Back to School

It seems that everyone is obsessing with going back to school. Even those of us who left school decades ago. It’s in the air. Stores are filled with ”bts” shoppers. Traffic patterns are changing as people leave work early to get to those malls before closing. (Do they ever really close?) And woe to those of us who forget and get caught on our trips out to the doctor or other normal appointments. Must remember to avoid every route around this “move in weekend” at the university!

All this to say that it seems there’s nobody chatting in the Foyer this week! Nothing to say. Must be all the distractions of end-of-summer, back-to-school time. Sorry folks. Maybe next week.

Good luck!

Laugh and play and sing

We had our church picnic at the farm last Sunday. We missed you. It was great! The rain overnight meant that the humidity had broken and the sun was not so hot. Plenty of shade and big fluffy clouds made it the perfect day for a picnic. What a time we had!

Cheryl and Gladys won the mother/daughter three- legged race. Though Jennifer and Diana and Marion and Barbara were close behind. Ed easily took the sack race. Must be his farming background. And Dennis was the clear canon-ball champ. Dorothy stayed on the stilts for the longest time while Diana caught the most caterpillars. Who did I miss?

The food was perfect for all our crazy gluten-free, vegan, no sugar needs but there was also plenty of everybody’s favourite picnic food. And the rain clouds went around us while we visited in a cozy circle for a couple of hours. Thanks to Jennifer and Jacob and Danny for the wonderful hospitality.

Last week we talked about the very serious team that gets serious things done. But this week we remembered that any team also needs to take the time to have fun. And fun we had. We try never to forget to “Be faithful to the spirit of the Restoration, mindful that it is a spirit of adventure, openness, and searching. Walk proudly and with a quickened step. Be a joyful people. Laugh and play and sing, embodying the hope and freedom of the gospel.” D&C 161:1.

We’ll do this again. We hope you can make it next time.

Where Do Ideas Come From?

I happened to catch a Massey lecture about Ursula Frankin (an amazing Canadian; look her up) that gave me an idea for this week’s Foyer posting. Where do our ideas come from? We’ve had many new ideas in the last year, and the years leading up to our reinvention of our congregation. People have asked this very question. Where do you get your ideas?

Ursula was clearly a genius who worked across a number of fields – physics, pacificism, journalism, feminism, education. So she had lots of ideas and even wrote some about where she got her ideas. He response reminded me of our little group, particularly our leadership team.

One critical element was conversation. She advocated for lots of discussion among people with varying perspectives; then go deep to find the kernels you haven’t noticed before and elaborate. We do this all the time. If you follow us here you must have noticed that this is key to our new identity.

The next thing she spoke of was also interesting. She called her Quaker faith with its emphasis on silent worship vital to her MO. We need this regular practice of sitting in silence, waiting upon God, as important. It creates space for ideas to come. She didn’t wait “for” God to give her ideas, but of creating space to let the ideas in.

Our leadership team is great at ideas. We could sit around and come up with ideas all day long. It took us some time to discover a couple of other key components. We’re lucky to have these as well. But ideas alone don’t do it. An idea is not enough.

We’ve got an encourager; someone who routinely reacts to our ideas with a “Great idea! You guys are amazing! Yes, yes, we should do it! How can I help?”

Now you would think that should be enough. But it isn’t and it wasn’t for a very long time. Because we didn’t have enough “do-ers.” We had willing workers, helpers. But our idea people were already lining up a new set of ideas that would be fun or interesting. And our encourager would love them all.

Finally the one we needed arrived and went to work. When the encourager said, Yes, great idea, and the followers lined up to help, the Do-er stepped up with the right questions to form a real plan; the budget issues and questions got dealt with and the idea people moved from one more good idea to “Give me job and let’s begin.”

It took us all to move us all. “Do-er” readily admits they don’t know where the ideas come from. “Encourager” will always support and encourage everyone (I suspect even a bad idea, but of course we’ve never had one of those.) We have willing helpers, and if we don’t have enough of them, “do-er” will figure out how to get the job done with the resources we have.

So there is the secret sauce for how to reinvent your congregation. Put the right people on your leadership team and let them get to work doing what they do best.
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Useful Links
Community of Christ World Headquarters
Canada East Mission
Herald House Worship Resources
Daily Bread
Toronto Centre Place
Brian Carwana: ReligionsGeek
Encounter World Religions
World Accord
Children's Foundation of Guelph and Wellington
Hope House
Suzuki Early Childhood Music Classes

Remember

This is an important word for us as Christians, as members of the community. At our recent communion we remembered the last supper; we repeated the prayer words “that we might always remember Him, that we might always have His spirit to be with [us].” We recall the story where Jesus said “Do this in remembrance of me.”

We recently spent a discussion hour thinking about “Remember the Sabbath day” and instruction to “keep it holy.”

I’m using lots more quotation marks than usual today. Because there are plenty of phrases we use exactly the same, every time, word for word to ensure we “remember” their significance. The communion prayer, the baptism statement, the essential sentence in the marriage ceremony. Some are unique to our denomination, some we share with other Christians.

Other Christians use other remembering tools: crucifixes, rosaries, head covering, forms and numbers of sacraments. But essentially their function is the same. They help us remember who we are, whose we are. They are all for us to internalize our identity as followers of Jesus. And the variations have developed over the centuries to nail that identity firm and fast.

Why then are Christians so quick to criticize the very same, very human tendency to create words, and rituals and symbols of other faith groups to do the same thing? So many practices that we ought to easily recognize are often the very things we object to.

We make rules, even laws, against wearing veils, turbans, religious symbols. We regard things like mezuzahs, prayer beads, karas, and kipahs with suspicion. We judge people who observe Fridays or Saturdays as special.

I once had a conversation with a dear friend, a priesthood member, who was very critical of people who use a rosary as a prayer aid. He could not believe the repetition of memorized words could ever be considered “real prayer.” He actually called it a “pretense of prayer.” And yet more that half the world’s religions remember who they are when they run their prayer beads through their hands, and familiar words through their minds. Who am I to deny that?

That turban-wearing bus driver doesn’t expect anything of you at all. That elderly woman on the park bench quietly saying her rosary to herself isn’t expecting any change in your behavior. That girl in a head cover playing soccer doesn’t’ deserve the jeers from the Christian dad on the sidelines. They are all just remembering who they are. Just like we are when promise to “always remember him and keep his commandments.,,,” Commandments like “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

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