Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada

The Emerging Spirit project will officially end on December 31, 2010.

As part of the closing of the project we gathered those who had presented workshops, under the banner of the project, from all across the country. Not all could attend but 35 gathered at Church House November 23-24, 2010. This reflection formed part of the closing worship.

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During the past few years we have been proclaiming that the prime story of our time is not that the church is dysfunctional or in decline but that God is at work and inviting us to write a new chapter in the story of God’s people.

We have used, until it wilts from exhaustion, the quote from Loren Mead:

We are at the front edges of the greatest transformation of the church that has occurred for 1,600 years. It is by far the greatest change that the church has ever experienced in America; it may eventually make the transformation of the Reformation look like a ripple in a pond.

If it is true that we are being called forward, it will not be the first time that we, as the people of God, are called to be on the move. Our earliest stories are of a people on the move.

iWonder offers an opportunity for relationship-building conversation about our beliefs, perspectives, and understanding of life.

Based on the interactive discussion experience of WonderCafe.ca, iWonder uses a multimedia approach to help spark conversations in your congregation and community about faith issues and offers the occasion to explore a range of perspectives. 

iWonder discussions take place on WonderCafe discussion threads, through on-line video, and face-to-face using iWonder postcards (free to United Church congregations, while supplies last).

This video montage collects samples from iWonder video interviews done in Hamilton, Ont. this fall. Participants are offering their responses to iWonder's current slate of questions, including:

This is so cool. 1Hope is a United Church-related group of outreach ministries in Winnipeg. 

From the YouTube post:

Hope and harmony came together in Winnipeg's core when hundreds of people gathered for a Flash Mob to raise awareness for 1Hope Winnipeg.

The Flash Mob took place at Portage Place over the lunch hour and featured local hip hop artists Sadie and Bubba B, who teamed up to sing 'My World' - a song they've gifted to 1Hope Winnipeg. You can purchase the song at http://1hopewinnipeg.com/myworld/

Help create change in your city - one step at a time. Together, we can give hope.

In a couple of weeks I am to begin a series of presentations named "Stepping Further Out" (Ottawa - Oct 27; Calgary - Oct 30; Vancouver - Nov 6). As a way of summarizing the past I am flirting with these paragraphs. I wonder though whether it is too harsh, not tough enough or just true. I'd appreciate any comments. Thanks.

Three years ago, the situations of The United Church of Canada and General Motors had a lot in common.

Although we made gestures, in the form of motions and policy formation, and talked a lot about innovation we did not really appreciate the depth and speed of a rapidly changing context. We operated with varying degrees of a sense of entitlement, our dealers/paid accountable leaders had grown accustomed to a certain degree of “loyalty” from their customers/parishioners and were fundamentally confused by this new reality. Our engagement with the public realm had become sloganistic and we were locked into one “product line”/definition of what it means to be a “justice church.” The organizational structure born in the age of industrialism and refined in the time of institutionalization and incorporation not only proved in adequate to the challenge but, in many cases, inhibited innovation and creative response at the local level, despite being populated by good people with good intentions who worked hard at what they perceived to be the task. Research and development of alternate ways had some support and some exciting prototypes of innovation were pumped up at the yearly trade shows or conference meetings but generally business continued as usual. Some voices tried to point to a context/market that was changing in fundamental ways but there was little sense of urgency within the organization. The result was that people, many people, were hurt and, in the case of the United Church, God’s intentions neutered.

The good old days of The United Church of Canada (and General Motors) predated the arrival of The Beatles and the mythology surrounding “those days” was often as representative of the real church as The Cleavers were of a real family. Certainly the numbers, the prime criteria of ministerial success and proof of God’s celebrity endorsement, were highest a half century ago but the church then was far from ideal.

Originally published at KeithHoward.ca.

Part of the trouble with Emerging Spirit was not in its mandate or vision but in failing to appreciate just how difficult it is for local leadership to make significant shifts in a congregational culture. We probably should have known better - and maybe even did - but the timeframe was compact and necessitated certain choices.

By and large leaders were sympathetic to the project's analysis, message and call to radical hospitality. The challenge, in reality, lay in trying to balance the cost in time and energy it would take to engage that question with all the other voices demanding attention. No one says that improving a ministry of hospitality is a bad thing but where does it fit in the lineup of things we should do, like looking at the governance system, renovating the worship service, training leaders, meeting the budget, visiting the sick and doing all the things necessary to keep an old way of being church on its feet while being open to something new. For many there just wasn't time or energy even though we heard 'Amens' from their lips and spirits. (Part of me is still not convinced that making hospitality a priority really takes as much time as it does a commitment but more of that in another blog. For now, I concede the point that it takes time which leaders feel they do not have.)

Take a look at the trailer, or "sizzle reel", that WonderCafe is pitching to media outlets in hopes of making a full-length documentary on the positive spiritual based street art movement happening around the world.

Brought to you by Wondercafe.ca and First United Church Mission, the Paint Your Faith project hit the city of Vancouver in April 2010 with a stunning display of contemporary street art.

Working as collective, four internationally acclaimed aerosol artists -- Faith47 (South Africa), Titi Freak (Brazil), Peeta (Italy), and Vancouver's own Indigo -- brought their own expressions of faith to a unique and inspiring mural on the city's Downtown Eastside. As it was being created, the mural became a sign of hope for the DTES, bringing together the community in new and surprising ways.

For more information, see www.paintyourfaith.ca, or you can visit the Paint Your Faith Vancouver mural at 55-57 W. Hastings Street, across from the Woodwards Building.

Photo: Mathieu Struck*

The modern age was ushered in by the Enlightenment (mid-1600s to early 1800s). One characteristic of the Enlightenment framework was a rejection of tradition and religious sources of authority in favour of reason and knowledge. Over time, the modern age became wed to the idea of progress and the conviction that science had the ability to make things bigger and better and to solve any problem that arose. The deep assumption was that if and when we could control the natural world we would continue to grow in wealth, health, and leisure.

In the modern age religion became private - a personal matter between ourselves and God, a principle enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Reason and knowledge were part of the public realm - this is the time of the rise in public schools, universities, political parties, as well as capitalism. In the modern age we sought certainty, freedom, and progress.

Most of us in the church were born and raised in the modern age or by modern-age parents. At most, we will be students of the postmodern age.

Postmodernity refers to the progressive loss of confidence in the Enlightenment framework and process. Since 1945 the air has gone out of the Enlightenment balloon, with rapid deflation during the 1970s and 1980s.

Postmodernity has given birth to Green politics and anti-consumerism. Anxiety and fear seem to be more prevalent, perhaps a result of declining confidence that we can solve the challenges ahead - short and long term - through using science and reason. In the postmodern world, knowledge is no longer seen as inherently good. Alongside this culture of suspicion has also grown a new emphasis and delight in inclusivity and wonder. 

As society moves along the shift from modern to postmodern, what are some of the implications for the church and ministry?

Excerpted from the Emerging Spirit booklet, "Congregational Ministry in a New World," which can be downloaded here in full, along with study questions (log in required).

*Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathieustruck/212751235/

The Christian church seeks to be a community rooted in faith and engaged in the world.

We root ourselves in faith through worship, spiritual practices, caring for each other, and learning together. We yearn to share our faith with those we love and with a world that is hungry for spiritual food. We want our own lives to have meaning, to make a difference for good in God's world.

All of this means that God calls us into relationship with the world, all of the world, not just those people who look like us and think like us. We are called to understand this world in which God calls us to minister.

The world has changed! And you know this.

We no longer live in a world where:

Share is a website which offers how-to advice on starting, developing, and sustaining fresh expressions of church based on shared experiences. Sponsored by Fresh Expressions and ChurchArmy, two organizations based in the United Kingdom which work toward the development and renewal of Christian community, the Share site is a resource for those involved with innovative expressions of church.

Among Share's growing list of resources includes a helpful overview of café-style churches which are growing in popularity in many places. Share looks at a variety of café / church hybrids, including café-style events on church premises, Christian events in commercial cafés, commercial cafés run by Christians, and doing mission within existing cafés.

See the Share website for the full inspiring collection of church café ideas, as well as additional fresh expression takes on rural ministry, workplace church, children's ministry, on-line fresh expressions, and more.

If you haven't done so already, please check out this video stream from The United Church of Canada's 85th Anniversary service, held June 20, at the More Franchises event in Toronto. 

You can also check out the insights from More Franchise participants on the Twitter stream #ucc85 or #mf2.

When aerosol artist Chor Boogie, who was part of the original Paint Your Faith event in Toronto, showed up at the recent Vancouver PYF event, no one expected him to paint. He had come to Vancouver to share his art at the Paint Your Faith show at Ayden Gallery and connect with PYF Vancouver artists Indigo, Titi Freak, Faith 47, and Peeta along the way while they worked on the new PYF mural.

While at the mural site, Chor also connected with Sandra Severs of First United Church Mission, which was co-sponsoring PYF Vancouver along with WonderCafe.ca. Chor asked if he could paint a section of First United's roof and Sandra said "Go for it!" And soon Chor, along with the Paint Your Faith documentary team, were climbing several levels of ladders to reach the steeple of First United Church, high above the Downtown Eastside.

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If you are falling short on ideas to attract new people to the church (during the week) you might want to look to what people are doing online.

• Digital Photography
• Social Networking
• Genealogy

In fact, the main group that is extremely active online and are into social networking today are the retiring Baby Boomers. What a great audience to attract to your church. Many of them missed the computer age, or maybe worked in a place with a computer at a "dumb terminal" and only learned what the specific work programs required and nothing more. What a great target audience to attract. Of course there are the seniors who are the biggest buyers of laptops and want to find their old friends...dead or alive! Hey, I am not joking here.

The Paint Your Faith Vancouver mural is almost ready for its big reveal, Wednesday, April 28. Even though it has rained nearly every production day (this is Vancouver after all!), the artists have been working hard right through it. 

Ann Shin, the director of a documentary being shot about the project, wrote on the Paint Your Faith blog, "Faith47 is almost finished her inspiring centre piece for the wall mural. Indigo’s 9-foot image is finished of a girl blowing a dandelion, the fluff transforms as you follow it across the mural. Titi Freak is almost done his favela/people paintings, and Peeta has started on his second piece." 

The artists' collaborative work is a stunning, one-of-a-kind mural which is already sparking conversations about the meaning of faith among passersby in the neighbourhood and those who hear about the mural on-line. When the Vancouver Sun called it a "a large religion-themed mural" and an arts blog mistakenly reported the artists were all Christians, a discussion about faith, spirituality, and religion was sparked even among the artists themselves. 

Sojourners has posted a provocative article from their May 2010 issue asking, "Is the Emerging Church for Whites Only?" The discussion about this article on Sojourners' website, as well as on several other blogs, raises important questions and insights about diversity and the emerging church. Through these conversations, roiling at times, some potential new directions and areas of growth are beginning to emerge. And as they do, more attention is being given to the reality that the emerging church is much bigger than just what is happening in North America or the handful of well-known writers and speakers who are associated with the movement.

"Is the Emerging Church for Whites Only?"
By Soong-Chan Rah and Jason Mach, with responses by Julie Clawson, Brian McLaren, and Debbie Blue.

Sojourners has also posted a number of additional responses on their God's Politics blog, including Shane Claiborne, Soong-Chan Rah, Jarrod McKenna, and Julie Clawson.

Other blogs dicussing the article:

Tony Jones: Emergent's White Problem.

Tall Skinny Kiwi: The Future