Member Mission Newsletter #16   

For meditation: How easily do you discern God's presence in daily life?  Remember God's characteristic works are love and justice.  Wherever you meet love and justice, you are meeting God.

 

Helps . . .
. . . in worship – an alternate Dismissal slightly adapted from Worship and Daily Life: A Resource for Worship Planners, Copyright (c) 1999 Discipleship Resources (reprinted by permission of the publisher).
 Deacon: Sisters and brothers, we are not dismissed.  We are not just free to go.
 Christ sends us! Go [forth] in the power of the Spirit to love and serve the Lord.
 Go to help and heal in all you do.
 Congregation: Thanks be to God!
. . .  and in teaching / preaching / conversation – the dignified notion of "citizenship" has been lost by referring to citizens only as "taxpayers" and "consumers" (Archbishop Michael Peers of Canada).

 

The Coalition for Ministry in Daily Life

 

[The CMDL, organized in 1991, makes the Sunday-Monday connection; see www.dailylifeministry.org.  This year's consultation of 75-plus convened at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, 4/16-18/04.  A retreat followed at the Mt. Olivet Lutheran Retreat Center, 4/18-20/04.  This report came from The Rev. James L. Gill, a retired priest and a marriage and family counselor, at present in Gardiner, ME.]

 

At present, the Coalition is predominantly made up of seminary faculty and clergy and laity from denominational judicatories.  Several "parachurch" workplace ministry organizations, such as Faith at Work and The Forum for Faith in the Workplace, were also represented.  There were two staff persons from the Alban Institute, a few authors of books on Lay Ministry / Ministry in Daily Life and two women parishioners from Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church.

 

Seminary input:
New emphasis on seminary education as leadership development.  Raising question of "Whom do we serve?" – Our "guilds" in the Academy?  Our students?  The communities that call graduates to lead them in their callings?• What is God doing in the world?
• What do seminaries need to do to align themselves with the above?
• What do churches (congregations) need to do to align themselves with the above?
Obstacles: 
• Biases against capitalism, consumerism, jingoism, individualism (without knowing the situation from the inside of those in the world who are struggling with these issues)
• "Guild"-directed research, professional theology, lack of a library of "lay theology."
Strengths:
• Late vocations (IF they are not jaded about the secular world)
• Emergence of contextualized theology
• Leadership studies

 

Liturgy Focus:
Bill Droel, from National Center for the Laity (RC)
• "Unless we bring the essence of our life to the liturgy, the liturgy is dead, even demonic."
• Ways to make clear that the Offertory is so profound . . . bringing our whole life to God for blessing.
• "Getting the Dismissal Rite right." Words that say the liturgy is ended, ministry begins, come back and tell us how it went. Sign at church exit: "You are now entering the Mission Field. Come back when you need reinforcements"

 

Wayne Schwab, author of When the Members Are the Missionaries.
Since I am a cohort of Wayne, helping him keep contact with those who are using his book and system around the country, I was particularly interested in "monitoring" his participation in the discussions at the Consultation and at the Retreat following.  He described his son who had a first job making deliveries for a local merchant and asked the assembly to consider "the delivery point" of our church efforts.  His emphasis on "member mission" as contrasted with "body mission" (e.g., St. Swithin's Food Bank) was quickly understood in this audience.  Jack Fortin, director of the Centered Life initiative of Luther Seminary [to be described in the next newsletter], intends to use Schwab's book in this venture.

 

4. My own participation involved a request for more "consumers" (active clergy / lay persons from congregations) at the next Consultation.  I continued this line at the much smaller Retreat (nine of us) and it will be passed on to the board of CMDL as they plan for next year's Consultation (New Haven, Yale, in April.)   This experience reacquainted me with two "fathers" of the Ministry in Daily Life movement: Bill Diehl, from Bethlehem, PA, author of The Monday Connection, who preached at Trinity, Easton, PA at my request, and helped in our parish's structural changes to support ministry in the world, and Dick Broholm, leader of the Lay Institute at Andover-­Newton Seminary, whose workshop there I attended (both in the 1980s).  I was heartened by the presentation by John Lewis, a very articulate lawyer from San Antonio, Texas, who teaches this topic at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin.  Hope this kind of witness will spread to other Episcopal Seminaries.

 

The CMDL and Member Mission

 

I (AWS) have known of the Coalition since its founding and rejoice in its fortitude in holding up the Sunday-Monday connection of faith and daily life.  At the consultation, my first, I was heartened by the ready collaboration of all the participants.  To this group's wealth of resources, it looks like member mission might add:
• a way to get beyond executives and middle managers to all the workers – including volunteer workers – in a congregation;
• ways to connect with daily life at home, in the local community, the wider world, leisure, and church as surely and as fully as with work; and
• specific ways to help each member to discern their current missions in each of their daily mission fields.

 

Integrating Member Mission into Parish Life

 

Member mission enlivens Lent and beyond
Sandra Stayner continued to have some happy surprises as St. Peter's, Cheshire, CT worked its way through Lent with their first – in a long time – adult class on Sunday morning (for the format see MMNews #14).  For the leisure session, she began with putting entertainment in the context of the Sabbath; then moved to a ten-minute video, Sex, Violence, and Video Games, picked up from her son's school; alerted parents to the horrific nature of what their teens play while their younger sisters and brothers are watching; and met with a huge response, even from grandparents who became quite activist about it.  The next week on home, she opened up the mission with teens by bringing in youth leaders from a nearby church with a lively youth program.  They made clear that the whole congregation had to be involved with their teens rather than delegate the task to a "youth worker."  St. Peter's own teens sat there with their parents as all were "galvanized" into action – as Sandra puts it.  The next session on the wider world was led by a judge who gave the Boy scouts credit for teaching him to be aware of the need for public service.  A surge of recognition that all had to become responsibly involved followed; they could not sit back but needed to help their young people to be engaged; all, without any battle over who thought what.

 

Sandra was most gratified with the response throughout all sessions.  People liked the hour and they wanted to talk.  Repeatedly, she found herself impressed by the depth of what the people said.  They plan to continue offering series of six sessions like this throughout the year.  At present, a celebration at the church of the work of both local and distant artists and musicians fills the fifty days of Easter with the members inviting their neighbors to St Peter's to share in the joy of the resurrection.   As the vestry organizes commissions to enlarge the people's sense of ownership in the congregation, an evangelism commission will begin its work using two resources as places to start – Supporting Christians at Work (people respond when they see the church connecting with their workplaces; see new resources below) and the members enlisting nonchurch people to join them in their daily missions in the world (see Revised Appendix A Questions on the Making the Vision Work menu of the web site).
     Contact: The Rev. Sandra Stayner, 59 Main St. 06410; st.peters.church@snet.net; 203-272-4041

 

Into catechumenal formation
Allen Farabee, Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY, used member mission to launch the post-Easter mystagogy (literally, study of the mysteries or sacraments – here, now that you have been baptized or received, what does it mean for your daily living) in their catechumenate.  They quickly caught on that what one is doing already is mission.  So much is seeing things and naming things differently rather than doing new things. [Each post-Easter session can take a different mission field to explore what one is doing there now as an agent of Christ's mission.]
 Contact: The Very Rev. Allen Farabee, Dean, 128 Pearl Street, Buffalo, NY 14202-4075 – p:716-855-0900; f: 716-855-0910; email: allen.farabee@stpaulscathedral.org; Web: www.stpaulscathedral.org

 

Informing interviews with prospective clergy
Diana Montenegro finds that work in both member mission and catechumenal formation have shaped the way St. Francis, Menomonee Falls, WI is interviewing prospective clergy.  Four overarching goals guide them: church growth and evangelism; Christian formation for mission; outreach (the local community to the wider world; remodeling the facilities for better use.  Outreach ranges from tithing their income to help with local and world needs to the woman who raises local to world peace and justice issues with members responding as they are moved to do so.  Diana hears the vision of the Monday to Saturday living of the members imbedded in the goals and in the questions asked.
     Contact:  Diana Montenegro, 2380 Mary Beth Ct., Brookfield, WI 53005; 262-786-9743; dmonten@aol.com.

 

Member mission spreads beyond Lent
At St. Mark's, Milwaukee, WI, about fifty people, with some fifteen making every session, participated in the Lenten program (see MMNews #13).  The steering committee meets for evaluation next week.  In the meantime, Michelle Mooney and her team offered a two-hour segment on spiritual gifts and the six daily mission fields, working through one of them, to an ecumenical group of twenty volunteers who help seniors in the community.  In the church next, she hopes to connect with the youth leaders and will introduce the idea of ministry with kids as young as first grade in the church school – e.g., being Jesus' helper in home and school.  In her Education for Ministry group for the first time, she introduced the six mission fields last spring and in the fall each talked of one mission field – how to do it, barriers met, and support needed – and the group sat in on two of the Lenten sessions.  When they came to the ministry unit in one of the closing common lessons, she found they were "wired in" as never before – e.g., seeing what they do with their kids and on the vestry are missions at home and in the church.  This summer, a neighborhood art show celebrating community and neighborhood with the church "looks outside more" in the spirit of member mission.  Michelle notes too that the member mission words are finding their way into the sermons of both the rector and the assistant.
 Contact: The Rev. Michelle Mooney, Deacon, (at home) 2633 North Hackett Ave., Milwaukee, WI 5321; p: 414-964-3118; f: 414-964-3583; michellemooney@sbcglobal.net; (at church) 2618 N. Hackett Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53222 with phone 414-962-0500

 

Even during a clergy vacancy
At St. Martin's, Brown Deer, WI, Ramona Lewis continues with the Wednesday night Bible study and reflection following the pattern in Chapter 13 of WTMATM.  One participant is learning the method to offer it during the hour before Sunday worship.  Along the way, she notes that members are meeting biweekly after Sunday worship in three groups determined by their birth dates.  An air of mystery surrounds the work of these three "Birthday Clubs" because all have agreed to develop and to carry on a service project they will not reveal until next January.  Further, each group will enlist nonchurch friends to help them.  All this, and more, goes on even though they have been working with only a supply priest since Palm Sunday.
 Contact:  Ramona Lewis, Lay Ministry Coordinator; 7032 W. Sandpiper Court, Milwaukee, WI 53223; 414-355-2090; lewisaramona@msn.com

 

New resources

 

• Moral Fragments and Moral Community: A Proposal for Church and Society by Larry L. Rasmussen, Fortress Press,1993; as Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, New York he summarizes some of Borgmann's early work, pp. 77-86, and ends with four marks of the church for today – inclusiveness, pioneering creativity (to needed new ways of life), a safe community or haven, and moral critic of its culture.
• Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology by Albert Borgmann, Brazos Press, 2003; a professor of philosophy at the University of Montana analyzes the basic problems inherent in technology and points to some of the essential responses Christians need to make to it.
•   Supporting Christians at Work: A Practical Guide for Busy Clergy – 90 Minutes That Could Transform Your Ministry by Mark Greene, ELCA, 2003; Why the workplace matters; How the workplace was lost; Four keys to supporting workers; 50 Ways to support the workers; The great opportunity, and Resources; go to            www.episcopalparishservices.org and enter the main title in the search box or phone 800-903-5544.