USA > Connecticut > The story of the Diocese of Connecticut : a new branch of the vine (Espiscopal Church) > Part 27
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Bishop Brewster had sought the answer in Diocesan co- operation with the Nation-Wide Preaching Mission, following a resolution of the General Convention in 1913, calling for a revival of the prophetic ministry and the promotion of the ideal of faith and order. The Bishop threw all his weight into the effort, even though he knew that few clergymen were competent missioners. He regarded it as a witness against parochialism, and as a training for better preaching, and believed that the people would respond. In December, 1915 the mission was organized for the next Lent by a Diocesan committee that made elaborate preparations through a literature committee, and by archdeaconry groups to appoint places and aid in securing missioners. The emphasis was upon
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personal devotion and the sacraments, to deepen and strengthen religious life. Daily sermons or addresses for about a week were accompanied by prayers for the mission, special services, meetings, personal appeals, advertising, invitations to friends and neighbors, hymn rehearsals, intercessory prayers, and private conferences for inquirers.
Bishop Acheson personally led missions all over the Diocese, and some rectors headed the effort in their own parishes. They soon found that success depended largely upon thorough prep- aration. Among the remarkable features of local missions were the daily celebration of the Holy Communion, evening celebrations for factory workers, and children's missions and services. There were many requests for intercessions, resolutions for a better re- ligious and secular life, ratifications of baptismal vows, and corporate Communions. Other accomplishments were increase of communicants, renewed attendance by the lapsed, fine singing, and good congregations even on stormy nights. The Churchman published long reports of successful missions, and pointed par- ticularly to the enthusiastic and energetic lay participation, the great popular interest, and the quickening of spiritual life. Some of the most inspiring results were in the small parishes and missions of the New London Archdeaconry, the combined Windham County mission at Danielson, and the country churches of Litchfield County.
The outcome justified Bishop Brewster's confidence and proved that, contrary to popular belief, Episcopalians were not indifferent to evangelism and that a mission was not beyond the competence of busy parish ministers. Missions were held in over one hundred centers, and in the larger cities several parishes com- bined their efforts. Preaching improved in realism and vitality, and reached some people outside the fold.
Teaching and preaching missions have become a constant phase of Connecticut church life since then. They kept faith sound in the skeptical 1920's, and bolstered courage in the grim years of depression and war. After careful and prayerful consideration, Bishops Acheson and Budlong started a mission in 1933 to acquaint the people more thoroughly with faith and doctrine. Over one hundred churches participated, preparing by visits to every in- dividual and family, and invitations to the "unchurched." In the pit of depression that mission refreshed ideals and buttressed the
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confidence of the faithful, and guided disillusioned, confused, and embittered people to "seek for power to live confidently and joy- ously from the only source where it can be found."4
Reports of the good effect streamed in long afterward, and inspired Bishop Budlong to hope for an annual mission to help inquirers solve their doubts, questions, and problems, and to un- mask deceptive and enslaving philosophies. The mission had shown that the Church's greatest danger came not from the attacks of unbelievers, but from the lack of deep conviction, and ignorance of the age's crucial problems. Bishop Budlong asked: "Is the Church to be an instrument which men would use to bolster up a broken economic civilization or does it present a 'way of life' ... to be used by God as a means to inspire and to sustain men in their endeavors to fulfill His blessed will?"5 Real knowledge and practice of their faith by Church people would be the best missionaries to the "unchurched."
Determination to prevent lapses of members, particularly recent confirmands, has emphasized the Church's teaching function and made the parochial teaching and preaching missions more frequent. By a concentrated series of instructions in doctrine, discipline, and worship, it has confirmed loyalty, banished care- lessness, and vitalized spirituality in many parishes.
The new spurt of energy drew increased power from the "Call to Evangelism," which Bishop Budlong carefully planned in 1947. He presented the program to the autumn Laymen's Con- ference, the Woman's Auxiliary, and the Diocesan youth and clergy conferences. The pledge of endeavor required daily prayers and Bible reading, regular Sunday worship, monthly Communions, small groups to study faith and practice, reclaiming the lapsed, and winning the indifferent. Although some people shrank from such a program, serious efforts brought astounding results in teaching missions largely attended by Church people and their neighbors and friends. The Bishop and the committee delightedly suggested a repetition in 1949, with small parochial study groups and visits by laymen, along with annual corporate Communions in Advent, on the first Sunday in Lent, and on Whitsunday. The Diocese declared war on the Church's "fifth columns" - tolerance declin- ing into indifference and weakness, moral welfare lagging behind scientific knowledge and resignation to secularism.
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SPIRITUAL REVIVAL
Diocesan efforts to educate and spiritualize the laity pre- pared Connecticut to participate in the nationwide awakening of the Church inspired by the Presiding Bishop in 1930. His pastoral letter urged the faithful to gather for the Whitsunday Eucharist as a thanksgiving to God for his many gifts of grace, and as a renewal of confidence. The Young People's Fellowship designated the day for its corporate Communion, and Bishop Acheson suggested a special informal service of devotion and praise, with hymns of the Holy Spirit and brief addresses on the Word of God in the Church and in society. Ministers of other churches might be invited to speak or to lead the prayers.
Never was such effort more timely than in the gray and tragic 1930's, with their depressing unemployment, fanatical secular philosophies, international hatreds, threats of war, and nations bent upon abolishing Christianity or even all religion. Bishop Budlong reminded the Diocese that faith in the fellowship of Christ's religion was the only bond that would ever really unite men. He echoed Bishop Brewster in saying that the world would not embrace that faith unless Christians would prove loyal to their priesthood. Probably there was more loyalty than he thought, and he could not express his full gratitude when the Diocese rose to minister to the immigrant industrial workers, the armed forces, and the needs of British missions during the second World War.
Connecticut already was sharing in the Forward Movement, which since 1934 has helped to revitalize Christianity under the auspices of a commission appointed by the General Convention. The intention was to increase regular church attendance, private and family prayer, grace at meals, and a general recognition of religion in everyday life. The movement became familiar to all who browsed at the parish literature racks. Bishop Budlong re- peatedly urged its use and commented upon its evident effect in deepening religious conviction through guided individual and group study, daily Bible-reading, prayer, and meditation. In 1936 the Diocese created a Forward Movement committee headed by Professor Fleming James of Berkeley Divinity School. It soon became a normal part of Connecticut Church life, and helped to unify the Diocese by the knowledge that many were simultaneously sharing the same reading and prayers.
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Success suggested the Presiding Bishop's Plan, contemplating a decade of spiritual concern in every parish and mission, with quiet days and retreats for the clergy as leaders. In Connecticut it included the annual fall Clergy Conference at Choate School, and parochial conferences for laymen to consider opportunities for service, intercessory prayer groups, a universal day of prayer for conversion of the world, more preaching missions, lay ministry to the unchurched, and information about missions. From these two movements has sprung renewed energy for the present swift expansion of the Church in Connecticut.
The mind of the Diocese has been prepared for the latest expression of its churchmanship - Bishop Gray's challenge to Christian discipleship to redeem a society apparently quite satisfied with purely material comforts. "We in this comfortable land of America are the most blest people on earth in material things. I pray that we shall not have to pass through 'the valley of the shadow' to learn the true meaning of spiritual things and of Christian discipleship."6 A year later the Bishop turned the Con- vention's thoughts from routine Church work to consider the faith that should inspire discipleship. He took as the principle of his thoughts a considered judgment upon contemporary civilization by the Christian philosophic historian, Arnold Toynbee:
I am not sanguine about man's ability to make a good moral decision if he aims only at a worldly goal. Love of mankind has been a force in history - but only when it was a by-product of an intense love of God. The great need of the modern world is a rebirth of supernatural belief. Without it, man - unregenerate man - is hardly to be trusted with the dangerous toys his lab- oratories have hatched. Such a rebirth of Christian values is quite possible."7
Bishop Gray saw that the thing most to be feared is not Communism, but "the deterioration of Christian values" among the heedless heirs of older Christian civilization.8 Just as the best medicines still are rest, right food, and recreation, so the real remedies for contemporary ills are "the basic concepts of faith in God, truth, honor, duty, and service."9
Discipleship must realize that service and worship in the Church may seem dull in an age on tiptoe for thrills, sensations, and novelties, but dullness often follows weak response.
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Bishop Gray returned to the old conviction of Connecticut churchmanship held by Samuel Johnson, defended by Seabury, Brownell and Williams, and proclaimed by Bishop Brewster in his great Convention address of 1905. "The worship of God is the most thrilling privilege given to the human soul. It is our effort to link our lives with the Infinite. ... It is to open our hearts to the wonder and the glory and the grandeur which are from the Creator of all that exists." Service in the Church is not parochialism, but a call to clergy and laity to fulfill God's purpose and create a world order of Catholic religious and social quality, redeemed from sin and ugliness, with God as ruler. "The duty of the Church is to remake history until man becomes in truth the image of God."10
As Bishop Brewster said, this churchmanship has no place for disputes about trivialities that cause injurious and unpleasant tensions. Bishop Gray has shared the feeling of many people who have confided to him their gratitude for the happy freedom of the Diocese from "divisive influences and actions," for its tolerance of opinions and even peculiarities. Connecticut recognizes that, with basic loyalty to the Prayer Book, churchmanship has various ways of bringing people closer to God, including variations in ceremonial. "High" and "Low" Church, appearing to the world as distinct, have happily merged. "In unity and fraternity," Bishop Gray has pro- claimed, "we seek to worship and work and live as members of one fellowship of the servants of Christ."11 This expresses the ideal of Connecticut churchmanship, unchanged for two hundred and fifty years - the priesthood of the whole Church. With the poet Robert Frost the Diocese may say:
"They would not find me changed from him they knew - Only more sure of all I thought was true."
The final step toward the fulfillment of the ideal was a determined effort to bring all parishes to a renewed sense of spiritual community.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PARISH LIFE REVIVAL
INADEQUATE PARISH LIFE
T THE general type of parish life was matured by the early 1900's. The people were satisfied with their work and seldom questioned the effectiveness of their influence. They gave for pa- rochial and missionary expenses, worked in the guilds, taught in the Church School. Few inquired deeply whether or not their parishes were exemplifying real Christian living. They took it for granted. Yet there was a vague awareness that confirmands drifted away, that young men found the church unreal, and that to many families Sunday was the day when the milk bottle sat longer at the door. Some rectors knew that there were sick spots in society un- touched by Christian influence and tried to preach a "social" gospel. But they were a minority, and not a popular one.
Then came two world wars, with a long dreary period of doubt and depression between them. In the aftermath of the first war, some people questioned: why had so many servicemen learned so little in their parishes? Why did religion seem in- adequate and unreal to them, after all the acres of costly Church School "materials"? Why did many Church people "back home" fail to keep in touch with them? An Episcopalian away from home often felt isolated from the parishioners, and they from him.
Something was wrong with parish life. People belonged to "organizations," but did they ever really meet or understand why they were there? During the depression parishioners helped each other to get work, and the rector used his discretionary fund to pay rent. Then people caught a glimpse of a real Christian community in action. In the second great war the record of caring for the boy away from home was better. Behind the effort was a growing sense that people "back home" and the absent one belonged to each other and to something larger than themselves.
But the nagging questions persisted. Were not Church
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people like characters in Thomas Wolfe's novels, who lived to- gether but never found each other? How could they be brought together and learn to share their trials and thoughts? Not in a spirit of exhibitionism, but in a desire to understand and to make Christian profession seem real to the more than half of their neighbors who never or seldom came to church.
PARISH LIFE CONFERENCES
After the war the Church considered this difficult question and suggested a new approach to it. In 1952 Churchmen began to hear about experimental Parish Life Conferences, sponsored by the National Department of Christian Education. The department offered to supply leaders to start conferences in the dioceses, to awaken people to meet the challenge of the Rev. Samuel Shoe- maker's criticism of immature Christianity:
"Some of us have gone to church for years, yet we still remain infants about talking with other people about our faith. We do not know enough about it ourselves, being still fields to be worked on; and we have not sufficiently let it affect our lives, so we feel like hypocrites for saying anything ... when one word of honest discontent about ourselves might induce [others] to say the same thing and we might join forces with them in looking for something very much better and very much more costly."1
The way to the conferences was carefully prepared by summer "Laboratories on Group Life," to investigate "the factors and forces which will help the parish achieve a sense of Christian community."2 One met at Trinity College in the summer of 1954 and encouraged conferences in the diocese.
In the words of a woman who attended one and came away with real enthusiasm, the conference is "an intensive week- end discussion of what it takes to be a Christian and how a living, working parish can and must create the conditions in which Christianity can flourish."3 A typical meeting of parish delegates lasts from Friday evening until after Sunday dinner, with a cele- bration of the Holy Communion each morning, and group dis- cussions with a clergyman acting as a moderator and perhaps making a summary of the thought. Parishes or delegates personally bear the expenses, with a small subsidy from the Woman's Auxiliary and the Department of Christian Education.
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The Diocese organized a committee on conferences, and the Bishop became chairman, at the request of the Department of Religious Education and according to a recommendation of the national department. Under pressure to state the purpose, a special committee described it as guiding lay delegates "toward a clear understanding of Christ's Way in the Church and the world today, so that with a quickened faith they may fulfill their Baptismal commitment to be witnesses and workers for the Lord in their parish life and organizational activity."4
Connecticut's first conference met in St. Paul's parish, Wallingford, in 1953. Within about a year eleven more devoted themselves to studying parish life, and were attended by two hundred persons from fifty parishes. People discovered conditions and problems common to all parishes and heard solutions of which they had never even thought. Those who felt that their parish had the right answers were no longer so cocksure. Those who felt frustrated found that they had not been struggling alone and that problems could be solved if shared in the patience and humility of others. A report in the Connecticut Churchman expressed the new spirit: "Butcher, baker or candlestick maker, everyone had some- thing to contribute - and more than once it was the quiet, shy, reserved person whose brief or hesitant comment or question suddenly clarified the whole question. . . Discussions are vigorous - and the group that seems so large on Friday evening will quickly resolve itself into friends, so that by the same time Saturday evening, it seems more like a neighborhood gathering. In the midst of an informal give-and-take, you will suddenly take time to feel sorry for the visiting clergy who are there as 'Observers,' tolerated on condition that they speak only when spoken to. . . The success of the conference program is not susceptible to yardstick measurement. .. On Sunday afternoon, as you head for home, you may make the mistake that some of us have faced, if you begin thinking of how you are going to remake your parish on the basis of the yardstick that you found - or thought you found."5
The conferences soon became an accepted part of diocesan and parish life, generally meeting at St. George's Inn, Wallingford, or at the Episcopal Conference Center in West Cornwall. The discussions cover doctrine, fellowship, salvation through grace or works, parish social gatherings, the redemptive process, congre-
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gational singing, the proportions of faith, belief and hope, and relations with people and with God. Many persons have gone to conferences feeling that they were living satisfactory Christian lives and have found that they were not.
LOCAL REVIVALS
The effects are being felt in a general effort to make parish life more spiritually alive, more like a Christian family and less like a loose federation of "organizations." The chief expression of this new approach is the "Parish Workshop," a meeting of concerned people on a Sunday afternoon and evening. It includes the wardens and vestrymen and the leaders of every organization, and is intended to consider the basic meaning of parish life in relation to "redemptive fellowship." It is an adult Christian edu- cation project for the entire parish. Discussion centers in basic Christian theology in terms of people's relations to each other in home, church and community. Participants share personal beliefs and experiences to understand more deeply the act of faith by which they commit their lives to God's will, and to appreciate the reality of God's gift of grace.
These aims are attained also by cooperation within groups of parishes. In "sector projects" the churches of an area undertake an every-member canvass together. The objects are to secure greater support for home and foreign missions and to strengthen the spiritual life of parishes in relation to their members and the community. Success depends upon detailed planning by many members, a careful estimate of the giving capacity in each parish, and avoiding a lapse of enthusiasm. The parishes secure advance pledges from the most capable givers, organize their canvassers, give adequate indoctrination and training, use simple but effective publicity, and make personal calls to all homes.
The first trial brought astounding results. Eleven parishes, in- cluding only two with any pretensions to wealth, increased pledges by nearly sixty per cent. Both the clergy and the laity were astonished and inspired by the reception, and all were eager to re- peat next year. The rector of the smallest parish asked "Will we have this wonderful opportunity again next year?"6 The most significant result was breaking through the barriers of parochialism in the joint meetings of campaigners.
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Many parishes have shaken off apathy and stopped leaning upon the diocese for help. Such an experience came to an historic church in a small town. It seemed to be dying by inches, in spite of heroic efforts by the Altar Guild and the appropriately named "Willing Workers." The Woman's Auxiliary had dissolved; the parish had no school, no choir, no parish house, no resident rector. People even suggested closing the church, but the Bishop said "No!"
A meeting stirred the dry bones. The people asked for a resident priest and decided to repair the church and the rectory and be self-supporting. With "faith in things unseen" they asked a priest to leave his prospering parish, and he and his wife came in the same spirit. Parishioners painted and papered the rectory, fitted the first floor as a parish and school house, scraped floors, installed kitchen equipment, renovated the furnace, drilled a well, built a garage, and paved a parking lot. In the middle of all the work, the parish received a large and unexpected legacy.
After four years this church still had the Altar Guild and the "Willing Workers," plus an active vestry, a flourishing Church School, a vested choir, a young adult group, a boy's club, and a Woman's Auxiliary. This was the result of every parishioner at work, aided by friends who gave time, labor and generous financial support. It has been a miracle, surprising the town and the people themselves.
LITURGICAL REVIVAL
This story could be repeated many times, and the Diocese is feeling the change. There are no more closed churches. And while revived parish life has shown these visible signs, a quiet current of spiritual quickening and worship is coursing through the Diocese. It is a revival of liturgy in its primitive sense, the performance of a public and common duty. The Diocese is striving to inspire greater understanding and participation in the Eucharist - as Bishop Brewster urged early in this century. This spirit has prompted clergy conferences summoned by the Bishop to consider the revised service proposed by the Liturgical Commission of General Convention. Following a celebration by the Bishop ac- cording to the proposed rite, the clergy thoroughly discussed it and presented their views at a general meeting.
Such a conference is unintelligible without reference to the
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growing concern about corporate and general eucharistic worship. For generations the accepted Sunday worship has been an elaborate service of Morning Prayer, following a rather thinly attended early Holy Communion. Churches have been built according to this idea of worship. When students of liturgy examine our churches, they find many "Colonial" buildings with inconspicuous altars tucked into small chancels, which often were later additions. The Gothic Revival left many "two-room" churches, with the altar far from the people, beyond the rood screen and the choir. These types reflect two periods in church history. One came before the Catholic Revival, when Communion was celebrated only three or four times a year, and Morning Prayer with Litany and Ante- Communion was the standard Sunday fare. The other was the era of sentimental mediaevalism, when the ideal was more frequent Communions with little popular participation.
It is now realized that neither of these arrangements cor- responds to the early Christian emphasis upon the Eucharist as the Church's corporate act of worship. The offering of money is not all of the people's offering, and the priest and his acolytes do not celebrate by proxy for the congregation. The real offering is one of self, together with the sacramental bread and wine.
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