Detoxifying the 'E' word

John Smith writes in the Reading Eagle about the Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori visited the Diocese of Bethlehem earlier this month.

One of the things our diocese did--which we found out after the fact was fairly unusual (good for us)--was that we spent the better part of four hours orienting her to our diocese. We shared with her the state of our diocese. We told her about what we do well and we were also honest about our greatest challenges. We shared both data and stories.

The Evangelism Commission shared our story, our process and our dreams as well as our accomplishments and our sometimes-successful-and-sometimes-not experiments. I thought that she engaged us the most when we began to talk about "effective communication of the Good News of Jesus Christ" to those outside the church. Bishop Katharine asked questions of us, wanted to know what worked, and was very interested to know about our work with Unbinding the Gospel. (Our gift to her was a copy of that book with a bookmark placed in Chapter Eight, which is where I think that every clergyperson should read first before going into the whole series.)

We were very cheered to hear talk about the things she learned about us when she preached and answered questions. She spoke of the joys and challenges of "telling what we have seen and heard" and we heard her talk directly about evangelism, putting it square into the context of mission. Her words and example went a long way towards "de-toxifying" the dreaded "E" word in the Diocese of Bethlehem.

For Episcopalians, de-toxifying the "E" word will mean doing more of what we are really good at--and communicating the 'why' behind what we do well--and less of trying to imitate what other traditions do a lot of. We can fall into our own version of toxic evangelism if we succumb to the temptation of believing that somehow the Gospel only resides in the Episcopal Church and everyone else is at least mildly deluded. What is important is that the way Episcopalians receive and live the Gospel does explicitly answer real human needs and points people to Christ. If the Gospel message brings life, then it is imperative that way we bring it be life-giving.

Here is what Mr. Smith wrote in the Reading Eagle:

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church has a few words she doesn't care for. Evangelism isn't one of them.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori highlighted "the dangerous 'E' word" in her message to members of the Diocese of Bethlehem in Lebanon earlier this month, admitting the word is toxic to most Episcopalians....

...Jefferts Schori offered a five-point message, doubled. She ticked off five marks of mission the church has adopted: proclaim the good news; teach, baptize and nurture its members; relieve human suffering; change the unjust structures of society; care for the Earth.

She also offered five different ways to implement the marks: to grow congregations in their ability to practice mission; identify and evangelize the community; emphasize education and formation for all ages; battle poverty and injustice in intentional ways; develop networks, partnerships and covenant relationships.

Regarding evangelism, the bishop said she hoped Episcopalians would feel as comfortable sharing the good news about Jesus as about a new restaurant they had discovered. On education, she suggested they use their brains, not just their ears....

...Other words could be problems and concerns. During the well-received Q-and-A session that followed, I asked what she considered her biggest one.

"The biggest challenge," the bishop replied, emphasizing the noun, "is growth." She said the church is losing 19,000 members a year, partly because "Anglos don't produce children." The overseas dioceses are growing, but the only four doing so last year nationally were Navajoland, Wyoming, North Dakota and Alabama. (Discounting Alabama, one might assume the church appeals to cowboys and Indians.)

That led to further evangelism talk. She called the church an attractive faith tradition for those of a Catholic background who don't want someone telling them what to do or have to worry about excommunication. "But we can't wait for them to come to us," she said. "We must be out in the community, sharing."

Read the rest here.

Sleepers wake!

Another video from King of Peace Episcopal Church, Kingsland, Georgia.

Ideas that spread win

The Gospel spread like wildfire in the first few centuries of the church because...it was new...and because it was an idea that spread...and because it did not speak to the core of the society of the day but because it spoke the fringes that were truly interested.

Perhaps the Reformation spread the same way? How about the first and second Great Awakening? Methodism, too? How Christianity in Africa today? Maybe the times when Christianity spreads is not because it is simply a "good" idea, but an idea that spreads.

See this video:



How does the Gospel message once again become an "idea" that spreads among "people who are interested?" How do we once again communicate to the interested fringes that spread the message? Ideas that spread, win.

H/T to Bill Lewellis at DioBeth NewSpin.

You are a ninja following the Master

Updated (version 2.0) How would you describe who Episcopalians are? Here is one church's answer:



Read more here.

Evangelism: The Boxed Set

Episcopal Cafe has posted a link to four lectures on Evangelism given in the Diocese of Washington. Here is what the Cafe says:

The presenters were Brian McLaren, Dean Ian Markham and Professor David Gortner of Virginia Theological Seminary and the Rev. Terry Martin, better known to some of you as Father Jake.

These are Windows Media files. We hope to have Quicktime available soon.

Maybe these will end up on YouTube, too? Just a thought. In the meantime, go here.

When sport is a religion, can religion learn from sport?

Rabbi Jonathan Romain writes in the Guardian about the connections between being apart of a faith community and being a sports fan. He watched as his fellow countrymen were wrapped up in the European Champions League last week (when Manchester United played Barcelona in Rome) and reflected on both the similarities and on how faith communities can tap some of the same enthusiasm.

"In some ways." Romain says, "it is facile to compare football to faith: the former is 400 years old, limited to a rectangular pitch and lasts 90 minutes a week, whereas the latter stretches across the millennia, permeates all aspects of life and is 24/7."

Still there a interesting parallels: both have their rituals, both have their special clothing, both have their important festivals and revolve around a calendar and both are seasonal.

There are similar highs and lows: the build-up of expectation as an important match looms or as you get ready for a festival. But then your emotions can go dramatically either way: a win, especially against the odds, leads to an almost indescribable exuberance; so too at a service when you have a really good experience and emerge with a bounce in your step. The opposite can also be the case: a desperately boring game or a disastrous loss can send you home enveloped in a black cloud, rather like a service which you feel does nothing for you and from which you walk out a stranger to God.

Perhaps most amazing of all at matches is the singing, with many who are totally unmusical, not to mention shy and monosyllabic, leaping to their feet and singing their throats dry in front of thousands.

He asks clergy and congregations with empty pews to think about the following: "how to transfer the passion and commitment of those attending football matches to those at services."

A clue lies in a moment of inspiration experienced by my history teacher at school. He was at a football match after a frustrating week of trying to drum dates of battles and monarchs into children's heads, with little success. He was astounded to hear two pupils from his class sitting in the row behind rattling off facts and figures about team performances, individual players and the number of goals they had scored last season. "Ah," he thought, "so they are capable of remembering! All I have to do is enthuse them enough so that they remember what I want them to remember."

The task of those who care about faith is similar: to make religious life so vibrant as to make others want to join in. We can start by learning from football fans and doing three things:

First, greeting others who are sitting around you, even those you hardly know, and not letting them go away unnoticed at the end, but chatting away, asking if they thought today was a victory or a flop, if the minister was on form or not. It is the presence or absence of human camaraderie that determines whether people come back next week or not.

Second, by joining in the prayers and songs even if you do not feel like it at first, because getting stuck in helps create a sense of involvement, which then engulfs others too, so that you end up feeling that you are on the inside and not looking on from afar.

Third, in between attendances, reading up on the facts, mastering the customs, laws and history, so that next time you come you feel part of the team spirit - that you not only matter as much as everyone else, but that without you they are not fully complete.

Read the rest here.

UBG Report to Lily Endowment

The report for "Mainline Evangelism Project II" has been released. Here is the link and below is the cover letter.

Dear Unbinding the Gospel Friends,

I hope your day is as gorgeous as ours is in St. Louis!

We've finished the first 15 months of our 4 year grant from the Lilly Endowment to help 1000 congregations work through the full-congregational saturation experience witih the Unbinding books. A few of you have already received a copy of this, but I will err on the side of duplicate information! Here (click on the link below) is a copy of the 10 page report I sent the Endowment a couple of weeks ago. We are extremely excited about what we're seeing in these congregations, and in what we're learning. I include many specific examples (anonymously) from congregations in the process.

The bottom line is that the books work, the coaching model is working with increasing efficiency, people are beginning to pray, to articulate their faith and to invite friends to church. (I'm hearing rather amazing reports that the term "friends" includes ex-prisoners, students, Saudis, and a few people who state of personal hygiene is not on an exact par with the typical congregant!) Staggering shifts are happening in some of these churches. i was with a Disciples of Christ pastor last Saturday who is serving a congregation whose worship attendance had increased from 90-100 to 190-195 over the course of the last 12 months. She's not a typical pastor, but we're seeing miraculous things happening in many churches.

If any of you know of churches that might be good candidates for participating in the grant process, please let me know. I would be delighted to consult with anyone interested in the exploring whether this coaching would be a good fit for them. If we determine that it is, I can help groups of churches prepare for participating in a coaching group.

Our website contains a couple of video interviews of pastors who have been part of Unbinding groups. (Courtesy of the Illinois Great Rivers United Methodists) Th report to the Lilly Endowment is also downloadable from the web site homepage (www.GraceNet.info). Let me know if I can be helpful to you.

Blessings,

Martha Grace Reese

Read the rest here.