Inherited and New Monasticism, with Sister CJ, SSJD

Bishop Linda asked me to record this excellent presentation by Sister Constance Joanna (most of us call her "CJ") of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine about the history of Monasticism and how it relates to some new movements in the emerging church. SSJD is making some interesting adaptations, itself, to the changes in the church. If you are a woman who wishes to experience the monastic life without necessarily making a life-time commitment, check out their new Companions Program starting this fall. From the website:

The Sisters of Saint John the Divine invite women between the ages of 22 and 40 to explore an expression of new monasticism rooted in the Anglican tradition. Companions will develop a rhythm of life including public and private prayer, engage in service to others, and learn to live in intentional community.... Room and board are provided, and most living expenses are covered by the Sisterhood. Companions, in turn, use their gifts to share in the work of ministry and have the same free time, retreat opportunities, and vacation as the Sisters. (source)

My spirituality has been greatly enriched by my relationship with a monastic community (The Order of the Holy Cross), and I commend it to anyone wishing to go deeper in faith and spirit.

Another Update on Messiah Commons

The Messiah Commons Team meets weekly on Thursdays at 9.30am at the church--anyone is welcome to attend. Here are some updates from recent meetings.

We welcomed Duke Vipperman, Incumbent of the Church of the Resurrection, to come observe, share his experiences of missional renewal, and to speak about the role that the “Missional Transformation Process” might have in helping out efforts. “MTP” is the brain child of Messiah’s own John Maclaverty and his consulting partner Alan Roxburgh. It is designed to provide coaching support for parishes and priests making the leap to missional ministy. Messiah already made many tremendous progress in this regard, but MTP may be able to help the cultural change underway here.

At the meeting we spent time discussing last week’s Annual Vestry Meeting and the implications for our time-lines and plans. We are now reconsidering our rush to create a comprehensive renewal plan in time for the April 15th grant deadline and instead are exploring the feasibility of a series of pilot projects.

We also discussed ways in which to improve communication with the parish as a whole. It is imperative that we create more connections between the work of the mission team and the congregation. We committed to making more specific "asks" of the congregation for help and also to use other forms of connection including one-on-one meetings and monthly meetings of the Parish Council.

The renovation planning continues, and we discussed our thoughts about the two architecture firms who will be making proposals to the Messiah Community. Tay met with one of these architects again in his studio. Both firms are enthusiastic about the potential of Messiah and are eager to begin a collaborative and consultative process with our community. We discussed cultural change in congregation and some length and made plans for some new initiatives involving youth, adult education, and
missional outreach.

We have not received a substantial proposal from a possible business partner interested in running a café in our place, which is another good reason to push back the timeline. However, two parties has expressed his interest in making a formal proposal in the near future. In the mean time, the planning team is going to reach out to two or three more potential partners identified at the meeting.

Last week part of the team met with City Counsellor Adam Vaughan to talk through several issues raised by Messiah Commons and Messiah Market. The Counsellor was supportive and had some helpful suggestions to make. In particular, he suggested that the Messiah Market partner with the residents of 250 Davenport to do the Market on their lawn space. This has several advantages, first, there is plenty of parking in the underground structure there. Second, it would help provide food security to the residents of that building, who often feel priced out of the local food market. Third, it would allow up to partner with the city to provide not only a market, but possibly other social services to the neighbourhood. It was a positive meeting from which we took several ideas to pursue.

Next week we will be welcoming Bishop Yu to the meeting--so we talked through some of the things we thought it would particularly helpful to share with him both at the meeting itself and beforehand.

Several of the team bring specialized knowledge and skills that will be quite useful to us, and I honor their willingness to help our community. Valear Howsam, for example, is our former NCD coach and therefore knows this community quite well. In a previous life (she is now is seminary) she worked in marketing research and thus has extensive training and experience listening to what people want. We have business people and food people and an architect, too. Many others are hovering the wings, unable to commit to intensive involvement, but eager to help from time to time.

Our Wish List

Here are some specific things we want help to execute. These are volunteer opportunities for members of this congregation to push things forward.

Picture Survey of Neighbourhood
We need pictures, lots of pictures, of the church’s neighbourhood. From St. Clair south to Bloor, Spadina east to Yonge, we want picuters of people and places that help us to understand and describe the environment of the church. Speak to Tay to help.

Sign Changing
The sign on Avenue Road is an one of the main ways in which people connect with our church, particularly when it comes to special events and services. We need volunteers to take it on to change this sign, especially with so many events happening in the holy season of Lent and Easter.

Participate in Lunch-n-Learn
John Hill and Tay are working hard to create an amazing bible study for Lent. Please take advantage of it by staying after church in Lent. We are also eager to make sure we have activities kids during this time. If you can’t do that, consider at least cooking soup for those who can.

Interact with the church on Facebook and the website
The reach of the Facebook presence of the church is tied directly to how many people read and interact with the posts on it. If you are on Facebook, “like” and “share” posts from the church at least weekly. This is one of the most effective means of evangelism for some churches in our area.

Greet the people on Sundays you don’t know first
We are a welcoming church, but we could be even more so. After church notice the people at coffee hour that you don’t know, speak to them first before you chat with friends and old Messiah hands!

Keep Up-to-Date with our plans
There are several ways to keep in touch with the renewal efforts at Messiah. Besides the frequent updates given during announcements and sermons, or updates in the leaflet like this one, there are other methods. One place to start, especially if you are new to the work we are doing, would be the “Prezi” presentation that Tay created to summarize our work. Just browse to http://www.churchofthemessiah/messiahcommons. You can also read about it in the Messiah Messenger newsletter and the Annual Vestry Report. Tay, Charles, John, Meghan, and the rest of the team are also always happy to talk about the future of our church!

Evidence Comes in to Support the Fresh Expressions Movement

The culture changed, the (mainline) churches have responded with missional movements such as Fresh Expressions. We are just now, in the last few years, making these efforts in Canada. In the UK they have now been doing Fresh Expressions and other missional efforts long enough that we can do some serious evaluation about whether they have worked. Numbers aren't everything, for sure, but Jesus did say that you will "know them by their fruits." It seems reasonable to make in inquiry as to the affect of all this mission stuff. Here is what the Church Army Research Unit has found:

Church Growth Research Programme - presented by Church Army Research Unit from Church Army on Vimeo.

Is just a video summary, the written reports may be found in summary here and long form, full report, here. I haven't gotten deep into the reading, yet, but I have heard this work presented in a few different contexts and thus feel like I can speak to the bottom line which is this: it's working. Fresh Expressions of church are springing up all over the place and they are, indeed, creating Christian communities of people who would not otherwise be part of church. I'm thrilled because this convincingly demonstrates that we are talking about more than a flash-in-the-pan or flavour-of-the-month. FX are here and they are working.

It's an impressive report and I wish very much that we could do one ourselves here in Canada (even if we are a little behind them in terms of adoption of these strategies), but I'm told there simply isn't the money and scale to do this sort of research and evaluation. I'm frankly not sure that's true, but it's not a project I can really spearhead right now. Anyway, this is very encouraging news about mission!

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Messiah Commons - Some More Detail

A mission team has been meeting weekly for some months now developing Messiah Commons. Here is a snapshot of our current thinking at this stage of the process.


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Three Projects for Messiah

I've been very, very busy for the last 6-9 months working on a series of projects that have coalesced into three main initiatives for the Church of The Messiah: Messiah Media, Messiah Market, and Messiah Commons. Messiah Media is about creating a resource centre for churches across the Diocese (including Messiah) to do New Media Evagelism. Messiah Market is a weekly Farmer's Market to take place at the church aimed at the local neigbhourhood. The last project on this list, Messiah Commons, is the most important of the group in terms of transforming the parish: we want to create a neighbourhood hangout where people can enjoy community without needing to be members of our church. It would be a third place possibly serving coffee and snacks. There would be wifi and events that would be attractive the Young Digerati, Urbane Villagers, and Rooms with a View people who live near our parish.

The Parish Council shared these plans with Bishop Yu at a special meeting last week. Below is the "Prezi" I used to do that. You can go through the prezi by pushing the forward and back arrow, or explore freely by zooming and navigating with your mouse. Enjoy.


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Messiah Commons - a list of influences

Plans for "Messiah Commons" continue apace. I've recruited a small group to be my brain-trust as we develop the ideas behind it. We've been using the "Business Model Canvas" and other techniques to organize and sharpen our vision. I'm not quite ready to share the raw data from that at this moment, but here are some the influences that I have been thinking about lately. I include them here partly as a kind of mini-bibliography for people who are wondering what I'm looking at. It's a partial list, but it's a place to start. I'm stealing all these descriptions from the various websites themselves, so all credit to them for that.

Moot Community - "Host"

http://www.moot.uk.net/host/

Host is an enterprise of Moot, a community of spiritual pilgrims stumbling and fumbling our way towards salvation. Our home at St Mary Aldermary is a peaceful sanctuary amidst the noisy, bustling streets of London. We built the café because we want people to feel comfortable and at home in the beautiful and relaxing space that the church offers, as we seek to restore the church building to its true vocation as a welcoming hub for the local community, a public space where friendships and connections can be developed. Since we started running the café in September we have experienced the increase in the life and warmth that people bring to a building.

Alongside this we also want to offer the church as a ‘sacred space’, where there is permission and encouragement to give attention to what is often neglected – the deeper dimensions of life, the self and wellbeing that include the spiritual, without feeling under pressure to conform to perceived ideas of what it means to be religious and ‘go to church’. As part of our weekly rhythm of worship and prayer at St Mary Aldermary we are building a programme of arts, meditation, yoga and discussion groups to enable those who live and work in the City to access points of stillness and reflection.

We think Host is great space to connect, to feed body, mind, and spirit.

Rooster Coffee House

http://roostercoffeehouse.com/
They don't have a self-description on their website, really, but I can tell you that this comes closest to a Seattle-style coffee shop that I have encountered in Toronto. It's warm, inviting, and fosters a sense of community.

Darkwood Brews

http://darkwoodbrew.org/
Led by Rev. Eric Elnes, Ph.D., Darkwood Brew is a groundbreaking interactive web television program and spiritual gathering that explores progressive/emerging Christian faith and values. Here’s a quick video overview:

Based on the structure of the Lectio Divina, an ancient spiritual practice developed by Benedictine monks in the 5th Century, and using cutting edge technology; Darkwood Brew explores The Unexpected Love of God in relevant, challenging and surprising ways.

Featuring world-class jazz musicians, live interviews with international guests, and a variety of interactive media that allow you to participate in real-time, Darkwood Brew is webcast weekly on Sundays at 6pm Eastern, 5pm Central.

This is Christian practice for the emerging faith of our world today. From the Darkwood Brew coffee house, the stage is set weekly for a hearty exchange of ideas and the way is made clear for insights and directions for your unique faith journey. It’s scholarly, it’s entertaining, it’s fun, and it’s enlightening. That’s a tall order. Grab a latte, get comfortable – but not too comfortable – and join the growing number of individuals and groups large and small around the world who are stirring things up with Darkwood Brew.

You might not like it. But, then again, you might.

St. John's Bakery

http://www.stjohnsbakery.com/
We strive to provide exceptional breads and sweets that use the finest ingredients and no preservatives, and a nourishing environment that responds to the needs of all those who contribute to the creation of these products. For us, it is more than our breads and sweets. It is about connecting with people, about building comunity. We draw people in with our bread. We believe our bread builds community. St. John's Bakery is a place where people of varying capabilities and social backgrounds come together to do something constructive and creative.

House for All Sinners and Saints

http://houseforall.org/
House for All Sinners and Saints is a group of folks figuring out how to be a liturgical, Christo-centric, social justice-oriented, queer-inclusive, incarnational, contemplative, irreverent, ancient / future church with a progressive but deeply rooted theological imagination.

"The Apostle"

After his happy life spins out of control, a preacher from Texas changes his name, goes to Louisiana and starts preaching on the radio.

"Whale Rider"

A contemporary story of love, rejection and triumph as a young Maori girl fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize.

Business Plans

If, like me, you are trying to do anything new in church-land you've probably been asked to develop a "business plan." This is especially true if you are asking for money to help implement your vision. The expectation that you and your community clearly articulate goals, plans, measurable outcomes and such is not unreasonable, but it can be difficult if you have never done it before. A lot of grant proposals I have read are far too long winded with far too much reference to actual data (even of the subjective sort). But an even bigger problem tends to be that people make these grand plans based on the best information at the time, but as they adapt they never bother to update the old document. It quickly becomes an artifact of the planning stages rather than a useful strategic or operational tool.

At this stage of this ministry's development I've recruited two people to help do the initial brainstorming and planning work: Kirk and Angela. Kirk pointed me to this resource which proposes a much more organic and simplified way of structuring the business plan: The Business Model Canvas. Invented by Alexander Osterwalder, the Business Model Canvas puts all the relevant information into a one-page format. Here is a one-hour lecture explaining the model and giving a real-life case example.

Our first sit-down with the model produced a lot of good material and thoughts, but we have a long way to go to fit things into the categories provided by this particular model. It certainly isn't the only planning document we will ever need, but it will be quite helpful in articulating what we plan to accomplish and how we plan to do it! I appreciate the aesthetics of the BMC model: it's spatial rather than linear and forces one to deal with constraints.

I love this sort of stuff. Thinking about thinking is critical work, especially if you are trying to avoid past traps. I highly recommend using something like this if you into entrepreneurial ministry.

I'll post more as things continue to develop. I have a feeling that the BSC for Messiah Commons is about to take over one of my whiteboards for a while!

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A Networked Diocese Roadmap

I prepared this material back in December (2012) as a discussion piece for a committee that was brainstorming around the Our Faith Our Hope Campaign's "Communicating in a Wireless World" mandate. It in no way represents anyone's thinking except my own, and in no way represents the direction our diocese is heading. It's simply what I presented to the committee. I have shared it before on Facebook, and simply never got around to posting it here. There is nothing confidential about it, so I just want to make that clear!



This is a "Prezi"--so you can navigate it by going back and forward in a linear way, at at any time you can manipulate it with your mouse if you want to zoom in or out or take a look at a particular point. Some of this won't make a lot of sense without the audio track of me discussing and talking, but I think those of you who are interested in church and social media will get the point. If the text seems kind of small, that's because this was designed to be projected on a big screen (and it was). I suggest clicking on the little rectangular icon on the lower right to go into full-screen mode. Hit "Escape" to exit out of it again.

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The "Orthos"

Orthodoxy: Right Belief
Orthopraxis: Right Practice
Orthopathy: Right feeling

Lately I've been noting how the standard evangelical emphasis on Orthodoxy as the way to faith makes me uncomfortable. I have colleagues who seem to think that the primary method to bring people to God is to educate them. As though if they knew more about Jesus, they would naturally want to follow Him. Thus, they spend a lot of time in a basically pedagogical mode: it's all about the teaching. Maybe; maybe not. Often the impact of teaching people about Jesus is that come to the conclusion that "Jesus was a really cool guy," but the essential claims that Christianity makes about his divinity or the implications of his death/resurrection fall flat.

I mean, why would someone want to be a Christian when they could be a Jedi? As long as we compete on historical or purely philosophical grounds we will conceding far too much ground. Yes, there are historical and philosophical claims being made by our faith (and ethical ones, for that matter), but there are lots of other perfectly reasonable belief systems out there grounded in good history and philosophy. So why would we want to fight in that particular ditch? Two possible alternatives are stake a claim in relational space or existential space. That is, "Become Christian because you are one of us" or "Become a Christian because the poetry of our faith resonates with the deepest chords of your soul."

This impulse to focus on pedagogy and orthodoxy comes from the other side of the lay-ordained dynamic as well: many people assume that the next step in their spiritual journey is a "Bible Study" and talk about their desire to know more about God. They tell me how much they admire this preacher or that one for teaching them something new. I've listened to some of these preachers and been frankly disappointed. A good example would be Bruxy Cavey, who often borders on being intellectually dishonest for the sake of clarity and homiletic impact. (Case-in-point: Listen to his preaching on Just War Theory and you'd think nothing had happened in theological ethics since Augustine).

I think that a more holistic approach is necessary, and that approaches that spend too much time on the "teaching" part are problematic because of the inherent materialism of such an approach. I'm sorry, but I don't think there is such a thing as "Five Biblical Principals for a Happier Life." Maybe being a faithful person means your life will be less happy! This version of Christianity gives an illusion of control and sometimes borders on Gnosticism. The worst excesses show up in something like the ridiculous "Prayer of Jabez" fad.

Even in the case of doctrines which are not false, getting people to intellectually assent to set a doctrines (no matter how true or insightful they might be) is rarely transformative. Consider the many people who gain great insight about their problems in therapy, and yet are unable to heal them! Right-belief is important, of course, but goes hand-in-hand with the other "Orthos": practice and feeling.

Here is a good example of what I mean. I commonly encounter people who come to church because they feel anxious, lonely, or otherwise in a state of existential distress. In my opinion and experience, there is much nothing you can teach them that will change that feeling. You can tell them about how God loves them and care for them. You can point to the various passages of scripture in which God tells us that worrying is pointless and un-holy. In all likelihood you are going to make things worse because now their presenting distress is compounded with guilt--"If I only really had faith in God's love for me, I wouldn't worry so much."

Now, check out a possible alternative. Here is Ian Mobsby from the Moot Community in London talking us through the "Welcome Prayer."


This is good stuff. And I've taught something very much like this technique for years. But it doesn't give an "answer" is just a practice designed to engage a feeling. But it is holy, right, and helpful. So how come I'm not seeing more of this kind of stuff among my Fresh Expressions/Church Planting/Evagelical friends?


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A nice little poem shared by the folks over at St. Lydia's Place, a Dinner Church in Manhattan founded by a friend of mine.

Let Evening Come
by Jane Kenyon

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Here's a little video that gives you a taste of what they are like. You'll see Emily Scott as part of that--one of many amazing people I went to seminary with.



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A Weird Space

This moment--right now--is an example of the kind of weird space I'm in these last few weeks (or months). It's about 1.30 a.m.--I should be in bed, but I can't sleep, the thoughts are too thick in my head. So instead I'm eating cold spaghetti with meat sauce with sriracha sauce on top and blogging. Yes, blogging. Why blogging? I really don't know, something about a vague commitment I made to average one post a day.

The scene wasn't much better at 12:30a.m. I was in bed. Lights off. Spouse and two cats in bed with me. But with my phone I read a PDF a friend (Brian Bukowski) linked on "The Community" about church marketing. It was short but dense. Most it was content I already knew, but the form was novel and I think it's the sort of thing that could be a good seed for the church to do a better job of reaching people. So (with my phone) I saved the PDF to Dropbox and then sent the link to Meredith Gould via DM on Twitter. She had already announced that she was offline for the night, but she'll see the link in the morning. Meredith is a Church Marketing maven, so I expect she'll have strong opinions about the piece one way or another. Reading it gave me a few ideas of things I should do differently, and made me long for the Environics Data we are ordering for Messiah. Should've done this years ago.

Then I tossed and turned thinking about all the stuff I have to do to develop the "Messiah Commons" project. Lots and lots of leadership development work. That means meeting with people and getting them to talk to each other, basically, to discover their unique gifts and calls. It takes time, and I don't have a lot of that at the moment. Thursday's annual Wycliffe Institute of Evangelism Dinner will be an important opportunity for me to introduce a few key personalities to each other, and I was fretting over some additional work I should do before these members of the "crew" meet. So much of the project is undefined, at the moment, and definition only seems to come in the context of conversation.

Luckily, I think I'll be seeing one of those conversation partners tomorrow, so from my bed using my phone I sent him a Facebook message asking whether he would, indeed, be at our mutual event tomorrow and whether I could bend his ear for 20 minutes to talk some more about the Messiah Commons project. He's also probably asleep--hence no immediate response. The beauty of Twitter and Facebook messaging is that I won't be waking them up (unlike a phone call or text message). They'll find these messages in the morning and reply in due course.

Then I thought some more about my other major project in the works. It involves a lot of creative work, so I puzzled through some thinking about that, and even used a calculator on my phone to do some back-of-the-envelope style projections to assess the feasibility of some scenarios in my head. I must have spent 5 minutes then questioning my premises. The problem with grant proposals is that everything has to be future tense, it seems, and it is nearly impossible to predict people's future behavior. Yet ignorance is no excuse for inaction.

I remember one time reading a short article written for people considering becoming doctors. One piece of advice I remember was that to be a Doctor you have to be okay making life and death decisions based on partial, incomplete, or even contradictory information. The stakes are much lower (usually) in ministry, but it's still the case that you often have to make decisions (or at least representations) based on partial, incomplete, or even contradictory information. Do I know how much coffee people will buy in the next three years if Messiah starts selling it on the sidewalk? Of course not! But I can make an educated guess. I can tell you (really) which coffee shops in our area sell a shot of espresso for $3.35 and which sell it for $2.71. And at 12.45am I can calculate how many espressos we would have sell each year to support a full-time Batista-pioneer-minister. I even made the calculation using Reverse Polish Notation, just to get my geek on even more. Then I wish my friend with an MBA lived in town, because I would seriously put him to work on this puppy.

I don't think everyone in church-land thinks this kind of thinking is awesome. I got some push-back recently after talking about it that sounded to me like, "It is presumptuous to plan for mission; God will provide for us; we just need to surrender to His will." Ahh, hmm. In my head I thought of the flood-roof-top-rescue-Peter's-gate joke, but resisted telling it (kind of a cheesy and predictable joke, anyway). I also thought of the Arabic Proverb, "Trust In Allah But Tie Up Your Camel," but I didn't think that would be well received, either. So I said something about how God's unprecedented grace elicits a response in us--that we are invited to cooperate in God's work in the world.

To put in another way, we might throw ourselves down at the foot of the Throne and push our noses into the hard stone and pledge our eternal obedience to the God of all creation and hear his holy command echo through the Temple. Why would we scoff at "Count my sheep" or "Put up my sign" or "Make coffee and put out a few scones"? Would it be better if the Lord were asking us something really vague/koan-like: "Love your neighbour" or "If your right eye causes you to sin pluck it out?"

I had a parishioner challenge me after worship recently: "I don't understand what counting cars has to do with evangelism." It's a good question. Before I could answer she started talking about how she thought we needed a better sign on the street. "Ah," I asked, "What kind of sign? Should it be designed to be most readable on foot or in a car? How big do the letters need to be? How long can the message be?" She immediately grasped by point and nodded.

A pastor's prayer: "Lord, send me an accountant." Imagine the havoc one could unleash with a few deeply analytical thinkers puzzling through the problems of the church today... I don't think many of us would like their conclusions very much. But, then, we don't particularly care for prophets of any base methodology when they tell us to change.

So I'm just descending deeper in my rabbit hole of church-nerd weirdness. Studying my Google Analytics and Environics reports--confident that there is a Deus Machina somewhere down here. If you want to help, feel free to toss a few batteries down.

Summits

This morning started off with a "Missional Summit." This is a day-long event that the Diocese of Toronto sponsors every few months to support people doing Fresh Expressions and other innovative ministries. It's an invite-only sort of thing, but the main criteria is having a Fresh Expression or Church Plant that is being funded by the Diocese. I think one of the reasons I get invited is because I'm on the "Project Enabling and Monitoring Group" (PEMG), which oversees and shepherds the funding proposals for these sorts of projects. In fact, I was just asked to help develop a new project which is just beginning to cross from the horizon of the unknown into a feasible reality.

The morning started with some structured networking designed to give us a chance to hear about as many little projects as possible, then we had a lecture, a case study, and some reflections by the Archbishop. Marion Taylor provided the lecture. She is a popular Old Testament Professor at Wyliffe Seminary and I can see why. Her subject was Josephine Butler, a 19th Century reformer/activist who championed women's rights. In particular, Marion wanted to highlight Butler's exegetical and rhetorical genius. She showed how Butler took one of the most problematic passages in all of Scripture--Judges 19--and found the Grace in it.

If you are interested at all in Feminist Theology or Biblical Exegesis or social advocacy on behalf of prostitutes, you should take a few minutes and treat yourself to this. Start by reading Judges 19. It's an ugly passage, and my first impression was that it arroused some righteous anger in me, but I didn't actually see myself in the story, much less Jesus in the story, until Butler gets a hold of it...

There are many tragical histories recorded in the Old Testament, that true mirror of the faith and the righteousness, but also of the depravity of man. Few are more tragical than that story, in the book of Judges, of the wayfaring Levite, who halted at Gibeah of Benjamin, and lodged there with the woman, his companion. We read with a shudder the ghastly details, — the clamoring of the sons of Belial round the door, the suspense, the parley, till, in the cowardice of self-defence, the man brings out that helpless woman, and casts her among the hellish terrors of that awful night. ' All night until them morning,' she endured, ' until the day began to spring; then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light. And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way; and, behold, the woman was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going! But none answered.' She was dead.

Christian friends, there is a weak and prostrate figure lying at our door ; to this door she turns for help, though it be but in her dying fall. Her hands are upon the threshold — dead hands flung forward in mute and terrible appeal to the God above, who, looking down from heaven, sees not that prostrate form alone, but on the one side the powers of hell, on the other, in their safe dwelling- place, the selfish sleepers to whom the pale, cold hands appeal in vain. The night is far spent ; throughout the world's long night the fate of the Levite's concubine has been outcast woman's fate; cast forth in answer to the clamorous cries of insatiable human lusts, and then left to perish in the outer darkness; while 'her lord,' ordained her protector by nature and by the law of God, slumbers unheeding. Her voice is too weak to be heard, the door is too heavily barred for her to open, that she might cross the threshold again; her only appeal is her heavy corpse-like fall beside the door, her silence when invoked, and her cold, dead hands stretched forth. It might well make our morning slumbers uneasy, and cause us to murmur, in our dreams, of the coming judgment, to know that there lies a corpse at our door, crushed with the heaped and pitiless weight of the sins of others and her own.

But the day is at hand. Wc have slept long and soundly, while that woman bore the hell without. Shall we sleep still? What if the Judge should come and find us scarcely risen from our torpor, our door scarcely opened, our morning salutation scarcely uttered to the victim whose voice is stilled in death — should come, and should require of us an account of our protectorship, and show to us such mercy as we have shown to her?

There are, thank God, signs at last, and in certain parts of the earth, of a movement among the sleepers, a haunting consciousness of somewhat leaning heavily against our door, a gradual awakening to a sense of pain and fear and duty unfulfilled — nay, of partnership in guilt, with a present immunity from its penalties, which presses heavier than all else upon a conscience lit with the fires of coming wrath, or on a heart capable of a generous sorrow. Some, thank God, have started from their beds and gone forth in the morning twilight to find the prostrate body, wherein yet perchance is life, and have uttered, not ineffectually, the words, " Up, let us be going;" and have gathered in their arms, and have sustained and comforted, and when healing was not too late, have healed.

Yet those who, waking late, are working now, work ever with the sad and humbling memory of past centuries of injury and neglect in this matter. They who have themselves been guiltless of actual wrong towards the fallen, feel the most acutely in the tenderness of their souls the wrong done by their forefathers, who, since the foundation of the world till now, have dedicated by millions these weaker vessels to profanest service — sacrificing them with impious rites to a so-called necessity — a Moloch to whom all the kingdoms of the earth have caused armies of their daughters to pass through the fire, generation after generation. These vessels, once defiled, were, as our fathers judged, incapable of cleansing, never again to be restored to sweet and honourable household use, too vile for hand of just man or pure woman to touch; albeit One, the ever blessed, the only pure, had not disdained to raise such a vessel to His sacred lips, and with richest draughts from thence to alluy the thirst of His Divine soul for his creature's love. Nay, He complains of the strong uninjured vessels that they give not as the broken give: to the honoured of men, firmly holding his position in society, "Thou gavest me no kiss," He said; " but this woman hath not ceased to kiss my feet."

We cannot know how many of "this woman's" character and kin may not have kissed secretly those blessed feet, even in the darkness outside the door; more perhaps than we, who pity, dare to hope — more certainly than Simon thinks, while he sits eating and drinking there, and shuddering at the thought that any guest of his should suffer the approach of so vile a thing; for He who gives his feet to be kissed, have we not His voice to the end of the Dispensation — "Behold, I stand at the door and knock"? His head is filled with the dew and His locks with the drops of the night, and it may be that at that same closed door these two, the slain woman and the Saviour, have met many a time while we slept and knew it not; it may be that those cold faint hands, falling upon the threshold, groping hopelessly, have stolen in the darkness some virtue from His garment's hem; and though the fount of weeping, which despair has dried, may have given no more tears to "distil like amber on the royal feet of the Anointed," yet may they have been pressed instead with the cold death-dews of a forehead branded with shame and hiding itself in the dust.

Every act of our Lord's, emphatically recorded by the Evangelists, has a deep and an everlasting significance. A single act of His towards a single individual was designed to be the type, for all ages, of the acts required of every Christian in every similar case — a seed intended to bring forth fruit a thousandfold; on each is plainly written the command, "Go thou and do likewise." The Lord manifested a peculiar compassion for lepers, and from that time forth the Gentile Christians ceased to treat the leper as he had been treated among the Jews, and the saints of the early Church vied with each other in acts of charity towards the victims of this loathsome disease, that thus in the persons of his afflicted members they might do honour to their Lord. Jesus Christ blessed little children, and this has been recognised by Christendom as significant of the part to be acted by and towards the Christian child. The Lord especially honoured the poor; so likewise has the Church ever considered the poor her especial charge, and the care of the poor one of the first of social obligations. But how has it been in the matter of our Lord's treatment of fallen women ? Was ever act of His more marked, or more prominent, or more designedly typical, than His conduct towards these? As if to enforce the duty of society towards them with a special recommendation, He is seen, not once, but again and again, by His marked reception of these women, to give as it were to the world a key-note upon which to time its voice to the Magdalene to the end of time. " (From Josephine butler, "The Lovers of the Lost," Contemporary Review 13 (1870) 16-19)

Wow. Are we the sleepers? Is Christ outside with the dying prostitute? Chew on that for a while. Then consider that this was preached by a woman in the 19th century. She couldn't even vote, let alone get ordained, and yet she successfully campaigned to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts. She might not be a household name, now, but this is a Christian whose prophetic witness changed the course of history and improved the lives of thousands and thousands of people (especially women).

After that we had a great lunch, more networking, and a case study of a skater church run out of St. James the Apostle Church in Perth, ON. Here's a video to show you what that's about:



This video is several years old, so it was interesting to have Christine Piper (the Priest) come and tell us how things have evolved over the last few years. Good stuff.

Then we heard from the Archbishop. Among other things he wanted to encourage us to be hopeful.

After that we had some prayer time in small groups and that was it. (I should mention that I spent virtually every second of every break talking to one person or another about a project I am working on. I am incredibly thankful for this opportunity, as it saves me a lot of coffee dates and e-mail exchanges in the next few weeks).

Shortly after the event wrapped up I got a call that one of my parishioners had died: Eleanor Farmer. Eleanor was a dear, sweet woman who came faithfully not just on Sundays but on Saturdays to my Healing Prayer Group. She was hard of hearing and had trouble walking, but she came to everything she could. Her friend and Power of Attorney found her this afternoon. I went straight there from the Summit and was glad that I still had a stole and BAS in my car from the Communion Service I had done at Hazelton Lanes earlier in the week. (Funny, BTW, how I hadn't bothered to remove those things even though I had taken my Alb back into my office.)

When I entered the house my Parish Doctor/Lay Anointer was there with the PoA and a friend of the PoA. Eleanor had apparently gotten up in the morning or night to go to the bathroom and was going back to her bed when she passed away. She was crumpled over her walker in a kneeling position in her nightgown--head bowed. It struck me immediately this this was a holy posture: the supplicant at prayer. Eleanor hasn't been able to kneel to pray in many, many years, and she had issues with her sense of unworthiness before God. So it struck me as appropriate that her humility is somehow made perfect in death, as she is finally able to submit to the joy and freedom of God's perfect love. We surrounded her and I led the small group in the BAS's version of prayers at the time of death. They are beautiful, ancient prayers. I made the sign of the cross on her head (as I have done probably hundreds of times before--she loved being anointed for healing). I also touched her shoulder as I often did when I greeted her on Sundays (her hearing was terrible).

I went from there straight to Henry's daycare to pick him up. He ran over to me and I touched him, too. On the car ride back I pondered the connection between touching poor Eleanor's body (still and cool and yielding) and touching Henry's (so full of life and warmth and squirminess). It made me feel blessed to do both today.

When I was in College I often went to the campus chapel to pray at night. Often I would end my prayers by solemnly putting my palms on the smooth, polished wood altar and pray that God would bless my hands to make them instruments of healing. It used to give me a real thrill to do this--hair raising mysticism in an old Southern Church. It was a child's prayer, in some ways, but perhaps prophetic when I consider what I do with these hands. I don't just mean the touching and anointing the living and the death, or holding Henry. I mean also typing into my computer, cooking, and building things out of wood. I love working with my hands in every way, so I think those childish prayers came true.

So.... That was my day. I skipped over the part where I did e-mail and did the leaflet layout, I wrote about that enough yesterday! Tomorrow I can sleep in a little bit, but then I have to go to church to print out the leaflet. While I'm at it I'll also send the post cards for promoting Holy Week to the printers. And sermon prep, I'm behind in sermon prep. It's the story of the Prodigal Son this week!

-t

More Networking

If you are one of the few people that bother to follow this blog you will have noticed that the activity has picked up recently. I'm making an effort. However, I must admit that I am not able to do the sort of well polished and crafted posts that used to be common here. Back in the day, when I first started at Messiah, I had a half-time Administrative Assistant and a half-time Lay Pastoral Associate. As a result I was able to spend a lot more time in my office at my computer thinking and reading and writing. These days I spend less time in my office and more time out and about either running errands for the church or attending meetings or simply working from home. The leaflet, alone, represents about a full-day's work, but I mostly do it at night (usually Thursday night) because that's one of the best times for me to get uninterrupted time at my computer. Here is the leaflet from Lent 3, to give you a sense of the sort of thing I'm creating in my basement at 1 AM.

I'm sure that a professional designer would have lots of improvements to suggest to increase readability and to be attractive, but it's not bad for the work of a amateur who is totally self-taught when it comes to InDesign. This leaflet is obviously designed to be much more than a crutch to bridge the gap between Prayer Book, Bible, and Hymnal. I'm actually trying to do some teaching through this thing, as you can tell from the exegetical margin notes next to the scripture readings. When I have more time I'll often add material about the origins of well-known hymns and other things.

Quick aside: far too few churches use InDesign or other professional layout programmes to design their leaflets. Sure, the software is expensive and you need people able to learn it, but it's well worth the investment in both to have nice looking publications. Also, it can save a lot of time to make the equivalent layout versus Word or Publisher or something like that where you constantly have to fight the programme to get it to obey.

Anyway, back to my day. I spent a sizable chuck of it having coffee with a guy with a lot of great ideas (and some experience) with Missional Church. He has been a part of number of different Christian Communities and has a lot of insight to offer. He has recently gotten pulled into the orbit of Anglican-land Fresh Expressions, NCD, Natural Church Development, and the "Crazies in the basement." I'm still in the "Initial Networking" phase of the Café Messiah, Road Map. Everything is still in flux. In fact, in my mind I'm switching the name from "Café Messiah" to "The Commons." As we threw ideas around and brainstormed I realized that the problem with "Café Messiah" is that it is a little too narrow and a little too business-focused. I played around with something like "The Free Place" to try to see if the anti-consumerism vibe would strike a chord, but not quite. "The Commons" is the best name we've come up with so far. The bones are still the same: a third-space/community centre that would have a light concession to support itself and would run some programmes designed to help people with life issues from a light-touch Christian perspective. It was a very useful talk to help me clarify some of my thinking as well as lay the ground work for future collaboration with this individual.

After the coffee I had time to go home and change and kiss the wife before dashing off to to do a Communion Service at Hazelton Place--a local retirement home. I do these sorts of services in retirement homes about once or twice a month on average. I could do more, but they are time consuming. (Actually, there is another retirement residence not too far from my church whom I'm planning to approach about starting a monthly Communion Service for the Anglicans.) The folks at Hazelton Place were gracious and lovely, as they often are in retirement homes. We sang some hymns to music played on a CD and I preached a better-than-average sermon about the Isaiah 55 passage from last Sunday. When it was said and done I felt that particular professional satisfaction of having done a good job. I have impossibly high standards for myself, so high that I rarely achieve them on a Sunday, but for some reason I am still able to pass the mark sometimes when I do I weddings, funerals, and nursing home services.

I suppose the problem there is that I freight Sundays down with an impossible burden. We simply can't accomplish all the things we want to in one short morning. I've tried to create events and services during the week with mixed success. For the people that attend the Wednesday morning Contemplative Eucharist and the Saturday Healing Prayer service, for example, are terrific, but it's often people who don't come on Sunday mornings who have found their way into that other groups. Funny how that works!

I've been tempted to start something in a local pub. But, again, it takes more time and energy to do such a thing than the casual observer would suspect. I've been trying to find and develop a volunteer base, but most of the folks in my congregation simply don't have the extra time to give. Like many congregations I have a handful of key volunteers who move heaven and earth to do God's ministry, and I am loath to ask them to take on yet another project when they do so much. So that means going to people on the periphery of our community to find the enthusiasm and gumption to try new things.

Often when people are training to be Priests the focus is on things like theology, biblical interpretation, history, and liturgy. That still makes sense to me--these things are fundamental and even a three-year degree barely has time to scratch the surface in the scheme of things. But 95% of the challenges that I face have to do with working with people. I constantly find myself asking some version of this question, "Where is John encountering God?" Straight out asking people usually leads to a certain amount of awkward squirming. People are embarrassed when they don't have an immediate answer. So I try to ask other ways. "What gets you most excited in life?" is a good one. But, still, it's often hard to get to the root of things.

Anyway, enough rambling for tonight. The main point I wanted to make is that church work is complex, and that I'm making progress.

The White Board

I love white boards. Here is what mine looked like today.

-t

Meetings, meetings, meetings

I had back-to-back meetings today. They were productive, good meetings. The sort where like-minded people get together and share creative ideas and insights and build on each others' gifts. I wish I could be more specific, but I'm afraid it wouldn't be prudent at this juncture to share, other than to note that they were all mostly related to the two big projects I am working on at the moment for Messiah. One of those projects is already public: the Café Messiah idea. The other idea is still being kept secret for the time being. Look for an announcement in a few weeks.

It occurs to me that a really important part of my own home-grown methodology to get anything interesting done is to network with a lot of like minded people and get their input and assistance. Most of the time that's about all people are prepared to contribute in our busy age, but I've learned to appreciate good will and good ideas. Even more importantly, I've come to appreciate the kind of creativity that comes out of an essentially social or transactional creative process. I thrive in the context of social exchange, I'm an extrovert, and so I need to talk my ideas through or else they whither from lack of nourishment.

I'm certain that not everyone is like that. I'm sure there are people that just work through ideas in the privacy of their own minds, and communicate them once they are fully thought through. There are many advantages to that approach, as well, but I'm not wired that way. So, as part of my process for developing these two parallel projects for Messiah I've scheduled a lot of meetings with people who I think can help. Some of these people may be able to help very directly, others will be offering moral support or just companionship along the way. One must scatter seed, however, if they expect to find a harvest come spring.

If one or (God willing) both of the projects succeed, it will be interesting at some point to look back at my appointment book and see which conversations moved the direction of things one way or another. Certainly my own thinking is evolving I hope the people I've talked with today realize how much influence they are having on future events. Conversation, even of the blue-sky day dreaming variety, is a sacred trust.

Spending all day talking and planning for the future of my church is not an extra part of my responsibilities as the Rector. I actually think it's probably my most important responsibility. It may mean sacrifices in other areas (a classic example is pastoral care), but I was struck at VCP this year by how many leaders whom I respect made a strong case for such sacrifice. Judy Paulsen, for example, spoke powerfully about how she simply doesn't visit people unless they are basically dying. I often feel guilty about not doing more visiting and one-on-one care of that sort, but then I hear people like Judy and others who talk about how developing the Mission of the Church is going to mean that the congregation, itself, is going to have to take on some of the functions that used to be the responsibility of the pastor. In other words, you can have a priest who simply takes care of everybody, or you can have a church where the priest is working to transform the parish into an instrument of God's mission, but being focused on both is pretty much impossible. Thus, the parish must take responsibility for one or the other of these functions.

I realize this is a controversial claim. I'm not saying we should abandon pastoral care at all. I'm just saying that the George Herbert model of priestly ministry is long dead and buried. Those of us that went to conventional seminaries or who grew up in the inherited church have a hard time letting go of the fantasy of the priest spending his days going from home to home in the village. These days pastoral care needs to be the responsibility of the whole congregation. In my case I have two volunteers in particular who provide great care and attention to several members of the congregation who need to be looked-in-on. I really don't need to visit them, and I should probably let go of the guilt of not being "a better priest" in that regard.

Funny, even as I write this I feel awful. One part of me certainly feels a strong obligation to visit some of these folks. Then another part of me feels overburdened as it is trying to manage the day-to-day operations plus take on two major strategic initiatives plus other duties like teaching Fresh Start to my colleagues and producing videos for the Diocese. I'm not complaining, I'm just trying to describe one of the tensions inherent in parish ministry. Sometimes it is referred to as the tension between the prophetic and pastoral aspects of priesthood. Those of that minister as ordained clergy occupy a strange place that mediates between two worlds. We are constantly asked to translate back and forth between universes. I'm not just talking about the human-divine, but also the parish-community and parish-wider-church divides.

Part of the way I maintain those balances is to cultivate relationships that pluck those chords and thus create some kind of harmony. That is, the more fully I develop the prophetic vision and the fully I engage the Saturday Afternoon Healing Service, then the richer the chord that sounds. I worry some people might not see the balance as important. Certainly I know parishioners who are more Congregationalist than Anglican, and would gladly chuck the Diocese and bishops if they could. Yet for me, one of the essential (and, indeed, classical) "marks of the churh" is that it must be "catholic." That is, local parishes do not exist in isolation, but enjoy a certain unity and common mission.

I guess that's a long way of saying that I had a lot of meetings away from the church to talk about the church, and that's okay!

-t

Environics - Initial Meeting

Sometimes I worry about colleagues that get too caught up in metrics and data. There is a way in which mathematical abstraction can be such a powerful narrative that it actually changes the questions to ask so as to be answerable by what you can measure. In truth, most of what makes church holy is simply not quantifiable in a helpful way. So I'm always cautious about approaches to mission that don't begin with questions before looking at data. The other problem with "big data" is that having too much information can be as detrimental to good decision making as having too little data, as many studies have demonstrated.

(A classic example of this is how Doctors can make a more accurate differential diagnosis between stroke and heart attack if they are only given five pieces of information than if they are given an entire chart's worth of test results.)

In our case, we have some questions in mind. Questions like, "What sort of people are near our church during the day time?" and "What are the most important social values to the people who live within a 5 minute walk of the church?" There are many ways to find out, but one of the best (arguably) is simply to hire a company to do some serious data mining.

The company we have chosen to work with is called Environics Analytics. They are a market research firm that provides data and analysis to support decision making to companies and other groups. I chose them based on the recommendations of two priests whom I trust. They did a lot of work for St. Paul's Bloor Street, and the staff there was thrilled with the results. Since then, Environics has done an extensive, long-term project for the United Church of Canada.

When Catherine, the company rep, came to the church, I was impressed by how thoroughly grounded she was in the culture of church and the sorts of questions we might want. In fact, she is a church-goer herself, so she has an inside perspective from both worlds. She discussed in detail the sorts of products available from her company, and after two hours walked away with a plan. She is writing a proposal that will go in stages, which means that we will have time to digest one chunk of data before we commit to the next piece we wish to investigate.

That's important, because we don't need every piece of data at Environics disposal. It would be overwhelming, and might even lead to a kind of paralysis. Better to have the questions, first, and then seek the answers.

Nor will this be the only tool we will employ to understand the neighbourhood. I definitely want to do some other research. Wandering around with a camera and taking interesting snap shots be a start. So would sitting in one place and making notes about everyone who passes. I'd like to do some traffic and pedestrian counts. I already have a volunteer who has promised to look into some of the nearby coffee shops and see how much they actually charge for coffee, among other things. I don't think we are in direct competition with them, but it is useful to know what they are up to (just like I think it's important to know what other Anglican churches are trying).

So "with the blessing" I'll write more about the experience of using this demographic tool as the process unfolds.

Looking for a Pioneer Minister

Subsequent to my last post.... I am very much looking for a Pioneer Minister/Church Planter type interested in being the on-the-ground point person to manage this space once it is created. Could be ordained or not. Could be Anglican or not. Actually, there is much to like about a non-Anglican, non-ordained person leading a Fresh Expression of this sort. I suppose the perfect candidate might be a combination of Pernell Goodyear and Nadia Bolz-Weber. And you if you don't know who they are, take a look, I'll wait.....

BTW, Pernell has lots of tattoos, too, you just can't seem them under his long sleeved shirt on the Hillside Church website. Before Hillside Pernell was the Pastor of a Café Church run under the auspices of the Salvation Army. His way of describing that experience at the Vital Church Planting Conference a few years ago was influential on my own sense of vision for Café Messiah--however there are lots of other examples of this sort of Fresh Expression I have also encountered in the last six or seven years of really paying attention to Missional Church.

A fresh expression is a form of church for our changing culture established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church.

• It will come into being through principles of listening, service, incarnational mission and making disciples.
• It will have the potential to become a mature expression of church shaped by the gospel and the enduring marks of the church and for its cultural context.

(Source)

That definition is a good place to start. note the emphasis of being a benefit to people who are not yet members of any church. It's not just that we cannot assume any kind of previous church experience of theological/biblical literacy; we in fact must orient ourselves to expect the exact opposite. That means tossing much of how we do things out of the window for the sake of going after these wandering sheep.

There are such things as wild sheep, you know. They are notoriously difficult to hunt because they occupy high ground, well defended by the sheer difficulty of approach. What I need is a partner to help me climb those cliffs. In fact, I hope to find someone that can climb higher and faster than I can!

So, I'm developing proposals on multiple fronts. I have some meetings this week, and I'm praying that they will bear rich fruit. I am also putting the word out that I am looking for a pioneer minister with gifts for hospitality and this sort of Fresh Expressions ministry. I can't promise any pay initially, but I'm hoping to create a business model for the space that will generate enough income to pay this person (and, indeed, I think this is quite reasonable considering the low overhead of operating out of a church building that is already paid for, insured, and heated).

If your are reading this in 2013 and you know anybody, or consider yourself to be led by the Spirit in this way, give me a shout out through the usual means: phone/e-mail/twitter/facebook/blog-comments/google+ etc.! I'm not a hard guy to reach!

Sermon: Vestry Sunday 2013

Here is my "Charge to Vestry" from this year's annual meeting of the church. I was excited to talk about my ideas for the future of the parish, but was far sloppier here in my presentation than I had intended. The fact that I hadn't slept the night before at all probably had something to do with that, but still the ideas were there even the articulation was not! Actually, my thinking was that I wasn't really out to carefully argue the point, anyway, but to present the idea and convey my passion for it--and I think I did those things very well.



-t

Annual Vestry: 2013

The Annual Vestry meeting of the church is equivalent to the Annual General Meeting of most Canadian non-profit organizations. The authority for most decisions (including, critically, the budget/expenditures) actually belongs to the gathering of all voting members of the church (known as the "Vestry"). Of course, it would be extremely inconvenient to convene Vestry every week--so they grant the authority to spend money to the Wardens by approving the budget. There is lots of other business to do and discuss, as well, and it is a time for the church to take stock and layout priorities and plans for the next year.

Perhaps these means that this is religion at its most organized, and I know that is unfashionable. But on the other hand it means that our process of governing ourselves, in the Anglican Church, is consultative and participatory. It may be the case that I strongly suggested a direction I think we should head, but if the people don't agree that have an easy way to reign me in! Church's are not dictatorships!

So her is a copy of the Annual Vestry Report. You can see that I make an effort to make it look somewhat attractive and readable by laying it out in InDesign and adding some pictures. If I had more time or a design-gifted volunteer I could have made it even more beautiful, but it's better than 80% of the Vestry Reports I've seen, and that's a start!



Note that I am asking the church to commit to a major project: to develop a Community Centre/Coffee shop/Third Space on the first floor of our church. I believe strongly that creating such a space has the potential to transform our church into a place of heightened relevance to our neighbours. We can a need in this community by providing a safe "third-space" of hospitality. Doing so will, of course, provide a platform for appropriate evangelism. By "appropriate," I mean that it is suited to the particular people in this time and place, and not some other. That will entail a period of listening and observation.

I spoke passionately about this in my sermon. I believe, strongly, and in my gut, that the time has come for us to launch this Fresh Expression of church. I believe that the resources are now available to us, and that the people are available to us. I also believe that I am now the leader now ready to do this work.

Exciting times at Messiah! I'll blog a lot more about my ideas on a day when I'm not supposed to be thinking about my ideas (Mondays are my sabbath).

Tailgate Eucharist

The Rev'd Canon Dan Webster from the Diocese of Maryland has started doing a Eucharist in the parking lot before Ravens (NFL Football) games.

Our prayers follow the form on pages 400-401 of The Book of Common Prayer. It is similar to a Eucharist you might experience at an Episcopal camp but without the music. There was plenty of music coming from the stage at the Ravenswalk. Some of that music seemed to be particularly meaningful to those faithful gathered in the rain to break bread and pray before kickoff. ...

We weren't the only religious folks there that day. A local Chabad House of Lubavitcher Jews was celebrating Sukkot, the Feast of Booths. They had rented a pickup truck and built a sukkah in the truck bed. They asked people at random if they were Jewish and if so then invited them into the sukkah to pray. (Source)

When this went out on e-mail among some clergy types, one of the bishops said that this be a great idea for Argos (CFL Football) games--perhaps we could get season tickets on the Diocesan Dime (not likely).

This is actually a great idea. Talk about putting the church into the world! I like the way it claims the festival, food-drenched atmosphere of tailgating and plants our sacred meal firmly in that ground. Reminds me a lot of battlefield Eucharists done by military chaplains.

-t