Observations At The Church Center

One of the exercises we did Wednesday with Visions was the Power Walk. "Those of you who are X move to my left, and those of you who are Y move to my right." It is one version of a familiar ice breaker activity. There were some interesting learnings for us:

• Episcopalians and non-Episcopalians who work at the Episcopal Church Center are about equal in numbers.
• The number of clergy employed was vastly lower than most of us perceived. However, the number of clergy in positions of influence and power...
• When we separated into "those who grew up in middle class families" and "those who grew up in working class families," it was surprising to hear in later discussions how many people interpreted that as "well off" and "poor."
• The smallest group was those of us who identified as lesbian, gay, and bisexual.

While I was not surprised that we are a minority among the employees of the Episcopal Church Center, I was surprised at just how small that minority is. I was also startled at how vulnerable I felt standing there in that very small group. My next thought was, "And the orthodites [to borrow a new term from this post by Elizabeth Kaeton] think we're taking over the Episcopal Church?"

A lot of folks at the Church Center are still talking about the work Visions did with us. We hope that the leadership will follow up with more of this type of work over the course of the year and not let it drop saying, "Well, we've done our diversity bit, so we're good for a while."

Peace,
Jeff