brother!

Reading Greg’s list of linked pages, it really is like what rabbits caught in headlights would blog about in their last moments.  How can these people have expected anything else?  The same tactics that were turned on the orthodox during 2003 - 2008 are used on them - why should they expect anything different?

How is it that the “Listening Process” didn’t make the Sweet Sixteen or is that subsumed in “gay stuff?”

So this is what will happen:

There will be some (more than several) resolutions attempting to push or pull line items on the budget.
There will also be some resolutions attempting to revisit the budget process, in varying degrees of “fix it.”
And once whatever gets to the floor of Convention there will undoubtedly be debate and amendments made that will sound like a complete rehashing of what will have taken place in committee.
And a floor fight, complete with “handlers”—but this time not between conservatives and liberals, but between “fiscals” and “agendites”.

But before it gets the floor—and this is important for all those who want to go to GC to have an opportunity to speak their piece —the committee(s) will try to anticipate all of this potential floor fight, and fix it themselves.  That will be a huge exercise in frutstration, as so many of the people who got us into this mess in the first place have been appointed to those GC committees, or will be represented by close allies.
In the midst of this committee molasses will be the announcement of committee meetings being open for public comment.  And the room will be full.  There will be limits of time for each speaker.  Anybody will be able to sign in as a speaker. 
So if you ever wanted to go to GC in Indianapolis, you might want to schedule that trip so you can say to the committee(s)—who will be listening—exactly what is being said now.  Prepare your words, speak precisely, make your point; if you have a recommendation for line items or change in line items, say clearly what that change is, and how much, and what it would do to the bottom line.

Beyond that, though, this is the result of rebelling from God’s order, especially as enumerated in his Word, and the resultant chaos.  And so the strategy at Columbus was, “Let them articulate their position as clearly as possible.  Bring it to the sharp edge.”  And God is allowing the Chaos.
  This is not the end, but it signals the descendency of revisionism, with the hope of a new ascendency of the real Truth brought to taught by the true Holy Spirit.  It will take 40 years now for TECUSA to cross the Jordan.  I don’t think I’ll be there to see it.  But I believe this is the Lord’s word, so I will be praying and working to that end. An army of Intercessors is required.  Sign in now.

The real, and very serious, question here is what is going to happen when TEC goes bankrupt?  Who are the vultures who will come in and pick the bones clean?  Or, who will be the angels who come in and let God back into the church?

#33, Julia, I think they will run out of members before they run out of money. The last Presiding Bishop should have a grand old time spending it.

It is going to be ironic in the extreme in a couple years, when KJS uses the Dennis Canon to seize some of the assets of Trinity for the purpose of paying off the debt on 815.  I mean, the rich liberal parishes still haven’t figured out what the real point of the Dennis canon is.

tj, exactly.

Over at Episcopal Cafe, Jim Naughton writes:

“All that notwithstanding, it appears to me that the Presiding Bishop, the chief operating officer and the treasurer (the three highest paid officers of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society) have crossed a line here. They have used one of the church’s most effective channels of communication to subtly damage the reputations of volunteers who disagreed with them. Intentionally or otherwise, they have sent a message that there is a public price to be paid for opposing them. If this practice continues it will harm the church more than any budget crisis ever could.”

Seriously, did Rev. Naughton come down in the last shower? 

Leave theological differences aside for a moment, this is a mild version of the tactics routinely employed by Katherine Schori and her associates when getting rid of the orthodox conservatives from TEC during 2006 - 2008.  Why would Rev Naughton think that such tactics might not be used against the liberals as well as the orthodox?

See: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/general_convention/a_brief_commentary_on_the_budg.html#comments

The Presiding Bishop convened the meeting and led some initial discussion regarding the core principles and strategies, and then had to excuse herself to attend an emergency meeting at the State Department.

This fascinating assertion was dropped into the middle of that report on page 13.  And don’t think it was an accident.  The not-so-subliminal message was “Look at the importance the National church.  We get called to emergency meetings at the State Department.”  Even so, I wonder.

KJS:  Hello? ... Yes, I know we have to meet.  ...  No, Vinnie, I can’t travel all the way to Baltimore.  How about we meet halfway?  ... DC will work.  ... I’ll meet you in front of the State Department Building, then. ... See you soon.  Bye.

Sorry, but I have to leave.  I have been called to an emergency meeting at the State Department.

carl

carl:

This fascinating assertion was dropped into the middle of that report on page 13. And don’t think it was an accident. The not-so-subliminal message was “Look at the importance the National church. We get called to emergency meetings at the State Department.” Even so, I wonder.

KJS: Hello? ... Yes, I know we have to meet. ... No, Vinnie, I can’t travel all the way to Baltimore. How about we meet halfway? ... DC will work. ... I’ll meet you in front of the State Department Building, then. ... See you soon. Bye.
Sorry, but I have to leave. I have been called to an emergency meeting at the State Department.

Summon the Tone Police at once!

Oh, wait . . . they’ve been disbanded.  Never mind, I’ll handle this myself.

If you are going to make such cynical and cold blooded remarks about Mrs. Schori, you had best do it elsewhere.

Either that, or join the Episcopal Church and then exercise a right to make snide observations that only comes from taking your lumps like the rest of us.

Or at least become some kind of Anglican so your words don’t reflect badly on Truly Reformed Christians who know enough to avoid us like the plague. 

episcopalienated

such cynical and cold blooded remarks

Cynical?  Me?

No, wait, that wasn’t right.

Me?  Cynical?

No, umm ...

Who?  Me? You think I’m cynical?

OK, OK.  I’ll get this right.  Just ...

Me?  Cynical?  Really?

at least become some kind of Anglican

Well, I’m sort of Anglican in spirit.  Does that count?

carl

carl:

Well, I’m sort of Anglican in spirit. Does that count?

It most certainly does, and I’d like to help you along with that.

I’ll be calling parishes on your behalf to see if I can find one that offers seminars on total depravity and double predestination.  Coming up with a church that also has a study group focusing on the Bishop of Rome and his detestable enormities might take a while longer.

Depending on the results, are you willing to relocate - and what about Australia?

episcopalienated

I dunno.  The phrase “detestable enormities” would seem somewhat accommodating and vaguely middle-of-the-road. Dare I say it even emits the faint odor of liberalism.  I might expect to see such a description of Rome from the evangelical inhabitants of ECT, but not from a doctrinally-sound church.  You would have to do better.

And Australia is probably not an option.  They drive on the wrong side of the road.  They couldn’t identify a football if you spotted them both points.  And being upside down all the time would give me a headache.  Besides, I get the impression that Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherds are popular down there.  Cheering for the Japanese whalers would probably get me into trouble.

carl

Don’t forget the flies, lots of flies. 

And, their ancestors were forcibly transported - sort of like what Episcopalienated is planning now, for different reasons: “ecclesiastical transportation, for life”!

A new development on the budget front!  Her Graceless, the PB,  has put together her very own alternative budget.  And, if you read on down, Bonnie Anderson knew nothing about it.

Is there trouble in Paradise?

Check here for the details. 

Interesting that Bishop Steve Lane does not think it violates any canons.  Would that matter?

Yah know, it feels like General Convention is now imposing sanctions on 815 and might take away that title.

Looks like 815 is out of future tourneys and Gay Stuff is named automatic winner.

TF+
815 will still be there as a team, just with a new name to reflect their new city.  The point of this is to save money, but I doubt that will be the outcome.  Rather than move to the West Coast (which is what the revisionist dioceses of California want, since it would save them time when going to lobby for gay stuff), or the Midwest (center of the country), my money says that KJS will lobby for (and, win approval for, unless somebody wants to find themselves in an HoB star chamber proceeding) Washington DC for the new headquarters, for the following reasons-
1) Washington is, in terms of world power, the 21st century equivalent of Rome circa 50AD and therefore TEc will be emulating the early church.
2) It is only fitting that the metropolitan see for North America be the National Cathedral which she can have Ms Budde pay for and keep tidy.
3) Having the PB’s palace close to the White House will be most convenient for her so she can rush to the President’s side to advise him on critical policy matters.
4) It enables her to be closer to Virginia, in case she needs to put down any more rebellions.

I am sure that, once KJS is declared Archbishop and PB for life, and appoints Sauls and Beers cardinals of the Church, we will have no trouble coming up with a new name for the team.