As I have begun my work in the Church, I have been fortunate enough to stumble into communities of like-minded people. I serve a wonderful congregation, have been blessed with the friendship of fellow young clergy, and have been welcomed by several of my more seasoned colleagues into the ministries of the higher governing bodies of my denomination. I have been particularly encouraged by the work of The Synod of the Northeast to reinvent and re-imagine what a synod (the third most comprehensive of the PC(USA)'s four levels of governance) is and to figure out what unique service it can offer to the well-being of the Church. In discerning a new way forward, the Synod of the Northeast has chosen to embrace the wealth of diversity within our midst, working to find ways to discover and draw upon the wonderful gifts already present in our communities, and helping the Church to focus on the mission and ministry Christ has called us to do, channeling our energy and giftedness toward fulfilling these purposes.
I cannot tell you how excited I am! It's like discovering a team of people working to translate my forgotten native language into English!
Together we have begun to put words to those deep things we feel and are convinced we know even though we don't know how to describe them. And as we learn to speak these truths aloud, we begin to feel less crazy and we discover that the tiny bit of life we sensed was buried deep down there in the darkness is not tiny at all, but a strong subterranean stream. This fills us with joy and hope, and gives us the determination and energy we need to keep moving forward in this work. We sense there really will be a time when this stream will bubble up to the surface and spill out into the light of day, becoming apparent and a source of life to all.
In the meantime it's hard work. We cherish these little splashes of light, these times together, these sustaining relationships. And I'm so excited that the work of the Synod of the Northeast is actively endeavoring to encourage this! The water is starting to bubble toward the surface.
I have been particularly blessed by the invitation to participate in this developing work. The Synod has discerned a need to direct some specific attention toward encouraging and cultivating emerging leaders -- young people (mid-20s and 30s), ordained and non-ordained, in traditional and non-traditional ministries alike -- and a small group of us were gathered to help figure out what this might mean.
Our conversations have often been freewheeling, covering so many facets of what it's like to learn how to lead in the church and the world that are unfolding, often caught between old realities and new, struggling to help people acknowledge, understand, and embrace changes and challenges they do not yet have a framework by which to begin to make sense of them. We share one another's frustrations, sorrows, puzzlement, excitement, hopes, and celebrations. We help each other to bear challenges and burdens by offering an understanding ear, words of encouragement, and assurance we are not alone in the way we see things. We exchange ideas, we practice naming our truths and describing them in fresh ways. Being together helps us name our various experiences of exile, to identify their components, reclaim a bit of our identities, and to see the native and the foreign for what they are so we can more consciously begin to build our houses, plant our gardens, and seek the welfare of our places of exile.
This has been such a gift! And as a group we try to take a step back, look over our conversation, and ask ourselves what it is that has been so helpful and in what ways our individual stories reveal the common needs and experiences of emerging leaders in general. As we've mulled over these things and simply been grateful for the gift this community has been for us and the ways it has revived and sustained us, we've wanted this for others also. And that is what we're trying to figure out how to do. That's what we hope the gathering we are planning for October 2014 will provide for those who join us.
As we reflected, we realized that our time together has helped to renew our ability to fulfill our (deacons, ruling elders, and teaching elders/ministers alike) ordination vow to "seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love" (W-4.4003h).
I love that particular ordination vow, it's my favorite! Those four things are inspiring qualities to bring to ministry, and the ones that make it fun and fulfilling! They are also the ones that can get squelched down and squeezed out as we face challenges, daily minutia, grow weary, face disillusionment, and approach burn-out -- even though they are the qualities we need to make our way through those things. Energy, intelligence, imagination, and love can be hard to maintain alone, but good community can help -- as we experienced together! We need these qualities perhaps now more than ever as we navigate the changing landscape of our culture and discern what the Church is called to do and be next. And so we also need one another.
As the group I've been working with plans for the October gathering, we've decided we want our focus to be on reawakening these qualities of energy, intelligence, imagination, and love. (We're even going to use the Book of Order reference as the hashtag -- #W44003h -- for the event!) We will be organizing our activities and conversations around the processes we've experienced as a group help us do this. I'm already excited! I can't wait to share this kind of community and these kinds of conversations with even more great colleagues! I am looking forward to discovering the ways we can support one another better and do the work God has called us to do more collaboratively.
It's things like this that move us little by little out of our exile and closer toward the new places of belonging God is preparing us for. We may indeed be in the far country, but we are not alone. God is still with us and is also drawing us into the communities we need to persist. And though we may feel like we are wandering at times, Christ is nevertheless leading us forward, toward the lebenslanger schicksalschatz, toward the fulfillment and belonging of home!
This is a 3-part series, continue reading for the rest of the story:
Finding Home in Exile - Part 1
Finding Home in Exile - Part 2
Finding Home in Exile - Part 3
No comments:
Post a Comment