Membership: It's gotten kind of complicated...

In the simpler days in which the Episcopal Church grew up, most Americans spent their entire lives in the same community. When people did relocate it was generally considered to be trading one permanent home for another, and one put down deep roots in one's new community. It was considered normative for the American Christian population to remain members of the same denomination when they relocated and the Episcopal Church had clear and specific ways to keep track of membership.

These rules are still in effect today, but much harder to make sense of given the mobility of our current society. The Episcopal congregation where one is Baptized, Confirmed or Received is where one's membership is recorded - and one's membership only "officially" changes if the person dies or contacts the congregation and requests a formal letter of transfer to another Episcopal Church (we cannot transfer persons to or from other denominations except perhaps the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with whom we are in full communion).

One technically cannot concurrently be a member of more than one congregation, and this is where things get confused. In our time, people move frequently and often switch between all manner of Christian communities. Instead of formal handwritten membership registers, we use computerized databases to track membership and family information. Trying to conform old categories with new technology is an administrative horror show. Yet, the reporting rules of the Episcopal Church require that we track and categorize those who worship here. We also want to be accurate in compiling our new pictorial directory (yes, we're still working on it!) and send mailings to people who want to receive them.

To this end, our current policy is to consider one an active member if they attend services here at least three times a year and (as far as we know) consider Christ Church or Trinity Church to be their home church. (Some, particularly at Trinity, are seasonally here, but primarily are members elsewhere.) In order to be eligible to vote at Annual Meeting, members must also be known to the Treasurer (i.e. they must have made a financial contribution during the previous calendar year).

All this is said by way of introduction to the fact that we are going to try, at this year's Annual Meetings, to gather the information we need to "clean up" our membership rolls and see that people who actually worship here are registered as being members where appropriate.

Whatever your "official" status, please know that the bottom line is that everyone is welcome in our two congregations, and these various categories are never intended to be barriers to full participation in our common life. We want you to be as engaged as you like in the life of our communities and do our very best to communicate with you about the many opportunities for worship, Christian formation and ministry in the wider community. Please let us know if there are ways we could be doing this more effectively.

• At Trinity Church, the meeting will follow the 8:45 a.m. service on Sunday,  Jan. 19.

           (The Rev. Richard Belshaw, Celebrant)

January 21
          6:00 p.m. Bishop's Committee Meeting at Trinity Church

January 23
          7:00 p.m. Special Bishop's Committee Meeting with 

                            Bishop Hirschfeld at Christ Church

January 25

          5:00 p.m. Holy Eucharist, Rite One, at Trinity Church

January 26 Annual Meeting Sunday at Christ Church
          8:45 a.m. Holy Eucharist, Rite Two, at Trinity Church
          10:30 a.m. Holy Eucharist, Rite Two, at Christ Church  

          12:00 p.m. Annual Meeting at Christ Church