UPDATE: See the new "Personal information" link on each candidate's page.

The Reverend Linda L. Grenz

Having read our profile, why are you interested in being the Bishop of Maine, and what gifts would you bring to this ministry?

I am drawn by who you are, what you seek and how well my life and ministry experience fits with that. My ministry has been focused on education and ministry development with particular attention to small churches. Having spent my life teaching, in one form or another, (often under the role of consultant), I would be a teaching bishop. I bring information, skills and knowledge of resources about many aspects of congregational and diocesan life. My style is to engage people in a learning community I share what I have to contribute but I also assume that each person around the table also has something of value to share. My role is to engage everyone in sharing their knowledge and gifts and helping the group integrate individual contributions in a way that allows all of us to create something that is greater than the sum of the parts.

I bring the gift of helping people build learning communities in which people are transformed by Christ. A key part of that is fostering ministry development by individuals and congregations. As a parish priest, I focused on helping members of congregations identify their ministry, provided the training and support they needed to do those ministries and affirmed them in it. As a national church staff person and in my role at LeaderResources, I have been involved in developing education and training programs and resources, training mentors to lead various programs and assisting bishops, Commissions on Ministry and diocesan staff in assessing, developing or enhancing their local ministry development programs.

My current work is on using organizational system theory and spiritual practices as a way of guiding the spiritual formation of the congregation as a whole. We usually talk about spiritual formation on the individual level, but I believe that congregations also need to and can be engaged in a process of spiritual formation. Focusing on spiritual formation can be a way for congregations to work through some of the theological differences that face us today. Instead of engaging in a political process of debate and decision, a spiritual formation process engages members of a congregation in one common spiritual practice (hospitality, healing, prayer, etc.) and reflection on that discipline in a way that helps the entire congregation move into a deeper relationship with God and each other in Christ. In that process, individuals often find that the system and their place in it has shifted and the previous theological differences are now framed in a different way. While this is not a magical fix for disagreements about various issues, it does provide a way for congregations to engage change from a spiritual perspective instead of being drawn into our cultural tendency to divide and debate issues with the assumption that one side must be right and another wrong.

I was raised on a farm in South Dakota, so I understand long distances and the challenges of your geography, I value the rural and small town life and share your culture of resourcefulness. I am an entrepreneur and Im entrepreneurial in my approach to things I like to develop innovative, creative solutions to problems. When I was with the national churchs oversea development office, we assisted dioceses in Africa in training local congregations in how to obtain grants, develop schools, agricultural and health programs and start businesses. So I bring skills and experience that I believe would help you develop creative solutions to the challenges of small congregations, underutilized but expensive buildings, limited funds, etc. I actually enjoy working on these types of challenges! And I have long believed that the skills we provided to our overseas partner churches would be of great value to our own small and especially rural churches.

Describe the process you have used to assist or lead a congregation through their struggle with a theological issue. Was there a resulting epiphany in your own understanding?

While this story is from the earliest days of my ministry, I chose it because of its applicability to todays issues about the ministry of homosexual persons. I was ordained in 1977 and that fall became one of the first women rectors in the Episcopal Church. I served a church that offered a part-time job and, frankly, that couldnt get anyone else to take the job! They were a wonderful congregation who approached any idea with the motto of: Lets try it, if it doesnt work, well try something else (vs. the usual Weve always done it this way.). So they were willing to give a woman priest a try.

There were, however, a number of members who were less than happy with this decision. Most of them took a wait and see attitude but, shortly after I arrived, it was clear that one highly involved family could not live with a woman as their rector. They were already unhappy about he changes in the liturgy and this was the last straw. They announced their intention to leave. This created a huge crisis: they were very active and gave generously in a church that was short on people and money. Most of the congregation was older and this family was younger exactly the kind of people the congregation wanted. So, some members immediately tried to persuade the couple to stay while others began to question the vestrys wisdom in hiring me.

I met with the family and together we realized that they were so uncomfortable with the new liturgy and so opposed to the idea of women priests that they could not worship with us anymore. I gathered the congregations leaders and explained that our job was not to retain members of this particular church. Our job was to help every member of the church worship God with all their heart, mind and soul. If this couple could not do so in our congregation, our job was to help them find a place where they could and do that in a way that made it clear that there was nothing wrong with them for feeling as they did and that they would always be part of us and could always come back if they chose to do so. I then worked with the family to help them identify a congregation nearby that was more compatible for them, I went with them to introduce them to that priest and they tried it out a few Sundays before deciding to join that church. I invited them back on a Sunday and we said farewell: the congregation expressed their appreciation for the gifts and ministry they had brought to them and the family expressed their appreciation for their support and for the way we had handled their leaving. We blessed them and sent them off with sadness and love. They returned to visit most years on Mothering Sunday and about five years later they came back as members.

I learned several things from that experience. One is that we need to focus on the spiritual needs ahead of the need to convince others we are right. I, obviously, believed that the ordination of women was the right thing for the church to do. But I made it clear that while I believed it was the right thing to do, I also knew that I (and the church) could be wrong. I said that I was not worried about that I knew that God would take care of that. I believe that in taking the long view so I explained that we, as the church, would be able to discern whether we were right or wrong only over time. If we were right, the ministry of ordained women would flourish and grow; if we were wrong, the ministry of women would wither and die away. So my job, as an ordained woman, was simply to be the best priest I could be. God would either bless that ministry or not. Meanwhile, I didnt need to worry about or spend my time arguing with others about whether it was right or wrong for me to be a priest.

Once I had made it clear that I was not going to debate the rightness or wrongness of the churchs decision but rather was going to merely live into it and wait on the Lord, everyone relaxed and decided they too could wait and see what happened. This one family was not comfortable living with it on a daily basis, so we all agreed that the most loving thing was for us to help them find a church home where they could wholeheartedly worship God. That stance ultimately allowed them to return and the father said to me: The fact that you didnt argue with me or make me feel like I was wrong is what allowed me to work through this and see that God was, in fact, blessing your ministry.

I also learned that way we do things matters as much as what we do. The fact that we put this into a spiritual context and handled it liturgically meant that people felt much better about what was happening than if the family had just left. The effort we all made to ensure that they did not feel that we were judging them negatively, allowed them to soften their stance and leave graciously.

What legacy would you like to leave when you retire as Bishop from the Diocese of Maine?

I would like to see us become an inviting church. Our current motto is: The Episcopal Church welcomes you. That says: If you are looking for a church and happen to visit us, we will welcome you. And we often do a fairly good job of that. But it is a totally passive stance towards the world a stance that works best in an era when most people went to church and it was merely a matter of choosing one to join. Today many people, even in small towns and rural areas, do not attend a church. And welcoming them is not enough. We have to become an inviting churcha people who practice inviting family, friends and strangers to church and a church that is inviting that is, a place that the people find attracts them, drawing them in, much like a warm fire on a cold winter day draws one in. I believe that we can find ways to invite others, including young adults and families with children and youth. It will require creativity, ingenuity and the faithful practice of taking the church to people instead of waiting for them to come to us. Jesus did not sit in Nazareth and wait for the disciples to come to him we went out and called them to follow him. Jesus and his disciples did not sit and wait for the people to come to them. They went out on the road, preaching and teaching, inviting people to catch the vision. Like them, we need to become an inviting people.

I would like us develop models for being a sustainable church. I would like to see the diocese develop several ways to meet the challenge of big buildings/little money. I believe that we can use the same principles of development that we taught others overseas to figure out ways to use our buildings and people in ways that generate income and contribute to the well-being of our local communities. I would like to have built partnerships with the government, municipalities and other community groups to start small businesses, schools, health care programs etc. in our churches. Id like to see some of our church kitchens used during the week by a host of small entrepreneurs who are earning a living making blueberry jams, fudge and other Maine products to sell perhaps through a marketing  cooperative. Id like to see some of our people use their business and life experience to help others create businesses especially in areas where jobs are scarce. Id like to see some of our older buildings renovated by a collective of organizations who pay for and use them during the week. A church I know formed a separate 501c3 to raise money for the repair and maintenance of the church and to manage it by renting out space to other nonprofit groups. Id like to see how a version that model and other models others have used might help congregations find creative ways to share the gift of their building with the larger community and also enlist their help in paying for it.

Finally, Id like to have left a legacy of learning communities where people who are members of or enter those congregations encounter and are transformed by Christ. Learning communities are not just about studying they are communities of people who constantly and consciously practicing, reflecting on and learning from their experience and apply what they learn to improve their future. So, a congregation that is a learning community is constantly seeking to learn how to best live the Christian life, how to make Christ real in their lives and how to share Gods love with others. As a part of that, I would like to have participated in strengthening a tradition of learning amongst the clergy and in parish visitations. Id like to do teaching missions and/or to have visitations as a time of shared learning. Id like to establish adult education as normative for adults alongside of the formation we now do with children and youth so all of us in the Christian community might grow in faith and in the love of God.