And in a very real way, marketing is to blame.

Let me explain…about a year and a half ago, my family joined a (very) small Reformed Episcopal (a.k.a. “Anglican”) church here in Amarillo. I grew up in the Episcopal church, with the 1928 prayer book, the 1940 hymnal, and all the ritual and liturgy that the Church of England bequeathed to the Colonies back in the day. We found our church in kind of an odd way. When we first relocated to Amarillo, I wanted to find an Episcopal church. I found two – one that was pursuing the post-modern, cherry-picked theological, anything goes style worship favored by the main body of the Episcopal church in the United States. The other struck me as kind of old and stodgy. Neither had any appeal to me. So we went elsewhere. We landed at a “mega-church” – one of the many across the country that features a “praise team” (read: “Christian rock group”) and a sermon as their service. Not exactly what I was used to from a liturgical point of view, but at least we were in the pews…um…seats, every Sunday. Then my wife was approached to create a strategic marketing plan for a small Episcopal church. We checked out the church, and found a traditional church, using the “old” prayer book, the “old” hymnal, with a firm grounding in traditional Anglican theology. No gay bishops, same-sex marriages, or any other “if it feels good it can’t be wrong” kind of nonsense. We’d found our church home.

We realized quickly that the church had no budget for the kind of marketing they really needed. Running in the red every month, it was obvious that we needed more members, or the church wouldn’t survive.

I volunteered to create a fairly sophisticated website, with an online gallery, online calendar, interactive content, a blog – the works. My wife joined the vestry, and did everything she could do to help raise money and find new members. As specialists in guerrilla marketing, we believed that if there was a way that marketing could help, we’d do everything we could to build our member roles.

Sadly, it wasn’t enough.

Last week, we had a parish meeting, where we, very reluctantly, voted to disband. There were a lot of tears. A lot of questions. And a lot of regrets. In the end, though, we had to face facts – our declining revenues and inability to attract enough families meant that the handwriting was on the wall.

Could we have done more? Perhaps, but I don’t know what we could have done that would have worked better than what we did. Still, I can’t help but think that as marketers, we should have been able to “sell” what I believe is a “superior product” – traditonal Anglican worship – and attract more families.

In reality, we were working at a big disadvantage – several of them, in fact. The church had lost their own building, so a huge amount of the monthly nut went to paying rent at another church – which also meant that we had a lot less flexibility when it came to service times and use of the building. The church had been bleeding red ink for four or five years before we joined, so this was nothing new. And of course, when you’re living in an oxygen-free zone financially, you simply don’t have the options to build a marketing plan as you would if you had a little financial wiggle room. Add to that some layoffs that forced members to leave Amarillo and the cratering of the stock market (that hurt our investments) and you have a perfect storm of problems we simply couldn’t overcome.

Do I blame marketing? Yes. No. Maybe. Frankly, I’m still coming to grips with the idea of having to find another church, the potential of seeing friends drift away, and losing what was a great worship experience. I take some comfort that God has a plan for everything, and I’m sure this is not an ending, but a beginning. And I realize that while God always answers prayers, sometimes His answer is “No.” If this is indeed God’s plans, all the great marketing in the world couldn’t affect the outcome – nor should it. So I guess it is pointless to assign blame after all. I just wish things had turned out differently.

In pace requiescat, All Saints. You will be missed.

Framing is the term used to describe the coining of phrases and the spin used to focus the discussion on a specific issue from the point of view of a partisan position.

Framing is a term born from the idea of “framing a discussion,” or using subtle words and phrases to cast a discussion in a particular light. Think about the ongoing argument over gun rights in this country. Those that want to ban possession of certain types of guns (or for that matter, all guns)  by all save the police and military want to frame the discussion in their own terms: “assault weapons,” “gun control,” “Saturday Night Specials,” “Cop Killer bullets” and the like. These terms have helped the Left set the terms of the discussion on their turf, forcing the NRA and those that seek to preserve the rights of individuals to own guns to play defense.

Well, campers, the Episcopal Church has been framed – and those that disagree with that framing are fighting back.

When I was a kid, I had a ringside seat to the gradual takeover of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA) by the Liberal wing. It started in the 1960s, as Liberals assumed positions of power and leadership in the church hierarchy. First, they argued that liberals needed a “place at the table.” Then they lobbied for a rewriting of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), which left most traditionalists scratching their heads and wondering who’d hijacked their religion. Then they took over control of the church hierarchy alltogether, attempting to force “reforms” such as support for gay marriage and the ordination of homosexual bishops. Along the way, the Liberals (who had become experts at “spin”) reframed their arguments in their own terms, so that the orthodox Anglicans were forced to play defense. In a brilliant stroke of chutzpah, they even renamed ECUSA, changing the national body’s name to The Episcopal Church (TEC) – as if there is no other Episcopal Church but The Episcopal Church.

Hogwash.

What you need to understand about this dust-up is that there are two main theological thoughts in conflict here, but a lot of factions at work on both sides. The TEC bunch is fairly united, largely because they believe in more of an “anything goes” philosophy (and theology), whereby it’s cool to believe (and do) pretty much anything. Wanna doubt the divinity of Christ? You have a seat at the table. Think gay bishops are A-OK? Ditto. Believe that the 10 Commandments are really just “suggestions” and that each church should be able to set their own rules for what they believe in? You got it. In fact the only thing the TEC disapproves of is the idea that any Episcopal church can resist their all-inclusive theology.

I’ve always thought that if you don’t stand for something, you’ll sit still for anything. And there’s the problem.

The “orthodox” Anglicans believe that the Bible should be the guide for the church. There’s no moral relativism allowed – it’s a question of right and wrong, black and white, God’s Word versus man’s desires. And finally…FINALLY, the orthodox Anglicans have had enough.

Over the past decade, things have been building to a schism. The ordination of Gene Robinson as the first openly-gay, Episcopal bishop and the ascendancy of Katharine Jefferts Schori as the head of The Episcopal Church (not to mention her leadership) has brought these conflicts into stark contrast. One by one, Anglicans, priests, bishops, and now entire diocese have voted to break away from affiliation with TEC and align themselves with bishops from South America, Africa, and Asia. Over the weekend, the Diocese of Fort Worth became the latest group to jump ship. Along with that vote, comes the news that a new group will be formed on December 3rd – a new North American Anglican Provence – that will encompass (hopefully) all the orthodox Anglican groups under one umbrella.

Episcopalians are big on “communion” – in this case, this refers to having fellowship and dialogue between Anglican churches across the globe. Within the last few years, the worldwide Anglican leadership (with the notable exception of the Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury) have expressed their growing displeasure with the antics of the TEC. Last year, they declared that they could no longer be in communion with the folks in the TEC, because they refuse to play by God’s rules. And last year, the Primates (that’s presiding bishops for those of you outside Anglicanism) voted to essentially throw the TEC out – and welcome in all the orthodox churches into the fold – both the breakaway churches/diocese, and those like the Reformed Episcopal Church – that had broken away years ago.

While The Episcopal Church continues to try and frame the issues in their own terms (not to mention sue everybody in sight), critical mass is not on their side, nor is world opinion. In fact, the only real advocate they have left is the Archbishop, and his power in this matter is dicey, at best. I’m reminded of a trucker’s cap I saw sometime back in a gas station, emblazoned with the sentiment, “I am their Leader…which way did they GO?!”

So what does this mean to you, your marketing, and marketing in general? A few lessons:

1. Framing is a very useful tool to set the parameters of a discussion so that it takes place on your own terms.
2. When framing and reality clash, over time, reality wins.
3. Framing can be used as “cover” to do what ever you want. But it won’t work for very long.
4. Framing – like all of marketing – is a battle to tell your story, and have your story accepted by the majority. If your story loses, no amount of framing in the world will save you.

The battles between the Orthodox Anglicans and The Episcopal Church are far from over. The biggest battles are to come – and they are over property and money. Part of what keeps organizations like TEC and the Office of the Archbishop in caviar and limousines are the funds that come from member churches. Just because the Anglicans in the Fort Worth diocese have voted to leave the “mothership” doesn’t mean that Katharine Jefferts Schori is going to let them take their assets with them without a fight. It will be interesting to see how Schori and her TEC spinmeisters try and frame THAT argument.