Blessing our pets — and more

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by Pam Tinsley

Toby receives a blessing.My church, like many, celebrates the Sunday nearest the Feast of St. Francis with a Blessing of the Animals. Pet blessings take place in different ways: outdoors following the service or in a church hall with the pets present throughout worship. My own church chooses to celebrate the Feast of St. Francis in the church with pets, appropriately leashed or constrained, “participating” throughout the service.

I look forward to the Sunday our pets join us in church. Yes, the dog hair on the pews is a bit messy, and there’s mild commotion during the service. (I’ve cringed when my elderly basset added some heartfelt “amens” during the sermon.)  Yet, it’s an inter-generational experience that helps us share part of our personal lives, even if we don’t all have pets. A mother of young children said to me, “I love this Sunday because everyone here with pets frets about their behavior; now they understand how I feel every Sunday with my children in church, even though I know they are welcome!”

What I like most about this Sunday, however, is that it is a way to share stories of ministry from our daily lives.  These stories are mostly shared without words, yet are reflected by our love and care for our four-legged, furry companions, or those in an aquarium or crate. Others witness that love and care for God’s creatures, as we tend to them, soothe the anxious ones, and gratefully bring them forward to be blessed and to be blessed ourselves as their devoted caregivers. And, sometimes professionals, such as veterinarians, humane society workers, and dog walkers, might receive special blessings. These stories of this ministry of caring for our beloved pets reveal a side of our “Monday through Saturday self,” which is blended on this one Sunday during our common worship.

Such opportunities to bring a personal part of our daily ministry together with our church lives seem to occur infrequently. It strikes me that, by making this a special occasion, we’re suggesting that church should be separate from daily life. Yet, if our Sunday worship is to shape our lives throughout the week, might we not also find a way to regularly share those stories of our daily ministry within the church, encouraging our congregations to recognize how each of us partners with God in God’s mission? A beginning might be modeled on the weekly prayer cycle for “The Baptized in Their Daily Life and Work” suggested by Demi Prentiss and Fletcher Lowe at http://www.RadicalSending.com. And, perhaps we might take another step and invite those who are being prayed for to come forward for prayers – just as we do with birthdays, anniversaries, and other milestones.

Holding tank to base camp

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by Jennifer Woodruff-Tait

We’ve been having a thought-provoking series here recently on how to change your congregation’s system to produce a church where all the members know, and behave, as though they are sent on mission. (It was sparked by this post by A. Wayne Schwab, which you may want to keep close by for reference.)

Tents at the base camp, Susunia Hill, Bankura, West Bengal, at Basic Rock Climbing Course by MAK (Mountaineers Association of Krishnanagar)

One important piece of changing the system is the church’s leadership. Basically, the leadership needs to help determine what needs changing, redesign the ministries they lead in order to produce the change, and be accountable to someone for the change. This applies to those whose leadership we immediately think of, such as the vestry or the minister of music or the director of Christian education. But it also applies to influential people within the church even if they hold no formal position. (My father, a retired United Methodist pastor and denominational bureaucrat, likes to quip “You know why they call certain people pillars of the church? Because they hold things up.”)

Bears Bluff NFH volunteer nets a large cobia out of a temporary holding tank. Credit: USFWS Image

Whether they are official or unofficial leaders, many in church leadership are working within a paradigm where mission is seen as solely or primarily the job of paid staff. If they have a full-time priest and church staff, they expect those people to do the mission of the church; if they are (as many Episcopal parishes are) small churches who can no longer support full-time staff, they yearn for the day when they might have full-time staff again. This produces a “holding tank” church system that waits around for something to happen, instead of a base camp system equipping people to infect their communities with the love of Jesus right now.

How do we get the church leadership on board to move from holding tank to base camp? Church people have been wrestling with this question for years, and it is a question deeply intertwined with the fraught mood of our current society. We are the middle of a huge paradigm shift from church-as-business-as-usual to church-as-a-chosen-and-commissioned-way-of-life. Congregations–especially white, middle-class congregations–may feel that holding on to a priest-central model will keep them connected to their particular “good old days,” and read any change as being deeply threatening.

The important thing to remember here is that while the priest is the sacramental center of the congregation, this does not mean that he or she needs to be in the center of every ministry the Eucharist makes possible.  The Eucharist is the heart of the worshiping community, and the priest is needed to make Eucharist. But through the grace of God, that Eucharist is meant to strengthen all who worship so that they can be about the mission of God in the world. As the catechism reminds us: “The ministers of the church are lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons” and the ministry of the laity is “to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be”  (BCP, p. 855).

So: whatever your place in the system, begin building trust with those around you, especially those in leadership. And once trust is built, begin raising hard questions about whether you are a base camp or a holding tank. When a church’s leadership is sold on a vision of every member in ministry, commissioned by their baptism and empowered by the Eucharist, the rest of the system will become easier to shift.

5 ways to shift the system

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by Demi Prentiss

Wayne Schwab’s recent post reminds us that the system that we’re working inside of is perfectly designed to give us what we’re getting. So if we want to see a different result, we need to redesign the system. The bad news is that wholesale redesign is difficult, if not impossible. The good news is that the simplest way to change a system is to change our own actions within the system.

Like Wayne and my other EBM colleagues, I long for a church system that focuses less on itself and more on its mission. I believe that the compelling mission of the Church—the Body of Christ—is to empower and embolden each believer with the result that they

act as an agent of the Living God,

working in partnership with The Ground of All Being

in each aspect of daily living

to make our world more loving and more just.

When we say we want the church to do that, then the system-shifting question is How will I, inside my faith community, do that?

How will I communicate, by word and example, how I understand myself to be sent, on mission in each part of my daily life?

What aspect of my faith community’s life can I re-focus toward ministry in daily life?

How will I discover, cultivate, and join with partners in discerning the shifts in congregational life that might re-shape the understanding of faith-filled living?

As a certified coach, I know better than to offer a one-size-fits-all prescription for any person who wants to grow and change in order to live more fruitfully.  That said, here’s a “starter packet” of five possible ways you might choose to engage those system-changing questions:

  1. Have a “one-on-one” conversation with a person you have an inkling might feel a similar stirring toward change.
  2. Create a “five by five”–a group of five people willing to gather for five meetings to focus on a particular issue.
  3. Engage with a book that might offer food for thought about systemic change, like Radical Sending, or Where the Members are the Missionaries, or Every Job a Parable.
  4. Examine one area of your own life—home, work, leisure, community, wider world, congregation, spiritual life—where you see God acting, and commit to how you will join God in working to make the situation more loving and more just.
  5. Cultivate a practice of daily “examen,” asking three questions:
    • “Where did I cooperate with God today?”
    • “Where did I not cooperate with God today?”
    • “What do I want to do tomorrow to be more ready to cooperate with God?”

Designing the right system

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[Friends: I wrote this overview for a meeting of the steering team for Episcopalians on Baptismal Mission (EBM). They liked it and each member will post a blog commenting on various parts of it in the next few weeks. You may want to keep this on hand for future reference.  – Wayne Schwab]

Systems theory in brief (with apologies to its founder, W. E. Deming, Out of the Crisis, MIT Press, 2000):

  • Every organization is a system of many parts.
  • The system is designed to produce the results it is getting.
  • If you want different results, you have to redesign the system. Decide what results you want from the system.
  • Redesign the system to produce the results you want.

Systems theory and bringing the concepts of Ministry in Daily Life to a congregation: 

  1. Your congregation is a system. Every system is designed to produce the results it is getting.
  2. What kind of members is your congregation producing?How many (%) believe they are sent on mission in each part of their daily lives – home and friends, work (paid or volunteer), community, wider world (from social norms to systems), leisure or play-time, seeking spiritual health, and congregation and its outreach?
  3. Your congregation is designed to produce the kinds of members it is producing. Off hand, only about 10-15% of our members believe they are sent on mission in each part of their daily lives.
  4. Redesign the system if you want to produce members who believe they are on mission in each part of daily life. We need to redesign our congregation.
  5. We need to redesign our congregation’s systems to produce the members we want to produce. We want to produce members who believe they are sent on mission in each part of their daily lives.
  6. What needs to be redesigned in our congregation to produce the kind of members we want? Apparently, “the mission of the church to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” is not working to produce members who believe they are sent on mission in each part of their daily lives. We need to rethink the congregation’s purpose, its mission.
  7. We need to involve all of our leaders in determining what needs to be changed. We need to involve all of the congregation’s leaders in rethinking the congregation’s mission, its purpose.
  8. We need to rely on all of the leaders to redesign the group or activity they lead around the congregation’s new purpose or mission.
  9. We need to keep in touch with the leaders to see how they are implementing the congregation’s new purpose or mission.
  10. Do this for 5-10 years and you will see a difference in the kind of members your congregation is producing.

So friends, what mission or purpose will produce the kind of members who want to believe they are sent on mission in every part of daily life?

Our mission has to begin with God’s mission:

  • God is on mission to make every part of daily life more loving and more just.
  • Jesus Christ is on God’s mission to make every part of daily life more loving and more just.
  • The church of Jesus Christ is on mission to make every part of daily life more loving and more just.
  • Our congregation is called to be part of God’s mission to make every part of daily life more loving and more just through Jesus Christ.

Sharing their song

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by Pam Tinsley

In the stillness of a lovely summer Saturday evening, an Episcopal church in the heart of the “none zone” was suddenly transformed when 42 high-school age singers lifted their voices in song. These Tacoma Youth Chorus choirs were sharing their gift of song with the local community before embarking on a two-week tour. They will soon share their song internationally in cathedrals in France and Germany and then at Canterbury Cathedral in the UK.

As the exquisite voices of these young women and men filled the church, the hearts of the audience were profoundly moved. My husband and I sat enchanted for over an hour as we listened to arrangements of sacred and secular music. For some arrangements the singers surrounded us, their voices blending sweetly behind and above us. At times our experience was almost transcendent, and by the concert’s end we felt renewed, even transformed.

We had been ministered to by these singers standing before the altar, beneath a large cross that was suspended from the ceiling.  I’d imagine, however, that the choirs would be shocked to hear me refer to their singing as a ministry. Many of these young people have never attended church, and most probably don’t now. And although the music program directors and tour chaperones are churched (though not all are active church-goers), their embrace of Christian values – caring, encouragement, compassion, selflessness, serving and seeking the best in others – has transformed the lives of these young people in countless ways. Not only have the singers developed a lifelong passion for music and learned the value of respect and hard work while having fun, they have developed deep friendships and have also inspired those around them by sharing their song – their singing and themselves.

And these young musicians will continue to share their song by passing this gift along to future generations. Five of the six chaperones are millennials, four of whom are TYC – and European tour – alums. Sharing the song that transformed their lives will in this way touch the lives of future children and grandchildren. This beauty will certainly live on!

Yes, this is ministry in daily life!

Practicing everyday justice

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by Wayne Schwab

Let’s define justice – in a way that is both fresh and biblical. That means equal access – everyone gets equal access to the good things in life. For many, that can mean a home with good parenting, good schools, a job, and good health care. Equal access to the good things in life – that’s justice.

Here’s the story.  It’s about a mother and her nine-year-old daughter.  Where is justice in it?

Four friends have come to play with Sally. Sally has disappeared. She is under her bed crying. ”They don’t want to play with me.”

Sally has acted this way before. Sally imagines bad things – that they have come just to play on the new trampoline and might leave her out. “Sally, your friends have been looking all over the house for you.  They really want to play with you.”

She said it several times. Finally Sally came out. In time, Sally learned to see real friends liked her, not just her toys.  They had come to see her.

A happy ending. Sally, now a ninth-grader, has lots of friends; she’s a first-rate swimmer on the school’s team; and raises money for the team.

A loving parent, sure.  Did you catch her justice?

Justice for Sally was access to the good parenting every child is entitled to. Her mother did not say, “Sally doesn’t feel well – come back tomorrow.” For Sally, justice meant being taught to see things as they really are, not how she imagines them to be. Her friends really liked her, not just her toys.  Her mother made sure she could see the truth.

That’s some of the justice of good parenting – being taught how to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s only imagined.

Seeing God at work

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by Demi Prentiss

A large part of living our ministries in daily life is cultivating the ability to perceive where God is acting, and then aligning ourselves with what God is up to. Understanding ourselves as co-creators with God – partners in a whole-life commitment to increasing love and justice in the world – is a life-giving, purposeful way of living God’s dream for our lives.

So how do you see where God is acting? How can you tell?

Look at events. In those events in our world that are clearly life-giving, it’s pretty easy to say, “Yes, God’s at work here.” But what about the terrible events? The heart-wrenching, “it-can’t-be” events? Take a page out of Fred Rogers’ book – look for the helpers. In the “Cajun navy” that jumped into john-boats to rescue neighbors and strangers when the floods came. In the three strangers who defended Muslim teenagers on a commuter train. In the teacher who spots the middle-schooler who’s being abused at home, or trafficked. In the midst of the brokenness around us, God is working in and through the helpers.

A young survivor is gently extracted from the wreckage of Korean Airlines flight 801 by U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and Guam civilian rescuers.

Look at people. Especially, look at the people we tend to overlook – the bank teller, the cab driver, the grocery checker or bagger, the janitor, the bag lady. Look at those around you who are acquainted with grief (Is. 53:3). As you can, take a pause, take up your courage, and speak a word of hope or encouragement or simple acknowledgment of their humanity. Looking into their eyes, look for the light of God. You won’t always find it, particularly the first time. But practice makes it lots easier. The Celts claimed that the lark said, “Often, often, often goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.”

Look at the world – both the natural and the created one.  All around us, God is showing up and showing off, as Reggie McNeal likes to say. In a leaf or a feather. In the music of the rain and the crash of a water fall. In the heart-grabbing poetry of inspiring architecture.  In the shadow of Earth pushing the twilight across the landscape until night falls. In the joy of an unexpected reunion.

Look inside your heart.  Take the time to notice what ignites your passion. Or what makes your pulse race.  Or unleashes tears. God’s invitation to partnership is showing up in those moments.

My friend Mary Earle often reminded me, “The Holy Spirit is a crass opportunist.” Pay attention to what you observe, and what you discern as God opens your eyes. As William Blake’s “Pentecost” reminds us, “Unless the eye catch fire, the God will not be seen.”

Noisy Church

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by Pam Tinsley

The church I attend is a “noisy church.” When worshipping in the church, we can easily hear voices from the narthex. Sunday school classes meet in the parish hall directly beneath the church, and we often hear our children’s “joyful noise”. Our church is also located on a busy street corner, not far from a fire station, so that during a service, if you don’t hear a group of motorcycles roaring by, you’ll hear the siren of an ambulance responding to someone in need!

This all used to bother me until I realized that this noise – and seeming distraction – is actually a good reminder of where we are called to be – that we find Jesus out in the noisy, messy world, not simply in the peaceful tranquility of a sacred worship space.

And isn’t that really where church should be? Jesus calls us to be his followers. He calls us to learn from him and then to act, to be like him: to heal, to serve, to feed his sheep. Instead of remaining entirely separate, we – the church – are called to respond to people, to reach out to others, to be in the world. As much as we might like to remain inside the walls of the church, Jesus sends us out to serve as his body in the world.

Our “noisy church” is a good reminder, then, that our ministry as baptized Christians takes place whenever and wherever we intentionally listen to God and ask, “What is God doing here, right now, that I can join?”  Jesus sends us to live into our baptism in our daily lives. We transform our ordinary occupations into Christian vocation by becoming Christ-centered in our actions and words – even if we are not speaking direct words of evangelism.

Now, the challenge is to live that out every day, intentionally, in the midst of our noisy lives, on the noisy street corner – which may be your own home, the grocery store, or in your workplace! That’s where Jesus is!

A Healing Journey — and Helping Others

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by Pam Tinsley

“Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!” is our Easter acclamation. We are Easter people, people of the resurrection, living in the assurance that those who die, live forever in God’s eternal kingdom.

Yet, what about those who are grieving the death of a loved one, especially in times of celebration such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and holidays? What about those who see others joyfully celebrating Easter, yet feel an aching hole in their own souls even though they believe fervently in the Resurrection? Can they, as they continue to mourn, even feel this joy?

Sarah, a dear friend of mine, was widowed a few years ago. Both Sarah and her husband were in their mid-fifties. Both of them expected him to recover from his illness, and when he didn’t, she and their young adult children were devastated. The grief she felt was numbing, even paralyzing at times. Her faith in Jesus and knowing how Jesus had suffered and despaired gave her glimmers of hope. Yet, in spite of being part of a strong church community and participating in a grief support group, she continued to struggle with her grief because, for the most part, the other participants were much older than she.

Sarah also happens to be a gifted writer. As she struggled with her grief, she wondered whether there might be a way she could find healing for herself and, at the same time, help others who were widowed at a younger age. Seeking God’s guidance, she prayed and, with God’s help, she began her “healing journey.” She took a leave of absence from work and went on several meditation retreats. And now she is blogging in the hope that she might be able to offer insights and encouragement to others. As she reaches out to others in their grief, her writing brings her healing moments in her own grief.

As Barbara Cawthorne Crafton wrote in a recent reflection, “Love transforms service, teaching us that there’s no such thing as a menial task. Love teaches us that, if nothing is beneath us, nothing will be beyond us. Love remains with us after our unstinting efforts have all failed — it doesn’t conquer all, as the old saying goes, but it bears all things without turning away from any of them.”

Sarah is discovering how true this observation is. When she decided to use her gift of writing to reach out to others, Sarah may not have consciously realized that she was following Jesus’ commandment to “wash the feet” of others. Perhaps we, too, might experience how our love in Christ transforms us by recognizing a gift God has given us, and then by giving our gift to help salve the wounds of others.

Who Are You Meant To Be? — 2 Views

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by Fletcher Lowe

Let me offer two prayerful expressions of the ministry we all share as the Baptized.

A 16th century Spanish Carmelite nun, St. Teresa of Ávila, put it this way:

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received,

and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones,

and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us .

More recently the Rev. Dr. Richard Halverson, the late Chaplain of the US Senate offered this:

You go nowhere by accident.
Wherever you go, God is sending you there.
Wherever you are, God has put you there.
He has a purpose in your being there.

Christ, who indwells in you, has something He wants to do through you,
wherever you are.

Believe this, and go in His grace, and love, and power. Amen!