If you were at General Convention 2012, you probably vividly remember the moment when the legislation to create the Taskforce to Re-imagine the Church passed the House of Deputies unanimously, and we all stood and sang, “Sing a New Church into Being.” Full of hope, we were looking toward a reborn Episcopal Church.

But each of us probably had different ideas about what that new church would look like. Somewhere in our hearts, we all knew that just restructuring our ways of organizing ourselves church-wide wouldn’t be enough. We needed a reawakening. We needed to rededicate ourselves to evangelism and mission. We needed to come to a new understanding of how to reach out to new people and new age and ethnic groups. We needed to leave tired conflicts and structures behind, and find better ways to answer God’s call in the twenty-first century.

Given all these hopes and needs, it was inevitable that TREC would disappoint. I’ve blogged about my mixed reaction to their proposals (here, here and here). Their prologue was inspiring and right on target, calling us to follow Jesus into the neighborhood, traveling lightly. Terrific! But I and others have had mixed reactions to their specific recommendations. And I’ve been disappointed about what I believe was missing from their recommendations:

• A concrete, achievable proposal for church planting, congregational revitalization, and evangelism;
• A vision for what the church-wide structure is supposed to accomplish;
• A mission statement for our staff, including its size and composition;
• A vision for how we should spend our money and what kind of “headquarters” building we need, if any;
• A way to structure ourselves in order to help heal factional rivalries and bring us together on the same team.

Well and good. Those things may be missing, but it was probably unrealistic ever to expect TREC to do everything – and there are many of us ready to take up the call and work on these priorities that remain before us.

That’s why I’ve been working with a group of friends – Scott Gunn, Tom Ferguson, Frank Logue, Brendan O’Sullivan-Hale, Steve Pankey, and Adam Trambley – to write a Memorial to the Church. What’s a Memorial? It’s a letter to General Convention, calling the church to some broad actions. We believe that our Memorial names some of the larger issues that are posing challenges to the Episcopal Church today, and proposes concrete ways that our church can address them together.

You can find the Memorial here. If you like it, you can join as a signer by following the instructions given – and you can share it on social media or discuss it on your blog, too.

We’ve also proposed a set of resolutions – both about church revitalization and about church restructuring. We believe that these resolutions address some of the elements missing from the TREC report, and make the concrete proposals we’ve been needing to make. You can find the resolutions here. You don’t have to agree with the resolutions to sign onto the Memorial, of course.

It’s a movement we’d like to see grow – a movement that we’d like to see every Episcopalian get involved in, individually and as part of the wider church.

Together, we can sing, pray, worship, work, and love a new church into being.