The History of Emmanuel Church

 Episcopal Spiritual Life Renewal

(Published May 2013)

     As everyone knows by now, Emmanuel has embarked on a remarkable journey known as the Episcopal Spiritual Life Renewal or ESLR, for short.  ESLR comes to us from the Diocese of Chicago, which last year adapted a model originally developed by the non-denominational Willow Creek Church in Chicago.

     We completed the first step of our Renewal on February 17, 2013, when 104% of us took the Spiritual Life Survey.  104%!  How did we manage that feat?  Well, for the purposes of the survey, the size of our congregation is considered to be equal to our average Sunday attendance, which is reported as 100.   Since we wanted this survey to represent our entire congregation, we encouraged everyone to participate, Sunday regulars or not, and they did!

     The Spiritual Life Survey was designed to assess the present state of our spirituality in a comprehensive, objective, and honest way.  It focused on our personal spiritual lives, and on the ways our parish helps each member grow spiritually.  Many of us were uncomfortable with the questions in the survey, and that was expected for at least three reasons:

          1) Willow Creek Church is a very successful mega-church that is non-denominational and very evangelical, the characteristic that accounts for much of its success.  The questions in the survey came out of that evangelical persuasion.

          2) The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, recognizing the value of the Willow Creek methodology and the statistical validity of over 300,000 surveys that had been taken to date, allied with Willow Creek to develop an “Episcopalized” version that we call ESLR.  A sincere attempt was made to “scrub” the language of the survey, but there is a limit to how much survey questions can be reworded while retaining the statistical validity of the results when compared to an already existing database.

     3) The survey (and the ESLR program itself) attempts to measure, understand, and renew our spiritual lives.  Many of us Episcopalians are very private about our personal spiritual life and practices.  The kind of questions that can help define the state of our spiritual lives at Emmanuel cannot help but feel invasive and uncomfortable. However, as the doctor said after resetting my dislocated shoulder, “There!  That wasn’t so bad, was it?”  He was right.  It’s been better ever since.

     The survey’s over, and the outstanding 104% response of our parish ensures that we successfully involved a statistically meaningful cross-section of our congregation and that the resultant data will prove to be valid and meaningful.  Now it’s time to take advantage of the data with the next step in the process:  the ESLR Workshops.

     The Workshops are already underway.  About two dozen Emmanuel volunteers, under the capable leadership of Steve Croker, are dedicating four weeks to understanding the ESLR paradigm, analyzing the survey results, learning the Best Practices of Episcopal spirituality, and making recommendations for follow-on action.  Their work will lead us the rest of the way.

Please pray that the Holy Spirit may guide and inspire these dedicated Workshop participants.

Published in The Messenger May 2013