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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The Archbishop's Charge to Synod

If you haven't seen it yet, the Archbishop's Charge to Synod was very good this year. Archbishop Johnson pulled many pieces of the puzzle together for us: mission, Christology, the Our Faith Our Hope Campaign... it's all there. I was ecstatic, like who are working on mission here in the Diocese.



Incidentally, this was filmed by Tim Harry and myself. He was running the main camera and I had a second and also set-up the sound. Tim edited under the direction of Stuart Mann, who was producing the video.

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Sermon: Advent 1, 2013

In my sermon from Sunday I preached about the Diocesan Synod meeting I had just attended, and its implications for the work we are doing as a church to be "missional" to the people in our neighbourhood. It goes back to Jesus and to hope, and I explore both subjects in this sermon, as well.



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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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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 - VCP 2011 Jenny Andison

This is Jenny Andison, the Canon Missioner for the Diocese of Toronto, preaching at the Vital Church Planting Conference (East) a few weeks ago. I shot this video, it was edited by Susan & Andy Kalbfleisch.


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Days Off

One of the critical skills in pastoral ministry is figuring out how to deal with unlimited expectations, unmeasurable outcomes, and finite resources. The demands of ministry are simply bottomless, and the job will take as many hours and as much energy as you are willing to give it. Indeed, I have met plenty of martyrs to parish ministry that burned themselves out doing what they thought they were expected to do.

This is as big a problem for paid, ordained ministry as it is for unpaid volunteers. One of my parishioners is fond of saying that the nicely lettered wall listing past Wardens is a record of burnout. I would say that the list is is a stark rebuke to the whole parish--a sign of our failure as a community to nourish leadership. Harsh, I know, but I don't how else to interpret the pattern of leaders leaving. Of course, none of my former wardens have left the parish, but it is telling that the NCD survey revealed a low score on the question labeled "Our leaders are a spiritual example to me." We have work to do.

Mondays are my day off. Saturdays are a half-day, and every other day is basically a full-day. But lately (the past several days) I have spent a significant amount of time on Mondays doing church work. Usually it's doing the kind of projects and errands on behalf of the church that might be considered extra credit. The problem, though, is that it's on the margins of "extra-credit" where excellence lies. In other words, the difference between putting in four hours of bonus hours on a Monday and not putting into those four hours could very well be a tipping point for the parish. It means having a well-organized maintenance closet or sending people birthday and anniversary cards or reviewing a grant application written by one of my staff.

I find the work I do incredibly rewarding and invigorating. The other day I was meeting with someone who knows little of church culture. He asked me what I enjoy about my work and I told him about the sheer diversity of it. One minute I'm doing one-on-one pastoral care with someone in serious emotional distress. The next I'm rewiring a light switch or cleaning out a closet that hasn't been emptied in ten years. Sometimes I'm writing my column for "The Anglican" and other times I'm teaching a student how to walk in liturgy. Yeah, I spent fifteen or twenty minutes the other day teaching someone how to walk. I write sermons. I pick up trash. I pray the Office and practice chanting psalms. I make coffee (always adding a pinch of salt) and talk to the restaurant owner across the street about vandalism in the neighbourhood. I coach my staff on how to work with volunteers and I plan complex liturgies. It's a fascinating job that requires constantly mastering new skills.

Therein lies the problem--a seductive vocation promises personal fulfillment. It promises increased self-worth and the satisfaction of building something with superior craft. But like all idols, the "uber-pastor" idol demands sacrifice. Time spent in the evenings and mornings checking email or (yes) blogging often means leaving Betsy to feed or take care of Henry.

Work is important, sure, but how important is it? Hard to gauge. It's always a judgment call. For example, imagine it's 7 pm and I'm feeding Henry and my phone rings. It's a parishioner. Do I answer, or do I let it go to voice mail? Honestly, often when I answer it turns out to be less than an emergency, other times, it is! But I can't tell the difference by the caller-ID. So, in truth my willingness to answer the phone at night is an intuitive, snap-decision based mostly on my own sense of exhaustion. Honestly, if I'm tired and I've had a drink or two and it's late I'm far less likely to answer that late-night call. Can that be okay? I know people that think that you should be ready to be a priest at all times. You should be ready to take that call and "be there" for your people no matter what. But as I mature in ministry I have come to question that uber-pastor myth.

When I was young in ministry I fantasized about having a "go-bag" with prayer book, stole, and anointing oil by the door and another in my car. Nine months of being a hospital chaplain cured me of that particular fantasy right-quick! Sure, you can be prepared for your first emergency, and maybe your second. But when your beeper goes off the third or fifth or seventh time in an on-call period, you quickly realize that God's grace isn't about you and your pitiful attempts to "be ready." If you are going to be an effective conduit of God's grace, it ain't gonna be because you had a pretty kit. Either you are the sort of person that can help someone cry at 3 a.m. with their dead mother, or you can learn to be, or you can't: those are your three choices. However, nothing you can imagine will prepare you for the challenges of pastoral ministry. Trust me. You cannot anticipate the stuff that is going to come at you.

Consider this scenario... a priest I knew was called at 8.20 P.M. because one of his parishioners died. It was one of his Wardens that called him and asked him to visit the widow. The man that died (and his wife) were pillars of the church. The priest said he couldn't go. Why? Because, he said, he had been drinking. Harsh. Imagine having to tell someone that. "I can't take care of this person because I've been drinking." Yet many professions have exactly that danger. I'm sure most doctors and lawyers, for example, could tell a story like that. When I heard this story, before I knew what the ministry was really about, I had a hard time not being judgmental. I think I said something like, "Well, put on a pot of coffee and tell them you'll be there in an hour!" Now I'm wiser. I see that sometimes "no" is a good answer. Harsh. But if you don't bend you are gonna break.

Self-giving in ministry (and I do mean "ministry" broadly) is more complex than the extremes of enthusiasm would suggest. Give everything of yourself away and the demons will eat you for breakfast. Give nothing and you are like the walking dead, floating along and changing nothing. And most of us Christians answer in the ambiguous middle.

I know, this all seems pretty obvious. But this razor thin margin--between working a couple of hours on Monday or not--is where transformation happens. Something about that decision is a fractal that describes your relationship with God, the world, and yourself. It's a microcosm. And it's not an obvious choice. Sometimes, it's Godly to put in those extra hours. Sometimes it's not!

And that's what I'm thinking about as I think about what I'm going to do tomorrow.

Footnote--I've noticed that my parishioners are stepping up their commitment to the church to match mine. The head of my chancel guild snatched my alb away with a zeal for washing it that made me realize that something quite important had happened. Sweet!

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Vital Church Planting Conference 2010 Video

Here is a quick-and-dirty video I made to promote the Vital Church Plating Conference 2010. The name "Vital Church Planting" is a bit misleading, now, since we cover topics beyond simply church planting to cover missional church and fresh expressions more generally. It would be very useful for any parish looking to do new things in God's garden.



Registration is filling up very quickly, so if you haven't registered yet and would like to go, I suggest you do so soon!

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A Day at the Diocese

I had back-to-back meetings at the Diocese today. First there was the pre-meeting meeting. Then there was a meeting. Then a post-meeting meeting. Then another meeting. Then another post-meeting meeting. Uhhg. But at least they were interesting meetings. Several of them were about the upcoming Vital Church Planting Conference. I'm one of the organizers this year. One of my responsibilities is organizing the workshops. One of these will be given by Archbishop Johnson, so I had a meeting with him and two of my colleagues to brainstorm about the workshop.

It's the first time I've been in, or even seen, his Grace's Office. I've been in Bishop Yu's office a few times, of course, but never my boss's boss. It's nice without being opulent. Certainly it's much smaller than the positively palatial episcopal offices I remember from the Diocese of Connecticut! There were the usual religious nick-knacks: icons and crosses and portraits of his predecessors. I noted that the Archbishop doesn't care for the overhead florescent lighting, using window light and lamps instead. The couch was comfortable, seemed like it would work well for napping (my main criteria for judging couches). I showed him a baby picture of Henry and showed me a picture of his newest grand daughter.

The meeting itself went quite well. We had little difficulty organizing our thoughts about what we need to cover and how we will go about doing it. Eventually "++Colin Toronto" opened up a diptych-thing hanging on the wall to reveal a white board. I smiled, thinking of the white board in my own office that currently has notes about Holy Week. At the end of the meeting I took a picture of the white board with my cell phone camera and e-mailed to one of my partners in crime, who is going to type them up. I think we all felt energized by the upcoming Conference. The coffee his Assistants brought us didn't hurt, either.

From there it was straight into another meeting. This time it was the "Fresh Expressions Working Group." These are the folks that oversee church plants and other new ministries emerging in the Diocese as they come to the Diocese seeking support. It's a wonderful committee to be on, because we get to talk about all the new, wonderful things happening. it's exciting and humbling to hear about the kinds of ministry happening all around us.

Also, the sandwiches were quite good today. The Admin. Assistant that ordered them is new, and so the caterer was new, too. None of us get paid to serve on this committee, so good sandwiches are probably a sound investment considering that some very talented people volunteer their time on committees and boards like this! I look at people like Duke V. and Jenny A. with a certain amount of awe. Check out The Church of the Resurrection to see what I mean--Duke did an amazing job rebooting that parish. Jenny is now the Canon Missioner for the Diocese and has recently produced this Lenten Bible Study to help parishes begin to think in terms of the Missio Dei. The Diocese has come a long way even in just the last couple of years towards realigning the entire organization towards a missional future, and I'm really excited by the possibilities that creates for a place like Messiah.

The truth is, my participation in all these Diocesan projects is not entirely altruistic. The future of the Diocese and the future of my parish are very much linked, and the opportunities for Messiah's future are to be found in the conversations around Fresh Expressions and Missional Church. I'm learning a ton about the new reality of the church in the 21st Century through my service to the diocese and I expect that my parish will benefit. Churches that are willing and able to adapt to the new ways of being church will thrive. Those that don't are going to continue the long, slow slide into obsolesce. I'm not saying that "inherited" church won't continue, it will, but it will be touched by transforming grace, too. Mission is not optional.

It was an exhilarating five and a half hours straight of meetings for me. Sitting in the car to drive home I realized that my brain felt like cottage cheese left out on the counter too long. I spent the balance of the day working from home, answering e-mails and making calls. For supper I cooked a quick stir-fry to use up some veggies. So it goes.

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Emily's New Blog

As usual--lack of posts means I'm very busy. Henry has a way of making me want to stay home with him (and Betsy) rather than be chained to my desk editing sermon footage and making a CD out of the Advent Concert. Sigh. Perspective, you know?

Anyway, here is a note about St. Lydia's, an "Dinner Church" that my friend and fellow YDS Alumna has started in NYC. The project has it's own website, but now Emily has started a blog, as well. I can be a real "foodie" sometimes--so a fresh expression of church (to use the Canadian and U.K. dialect of missional language) has appeal. I would be all over that sucker. I'm tempted to start something like that here, but of course I don't have near enough time. I would be thrilled if I had enough time/energy to even start a tradition of home eucharists here at Messiah!

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Building Communities of Hope and Compassion

This video was produced by the Diocese of Toronto for the May 2009 Synod. Pretty good. Clearly following the "Fresh Expressions" Videos from the UK--but that's a great place to start. The Diocese asked me to upload it to YouTube for them...



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Mission Church--like building a plane in the air

I was at the Fresh Expressions Working Group meeting today. This is the Diocesan Committee that looks after church planting. I'm new to the committee, which is an Episcopal Appointment, and found it very exciting to hear about many of the new churches which are being founded around the Diocese. I knew about most, but not all, of these projects.

Needless to say, Missional Church was much discussed, and we (like everybody else) are really learning how to do it as we go along. In relation to this, (Diocesan Missioner) Jenny Andison told us about this video:

Yep, that feels about right. We build airplanes in mid-flight in the church!

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Arriving at Holy Cross with the Kids

The last few days have been nuts. All day Tuesday at a workshop on Missional Church stuff (mostly looking with a group at Roxburgh's The Missional Leader). It was a good group and we had some interesting discussion. It seems clear that things are shifting in the Diocese of Toronto, and soon every parish will be expected to be "missional" in whatever sense works for them. So it's neat to see how that movement is taking place--pockets of conversation here and there that are become louder and more organized.

All day Wednesday I was at St. George's, Pickering, for a workshop on the spiritual consequences of the sexual abuse of children. This is a mandated workshop for clergy held every few years. I found the last such workshop in 2007 to be extremely powerful event that changed some aspects of my ministry. Then we spent the whole day listening to a Roman Catholic Priest, Father Ray Chase, discuss one particular family that was destroyed by sexual abuse. We spent the entire day exploring just one case.

This year they brought Father Ray back, and this time he discussed the spiritual consequences of sexual abuse on children more generally. For instance, sexual drama potentially distorts a children's formation of their notion of who God is and what God is like. Father Ray showed a bunch of case examples where kids have ended up with deformed and maladaptive images of God as a result of their traumatic experiences. The goal of this kind of workshop is not to make us into therapists, but rather to equip us for the pastoral work of repairing the spiritual lives of people affected in this way.

When you consider that one in three girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted by age 18, the importance of this training becomes obvious. Still, going into the head of an abused child is not exactly a fun and refreshing way to spend the day!

Then this morning (Thursday) I met up with Kerrie and the confirmation kids to drive down to Holy Cross. The eight hour trip was mostly uneventful, although crossing the border into the States was more complicated than you might suspect. Two our kids had to get special visas ahead of time, but even then they still had to get another document issued at the border to allow them to travel into the U.S. This particular document will need to be surrendered when they leave again!

Back on the road.... The kids were pretty quiet most of the way. We had snacks and naps and some talk. We arrived just before supper.

The monks are glad to see me. Hugs. Me feeling the feelings that come with being here. Rleaxed. Opened. Joy. Ease-of-breath.

I'm writing this in the Pilgrim Hall while three of my kids are starting a puzzle. The Compline bell will be ringing in about 45 minutes.

Life is grand!

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Operation MITRE

Philip + with Fr. Michelle in background

Colin + with Fr. Jeff in background

Regular readers know I'm one of the people in the Diocese of Toronto involved in making the Back to Church initiative happen. This is a programme coming out of the Church of England that encourages parishioners to invite people to church with them on a particular Sunday (this year: Sept. 27th).

The planning group met with Bishop Poole last week and decided that we needed to do something big to get some media attention and to encourage local churches and parishioners. So we decided to have the bishops stand in front of Union Station in Toronto handing out invitations to church! We ended up sending down four bishops (Colin, Patrick, Linda, and Philip) in full Regalia (alb, cope and mitre). Each bishop was given a chaplain in case the episcopal presence necessitated a major pastoral need. So Michelle Childs, Jeff Kennedy, Angela Emmerson, and I were there to field anyone who felt the need to have a longer conversation. We also had our Diocesan PR person (Stuart Mann) plus a consultant brought in to help with media relations.

First surprise: lots of media. Even before we left the Diocesan HQ at 6:40 A.M. Philip+ had done a radio interview for CBC. Two TV stations sent crews to meet us at the site. They cut live into Breakfast Television (a show on CityTV) for interviews with the bishop. We may be on CTV and CP24 tonight. For print media we had people from the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and The National Post.

Second surprise: the media lingered. The reporters seemed quite engaged with the scene and stayed the whole time (about two hours) we were there. They snapped pitures and took man-on-the-street interviews.

Third surprise: we were received well by the crowds. We handed out 2,000 invitations in about an hour and a half. We had very, very little negativity. Most people accepted the invitations we handed out. A few declined. Others went out of their way to receive our handouts. Some were really glad to see us and greeted us enthusiastically. Two or three asked us to pray with them. Very few had anything negative to say, and that is remarkable!

So we walked back to the Diocesan offices to debrief feeling pretty good about ourselves! Certainly we managed to create some buzz!

Early press: Toronto Star....

Bishops make pitch to startled commuters
Denise Balkissoon
Staff Reporter

Idling taxis, hot dog stands and four smiling Anglican bishops in full regalia. That was the sight greeting sleepy-eyed commuters leaving Union Station during this morning's rush hour.

Sporting long, damask robes of pearly white or sky blue, heads topped with pointed bishop's hats, the clergy passed out cards encouraging the Bay Street hordes to make their way to a house of worship this Sunday. Most people accepted the handout drowsily, without comment; others seemed startled or amused at the group's elaborate outfits. A few passers-by stopped for quick chats before scurrying along to their offices.

"You invite people to baseball games or to the movies," said Bishop of Toronto Colin Johnson. "Traditionally, we've not been good at inviting people to come to church." .... (source)

The whole thing felt very Ninja-Priest like. I mean, there we were right in on the busiest spots in all of Canada, saying, "Good Morning!" Naturally, I got some video. I'm working like a madman in Premiere Pro editing it together...

Here's some of the National Post's take:

In full regalia, Anglican bishops go to Union Station seeking parishioners
By Matthew Coutts

A sight more commonly saved for Sunday, or not at all, greeted commuters leaving Union Station this morning: Anglican bishops in their ecclesiastical vestments welcoming them with a smile.

Wearing the white pointed hats, or mitres, and flowing gowns reserved for the leaders in the Anglican community, several area bishops gathered to invite passerby back to church.

Four bishops, including the Bishop of Toronto Colin Johnson, and several volunteers, canvassed Union Station as part of an international Christian initiative that designated September 27 as “Back to Church Sunday.”

“People have been falling out of the habit of going to their churches or places of worship,” said Bishop Philip Poole, area bishop for York-Credit Valley as he handed out simple cards inviting the recipient to be a guest at their local church.

“This isn’t about Anglican proselytization, this is about promoting a return to your place of worship.”

Bishop Poole said while most people will rush past to get to work, many people stop for a brief chat. Some of the most receptive were people from other religions, he said, who were open to discussing their connection to the their faith.

Dressed in a flowing baby blue gown, known as copes, Bishop Poole caught the eyes of a number of pedestrians as Bishop Linda Nicholls chatted with a young man while wearing a similar white and red outfit nearby. .... (Source)

A great way to spend the morning!

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The Mission-Shaped Muffin Pan

My latest column in The Anglican newspaper is out....



There is one typo. Where it reads "St. Luke's" I meant "St. Paul's."

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Rainy Days...

My softball game was rained out on Monday night. Sailing will probably be rainy, too, but that won't stop us unless the lightening comes. It may give me a chance to try out the pair of rain pants I picked up from MEC a few days ago. Have I said that Mountain Equipment Coop is one of the best stores in Toronto? Good prices on excellent equipment. I was particularly impressed with their selection of bags and packs the last time I was there. Would be kind of nice to have a waterproof duffel bag specifically for sailing gear. Kind of a go-bag for water fun. Anyway, the rain has been much needed. Our tomato plants seem very happy.

But last night I had a disturbing dream. In it, I was told that the Diocese rejected my application for an innovative ministry fund grant to fund the ARC. In the dream I was furious. I mean, livid! I demanded a meeting with the Bishop in which I told him exactly how I felt. I knew I was jeopardizing my future in the diocese, but I really didn't care. I was that angry.

In reality, something like this may just happen. I give the grant application a 50/50 shot. If I don't get it, we can still proceed, it's just going to be a lot harder. And if we don't get it, it's really going to shift the way I think about the Diocese. So far I've really been trying to work within the structures of the diocese to grow my church, but what if those structures are working against the mission of COTM?

I really feel caught between two different worlds and modes of ministry. On the one hand, there is the traditional inherited church with its traditional models of ministry. It's beautiful and comfortable and holds the spirit. On the other hand is something new that is also spirit filled. I feel like I can see what this new kind of church looks like--I've seen compelling glimpses in many places. Yet I'm not quite sure how to make it over that tipping-point edge. Within my parish setting I've got lots of freedom--more than enough--to explore and experiment. But what to do?! I've tried to create networks and alliances to connect our mission to the larger mission of the church, but I'm encountering resistance and apathy. It's frustrating to put my heart into something like the Anglican Resource Centre and get a shrug from the very people that are supposed to be encouraging the kind of mission it represents. We parish priests are being told that whatever is going to happen has to happen at the parish level, yet I'm also told in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that I really don't have the permission to do a lot of the things that I want to do. It's a very confusing time to be a parish priest.

I feel as though a breakthrough is coming. I just have to be patient and hopeful and continue to develop the pastoral relationship and missional imagination of this church. That means more talk and more sharing.

Rain is predicted for this afternoon. Off and on. Maybe some thunderstorms....

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Synod 2009

Synod was nuts. Fun, but nuts! Got up at 4:30 A.M. on Friday to give me time to pack and to finish the stuff for our workshop. We were a little later leaving from the church than planned, but we still made it to the Synod location (Durham College in Oshawa) before registration closed. As a result, however, I always felt like I was barely keeping with the day's events. Along the way I put down my seersucker jacket on the back of a chair and went back for it there was no sign. Lost and found hadn't received it. Hopefully someone will turn it into the campus security soon. Otherwise, it's a causality of war. Bummer, I love my seersucker suit!

Anyway, I set up a display for the ARC. People seemed to like what they saw and heard about. No word on a grant, yet. Cross your fingers!

Phil Potter came from the U.K. to talk about Fresh Expressions and Missional Church. I was struck that a lot of people in our Diocese hadn't heard of these concepts before. Hopefully this Synod took care of that. We probably spent two-thirds of our time talking about Missional Church and the other third talking about the same-sex blessing issue. We did that (in both cases) using the Indaba process that the Archbishop of Canterbury used at the last Lambeth Conference. So the pattern was gathering as a whole synod (some 600 people?) for worship and singing, bible study, and listening to a talk by the Bishop or Phil Potter. Then we'd go off into smaller Indaba groups of about 40 people to share. Our group was fine, though I did hear that some of the Indaba groups got little uncomfortable when the same sex issue was discussed.

You see, the Bishops are proposing a policy that would create a structure to last in this interim time of uncertainty in the church. They believe the question of whether the church will recognize "gay marriage" is really up to the national church. Yet, in the mean time, there is a need to establish a "generous pastoral response" to gay and lesbian Christians who come to us seeking the blessing of the church. The proposed policy would allow a small number of parishes chosen by the bishop to offer blessings to long-term, committed relationships. No parish and no priest will be required to participate. The bishop will have to give permission for the blessings on a one-by-one basis. The policy would also involve the drafting of guidelines for how that blessing would look, liturgically, but it clearly fill fall short of a "marriage." In addition, a group will be formed to evaluate and oversee the implementation of this policy.

In our Indaba group of about 40 there were only four people that didn't like the direction the Diocese was heading, but almost of them said that they "could live with" with the policy. I heard that some other groups were more contentious. For the time being, however, nothing changes. This is only a proposal. The vote will come later, probably at the next Synod that gathers at St. Paul's Bloor Street in November.

On Friday afternoon Kerrie and gave our workshop. We had about 30 people in the room. I had a Powerpoint presentation and handouts and posters on the walls and books for people to look at. The hour went quickly, but people seemed to get something out of it. One person told that they found it very "permission giving."

Friday sessions weren't over until 9 p.m. After that many of headed to the campus pub. I brought my bottle of Woodford Reserve Bourbon. The bar didn't seem to mind for the first couple of hours. Eventually the manager did come over and take my booze! She kept it behind the bar until I left. At the pub I had many fine conversations with friends and colleagues. Eventually they closed the bar around 2 A.M. A couple of us went back to a room to keep the party going. I finally went to bed at 4:30 A.M.

I admit I was a little tired when I showed up to morning prayer at 8:30... but at least I was there. Coffee... Coffee... More coffee... More sessions and Indaba groups. The whole thing wrapped up around 3 and we got on the road not long after that. During the conference they had separated the members of the parishes from each other, so it was only in the car ride home that the three of us from Church of The Messiah could talk and share. It seems that people enjoyed themselves and learned some new things.

Back at home I was toast. I had Chinese delivery and watched the recording of the Blue Jays FINALLY winning a game. Went to bed at 6 p.m.--slept until 6 a.m. this morning! Got up, felt great. More in my next post!

VCP Conference Comes to an End

I posted many of my thoughts coming out of the Vital Church Planting Conference over on my Mission Church Toronto Blog. One of the things I haven't unpacked yet in either blog was the workshop presented by one of the pastors (Paul Morris) of The Meeting House.
Bruxy Cavey, Teaching Pastor of The Meeting House

The Meeting House is a non-traditional church that has experienced explosive growth in Southern Ontario. They are based in Oakville, but are most famous for gathering in movie theaters all over the GTA where the Oakville sermon/teaching is presented live via satellite. They are focused on people for whom a traditional Sunday Service is irrelevant and unappealing. But don't underestimate how successful a relatively simple formula can be: their Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) is just shy of 6,000 (yes, six-thousand) in 2008 and they've been growing at a rate of 35% per year.

The most telling thing for me that Paul Morris told us is that they know their version of church has a self life. The question is not whether the Meeting House will plateau and decline, but when. They've decided that they want to be able to embrace their death when it comes, so they unafraid of talking about it now. They see this way of doing church as simply a tool which they will freely abandon when it ceases to work. Isn't that striking?

Anyway, the conference gave me a lot to think and pray about...

-t

Duke Vipperman's FX Blog

The Rev'd Dr. Duke Vipperman (incumbent of the Church of the Resurrection, Toronto) has a blog in which he talks about his experience of Fresh Expressions. It's worth a read if you are interested in such things!

-t