Let me ask you, dear reader, have you ever witnessed the transformation of a person or a living system? Have you ever seen something dead spring to life? Have you ever imagined what a spectacle it must have been to see dead, stinking Lazarus take up his mat, clear the grime from his eyes and "rise and walk?" What I saw with my own two eyes at Nashotah House was a transformation that only God could have wrought.

What follows, then, is the largely untold and seemingly forgotten story of that transformation. Of course, this is only one perspective told from one person who sat in one place at a particular moment in the House’s history. Likewise, and in the interest of full disclosure, I make these observations on my own accord and of my own free will. I have neither been encouraged nor appointed to make these observations. I simply want to share what I witnessed. I hope, above all else, that you may glean from this little irenicon some aspect of the marvelous work of God, “whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”

The Ghost of Nashotah Past

When I arrived at Nashotah House in 2010 as a seminarian, I found the faculty, worship life, community and Catholic identity of the place to be almost exactly what I anticipated. Faithful and orthodox, the House took seriously her founding missionary ethos of forming priests and lay leaders for service on every frontier. Within even a few short weeks, I could sense that my formation for priestly ministry was possible only because of the intentional rhythm of daily Mass and Evensong – togetherwith good instruction in the Scriptures and the Fathers –both of which, I later learned, had sustained the place through thick and thin for almost 170 years at that point. I’m utterly convinced that without the House’s intentional, faithful andBenedictine ethos of daily worship, study and work, she may have well closed her doors long ago.

The professors were incredible; they were devoted, kind and passionate about teaching the "faith once delivered." The communal life was a hard but positive transition. The administration, with which I had very little interaction as a student, was devoted to the life of the seminary. My first few weeks were entirely positive. I felt then (and do now) that I could have stayed in those first few weeks and months forever.

I quickly learned, however, that all was not well. Despite our faithfulness to the Benedictine life of formation through faithful worship, study and prayer, something was rotten in the State of Denmark. I now know from later working for the House that enrollment was in a nosedive and giving had all but dried up. Morale was low and seminarians were angry with one another and the administration. Anxiety was the dish du jour. The fact that the then dean encouraged what now is a thriving ACNA church plant to meet in the historic Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin–while it was discerning its future and without explicating all the nuances –ignited passions and fueled division at the seminary and beyond. It was a tense season. I could feel the tension as a student. I can only imagine the then tension within the administration and, perhaps, amongst our trustees. It was the worst of times. I actually wondered whether or not ministry was right for me, in light of such tense settings.

But everything changed. Bishop Edward Salmon, the twice retired Bishop of South Carolina, who had served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for many years, was appointed as the Nineteenth Dean and President in May of 2011 after Dean Munday resigned. He arrived on campus full-time in August of 2011. His leadership style was markedly different from what we had seen under Dean Munday. My class was the only class that experienced both Dean Munday and Bishop Salmon’s tenures; we were risingmiddlers when Bishop Salmon arrived. An expert in family systems theory and practice, Bishop Ed was (and is) the quintessential “non-anxious presence” and “differentiated leader.” His calm and collected leadership immediately assuaged systematic anxiety and brought clarity to our situation, and eventually allowed us to move forward systematically with a clearer vision and sense of purpose. I could never say enough about what Bishop Salmon and has been able to do for the House. I would be remiss without praising the good work of the faculty, the administration and the seminarians, all of whom make Nashotah what it is.

One of the areas that Bishop Salmon quickly identified as vital for the seminary’s success was what was then called the Development Office. The historic importance of Development at the House was nothing new, of course. It was the seminary’s founder, Bishop Jackson Kemper, who first noted the importance of Development, saying, “For the House to reach its intended purpose, I need only two things: means and men.” Likewise, Bishop Salmon knew that the House had to aggressively build – and in some cases restore – relationships that would produce the means which would train and form the men and women whom God sent our way. The Development Office had actually been vacant for a period of many months after Fr. Mark Evans, a devoted alumnus with a heart for the House, had transitioned into parish ministry in the Diocese of Springfield.After searching long and hard for a professional development officer, Bishop Ed eventually stooped low and asked me – then a full-time student – to help the House on a part-time basis while I was completing my M.Div. With fear and trembling – or a mixture of “incredulity and credulity,” as Dickens puts it – I obliged.

Part of my original charge was to find out where we had been, where we were and where we needed to be in order to reach long-term sustainability. We envisioned positioning the House as the epicenter of classical Anglican formation in North America (and by “Anglican,” I mean the whole dysfunctional lot of us, i.e., TEC, ACNA, EMC, AMiA, CANA and whatever other acronym you can name). We believed (and still do) that our formation – that is, our commitment to classical Anglican, Benedictine formation – could transcend our sad ecclesiastical divisions, producing, in the end, priests and lay leaders who would leave the House ready, willing and able to foster the renewal of Anglicanism in all of its iterations.And we also knew that, if the administration could empower that formation instead of paradoxically and inadvertently work against it, we’d hit a home run and the Church would reap the benefits. That was our plan.

What I found as we set out to reinvigorate the seminary was alarming, to say the least. With respect to Development, it turns out that reality and perception were a bit like the Hatfields and McCoys; let’s just say they were at enmity with one another. Unfortunately, reports from then Dean Munday made the picture look brighter than it was, claiming giving was setting records and expenses were in check. I should say, however, that I do not believe that Robert was intentionally trying to dupe the Board of Trustees nor our constituents; I know him to be a Christian man with a heart for Jesus. I simply think he wasn’t paying attention to the trends and the numbers themselves as much as someone with even a modicum of business acumen might be keen to do. A bit like a sleeping steamboat captain roaring towards a waterfall, Robert’s reports ignored impending doom by categorically failing to clearly present major financial and administrative issues. This oversight contributed to the confusion and serious financial decline of the seminary over a period of years. There were also notations from the Association of Theological Schools (ATS), which have since been addressed (and in one instance removed ahead of schedule), that then Dean Munday managed to diminish and mischaracterize.

Bishop Salmon, the administration and the Board of Trustees inherited a real mess ¬– one that the House is still working to amend. I don’t know why this narrative hasn’t been explained more clearly. I suppose Bishop Salmon simply doesn’t spend much time looking in the rearview mirror, believing what lies ahead is of vastly greater importance than what lies behind. Perhaps he’s right. I only mention all of this now to illustrate just how far we’ve come since those days of 2011.

By way of mechanics and perspective, successful seminaries depend on three streams of revenue to operate. Operating revenue comes from: (a) tuition, room and board, and various fees; (b) unrestricted gifts, excluding bequests; (c) and endowment revenue. It’s really pretty simple. In an ideal management situation, we would invest what it took to adequately form priests and lay leaders, charge as little as possible and rely on annual fundraising and endowment income to fund the majority of the operation. Over the last decade, and with clearer data now available, Nashotah could have achieved what we are trying to reach now; namely, financial equilibrium and sustainability.

Alas, however, the House was spending with reckless abandon, was liquidating assets to fund current operations – including too much of the endowment corpus – and spent every penny of the bequests received. Although the exact number isn’t clear, certainly more than $5,000,000 in bequests, together with several million dollars of our endowment corpus, walked out the door during the period from 2002-2010! In light of all this revenue (albeit wrongly apportioned), it is doubly shocking that the place still posted stunning deficits every single year! The numbers still haunt me; like a cold splash of water on the face, the numbers were a wakeup call.

So I began working with Bishop Ed, the administration (the vast majority of whom worked for Dean Munday and have been so crucial to the House’s rebirth under Bishop Salmon), the Board of Trustees and our partners, including many of our alumni, to explain where we really were and where we needed to be. Although the House has many miles to go before she can rest peacefully, and although I (and others at the House) have made some serious mistakes along the way, I give thanks to God for the remarkable progress we’ve made in the last two years. I believe our partners (from all across the Anglican Communion) sense that Nashotah House is in the midst of an incredible renaissance.

The Ghost of Nashotah Present

In terms of the Development Office function and progress, which we re-named the Office of Institutional Advancement along the way, the response to our renewed energy and zeal has been miraculous. There are more examples than I have space to share, but consider a couple: unrestricted annual giving, which does not include bequests, special gifts and restricted giving, increased from $350,000 in the fiscal year ending June 2011 to almost $1,200,000 in the fiscal year ending June 2013. Total giving, excluding bequests, has more than doubled since 2011. Our wonderful magazine, The Missioner, now has more than 7,500 readers and continues to share our work across the Communion. We are in the silent phase of an endowment campaign that has already resulted in one substantial commitment. We continue to expand and reach new people through fruitful partnerships with The Anglican Digest and the use of social media. We now have more dioceses and provinces represented here than at any other time in the House’s recent history (the whole Anglican alphabet soup is represented here!). And the list of renewal and transformation goes on!

The Ghost of Nashotah Future

Let me leave you by asking a personal question and offering a prayer. Do you believe what you pray?I often wonder if people really believe what they pray; we say some amazing things in prayer, and one of our greatest strengths as Anglicans has been our noble and inimitable tradition of common prayer. So, in light of what God has done at Nashotah House over the last season of growth and transformation and what we can rest assure He will accomplish in the future, I can think of no better prayer than this:

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look
favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred
mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry
out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world
see and know that things which were being cast down are being
raised up, and things which had grown old are being made
new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection
by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus
Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity
of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

What a life-changing experience it has been to see things old be made new and to know that in God’s good time all things are being brought to their perfection through Jesus Christ our Lord. The House’s best days lie ahead. May God bless us all, each and every one of us!

Floreat Nashotah!

The Rev. Charleston David Wilson is the Priest Associate for Evangelism and Parish Development at Church of the Redeemer, a traditional Episcopal Church in Sarasota, Florida. From January 2012 to March 2014, he served as the Associate Dean of Institutional Advancement at Nashotah House Theological Seminary, his alma mater. He holds a degree in religion from Samford University as well as a Masters in Divinity from Nashotah House (cum laude).He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for SOMA, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Anglican Digest. He is married to Malacy and they have two children

VOL FOOTNOTE: With all the negative news coming out of Nashotah House, VOL felt it only appropriate that we offer a platform for another point of view.