Unity In Diversity

Our discussion group this week focused on “prayer.” It was not a “prayer service” per se but a discussion about how we thought, or believed or practiced prayer. We considered the place of prayer in our congregation; we looked at differences and similarities in the various attitudes we were willing to own around how our group prays. So interesting!

Our conversation roved far and wide. We talked about sacraments, invocations and benedictions, our practice of praying for friends and family, even the blessing of food at potlucks and picnics. We learned that some of us “pray” the hymns we sing. Some of us “check out” when prayer is offered because we think we don’t share understanding of “what prayer is supposed to do for us.”

Which comes to the point of this blog. How do we know what we understand if we never talk about it? How did we learn about prayer if we’ve never told each other what we think? So our discussion moved into our practice of prayer as children. We spoke of bedtime prayers and table blessings. Do some of us feel that food that hasn’t been “blessed” is less holy or less nutritious or really shouldn’t be eaten without an official “table grace”?

How has our understanding of prayer evolved? How does it evolve without intention? What do we do with this difference? Do we use different language in our public prayer? Do we judge people who pray differently, who pray “wrong”?

One of the valued gifts of our congregation is that of prayer shawl ministry. It is a regular occurrence for us to bless one or more prayer shawls that various members have made as a blessing for those with specific needs. We think of these handcrafted shawls as a warm hug for someone who needs one, whether because of ill health, or loneliness or grief. And we add our congregation’s prayer to those who made them.

Someone might ask just what happens when we pray this blessing. Is it magic? Must we lay our hands on the shawl, or is a virtual touch enough? Is the whole idea a “placebo?” How do we explain the testimonies of “success”?

This really just scratches the surface of our conversation. (We’ll probably talk some more in future.) One of MY main learnings from Tuesday’s discussion is up there in the title. As we talk about our theology we realize that we’re all on a journey and that we mostly take different routes. And yet we also know just how much we value and care for each person in our group. No matter what they believe! In fact we may value their “difference” more than we imagined. And we didn’t know that until we talked about it.

Who knew it was even possible to think of God as a mother until someone addressed their invocation to “Mother God”? Maybe this new thought began a significant moment in my faith journey.

But this might require a further conversation in a congregation like ours. I am so thankful that this is part of our identity. We’ll love you if your ideas are different but we hope you’ll be willing to talk about the difference because it’s those conversations that tie us together.

Gather Us In

Our leadership team met this Tuesday to begin planning for the new season. We’ve had a summer to rest and recharge and now it’s time for us to get back to work. Ten of us gathered to remind ourselves of where we are, how is our budget doing, how have our circumstances changed while we’ve been apart and what do we want to do next.

I’m thinking of last week’s foyer conversation about prophetic people, shared leadership, the need for dialogue and decision-making as we pick up the things we must do if we are to fulfill our mission to represent Community of Christ in this community.

Our identity has two parts: we need to look outward and feel the needs of our neighbours, and the need to gather together to support and strengthen each other.

How good it felt to be together again. To complete the circle and hear the updates each one had to share. The good news of new grandchild, the thank you note from the excited new camper, the report of the various new adventures of various extended family knitted us together. But also the health challenges, the hospital experiences, the sports injuries and the car accident also belong to us all and we are glad to be part of each other.

So here we are at the beginning of September, not exactly “back to school” but back to the familiar routine of gathering as a community, a reborn congregation. We’re in our familiar spaces surrounded by familiar faces and grateful for our shared mission, in our president’s words “to live as citizens of God’s diverse, Spirit-driven community—not for the sake of the church alone but to help restore the world to God’s vision of shalom.”

If you’ve been missing our gatherings, by all means consider this your invitation to come back. Watch for weekly updates of where we’ll be and come along. You’re welcome to join our circle; in fact, we’ve got a place just for you.

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Rebirth

This week our Tuesday discussion group looked at President Stassi Cramm’s opening letter in the latest edition of the Herald. She spoke about the world conference experience and about how the church is set to be reborn, set up to begin a new era with energy and hope. It felt very much like a reflection of what our small group has been experiencing in the past year, and more.

Her reflections on the conference and on the gathered community rang true for us. “We don’t feel like a church that is dying, but one that is being reborn.” As we sold our building and moved into the neigbourhood we fielded many such comments about our future. Friends commiserated and offered sympathy for what they believed must be our sadness. But we weren’t sad. We felt only hope and possibility as we moved into the unknown. And now we hear those feelings echoed in this letter from our new prophet-president.

She speaks of a need to live inside the surrounding culture, to exemplify what it means to live our enduring principles, not just affirm or preach them. To signal how compassion and sharing and advocating for justice can change us all.

References to a new way of operating felt encouraging too. Leadership must be shared. Our decisions come from dialogue, of consensus building, of trying out new ideas and projects that change our extended community for the better.

Resolutions emerging from World Conference were different. They didn’t give instructions on “what to do” but should be seen as “beacons, guiding our path” and calling us all to find that prophetic voice in ourselves. The call to live as “a prophetic, collaborative people.”

Next week we will pick up the traces and get busy on our new season. Our leadership team, which really represents the whole group will work on plans for the rest of the year. Our budget will be modified to add things we want to do. And our gatherings will get plugged into the calendar. Hopefully we can live up to the guidelines Stassi offered: living as possibility people, imagining new and hopeful futures, with the momentum to respond to the Pentecost experience.

Not because we are better than the community that surrounds us but that we are part of that community. We all have access to that Spirit if we are open to it. And as prophetic people we choose to show the way.