February 2008
In your church’s Lenten teaching, make sure that you go beyond faith to
faithful living!
Hints for member mission leaders and consultants:
Warn those you mentor about how easy it is to get sidetracked.
“Many other things will try to push member mission aside. Don't let them.”
“Follow through with your member mission plans!”
THIS MONTH
STORIES
· A member on mission opens a university’s “doors”
· “. . . God was writing through me.”
· Norms for a safe member mission group
· Some closure on the pain of war
· Open up a weekly cycle of prayer for the daily missions of your members
RESOURCES
· Beyond Base Camp: Becoming an equipping church
· Working From the Soul: From paycheck to transformation
· Listening for the Spirit in a Post-Christian World
FOR MEDITATION
· Opening to patience
STORIES
A member on mission opens a university’s “doors”
Higher education can take advantage of “adjunct faculty”in both salary and support services. As adjunct faculty herself, Janet supervises student teachers. She was well aware of the abuses. They had no salary increase for six years; they had no copying privileges; they could not march in the graduation and their names were not listed in the program; and they had no business cards.
It happens that Janet and her provost serve on the same board of a school. At a meeting, he asked her how she was doing. She told him. Later, he called her to his office. At that point she had to tell her boss, the Director of Field Experinces. She asked the Director, “How can we have the Provost help us?” In the meeting with the Provost, she laid out the needs saying, “I’m a soldier. I’m not a rabble rouser. But, when I see an injustice, I need to address it.” He agreed that things needed to change and told the other deans. He is preparing to survey all of the heads of all of the departments in the university to find out how they treat their adjunct faculty. This data will go to the President to aid him to make significant changes. Already, they have business cards; will march at graduation; have their names listed in the programs; and they will get copying privileges. Salary changes will come in time.
Janet says, “This could be system-wide! And, oh, don’t use my name. My reward comes in seeing the changes made. I get the strength to do all this from my member mission group. It all comes from member mission. That’s what’s so exciting about member mission. It opens doors!”
Contact: Janet (anonymous)
“. . . God was writing through me.”
Warren R. Bentzen was surprised at the ease with which he wrote his two books. “The books are very, very good and I felt that I was writing outside of myself as though God was writing through me. I had some good ideas I’ve not seen elsewhere in the literature and they seemed to come to me out of the blue. That may be simplistic but that’s the way I’ve come to feel.” His first book was Seeing Young Children: A Guide to Observing and Recording Behavior (Delmar Publishers, 1985) with his revised 6th edition due this Spring. The second, written with Martha B. Frost, EdD, was Seeing Child Care: A Guide to Assessing the Effectiveness of Child Care Programs (Delmar Publishers, 2003). Warren’s PhD is in the field of Child Development and Family Relations from Pennsylvania State University.
Contact: Warren Bentzen; wrbphd@aol.com
Norms for a safe member mission group
“What kind of group do we want to become?” The group at Redeemer, Bryn Mawr, PA who are discerning their daily missions (using the worksheets at Basic Tools 3B on the web site) answered with this list at their second session. The list is hung on the wall whenever they meet.
– Meet on the 1st Sunday of the month
– Have a consistent pattern for our gatherings
– Create a supportive environment
– Respect the privacy of others' comments and perspectives
– Speak honestly and frankly
– Refrain from being critical
– Ask for clarification when needed
– Create a space for freedom
– Keep each other in prayer
– Make contact by phone or e-mail at least once during the month
The last was added because members had paired up for mutual prayer between sessions. These calls would overcome the long time between sessions.
Contact: Margaret Sipple; sipplemp@comcast.net
Some closure on the pain of war
Bill Glidden writes a newsletter for The New York State Military Heritage Institute which maintains a museum and veterans research center. The newsletter goes to 400-500 people in New York and beyond.
How do you see God at work in this writing and the work of the Institute?
“God is helping people to find closure for missing elements in the stories of their family and ancestors and the dangers they faced.”
How does God help you to do this writing?
“I’ve been gifted with enjoyment of history.”
[Wikipedia defines closure as “the state of experiencing an emotional conclusion to a difficult life event, or, a point in the development of an artifact where social understanding and interpretation reaches consensus.”]
Open up a weekly cycle of prayer for the daily missions of your members
Include a petition for one of your members in one of his /her daily missions in the Prayers of the People / prayer time each week.
· Start a seven-week cycle of prayer for the members based on home, work, local community, wider world, leisure, spiritual health, and church life and outreach.
· Each week cite a specific mission of one of the members in that field. For example:
a. Tom spending some needed one-on-one time with his son through building a Pinewood Derby racer (home).
b. Mary for her work as a substitute teacher (work).
c. Pete for his service on the school board (local community).
d. Lila for her letter to the newspaper about taxes as a way we care for each other (wider world).
f. Paul for safe snow-boarding during needed recreation time (leisure).
g. Marge in her regular use of Forward Day by Day as inspiration for the day (spiritual health).
h. Barney as he greets us on Sunday mornings / Barney in his service on the Food Shelf (church life and outreach).
[These are all adults, college students, and teens. Include children twelve and under as well; and base the frequency on their percentage of the membership.]
A member / committee of two or three comes up with each week’s intercession. In appropriate ways, include it in the Sunday bulletin, announcements, parish mailer, etc. While this prayer cycle takes a fair amount of work, it will communicate that: each of us has all these areas of daily mission; these missions are specific; these missions change as our lives move on from day to day; and these missions are important enough to recognize in the liturgy to underscore their central pkace in the church’s mission.
RESOURCES
Beyond Base Camp: Becoming an Equipping Church: a conference building partnerships to foster ministry in daily life; sharing programs, ideas, concerns, and needs; and becoming prophetic voices to further faithfulness in daily life within the Episcopal Church.
· For laity exploring their ministry in daily life; clergy exploring ways to “equip the saints;” and diocesan and national staff and others actively enhancing the connection between worship and daily life.
· At The Cenacle in Lincoln Park, Chicago, IL; Thursday, May 29, 2008, 8:00 am – 4:15 pm. Wednesday night lodging and Thursday meals, snacks, and materials – Single $90; Double $70 per person;, Commuter $35.
· For a brochure and registration form – William Thompson, 765 Ormond Avenue, Drexel Hill, PA 19026; Thompcom@aol.com or http://www.dailylifeministry.org/EPFDL%202008%20RegistrationForm.pdf
· Stay for the annual meeting of the CMDL, Working from the Soul, which follows that evening – full information below.
Working From the Soul: From paycheck to transformation: the 16th annual Coalition for Ministry in Daily Life, Thursday dinner, May 28 - Sunday morning, June 1, 2008. Meeting at The Cenacle in Chicago, the CMDL Consultation offers insights from leaders in the faith and work movement, opportunities for sharing daily life ministries, practices and resources to take home, and networking with CMDL practitioners from throughout the country.
· Presenters include Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Keynoter and former lieutenant governor of Maryland; David Miller, Center for Faith and Culture at Yale University; Larry Suffredin, Cook County Commissioner; David Neff, editor of Christianity Today; Rev. Martin Marty, University of Chicago; Judy Valente, national news correspondent; and Bill McGarvey, New York musician.
· Workshops and whole group dialogues on: Pro's and con's of workplace chaplaincy; Young adults tackle labor issues; Teaching daily life ministry in the seminary; Promoting daily life ministry in congregations; Faith hits the campaign trail; Young adults building the community; and Sending forth to transform the world.
· Single room and meals – $135 per night or $300 for entire conference; Shared room and meals – $105 per person per night or $240 for entire conference.
· For the registration brochure: http://www.dailylifeministry.org/images/brochure.pdf
Listening for the Spirit in a Post-Christian World: the annual gathering of catechumenate practitioners sponsored by the North American Association for the Catechumenate, Thursday dinner July 24 - Sunday, 1:00 p.m., July26, 2008 at the Dumas Bay Centre, Federal Way (Seattle), WA.
· Dr. Samuel Torvend, featured speaker, Associate Professor and Chair of the Dept. Religion at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma; on challenges facing catechumenal ministers and Christian communities.
· Workshops include: Bringing it Home: Getting the Catechumenate Started in a Congregation; Stirring Christian Waters: Preparing for Baptism in the Season of Advent; Sharing the Word; Opening Rites in Use Across the Church for the Catechumenate: The History, Use, and Implications; and Owned by Easter: Continuing Conversion in a Mystagogical Context.
· Cost $425; $250 for commuters; for more information and to register go to http://catechumenate.org/main.cfm?sid=3.
[For member mission in the catechumenate, see pp. 148-151 of WTMATM.]
FOR MEDITATION – opening to patience
“ . . . growing up entails receptivity under the discipline of time; that is, we must learn patience. In fully submitting himself to time, Christ was subject to waiting upon God, up to and through the crucifixion, which ‘confirmed his willingness to wait on the Father in an irrevocable way, his refusal to grasp and take life for himself.’ Thus the human tendency and disposition toward impatience are counteracted; a restored and transformed way of being human has come into the world .”
[From the editor’s notes on an article by Jeff Vogel in the Anglican Theological Review for Summer 2007.]
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