April 2008
Member mission meets the desire on every church leader’s heart for a way to help the baptized to live out their role in God’s mission daily from Monday to Sunday. We’ve had enough experience to know that it works. It’s time for member mission to address the whole church.
The first Member Mission Leadership Institute and publication of the Member Mission Workbook in October will be accompanied by enhanced promotion of member mission through the Internet and the media.
You can help us with your gifts. While we await acceptance as a 501(c)(3) in June, send checks or money orders in any amount made out to Trinity Church and marked “Member Mission.” Send them to Trinity Episcopal Church, 18 Trinity Place, Plattsburgh, NY 12901.
This month
STORIES
• “There’s free water at St. Thomas!”
• Presenting member mission at a Sunday forum
• A South Carolina Baptist leader adapts member mission
• Praying for a part of the wider world
RESOURCES
• “The Politics of Change”
• Young adults and older youth
• Make and publish a “ministry inventory”
• Three conferences
FOR MEDITATION
• Pentecost makes member mission possible
STORIES
“There’s free water at St. Thomas!”
The Rev. Dawn Simpson requested help from anyone who might be able to deliver bottled water to Alamosa. When the water supply in Alamosa, CO became contaminated with salmonella, the Department of Public Health and Environment advised residents to use only bottled water for drinking and cooking. But, where would they get it?
St. Thomas found a way to make free bottled water available to all who needed it, but the members needed some help. Already, many hundreds of dollars are coming in from throughout the Diocese of Colorado to pay for the hundreds of cases of water that the members are having to purchase.
The situation would not be resolved for several days. The entire water system had to be flushed and disinfected with chlorine, which took up to two weeks. During this time, Dawn Simpson, their priest, reported, “People won't be able to bathe or to wash dishes or clothing, so we will be in need of lots of bottled water." For a picture of Easter at St. Thomas: http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1206338400/1
Contact: The Rev. Dawn Simpson at priestdawn@gmail.com or St. Thomas Church, 607 4th St., Alamosa, CO 81101. [St. Thomas is part of Coworkers in God’s Mission, a project of four small churches in the San Luis Valley that is drawing on the member mission vision.]
Presenting member mission at a Sunday forum
[Notes from a presentation by Margaret Sipple of the Church of the Redeemer, Bryn Mawr, PA and a member of the Center for Baptismal Living at a Sunday Forum at the Church of the Holy Spirit, Harleysville, PA (congregations average 90-100); 9:00 am, February 3, 2008]
Introduction
How the baptismal promises focus us on life outside the church, not inside of it.
History
The world is changing and the church needs to change too. Illustrated by Mead's diagrams from the Once and Future Church and the questions and answers on mission in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.
Member Mission
Out of this historical flow, Wayne Schwab developed Member Mission. His background:
parish rector in New Jersey; member of Episcopal Church's leadership development team; work with the Department of the Laity of the World Council of Churches; and
19 years as the first Evangelism Staff Officer for the Episcopal Church.
The purpose of Member Mission is to move from the vision of our Baptism to the living out of that vision in the nitty-gritty of our daily lives. Schwab likes to put it this way:
God has a mission; God's mission has a church; we join God's mission in Baptism.
• Each of us is already at work for God in this world!
• Our daily lives are our places of mission.
• Member Mission sharpens our sense of how we can work for God wherever we are.
• When we're working for God, every job and relationship become important and every person counts.
• Working for God helps us focus on what really matters and helps us make a real difference.
Resources
WTMATM, the Member Mission Workbook (in draft form), and the website www.membermission.org
First Step
Small group working through worksheets for each area of mission; share Redeemer's experience.
Second Step
Think about how our congregations can become places that nurture and support us in our missions.
Introduce Center for Baptismal Living
From www.baptism.org; our beliefs; our vision; and our work with Member Mission.
Activity Sheets
Discuss “What am I doing right now to make the world a better place?”
Questions & Answers
Would a small group work here?
[Notes for another time]
For her full outline contact Margaret at sipplemp@comcast.net
A South Carolina Baptist leader adapts member mission
The Rev. Johnny Rumbough is Director of Missions for the Lexington Baptist Association. Taken with member mission, he has adapted the questions of the worksheets as follows.
Mission-building questions
1. Do I see God at work in this mission field of my life?
2. What do I see God doing in this mission field of my life?
3. What am I doing right now to participate with God in this mission of my life?
4. What will I do next to become more involved in this mission field of my life?
5. What is God's purpose for me in this mission field of my life?
6. Who can help me in this mission field of my life?
7. How can I explain this mission field of my life to others?
8. What role does church life have with this mission field of my life?
Johnny is instituting use of these questions throughout the association with monthly training sessions for leaders from each of the congregations.
Further, he has adapted these questions for use, as occasion arises, with nonchurch people as follows.
Life-building questions
1. Do I see any good thing in this area of my life?
2. What do I see good in this area of my life?
3. What am I doing right now to participate with the good in this area of my life?
4. What will I do next?
5. How can I achieve my God-purpose?
6. Who can help me in this mission field of my life?
7. How can the change in this area of my life be explained to others?
8. What role does church life have with the change in this area of my life?
Contact: The Rev, Johnny Rumbough at johnny@missionlba.org
Praying for a part of the wider world
What do you believe God is asking you to do?
“I believe God wants me to pray for the people of Tibet to be able to maintain their autonomy.”
How is God helping you to do this?
“God is making me think of people beyond myself. We’re all connected.”
Lynn asks for prayer in behalf of the people of Tibet
RESOURCES
“The Politics of Change” – Jim Wallis, in Sojourners of March 2008, advises that no candidate can make the big changes needed without social movements pushing for those changes from outside of politics. Most important: “. . . it takes some kind of a renewal of the spirit to finally make serious social change really possible. . . . Awakening the faith community, for example, to the biblical vision of social justice and the moral imperatives to address poverty, creation care, human rights, culture renewal, and a better way to confront evil in the world will more likely lead to deeper change than mere lobbying on Capitol Hill.”
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0803&article=080351
Young adults and older youth often find that Sunday’s language and pattern of worship do not reach them. Here are a number of links that provide wording in hymns and prayers that can connect.
http://anglimergent.ning.com/?xgi=hnH1Yf5
http://liturgyoutside.net/index.html
http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/index.asp?id=1
http://www.emergentvillage.com
Make and publish a "ministry inventory" of the entire congregation advises Edward Lee, retired bishop of Western Michigan, now an assisting bishop in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Find out what church members are doing in their lives outside/beyond their endeavors in and for the parish. What they are doing is already "member mission" except no one has ever called it that or singled it out for identification, recognition and affirmation. By "ministry” is meant everything people do: their job, parenting, community work, school activities with/for their children, volunteer activities, political/electoral/social advocacy work, etc. “Such an inventory could/should be printed and circulated widely throughout the parish. It would/could be Exhibit A for raising the awareness of what is meant by ‘member mission.’ It's not something new and it's already being done and they are doing it!”
Three conferences:
Beyond Base Camp: Becoming an Equipping Church: 5/29/08 – for more, go to http://www.dailylifeministry.org/EPFDL%202008%20RegistrationForm.pdf.
Working From the Soul: From paycheck to transformation: 5/29 - 6/1/08 – for more go to http://www.dailylifeministry.org/images/brochure.pdf.
Listening for the Spirit in a Post-Christian World: 7/24 - 26/08 – for more go to http://catechumenate.org/main.cfm?sid=3.
FOR MEDITATION – Pentecost makes member mission possible
“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’”(John 20:21-22). We missionaries do what we do in Jesus’ name by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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God is most interested in how we live from Monday to Saturday.
Sunday – all of church life – helps us to do it better.
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