In The Episcopal Church (TEC), we are moving into a heavy emphasis on evangelism. But what is evangelism?
On Mission
Is it calling people to join the church?
or
Is it calling people to join the mission??
The Episcopal Evangelism Toolkit seems to say evangelism means calling people to join the church. A one-liner on the opening page reads, “As we share our stories, we practice becoming Beloved Community.”
When do we get around to practice becoming beloved agents of God’ mission?
The “Evangelism Charter” for TEC reads, “Through the spiritual practice of evangelism, we seek, name, and celebrate Jesus’ loving presence in the storied of all people – then invite everyone to MORE.”
What is the MORE?
Does Episcopal evangelism ever get beyond story-telling to story-living wherever we are?
Sunday, our pastor asked the children gathered in the front of the church, “What is mission?” Only one answer was offered, and it came from a third grader: “It is like finding something that is wrong and making it right.”
Is your church teaching this as the kind of mission that your evangelism is asking people to join?
Are your members ever getting this message about righting wrong? Do you ever move beyond becoming Beloved Community? Do you ever hear about becoming beloved agents of God’s mission wherever we are?
Or do you hold that back until “they are ready for it”? How does our church prepare the Beloved Community to be ready for it? If we take our cue from Nike and “just do it,” how will your church send the faith community out into their everyday lives, to “do the work God has given us to do, as faithful witnesses of Christ Our Lord”? (BCP, p. 366)
The Most Rev Bishop Michael Curry, primate of the Episcopal Church, gives an address during the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle in Windsor, Britain, May 19, 2018. Owen Humphreys/Pool via REUTERS – RC1CE2F969C0
I was captivated by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s passionate sermon at the royal wedding this past weekend, as I’m sure many of you were. The core of his message: “We must discover the redemptive power of love . . . and when we do that, we will be able to make of this old world a new world.” Love, he says, is the only way.
I had the joy of hearing Bishop Curry preach and speak at the Evangelism Matters Conference in March, where he made it clear that love, beginning with God’s love for humankind, is the heart of evangelism. Evangelism is understood not as bringing more people into our pews on Sunday, but rather as building a better world, a more loving and caring world – a world where all people are treated with dignity and respect. We were asked to think about evangelism as seeking, naming, and celebrating Jesus’ loving presence in the stories of all people – and then to invite everyone to MORE![1] And God is in charge of the MORE!
For Christians, our relationship with Jesus transforms our lives. It leads us to be more loving and strengthens us to serve as instruments in creating a more loving and just world. Consider what your own life would be like without knowing God, without knowing Jesus, without being empowered by the Holy Spirit! Where would our world be without Jesus as our center, helping us to love one another; helping us to care for one another; helping us to transform our old world into the new world filled with justice, hope – and love! God’s love for us in Jesus Christ matters. Love heals. Love transforms. And when we ourselves love, we experience that love is, actually, the only way.
Earlier this week the church marked the Feast of Christ’s Ascension. I’m thinking about Ascension Day, as I hold my mobile phone. The phone is a real gift with all it can do to provide so many services for me. But sometimes it gives me a “no connection” or a “searching” message – and I have to wait or relocate to get service.
How does that relate to Ascension? You may remember – Jesus takes the disciples up to a high place and then in a dramatic moment is lost to their sight. He ascended. Now, in the world view of his time, that meant up to heaven as opposed to down to hell. People sometimes joke that Jesus was the first astronaut. But to be fixed on that is to lose the essence of the Ascension. The Ascension proclaims that Jesus who was physically limited for 33 years to a particular time and place, e.g. Palestine, is no longer bound. He is “mobile Jesus,” unrestricted to geography or chronology – present in all time and all places. The “searching” and the “no connection” messages do not apply to this mobile Jesus. Wherever it is, Jesus is already there.
Recently in a church publication, the title of an article read “Bring God into the Workplace.” I thought, “How un-Ascension!” We don’t bring God anywhere – God is already there, ready or not!! Present in your home and mine, in offices and schools, restaurants, athletic fields, bars, war zones, flooded communities – God’s already there.
But we sometimes want to limit Jesus’ mobility – to relegate him to
A particular place like a church building
To a particular day, like Sunday
To a particular service like the Eucharist
To a particular person like a priest
The Ascension blows that out of the water. Just as Jesus burst through the boulder that covered the tomb on Easter, so he bursts through any attempts on our part to limit his mobility.
And he said as much: “I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth.” Hear that again: “I am with you always,” whether we are aware of his presence or not – and not limited just to us or to Christians – but to all people at all times in all places. One of the great mysteries of the Christian faith – the mobile Jesus, unlimited, unrestricted.
So the message of the Ascension is mobile Jesus – no “searching,” no “no connection,” no “roaming.”
I was struck with the postings from commenters, who argued back and forth about what being the church actually means. And while people were willing to concede that the church is not a building, the notion that an individual, on their own out in the world, might be the church was apparently quite challenging.
In a world that practically idolizes individualism, how did we decide that a Christian alone is incapable of being an ambassador of Christ? How did we surrender agency to the institution, which was completely unknown to the founder? How can we interpret “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” and “You will be my witnesses” if the individual is incapable of being the church?
The church gathered for worship is a vital tool, equipping each person to leave worship and go into the world, to serve as the church scattered, like salt or yeast, to transform their surroundings. What do you need to empower you to be the church, wherever you find yourself?
George MacLeod, the founder of the Iona Community, once wrote,
I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek . . . at the kind of place where cynics talk smut and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died. And that is what he died about.
As we experience Holy Week and Easter it is well to remember what George MacLeod has put so dramatically. The real action for the Christian is not in the “cathedral” but in the marketplace where life is lived. That is where the baptized live into their Baptism. That is where, for the Christian, “the rubber meets the road.”
Nadia Bolz-Weber, Lutheran pastor and founder of the Church for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, CO, has announced the apocalypse. In a recent post, she reminded readers that “the apocalypse”
… proclaim[s] a big, hope-filled idea: that dominant powers are not ultimate powers. Empires fall. Tyrants fade. Systems die. God is still around.
An apocalypse is a good thing, and I’m delighted to welcome you to this one.
As Bolz-Weber sees it, the #Me Too and #TimesUp movements represent the comeuppance of a long-time system of organizing the world – around gender inequality and domination. Using Friedrich Schleirmacher’s definition of heresy – “that which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence” – Bolz-Weber calls out a centuries-old practice of Christianity:
The heresy is this: With all the trappings of Christianity behind us, those who seek to justify or maintain dominance over another group of people have historically used the Bible to prove that that domination was not actually an abuse of power at the expense of others, but indeed was part of “God’s plan.” And there you have the appearance of Christianity (Bible verses and God-talk) contradicting its essence (love God, and love your neighbor as yourself).
With the arrival of this apocalypse, we need to see how deep the heresy of domination runs, and then remind one another that dominant powers are not ultimate powers. We Christians need to repent of our original sins, and see where we have embraced the appearance of Christianity only to reject its essence.
This hard work – naming our own heresy and working to surrender the fruit of it – is the essence of daily discipleship – living our theology in daily life. Following Jesus – practicing the life of love – is essential. And, likewise, sharing the story of our journey is equally important. No matter your hashtag – #MeToo, #ChurchToo, #BlackLivesMatter, #daca – standing with those who resist domination and making room for their testimony is one way to live up to your baptismal promises.
There’s something special about Toby: He’s big and lumbering and has sad brown eyes that have a way of drawing you to him, making you feel comfortable around him, helping you feel safe. Toby frequently visits children’s hospitals and nursing facilities, in and around the South Puget Sound and also in Houston. When he enters a room in a nursing home, he is welcomed with joyful smiles. Children love to nestle in his fur and crawl over him. Oh, yes, by the way, Toby is a 165 pound St. Bernard – a therapy dog with his own Facebook page! Toby’s person Stan has a demanding professional life, yet he makes it a priority to create time to minister to others with Toby.
I think that sometimes we look around and see such tragedy and desperate need in the world that we wonder whether we can make any difference. We might become overwhelmed and even paralyzed. Yet, all it takes to reveal God’s love for the world is to show kindness to just one other person in our daily lives.
Stan and Toby are examples of what we can do if we combine our passion and compassion. In Stan’s case, he combines his love of dogs and his compassion for others into a ministry that touches countless ill children, seniors, families, and healthcare workers by showing them God’s love – in the midst of the ordinary. Although being faithful to Christ is really a small step for Stan, visiting patients together with Toby leads to a profound sense of healing and well-being to those whose lives they touch.
During my sophomore year in college, I got a note from the Dean of Students to come to his office!! UGH!, what had I done to warrant that? So, dutifully and a bit nervously, I came at the appointed time and was ushered in. The Dean asked me to sit down, and then asked me a question: Had I ever thought about the Ministry? The Ministry, really? I answered that it had never occurred to me. He said that he would like for me to give it some thought and prayer. And then I left. WOW! That conversation did percolate in my spirit, eventually leading me to seminary and ordination in the Ministry.
Early on in the Ministry, spending quality time with parishioners where they worked, I began to see that the Ministry was far broader than clergy. My sense of the Ministry opened up to include all the Baptized as they live their daily live on the job, in the community, in the home.
For whatever historical and theological reasons, the Church, however, has been more exclusive than inclusive in its sense of the Ministry. Mark Gibbs, over 50 years ago put it this way:
The secular laity are not called by God to any lower standard of discipleship than clergy or churchly laity. They are not limited to any less standard of life and witness. They are indeed, God’s first line of agents in the world. He has placed them and can use them in secular structures where the clergy can seldom penetrate.
So the Dean, not only in his conversation with me, but in the countless other aspects of his work, was exercising the Ministry. It is the Church’s responsibility to affirm its laity that who they are and what they do constitute the Ministry.
This week’s calendar oddity of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day falling on the same day was made even more poignant by the horrendous school shooting in Broward County, FL. A reminder right in our newsfeed of the infinite colliding with the daily, as school personnel and students became heroes in daily life by doing their daily work. What a commentary on our culture, with the students remarking afterward that they knew just what to do because they had practiced so often.
Having ashes smudged on our foreheads at the beginning of Lent reminds us that we’re dust, and to dust we’ll return. For many of us, that’s a stark reminder that we’ll all die – there’s only one way out of this life. Wednesday’s shootings certainly reminded us of that!
But there’s more. Traditionally, the ashes used on Ash Wednesday are what’s left after burning the palms blessed and carried in the previous year’s Palm Sunday’s processions. That liturgy celebrates Jesus’ arrival
in Jerusalem to “Hosannas” from the crowd. Just as they would for an imperial procession, the crowd placed palm branches on the road as symbols of honor, celebration, and victory.
Pillars of Creation, Eagle Nebula
What I remember, when the ashes are placed on my forehead, is not only the palms and the celebrations and Holy Week’s subsequent betrayals. I also remember pictures from the Hubble telescope – stellar clouds of dust and ash. The very stuff we – and the entire universe – are made of. Stardust.
Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Not only ashes but stardust. We embody both, in every facet of the lives we live in Christ.
About a dozen cars were parked near the dark church building as I arrived for an appointment on a rainy afternoon. From the main entrance I could see a woman talking to someone else in an open office across the lobby. Yet all of the doors were locked. I knocked on the window and then noticed a bell. I rang the bell and waited. I knocked on the door and waited. I rang the bell again, and finally the woman opened the door and barely acknowledged me as I followed her to the office. There she resumed her conversation with two others, one of whom was the administrative assistant. I felt completely invisible.
After several minutes, the administrative assistant finally looked up at me. I gave my name, the name of the person I had the appointment with, and that I was a few minutes early. She hesitated in a way that suggested the person I had the appointment with might not be there, then said curtly, “Yes, you are. Have a seat out there, and I’ll let her know you are here.” I was directed to the dark lobby.
The day before, I had rushed out of the house wearing faded jeans and a rain jacket that had a tattered pocket lining. As I entered the business, I was greeted warmly by several clerks standing behind the counter and directed to an individual who could help me.
The contrast between these two experiences was a clear reminder to me, and I hope to all of us, that treating others with respect and dignity can begin with a simple “hello,” with hospitality that recognizes our shared humanity, whether in church, in business, or in life. It strikes me that this is a step toward living out my baptism in my daily life and toward ministering to others by seeking and serving Christ in all people.
I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek . . . at the kind of place where cynics talk smut and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died. And that is what he died about.
Nadia Bolz-Weber, Lutheran pastor and founder of the Church for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, CO, has announced the apocalypse. In a recent 
There’s something special about Toby: He’s big and lumbering and has sad brown eyes that have a way of drawing you to him, making you feel comfortable around him, helping you feel safe. Toby frequently visits children’s hospitals and nursing facilities, in and around the South Puget Sound and also in Houston. When he enters a room in a nursing home, he is welcomed with joyful smiles. Children love to nestle in his fur and crawl over him. Oh, yes, by the way, Toby is a 165 pound St. Bernard – a therapy dog with his own 
During my sophomore year in college, I got a note from the Dean of Students to come to his office!! UGH!, what had I done to warrant that? So, dutifully and a bit nervously, I came at the appointed time and was ushered in. The Dean asked me to sit down, and then asked me a question: Had I ever thought about the Ministry? The Ministry, really? I answered that it had never occurred to me. He said that he would like for me to give it some thought and prayer. And then I left. WOW! That conversation did percolate in my spirit, eventually leading me to seminary and ordination in the Ministry.
After several minutes, the administrative assistant finally looked up at me. I gave my name, the name of the person I had the appointment with, and that I was a few minutes early. She hesitated in a way that suggested the person I had the appointment with might not be there, then said curtly, “Yes, you are. Have a seat out there, and I’ll let her know you are here.” I was directed to the dark lobby.
Living God's Mission 