It's all about community, Part II

There was a contagious buzz in the air. We had just shared a prayer of confession with one another and now we're invited to share a sign of peace. As the centre aisle filled with people shaking hands, hugging, and greeting each other, there was a sense that this weekly moment defines this community. There was a true sense of shalom as people from many nations and tongues expressed a hope for true peace and reconciliation. This was my experience of Church of All Nations, a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation in metro Minneapolis. They are living out what we aspire to be as The United Church of Canada. We talk about becoming an intercultural church. They are living intercultural church. Planted by a local Korean Presbyterian congregation, the flags that hang from the sanctuary ceiling captures the diversity that has organically evolved here. The staff, mostly volunteer, are a United Nations of roles and backgrounds. But they all have one purpose - being a community shaped for outreach.



As we shared over a cup of coffee in their "Corner Cafe", Jin, the pastor, expressed how their life together was not an end in itself but was to help them do the work of Jesus in the world. They describe themselves as a low anxiety, high risk community. It's about creating a space where people can be their authentic selves, sharing who they are so that together they can risk confronting the legacy of empire in our relationships and world. As I listened to Jin, I was reminded that we don't form a community of faith as an end in itself but gather to help one another grow as disciples, called out into the community to show compassion, share love, work for reconciliation and peace. We worship together reflecting together the rule of G-d we long for. We study together, applying the way of Jesus in our day to day. We confess our faults, acknowledging our own contributions to hurt and oppression in the world. It's all about community - shaped for outreach in the world.

This is the core of The Meeting House huddles and home churches. To help people become more Christ like, so that they can live his transforming mission in the world. This is the core of the covenant made by members of the Jeremiah Community. To be a presence of love and grace in their neighbourhoods. This is what the supportive services of Tree of Life are about. To witness to the power of authentic community. As Heather shared with me, that kind of community hits too close to home for some. There are very few white families who stick it out in this intercultural community. Sticking it out means getting your hands dirty. It means not just talking about poverty but helping someone who is poor. It means confronting your own racism when you feel uncomfortable with your children's playmates. Which means most white families wander back to churches that look more like them.



At Church of All Nations, there's a greater desire to stick it out. Initially majority Korean, for the longest time there was no majority racial group. Recently the congregation has become 52% white. As I ponder the stickability here and not at Tree of Life, I suspect it has a lot to do with Jin's leadership. "I think white people carry a great burden," he says to me. "White people are constantly told that the imperial culture they helped create is the best in the world. They need to justify a system that's killing us. That's really difficult to do." And so they have healing services 4 or 5 times a year. The services aren't about the burden of empire, but I'm sure they help those burdened because of it. They create a space for a compassionate response as we all confront the system together. This kind of compassion is critical if we are going to do the critical engagement we need to do. This is why.

As part of my sabbatical, I've taken advantage of AirBnB, an online service of people who are willing to rent out rooms in their homes for generally reasonable rates. For the most part it's gone well but in Minneapolis what I'd been dreading happened. I pulled up to a house overrun with weeds. There was a random toilet and sink in the front room and a scary bathroom in the basement. The room I was staying in was at the top of a very steep flight of stairs with no door. As I went to bed, I questioned why I was staying there. "Because it's cheap and I'm in the Twin Cities for a week," I reminded myself. When I got up, I mentally crossed off a day in my mental calendar. With Solomon's Porch closed until Sunday, I had two days to kill. I stayed away from the house as long as I could, going from coffee shop to coffee shop for warmth and WiFi. I sat down in the local McDonald's noting I was the lone white person in a predominantly Black and Latino crowd. That was It got me thinking about race relations, the reality of a racialized underclass on both sides of the border, and the privilege I have as a white male. When I finally saw Doug he offered me a place to stay. I said yes right away but as I drove away from my host's home I felt guilty. I was in a position of privilege, able to find more comfortable digs. Others in that neighbourhood had no such luck.

And that's the rub of it. In that moment I came face to face with the paralysis that can grip us when we want to confront the injustices of our world. It was a form of social paralysis that made it so difficult for more privileged families in South Bend to keep going to Tree of Life. It's a mental paralysis that keeps so many of us from learning about inadequate housing, indemic poverty and other indigenous issues. It's an emotional paralysis that kept me beating myself up for most of the evening. It's a spiritual paralysis that holds us from confronting the core issues of our world.

And so Church of All Nations includes healing services as part of their ministry, responding with compassion to all of their members, each in their own way carrying the burden of an unjust, imperial system. They understand that we need supportive community if we are going to do the hard work of living the Way of Jesus. We need micro-community if we are going to live into the macro-community otherwise known as the kingdom of G-d.

It's all about community

This past week I wrapped up the Ontario, NE USA portion of my grand pilgrimage, visiting with folks in three worshipping communities, one in Burlington, one in Toronto and one in South Bend, Indiana (barely still the NE, maybe just in the Midwest, but for the purposes of this post...). As I reflect on my experiences, I continue to be struck by the importance of community, a foundational value for what I experienced in London and Philadelphia as well. In each case, worship is important but only inasmuch as it facilitates community.

As I posted earlier, at Trinity in London, a critical part of the service is the naming of birthdays, anniversaries, bereavements, etc. It's not a long part of the service but one which is clearly owned by that community. They truly know and care for each other, and as an outsider, it was inviting.

At Broad Street in Philly, a key portion of their life together is the six day a week meal ministry. Because many of the people who come for a meal are vulnerable people, creating a sense of community is key to offering respect and dignity. People are welcomed as they would be to a restaurant and invited to wait until a seat is ready. The waiting area is arranged so that people can converse while they wait. This sense of connection is critical to folks otherwise invisible in their daily lives.

The Meeting House in Burlington is one of sixteen worshipping communities across Southwestern Ontario. They are mobile communities, coming together in movie theatres. The service is fairly typical of Evangelical communities. Except of course that the message is broadcast by video. This isn't about saving money. It's about community. By having one teaching pastor over sixteen sites, the regional pastors can focus on pastoring pastors. The focus of The Meeting House is house churches, groups of 10-12, further broken down into 3-4 member huddles. This is where church happens, in relationships of support and accountability. The regional pastors focus on empowering leaders and helping them offer care. Their focus is on becoming more Christ-like, so that as his followers we can bring healing to the world. 

The Jeremiah Community in Parkdale in Toronto is an Anglican intentional community. They don't live together but are in community nevertheless. While living separately, several families and singles enter year long covenants where they pledge to worship, pray and be present to each other and their neighbours. They form community with each other but not as an end itself but to be a gift to others. 

My final visit was in South Bend at Tree of Life. This was an add-on, a visit en route between Toronto and Minneapolis, but a gift. Heather and Justice are a couple who have planted a neighbourhood church almost by accident. They began by simply getting to know their neighbours. As time went on and relationships deepened, they began praying together and offering a kids club to neighbourhood children and youth. Nothing special except this is an exceptionally poor and underserved neighbourhood in South Bend, the chosen placement area for refugee families. It's a diverse neighbourhood of people from all over the world, and this church has become a significant vehicle for support and care, a place where different cultures, languages and life experiences are affirmed. This is lived out on a Sunday, especially as they form small clusters of three or four during the prayers of the people. As they pray for and with each other, they express what true community looks like.

These were very different groups from each other. Evangelical, Presbyterian, Anglican, United Church. Suburban, inner city, urban, small town. But different as they were, supportive and accountable community is foundational to each of them. They believe that being in community is the best way to live out the Christian message. Given that Jesus made circles of friends foundational to his ministry, I suspect they're all on to something.

The Philadelphia Experiment

As I drove from London to Philadelphia I questioned my sanity. My schedule had shifted and I was now going to be in Philly earlier than planned, and for half the time. Nine hundred km is a long way to drive for two and a half days. But along with my plan to meet up with Lydia and Jim, United Methodist elders I'd met in Phoenix last winter, I'd made a commitment to visit with my cousins.

As I sat down with Lydia for coffee and a scone, my earlier self doubt resurfaced. "Starting Point has folded. We gave it a good run but have discerned that it's time to step away. We're just not getting the critical mass." I knew Lydia was taking a break but I didn't know they were folding completely. What was the point of my being there? "Eight out of ten new ministries close. That's part of church planting," she said. "Fortunately I've had some successes too." I breathed a sigh of relief. "Let's talk about successes and failures," I suggested.

And we did just that. We talked about the importance of a clear core vision, and the willingness to adapt the how of the vision over time. We talked about advertising and "previews" of the worship. And we talked about Christian Base Communities.

It was here that Lydia really lit up. Clearly the times she had worked as a lay urban missionary held her heart. She had formed small groups of people who met regularly to reflect on their life circumstances and local issues, and through biblical analysis, reflected on how G-d was calling them to respond. When I was in seminary I'd written a paper on base communities in Latin America. I'd heard of their formation in North America, but here was someone with first hand experience. "It's important to connect these groups to a worshipping community or you end up leading that part and the next thing you know that takes all of your focus," she reflected. "Worship is important but only in its way of helping us renew the world around us."

Social justice was the focus of the conversation the following evening with Jim, Lydia and Robin. Robin's congregation had been part of a redevelopment project. "What is your mission?" Robin asked as we discussed possible property redevelopments in Edmonton Presbytery. "If your main call isn't going out into the community to lift up the disenfranchised then you might as well quit what you're doing." Together we spoke of the transformative power of the gospel, of the need to stop pulling out of impoverished neighborhoods and find ways to share resources across the church to fund ministries with the most vulnerable. As they shared about a congregation which had closed its church but maintained its manse in order to keep a pastoral presence in the community, I wondered how we could do the same in Edmonton.

Andy at Broad Street Ministry is downtown Philly echoed that emotion. "We're too focused on people who can 'afford' the gospel. Downtown churches are valuable not just for their real estate but for the work we can do with the most in need." Similar to First United in East Vancouver, BSM offers meals, postal service, support to the city's disenfranchised. Reopened in 2005, BSM is registered as a not-for-profit rather than as a church. The church is located in the arts district, close to students, artists and the LGBTQ community. Bill Golderer, BSM's founder invited this cohort to worship and a meal. They showed up, along with the homeless, troubled and mentally ill. And it works. They offer art therapy as well as support services. They worship and serve. They reach out to partners in the community. They witness to the power of showing respect and love to people who have been traumatized - be it the marginally housed, veterans suffering with PTSD, or the LGBTQ community.

As if to bring it home, the need to connect was the main theme of my conversation with Tuomi of "Partners for Sacred Places". Congregations place a lot of focus on our buildings and this is understandable. They are the carrier of our family stories. They are where we've had weddings and baptisms, been supported in times of crisis and celebrated as communities in Christ. Tuomi explained to me how our buildings also carry social value, not just for their heritage and green spaces but also their economic spinoffs. We have great spaces but now they are under utilised. We have an opportunity though to reach out to possible partners in the community who are looking for space, be it arts groups, justice groups, or groups working with youth, children or seniors. We are called to be community centres again. And the synergy created makes these partnerships a win-win.

I left Philly with much to digest. My stomach was full because I grabbed a cheesesteak on my way out. But more importantly my heart was full of possibilities for connections and community.

Small changes can net big results

My past Sunday was a two-fer, that is I visited with two London churches for their worship services. They're both United Church congregations and are growing. They're not making bread or worshipping in a bar. They're not sitting around tables with coffee or playing goth music. Just goes to show not every success is about making big changes. Instead, they have made smaller changes that are bearing fruit.

The major change that Riverside made was adding a second service, the 844. It's a pared  down, reflective, acoustic service. What struck me most about that worship though was the degree of lay leadership. Several people helped lead prayers. The reflection was broken up into a series offered by both children and adults. Everyone was very engaged. This seems to be the tone they set each week and it's paid off. People come because they enjoy the folk quality of the music and because they feel connected to G-d through each other.

Trinity has only one service but it has doubled in attendance. Again, there is shared leadership and a great sense of community. Time is taken to acknowledge birthdays and other events, to pray for specific concerns, to affirm supportive relationships. Music is a big part of this service, drawn from multiple sources - everything from Pearl Jam to praise choruses to traditional hymns.

What most struck me though was the sense of inclusion for people wherever they are at in their journey. Calling themselves the golden rule church, they have one rule - treat others as you wish to be treated. Simple but effective. The tone was set with this one statement: "No matter who you are or what you believe, you are welcome. We ask only that you believe in kindness. Here you are a partner not a project." I loved that. Not a big change in format but a profound change in attitude.

Both congregations were focused on creating communities where everyone felt affirmed, everyone felt they could contribute, everyone felt they belonged.

Not huge changes but profound just the same.

Learning to let go

There's nothing like Southern Ontario in the autumn. Amazing coloured leaves. Crisp air. Bright blue skies. A walk along the Thames River gave me a chance to process recent conversations and to listen with my heart to what Spirit is whispering.

There were two conversations in particular to work through. The first was with a friend from the Sault. I first met Jason when I was still a priest and I was accompanying a group of youth and adults to World Youth Day in Toronto. While not a Catholic, he and his wife had nevertheless offered to billet people and they welcomed me and another leader into their home. Thirteen years later here I was again, but now I am a United Church minister and he is single.

When I shared with him my journey, he was very excited. He was anxious to have a conversation about LGBTQ inclusion. He was working through the issues and trusted me as a man of faith. All seemed to go well until he dropped the usual "I want to withhold judgement but the bible clearly says..." statement. I tried to offer alternative lens with which to view the "clobber passages", especially Leviticus. It's the divine order he claimed. It's natural law. And who discerns what is the divine order, what is natural, I proffered. The good will was slowly ebbing away. I gently offered that if he really wanted to suspend judgement he needed to step back and recognize that as a heterosexual man he needed to listen more and judge less if he was really going to offer the compassion he wanted to. He countered my " check your privilege" statement with a call to recognize my own privilege, the gift of hearing him in a spirit of loving kindness. In that moment I recognized that I was judging him as much as he was judging me. I needed to be open and let go of my defensiveness. I may not agree with his theology, but I needed to see he was trying. We parted on good terms and I continued on my way to London.

While here, I visited with a UCC lay minister who has been working with a number of rural congregations and helping them to come together as one cluster. In our conversation he spoke about why he had chosen to be a designated lay minister rather than be ordained. In terms of our roles in a congregation, there are few differences. His rationale floored me. It was because of ego. He understood himself well enough to know that even though we are both called in servanthood, the tendency for ordained ministers to be put on a pedestal would be detrimental to him spiritually. The need to seek permission to offer sacraments on a call to call basis helps him keep his ego in check. Such an interesting perspective. He knew that to be a servant he needed a mechanism to help him let go of his ego. Wow.

As I walked through the woods and kicked the fallen leaves along the path, I was struck by the ongoing need for letting go. As the leaves fall to make way for new growth, so I need to let go of my own ego in order for G-d to grow in me.

The same is true for us as church. One of the reasons for our present predicament is our failure to let go of our "tried and true" approaches as the culture has changed around us. If we are going to experience new life, we will need to let go of our collective ego, listen to others with loving kindness, and be a servant rather than a judge.

At least that's what I'm thinking so far. I may need to let go of those thoughts as well.

Connexional Worship

A unifying characteristic of the fresh expressions of church I visited in the UK was the commitment to being church in context. Now Trinity United Church in Thunder Bay is not technically a fresh expression because the main emphasis is not reaching out to people who have never or no longer connect with a church. And yet Rev. Randy and his congregation are doing something fresh in its truest sense. In the particular context of Northern Ontario and the unique circumstances of distance and isolation they are connecting various worshipping communities together. Using technology, those who would not be able to worship otherwise, now do so fully.

When I arrived at the church, I wasn't sure what to expect. Would there be cameras everywhere and multiple screens? Thankfully no. They would have seemed out of context in a century old stone and timber church. Rather there are small cameras unobtrusively dotted around the sanctuary and one large screen set up at the back of the chancel. In front was the communion table prepared with the elements. This was Worldwide Communion Sunday, shared between 3 congregations with only one minister.

The service began normally enough.  Apart from the projected numbers counting down behind Randy, it could have been a worship service back home. Randy offered announcements specific to Trinity while worship leaders in Nipigon and at Broadway (just outside Thunder Bay) did the same. And yet the connections they're making was also clear as Randy announced a fall supper taking place at one of the six congregations connected through live streaming (they don't all connect every week).

As the clock reached 0, a rousing organ, and a piano, began to play. We rose to sing together. I looked around and noticed that the pianist was wearing headphones.  She was playing along as the organ music was livestreamed in from one of the other churches. Then as we sat down to share the Call to Worship, it was led remotely by a leader in another of the churches. The service continued in this vein. We were experiencing what Randy illustrated in the children's time when he read just one page cut away from a picture book. Just as you need more than one page to hear the whole story, we aren't church fully unless we are in connexion with each other.

Communion reinforced this reality. As we moved forward to share in the elements, images of the other congregations were projected on the screen. We were disconnected from each other and yet we were truly together sharing at one table.

I am very glad I decided to travel to Toronto the longer way around. I may have shaved off some hours of driving through the vast forested expanse of Northern Ontario, but I would have missed an experience of church rooted in the unique context of this geography.  They had responded to their context. We all need to do the same.

From Darkness to Light

It may seem odd to recover from jet lag 14 hours drive from home, but it made sense when I planned the North American leg of my grand pilgrimage. I needed to cross 2 provinces to get to my next sabbatical stop, so why not take it abit more slowly and stop with friends at Clearwater Lake just outside The Pas, and a couple more on an acreage just outside Winnipeg. Both visits were relaxing and renewing as I reconnected with good friends over good wine and even better food.

While I was in the Winnipeg area, I decided to visit the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. It's an interesting building to look at from the outside, rising to a viewing tower in the centre. It's even more interesting when experienced from within, the architecture of the building intended to help shape the visitor's experience.

This shaping begins even before you enter the building. As you approach the doors you descend slightly between two imposing slab walls. You begin to feel a sense of oppression which continues as you enter the dark, windowless ground floor. But you are about to begin a journey out of that darkness and into light. This journey is imaged architecturally in 2 ways. First, the ramps you walk up are sided by illuminated white marble. You can see these ramps crisscrossing above you, drawing you upward on your journey. Second, each ascending level of the museum is less dark. Ironically, at first this movement into greater light architecturally is matched with a darkening of the subject matter, especially the galleries about genocide. Again, this feels intentional. You can only come into the light of knowledge by facing the darkness of human injustice and violence. Slowly, you climb out of this, encountering galleries not just about the dark chapters of our history, but also what we have done and can do to make the world a more just and humane place. At the end of your journey you can climb the tower to look out on the Winnipeg cityscape beneath the wide open Manitoba sky.

One of the interesting dynamics of the museum is that for the most part galleries are not dedicated to a particular overarching rights issue, like sexism or racism towards the black community, but rather story based vignettes about these issues. Experienced in a more diffuse manner, you experience the broader narratives as part of this movement from dark chapters to more enlightened approaches. An example is the case of Jeannette Corbiere  Lavelle, who after losing her status when she married a non-Indigenous man, brought a Supreme Court challenge to the sexism of the Indian Act. This exhibit highlights both gender and Indigenous rights.

There is an exception to this approach in terms of the galleries focused on genocide. As you come off the ramp onto the level dedicated to this topic, you pass through a section exploring the history of the Shoah (Holocaust). You can't sidestep this section, nor should you. But because other "isms" are explored more diffusely in exhibits about segregation, or the Chinese head tax, or the evolving rights of persons with disabilities, it becomes clear that an opportunity is missed in terms of facing the more comprehensive realities of Canada's  treatment of women, or the Black community, and most especially Indigenous people.

If you had to pass through an exhibit about our historical treatment of Indigenous people, as part an overarching exploration of colonialism, I'd feel more at ease. But you can choose whether or not to view the gallery about Indian Residential Schools, or Metis issues, or the experience of Inuit. As you listen to personal stories, you can opt to hear about children's rights or LGBTQ issues, and ignore Indigenous concerns. But you can't sidestep the gallery about The Shoah. As important as it is that we face that dark chapter of our history, including Canada's anti-Semitic past, it's equally imperative for us to come face to face with our historical, and ongoing, racism in regard to Indigenous people.

Unless we come face to face with our ongoing Canadian shadow, we will never reach the future vision expressed in the Tower of Hope.