St. Francis The Episcopal Church In Potomac

From the Rector: 2012 Annual Meeting

The 57th Annual Meeting of Potomac Parish was held January 29th. Annual meetings are part of the way Episcopal churches conduct their business, and attendance is somewhat like voting in national elections: a privileged responsibility. Jim Baker, Danny Huntington, and Shanker Singham were elected to new terms on the Vestry, and Steve Wilson began his second full term as Junior Warden.

   The primary reason for such a meeting is the formal election of members of the Vestry, as well as any other elective positions in the parish. Although individual vestry members will offer reports, very little information is made public at the meeting which is not public throughout the year in other ways. Still, some reports (financial and parochial to mention two) appear to have a bit more gravity because they represent annual, or totaled reports from the previous year’s record. If these meetings are routine, they are not unimportant, and those who attend offer encouragement to other parishioners simply by showing up. The way we live these days, choosing to spend time in a church meeting on a Sunday morning is no small expression of support for the work of our church.

   In days of yore, parish meetings were held on Easter Monday. In the governance of Maryland and several other Atlantic colonies, these meetings resembled meetings of today’s county councils. Vestries had a good many civic responsibilities, and it was at the parish meeting that these affairs were disposed. In 1598 (just a decade before Jamestown) Parliament enacted legislation assigning responsibility for care of the poor to local congregations, pastoral work formerly undertaken by the monastic houses. General congregational meetings were called to meet these responsibilities, but soon the realization prevailed that a smaller, select group could dispatch business with greater efficiency than the larger body. From that practical understanding the vestry system took root in England. That form of governance and attendant responsibility came to these shores on the same vessels that brought settlers to the colonies from Delaware to the Carolinas (and eventually Georgia). In Virginia first, vestries soon asserted an additional prerogative, the election of rectors and other clergy. The Crown was indifferent to this colonial development and let this assertion stand. Much of the authority American vestries enjoy in comparison to their British counterparts evolved from the 17th century, and annual congregational  meetings remain more important in this country than anywhere else in the Anglican Communion.  

   While we do not have legal responsibility for the indigent of Montgomery County, or for the maintenance of the roads and the jails, our annual meeting does retain considerable influence over the life of Potomac Parish. At the annual meeting parishioners perceived as leaders are elected to lead. St Francis has been richly served over the years by its successive vestries. From its founding years, this parish has seen active vestries serve in a wide variety of ways. Indeed, it was a group of lay people who first saw the need and opportunity for an Episcopal church in the wilds of Potomac, long before diocesan leaders saw the same thing. Moreover, when the St Francis was organized, diocesan canons did not permit women to vote in the annual meeting, or serve on the Vestry. This parish immediately petitioned the diocese to change that, and the diocesan convention refused. Not until 1959 were diocesan canons revised to ensure such service. Gender equality came to Potomac before anywhere else in the diocese!

   Since the mid-1950s, the talented men and women who have made the decisions for our parish have helped maintain a stable and responsible environment, more recently with special diligence in view of the fiscal challenges of the past several years. We owe a considerable word of thanks to Laurel Bahar and Steve Wilson, the Wardens, as well as those men and women who are their predecessors. A word of thanks from other parishioners would surely be in order.