FOURTEEN staff at the New York headquarters of the Episcopal Church in the United States have been made redundant this month, as part of a Church-wide reorganisation led by the Presiding Bishop, Dr Sean Rowe, to save $2.13 million (£1.68 million) a year.
The realignment was directed by the Executive Council in 2023, and incorporated in the 2025-27 General Convention budget, which requires the Church to reduce staff costs by $3.6 million (£2.85 million) over the triennium.
Details of which posts have been lost have not been published, but Dr Rowe said in a statement on Thursday of last week that each employee had received “a generous severance package and substantial outplacement program to support them as they discern their next vocational steps”.
He also announced that 13 current vacancies would not be filled, and that 16 employees who were aged at least 65 had, earlier this month, volunteered to take early retirement. The restructuring will mean that the total staff count will drop from 143 to about 110, as some new posts are factored in for recruitment.
Among the departments to be phased out are: development, formation, pastoral development, transition ministry, and church-planting. This work is to be carried out in other ways: for example, through the dioceses and in partnership with external organisations.
In his letter, Dr Rowe said that these departments were being “reorganised”, and that the Church’s commitment to evangelism, formation, and church-planting remained “undiminished”.
The motivation of the realignment was not purely financial, he said. On the day of his election in June 2024, he had told the General Convention that it was “time to reorient our Church-wide resources — budgets and staff — to support dioceses and congregations on the ground where ministry happens. . .
“We must reform our structure and governance so that our essential polity, in which laypeople, clergy, and bishops — all of us together — share authority, does not collapse under its own weight.”
In his letter last week, he explained: “I am announcing the first major milestone toward achieving these goals: a realignment of the church center staff that will position us to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ more effectively in the world that we see emerging.”
Three central church functions are being reorganised, including church-planting and redevelopment ministry. Evangelism resources are to be developed by dioceses in partnership with the Episcopalian publisher the Forward Movement, which is financially self-supporting. A new leadership-development department is to take on work previously carried out by the offices of transition ministry and pastoral development.
In his previous presentations to the Executive Council, Dr Rowe said that there would also be a coaching offer to help junior staff to step up into new positions, and increased support for dioceses, in crisis communications, the Church’s clergy disciplinary structure, and in Bishops’ appointments, among other areas.
Dr Rowe concluded his letter: “We live in turbulent times, and it is unfortunate that this necessary reorganization is taking place during a period of wrenching upheaval in civil society. In the Church as in society, people of good faith can disagree.
“As we pursue the difficult work of change in the Episcopal Church, it will be all too easy to let disagreement lapse into conflict. I pray that all of us can be guided by the words of the prophet Micah, who reminds us to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.”