Good morning and thank you for the honor of being with you this

morning and to participate in your service. My name is Dave

Griffith and one year ago, I started as the new Executive Director
of Episcopal ommunity !ervices in "hiladelphia.
My background is out of the world of business, most recently as
hairman of #he Modern Group. I am a lifelong Episcopalian and
my wife $ac%ui and I have been members of #rinity !olebury for
&' some years where I have served as finance and stewardship
chair and most recently as !enior (arden. (e have also been
deeply involved in the nonprofit world mostly focused on
education, children and families.
)et me also say thank you for your relationship with E!, both
past and going forward.
#his is not a typical sermon in that I will not draw from today*s
reading or gospel, at least not directly, but as it always does, it will
touch us today. +#herefore keep watch, because you do not know
on what day your )ord will come. !o you also must be ready,
because the !on of Man will come at an hour when you do not
expect him., - call to action, a call to deeds, and we all know the
power of deeds and action.
In this spirit, -lan asked me to share with you some of my
thoughts on service and mission as we look to our future as a
diocese, as E!, and you as a church. #his morning I want to share
a few stories and share with you a .ourney I have been on and the
road I continue to travel. #hey say that scar tissue is the best
teacher, and like many of you I have my fair share. !o, I stand
today as a witness and let me start with a story/..
0nce, I was a young man and thought that I had all the answers.
0bviously, that was a time before I was married, before children,
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and before a mortgage or tuitions. I was focused on my career and
I had ambitions. I felt I had the skill and the talent to be successful.
!uccessful as defined in our culture. 2ou know, money, power,
and freedom to do as I wanted, that sense that comes from early
success, that I was entitled to opportunity.
My life took the usual turns3 I met a woman in 4ew 2ork at a
party of a mutual friend. 56 years later we are still happily married.
$ac%ui and I moved from 4ew 2ork to "hiladelphia and while she
went to graduate school I continued my career and continued to
progress up the ladder. In 1787, the year we were married I was the
number one marketing representative for my company, I9M, and
we were on our way.
#hen I was promoted to my first management .ob with people
reporting to me and it all started to change. I called my Dad the
first day at the new .ob and let him know I was now a manager,
one of the youngest in the firm. :e asked me to stand up and look
down. (hat shoes are you wearing; I told him my shined black
wingtips. :e said wrong answer. :e said you ought to be wearing
muddy boots. (hat he meant by that is you don*t lead from behind
a desk. 2ou go out and talk to employees, vendors, customers, to
the folks who are in the business and you learn and listen. :e
understood very early in his career that if you find the pain and fix
it, to %uote my good friend Mike Marks, most folks will follow you
and do business with you. (ear Muddy 9oots. (hat he was also
saying is you don*t have all the answers, but if you listen and ask
you might .ust get a little smarter. In his world smarter was always
better and led to better answers. 2ou know what, he was right.
(e kept moving, had two wonderful children, and the opportunity
to move up the ladder continued. I became a 9ranch Manager
taking over one of the worst performing branches in the <!. -t
about the same time my Dad sent me a letter from a speech he had
given years before. It was about leadership.
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+)eadership is hard, and it is rewarding. It is about doing the right
thing, not the popular thing. It is about being confident in yourself
and wise enough to take the advice of those you trust. It is about
understanding the facts, not the emotion. It is about being fair to
all, not .ust a few. It is about courage and vision. It is about humor
and humility.
It is about putting yourself in the hands of a higher power and
having the faith to let that power guide your actions. It is never
about the talk, it is all about the deeds.,
-t the time I heard him, but it wasn*t until years later that I
listened to him. (e continued to have success, I became an I9M
executive at a young age, and we continued to move around the
country. =inally, as you would expect, the moving and lifestyle
took its toll on us personally and on our young children. My wife
and I faced a personal crisis and we made some significant
decisions about how to lead our lives. Interestingly it was at this
same time that we returned to the church and the associated faith
community.
I stepped away from the big corporate world and we settled where
we currently live to raise our family and put down roots, both
professionally and personally. I bought into Modern, an industrial
holding company, where I had been on the board, and became a
forklift and generator guy. -bout as far from I9M as I could get.
My Dad*s thoughts returned as we reshaped our lives. +It is about
putting yourself in the hands of a higher power and having the faith
to let that power guide your actions. It is never about the talk, it is
all about the deeds, I also came to learn that it ought never be
about you, but that true leaders make it all about the organi>ation
they lead. 2ou do well, when the team does well. ollective results
matter. #o you, your people, and most importantly the people you
serve.
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(e decided to focus on family, on community, and less talk and
more deeds. My professional life prospered while we watched our
kids grow up, so did my wife*s and we started to dig into getting
involved in the mission of our church and our community and
those institutions we felt a passion for. I can tell you it has been a
remarkable experience and .ourney. #he more involved we
became, the busier our lives became, and the more we stretched
our time and treasure, the happier we became.
)ook, life had it challenges, and it continues to do so, but
somehow being a member of a community and following the
higher power that is the :oly !pirit among us, has both helped us
meet challenges head on, keep our sanity, and put things in
perspective.
I know now that we have been blessed, and, now that same young
man, who once focused only on career and ambition, has a very
different perspective today, albeit with a good deal of scar tissue.
#hrough our involvement in mission, in our church, and in our
community I discovered a calling to service.
I believe that each of us has a calling, and each of us has a
specific mission, one that we can choose, rather than being chosen
for us.
-nd when we do prayerfully choose, it is empowering, far more
than I could have imagined. =inding mission is where the spirit
works its power.
(e are given time, talent and treasure in different amounts. (e
can spend it on ourselves3 however, as a people of faith, we are
clearly called to spend some of these gifts on causes that cry out to
us. I now believe that there is no higher calling, no greater mission,
than the clarion call to service.
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(hat is your mission; 2ou can be a great parent, a great spouse or
partner, a great employee, a great boss. #hese are powerful gifts.
an you do more; an you also be a volunteer, can you make an
impact in a child*s life, and can you make a difference to an
individual; #he needs are overwhelming. If you .ust look 6' miles,
heck 5 miles, from where we sit today the needs scream for our
attention. Great communities have great safety nets3 can you help
build them to be more than safety nets, programs that deliver
positive outcomes and long term results; "rograms that lift people
and change lives. If we ignore our backyard, what does that say
about us;
(e can and must make a difference, no matter how overwhelming
the challenge appears. I am reminded of the starfish, a story some
of you know. #wo people are walking on the beach and the beach
is covered with washed up and dying starfish. 0ne individual
reaches down and throws one starfish back into the water. #he
other asks what differences can that make when there are so many;
#he first answers, reaching for another starfish, it may not make a
difference to all, but it makes a difference to one.
(hat is our mission; (e need to wear muddy boots, and go out in
our community, listen and find the needs. (e need to take on an
individual leadership role and stretch. (e need to put our lives in
the hands of the higher power, the :oly !pirit, and let it guide our
actions. #o whom much is given, much is expected. (hile it is
about money, it is way more about time. :ow do you spend it and
where; =undamental to the hristian experience is the care of our
brothers and sisters. =undamental, is service beyond self.
I know this. (hen we have participated in a mission led .ourney,
the rewards have been humbling. Many of you know this and act
on this knowledge every day. I challenge you to stretch, to reach
out, and to do more. are for yourself, your family, for people you
love, but also care for a stranger. 2ou have the resources and the
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ability to do so. It may not be comfortable, but if you don*t, who
will; @emember the starfish.
I turned sixty this year and as I reflect on my life to date, I have
much that I am grateful for. !ome, I am very proud of3 and as I
said, some not so much. Mostly proud for my family, my
community, our company, and the causes I am involved in.
:owever, I have decided to listen to my own challenge and stretch.
Dick :enri%ues a fellow parish member issued me the same
challenge I have .ust given you. :e shared with me his .ourney
from corporate life to working at the Gates =oundation and he
touched me with his story, his call to service, and his reach beyond
his comfort >one. #hrough his service he has been a mentor, and he
mentored me. :is message is one of pay it forward.
-nd so I have taken a leap, made another choice, and became the
Executive Director of Episcopal ommunity !ervices in
"hiladelphia. E! provides services to children, individuals, and
families in need and has been in existence for some 1?? years. I am
the first lay person called to lead this organi>ation and I am
humbled by this call. E!*s mission is to +affirm human dignity
and promote social .ustice., 9ecause of the foresight of E!*s
early leaders, one hundred percent of every donated dollar funds its
mission. #he programs are innovative and the 16' plus team
members are deeply committed to the cause. I am excited about the
opportunity, more so the challenge. (e serve at risk youth3 run !t
9arnabas (omen*s shelter, run out of school time programs, foster
care, educational assistance, home care, adoption services. Great
cities not only need great safety nets, but long term to address
poverty, need to lift people up. (e focus on results and outcomes
long term to be more than .ust a safety net, but to change lives. #o
teach people to fish, not .ust feed them.
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(e will need each and every one of you to support us as we take
this call on. (hile financial support of treasure and talent would be
wonderful, what we are asking for is your time.
:owever not for E!// but for yourself.
-gain, I urge you to think about what is your mission, your calling,
your opportunity to stretch. 0ur world is full of starfish3 we can*t
deal with all of them, until we start to deal with one of them. -
community that focuses on service is vastly more powerful than
any individual. I need my brothers and sisters on this .ourney. I
need your prayers and more than funding, I need your voice.
!o, can !t. :oly #rinity and all of our parishes be more of an
outreach church, can it be a mission church, can it be a place where
we worship and care for each other, but also can it come to be
more of a lead institution than it is, where people make a
difference to individuals and communities in need. It can be the
model for a people of God who understand the call to service. 2ou
do this now, but circumstances and the spirit demands we stretch
beyond our comfort >one. :ow much more of an impact could you
have on you outreach work if we took it year round and we all
stood shoulder to shoulder with our young people and the people in
need of "hiladelphia, (est "hiladelphia, or the 4ortheast;
I am on a .ourney, we all are. (e are blessed to be members of this
community and have the leadership you have with @everend
4eale, the Bestry, the !taff, and frankly each other. I share my
experience in the hope that we can mentor each other, support each
other, feed each other, and that by working together we and other
faith based organi>ations can do more.
#he clarion call that challenges us to answer the call to service is
issued in our baptismal covenant.
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(ill you seek and serve hrist in all persons,
loving your neighbor as yourself;
"eople I will, with God*s help.
(ill you strive for .ustice and peace among all people,and respect
the dignity of every human being;
"eople I will, with God*s help.
9ut it starts with a call to personal action3 as my Dad wrote me so
many years ago, +)ess talk and more deeds., (hen we are called
to service, we are called to mission.
It is well said again in the words of our 9ook of ommon "rayer in
the confession of our sinsC
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against thee
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
(e have not loved thee with our whole heart3
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
(e are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
=or the sake of thy !on $esus hrist,
have mercy on us and forgive us3
that we may delight in thy will,
and walk in thy ways,
to the glory of thy Name.
#he world is full of starfish. God, may we save one, may our boots
be muddy, and through our deeds may we make a difference, so
that we may delight in thy will, and walk in thy ways, to the glory
of thy 4ame. -men.
D
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