Fresh Expressions Workshop

Last Saturday I went to a one-day Fresh Expressions Visioning Workshop at Wycliffe. "Fresh Expressions" is an initiative coming out of the Church of England that seeks to create new expressions of the Gospel in contemporary culture. Rather than replace or compete with traditional ("inherited") models of church, they aim to create a mixed economy of old and new. You can see some powerpoint shows that describe the movement in more detail on my Mission-Church Toronto Blog. I know I haven't been updating that blog a whole lot, but I expect that to change as COTM gets more directly involved in this kind reorientation towards mission.

There were about 24 people at the workshop. Many of them were familiar to me from other Anglican church growth/evangelism/church planting contexts. Interesting how the same people tend to attend these events. Hard not to look around and think of the dozens and dozens of people that ought to be at these kinds of events if they want to grow their churches. I understand how clergy get focused on their own places to the point where they can't participate in the kind of strategic continuing ed/church development events that could really help--but to me the sacrifice of a Saturday for the sake of possibly growing my church is an absolute no-brainer.

As to whether Messiah will try to develop a "Fresh Expression"--I've got two on the burner. I think the Contemplative Eucharist is actually a Fresh Expression that could be taken to the next level. I also think that the Mom's fellowship group has such a potential. The key is to structure that group around the principle of being church and not just a peripheral sub-group of Messiah members that share affinity and common experience. I've also got some other ideas kicking around in my brain.

One of the is the ARC (Anglican Resource Centre) that would be a place to resource Christian formation/education in the whole diocese. Besides having a library of resources and conducting education of the educators--we* see the ARC as having a "church" community of its own. It's Mission and Ministry would be... mission and ministry. It's more intuitive than it sounds--it would be church for the post-church crowd, if that makes sense. You know the burned out ex-Warden, ex-choir, ex-chancel guild times that we are currently doing a poor job of serving.

*The "we" behind the ARC is the Christ-Centred Character working group that Catherine Keating and I lead. We meet weekly (in case anybody reading this) to talk how to promote strategies of Christian Ed. in our parishes that align with secular movements.

So good things happening...

-t

Bishop Graham's Power Point

The Bishop of Maidstone kindly gave me permission to publish his slide shows on my blogs. This one is the shorter version of his presentation, which he gave at the Wycliffe Institute of Evangelism Dinner.

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Pretty good, heh?

-t

Alan Roxburgh Interviewing Graham Cray

I was at Wycliffe last night to hear Graham Cray (again). Here's an interview of Bishop Cray by Alan Roxburgh I "borrowed" from the Allelon website...

(source)

-t

James

Here is our new kitten, James. He's adorable. Denise is not completely happy about our adoption, but she's getting used to it. The thing that amazes me about James is that he has only had a body for something like four months, so he's still really awkward about jumping and running and stuff, which is very cute to watch.

Trad-Com (Traditional Communion) service this morning. That went well, though following the BCP to the letter still irks me a little. I'm looking forward to making a few changes in the future that will be a reasonable compromise between the BCP Communion liturgy and the current liturgical theology of the Christian Church. We'll see....

Had lunch at the U of T Faculty Club with George Sumner, Principal of Wycliffe College. Very enjoyable. He did his Ph.D. at Yale and his daughter is an undergrad there, so we swapped a lot of stories about old blue. We ended up sharing quite a bit about our preaching styles, which was interesting. We also discussed the future of Messiah, etc. There is a historic connection between our two institutions, and so perhaps there are possible collaborations in the future, we'll see.

Productive staff meeting this afternoon. Lots of exciting initiatives in the works. I'm aware that in about 6 months from now our staff meetings will be less about the mechanics of what and when and more about the dynamics of who and why. It was interesting that this occurred to me very strongly during the staff meeting. I mean, what we are doing now is the right thing for this moment, but it's how we will do our jobs in the future--nice to realize that.

-t

"Low-Hanging Fruit"

The other day I ran into Dave Robinson, the lead Diocesan consultant for congregations. He had a great phrase when he said that I should "pick some low-hanging fruit," but not get side tracked from strategic initiatives that develop congregational vision and identity. In other words, while the early successes of new pianos, chairs, and paint jobs are important to build momentum and energy, it's really things like a parish-wide workshop on our history that are going to be transformative in the long run. So I'm looking to do something like in November, stay tuned.

I went to the Principal's Dinner at Wycliffe last night. Wycliffe College is one of the two Anglican seminaries at the University of Toronto. We had a little Church of the Messiah table going with two of my Wardens (Virginia and Brendan) plus Megan and her husband Chris and Betsy and myself. It was a valuable chance for me to make contacts with some valuable players in the Toronto church scene, including the Principal, George Sumner. I'm hoping to re-establish the close connection that once existed between Wycliffe and COTM, and that means having good relationships with the current leaders and players.

I'm still processing some of the great conversations from Momentum. At one point I found myself talking about the need to find a well of spiritual good stuff closer to where I live and work than where I have gone in the past (I'm speaking of both geographic and other kinds of distances). Sister Anitra suggested that I come to the convent for worship, but I noted that finding the water there, even if it's close to the surface, will still require a certain amount of digging. That is, establishing relationships and a pattern of attendance and so forth. She looked at me in that Jedi-Christian way of spiritual directors and waved her hand as she said, "Come expecting nothing." And I knew that she was right. The Force is strong in that one.

Speaking of St. John's Convent, here's a picture of their chapel for those that have never been...


Note the progression from Font to Ambo to Altar. Also note the chairs facing each other across that axis. It's simply the best arrangement for a worshiping community of that size that I've seen around: which is why all the cool kids are doing it.

I came across this interesting blog by Edward Murray today. He's a church musician in Los Angeles. Any blog that quotes Mary Oliver, Rumi, and the like deserves some attention, IMHO!

-t