Fran Evans chats after a Sunday Adult Forum at St. James, Danbury, CT
December 2007
Are you baptizing on the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, 1/13/08?
Prepare the candidates (including parents of young children) to join
the mission of Jesus Christ
by discerning their present daily missions.
[See pp. 197-9 of WTMATM and Basic Tools 1-3B ]
Hints for member mission leaders and consultants:
New leaders of member mission groups and activities need much more help than you think. Your goal is for each of them to succeed. Therefore:
- Be suggestive where you sense they don’t know what to do.
- Be sure your new leader has a clear idea of what might be done next before you complete your contact.
- Also, be helpfully assertive to ask for a next time to be in touch to learn how the last activity went and what might be done next.
This month
STORIES
• A church provides affordable housing / “room for them at the inn” (KJV Luke 2:7)
• Help with complex public issues / coping with “Caesar’s decrees” (KJV Luke 2:1)
• God and the work of a supervisor of teachers / [gifted] “in teaching” (NRSV Romans 12:6)
• Building an ecological lifestyle / “till it and keep it” (NRSV Genesis 2:15)
RESOURCES
• Carbon Footprints
• 2008 Believers in Business Conference
• Faith and Font
• Member mission’s blog
FOR MEDITATION
• Finding stories of members on mission
STORIES
A church provides affordable housing / “room for them at the inn” (KJV Luke 2:7)
Back in 1986, Karen Long, a social worker in southern Ohio knew first-hand the need for affordable housing among the people she served. She saw families living in trailers that leaked like sieves and were heated with kerosene putting out toxic air for children to inhale. She told the members of her church, St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Terrace Park, OH, (congregations average 275) about it. Carol Peterson, senior warden, worked for a bank and knew the need for housing and the government programs available. While Habitat for Humanity was active, the church believed they had the resources to take on a larger effort.
Accordingly, the vestry and the church began the long process of building $5 million Thomaston Woods in Amelia, OH to house over 100 families in affordable apartments. Rents were to be no higher than 30% of the residents’ income. That meant hiring a consultant to guide them through the government requirements for using low-income tax credits for the basic funding. It also meant the hiring of a marketing consultant to verify the need for such housing. Next came finding and placing an option on a site and producing preliminary plans with the help of three architects who were members. Then came finding buyers for the tax credits. From the outset, a small endowment fund of the church, the diocese, and some personal pledges backed various stages of the project. All along the way, federal, state, and municipal government made funding and guidance available. The pile of legal documents at the closing was 14 inches high. Ground was broken in December 1988 and the first occupants moved in during January 1990.
Since 1990, more than 200 under-housed families have gained enough financial grounding to purchase their own home. Parishioners staff a homework room and other services for children include Head Start, a General Education Development (GED) program, Bible study, and a summer program. Parents participate in classes on nutrition, budgeting and parenting. Social-service assistance and referrals to community agencies are available when needed. A director of resident services supports these activities. A new venture, Thomaston Meadows, a $1.5 million housing initiative adjacent to Thomaston Woods, offering 13 affordable apartments for seniors was dedicated October 14 this year.
Information from: Episcopal Life Online for 10/17/2007 and a church member, Chris Smith.
Help with complex public issues / coping with “Caesar’s decrees” (KJV Luke 2:1)
Granted, each of the baptized has a mission in the wider world. How can we find our way through the complexities of public issues? St. Mark’s, Milwaukee, WI (congregations average 115) turns to www.speakingoffaith.org for help. Drawing on the rich variety of topics in Archives on that website, their next series will center on “Religion and Power” during the Epiphany season. After dinner together, they spend an hour listening to the first half of the audiotape of a selected radio broadcast and discussing it. The second half and its discussion make up the next session. The audiotapes come in two parts and, so, make this two session use possible. A past series on “Family Values” worked on marriage, family, divorce, a spirituality of parenting, money and moral balance, and gay marriage: broken or blessed.
The series usually last six to eight sessions and have drawn in over 30-40 people with about 20 in a single series. They meet at the church and the church provides a person to cook and clean up. Participants are diverse in age and marital status. All viewpoints can count on a respectful hearing. They are recruited by announcements in the Sunday bulletin and the monthly newsletter, and phone calls to past participants asking them to bring others. For potential first timers, the sessions are described to new members saying: “Have you ever heard of Krista Tippett and her wonderful radio program that speaks to your faith as it relates to all kinds of everyday occurrences? We use her as our stepping stone to our conversations. Our supper, also, builds our community.”
Contact: Janet Martin at crablake@sbcglobal.net.
God and the work of a supervisor of teachers / [gifted] “in teaching” (KJV Romans 12:6)
Fran Evans chats after a Sunday Adult Forum at St. James, Danbury, CT
As Coordinator of Physical Education and Human Development for the Danbury, CT public schools, Fran Evans supervises over thirty K-12 teachers in physical education, health education, family and consumer sciences. She comments, “These are the program areas that kids need for day-to-day living.”
How do you see God at work in what you do?
“It’s hard not to. Because of my own deep faith, I am constantly trying to keep God in mind as I work with my teachers, any students I come into contact with, and with parents. We are all searching for peace and connection to each other and, hopefully, to God. As the first and second commandments teach, I seek to treat everyone else as I would want to be treated.
Talking of God in a public school system is tricky. With my staff, I find out where their faith lies and use prayer with them when they are in a difficult position. No one has rebuffed it. They are thankful for it. They do the same for me. It’s rewarding and uplifting to have a general trust within my department. As I get closer to retirement, there’s little the system can do to discipline me. I can be much more open in telling people I will pray for them. If they don’t have a strong faith, I suggest they visit several churches or temples or mosques to find some connection with a higher spirit. I feel strongly about that and I share some of my own experiences in life. I start off using the word ‘God’ with staff by letting them know that I am a strong believer in God and, if I start getting testy, they need to remind me that God might not like that too much. I use them as my temperament keepers. I let them know that the school system has rules and boundaries about what we can and can’t say but they should feel comfortable coming to me with problems. I consider their family and themselves first and the job can wait. If they need to go to a religious service or a funeral or need some kind of emotional support, I tell them to go get it and I will help them to get it. I don’t use ‘God’ very often with students. If I do use it with students, it’s a joyful ‘Thank God for that.’”
How do see God helping you in your work?
“I feel I’m in an envelope and God is the envelope – all day every day. I sit here with flowers in my office; I look out the window and see the children come out on the playground; if my husband is getting a period where he is feeling well – I see God in every moment.”
Building an ecological lifestyle / “till it and keep it” (NRSV Genesis 2:15)
Ted has sought to build an ecologically-aware lifestyle. When young, he spent much of his free time out in pristine nature, away from "civilization." Those times brought “an awareness and appreciation of God's Creation.” Becoming adult, he asked, “What would I like to see changed, both in the way I live personally and in the broader world?” He chose two ecological goals: to consume less and to conserve more. That meant walking or taking public transportation whenever possible; buying fewer "things;” constant and careful recycling; boycotting goods in ecologically unfriendly packaging; and the like. Now, he puts his “messages” in front of as many people as he can, in as many ways as he can. These messages include:
• declining plastic bags at check out saying, “Did you know these bags could be in the earth for thousands of years?"
• letting the grocer and his producer know he’s unhappy with packaging choices and why;
• changing what we buy knowing “they will make it if we will buy it!”
• talking about how so many of us are “addicted” to driving our motor vehicles. “We think that there are answers that will allow us to continue to do so with abandon – ethanol for example. But, did you know that ethanol takes more energy to produce than it yields? More than it takes to produce gasoline for the equivalent yield! The bottom line is that the more energy we expend, either in manufacture or in direct use, the more we heat up our planet. While we drive less, let’s keep looking for that eco-friendly fuel.”
Ted passes along three resources he likes on the Internet.
• http://www.webofcreation.org/GettingStarted/samplecovenant.htm for its Congregational Covenant where individual members promise to take on specific ways in recycling, conserving, and political activism.
• http://www.leatherleadership.org/library/makeactiv.htm links to an outline of a workshop on activism with a focus on how to get people to become activists; it also points out ways to simplify one’s lifestyle.
• http://www.nacce.org/1996/congress/4ecofem.html links to The Earthkeeping Ministries Congress. It sees a patriarchal hierarchy as a root of much of our woes and introduces a new term, “ecofeminism.” Ted muses, “I am reminded of Christ's admonition to look for ‘a man carrying water’ (Mark 14:13); not, I'm sure, something that was common in the patriarchal society of his day. I sense that many women in leadership roles today are more deeply concerned with the issues we face than men, and less obsessed with obtaining power.”
Contact: Ted David at ted.david@verizon.net.
RESOURCES
Carbon Footprints: find your own or your household’s and what you can do to make it smaller – a much needed local community and wider world mission for every one of us! MMNews likes http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/. Google “carbon footprint” for more links.
2008 Believers in Business Conference, New Haven, Connecticut on February 15th and 16th, 2008. Hosted jointly by The Yale School of Management (SOM) Christian Fellowship Club and the Ethics and Spirituality in the Workplace Program at Yale Divinity School’s Center for Faith and Culture (www.yale.edu/faith), this conference will explore issues related to finding purpose and value in work drawing on Christian principles. The conference gives MBA students an opportunity to learn from and have access to business leaders who will share how they seek to integrate their faith and their work. These visiting CEOs and senior executives will talk about real business issues they encounter - whether particular to their industry sector and company, or more generally as part of life in the marketplace – and how they respond. Ample time is built into the agenda to engage them in conversation during the program and informally. Register at http://events.som.yale.edu/index.php?eventid=364
Faith and Font, a training event for bishops, seminary students, and pastors and their congregational teams sponsored by the North American association for the Catechumenate (NAAC). It will be held at Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church in Seattle, Washington on January 18-20, 2008. Seasoned catechumenate practitioners and trainers, Pastors Paul Hoffman and Bev Piro, will lead Faith and Font along with lay catechists from the area. Dr. Mark Oldenburg, Professor of Worship at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, will also be on hand. Training will include Sunday morning worship with the Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church community including the Rite of Welcome of candidates into the Phinney Ridge catechumenate process known as The Way. Faith and Font is open to members of NAAC's denominational partners: Anglican Church of Canada, Episcopal Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Reformed Church in America, and United Methodist Church. The event concludes a one week seminary level class on the catechumenate process offered on location at Phinney Ridge by the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. Participation in the class is not required for the training event; however the class is open to anyone who desires a more "instructive" look at the catechumenate. Registration details, including costs and lodging, are available at http://www.catechumenate.org/section_9_detail.cfm?sid=9&cid=16.
The catechumenate offers a unique chance to orient candidates for baptism and confirmation to member mission. Approach baptism as joining God’s mission in Jesus Christ and start the candidates on the path of discerning each of their daily missions as normative for Christians. For specifics, see pp. 148-151 of WTMATM, especially, pp. 150-151.
Member mission’s blog – http://membermission.pbwiki.com/ – is updated regularly to provide: “Resources for the Mission Fields” that explore recent study, research, and opinion to guide discerning your missions in each daily mission field; “Theology” that works with current issues in the mission fields; “Wayne’s Blog” and “Elizabeth’s Blog” that share information, insights, and experiences from the authors as they arise; “Your Blog” that posts your stories and ideas for comment by all in the usual forum open to everyone to exchange experiences and comments; and a place for you or your group’s own blog such as “Center for Baptismal Living – Blog.” Click on the link above and the Sidebar will tell you how to contribute.
FOR MEDITATION
Finding stories of members on mission
Aren’t MMNews’ monthly pictures and the subject’s comments special? Have you wondered where MMNews finds such people? Most of them – 95% – are in the editor’s church! All it takes is knowing the daily mission fields of the members. And such knowledge only takes asking them for it. There’s an Advent message here. Jesus Christ comes. Look for him.
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