A Resurrection Sighting: Sustainable Ministries

I’ve been on the road, more or less, since the beginning of June. I have not been awesome at keeping up with blogging despite the fact that there has actually been a lot to blog about.

But I’m getting back in the groove thanks to the Acts 8 Moment BLOGFORCE Challenge to identify a resurrection sighting at General Convention. I actually went further and identified quite a few resurrection sightings from my travels – more will be forthcoming shortly! But first, #GC78.

I had too much going on at General Convention. I’m a newbie and I didn’t know any better. I was half of a booth in the Exhibit Hall for the Episcopal Faith, Food & Farm Network. I served as Alternate for the Diocese of Western Michigan. I did Acts 8 Moment organizing. And oh yeah, I wrote/recruited/edited a few blog posts.

Other people have written the big news from General Convention. Heck, there’s even an Episcopal News Service report.

So I’ll just write about a favorite moment that won’t make it into any of the big news stories: I met the Rev. Canon John Burruss. The Diocese of West Tennessee has hired him, as of just this spring, for a totally new position as Canon for Sustainable Ministries. I met him when he stopped by the Episcopal Faith, Food & Farm Network booth.

The Task Force to Reimagine the Episcopal Church called for us to follow Jesus together into our neighborhoods, traveling lightly.

Those are nice words. We want to practice them. Doing so means a shift in our thinking and acting.

But change doesn’t come easily. Especially in church. So the Diocese of West Tennessee has made a strategic investment; they have staffed to equip churches to get out into their neighborhoods.

Here’s the pastoral letter from the Bishop describing this initiative.

Q. “What is the mission of the Church?”
A. “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other through Jesus Christ.” BCP 855

…A missional ministry is one that accomplishes the mission of reconciliation as provided in the Catechism on p. 855 BCP. The purpose of this initiative is to empower communities of faith to find ways to accomplish that mission in the congregations and neighborhoods of the Diocese of West Tennessee.

Missional ministry begins with listening to neighbors…

Here’s an early post describing this work.

A community in Dayton, Ohio, expanded a small food pantry in the back of their church to become a whole community center, including a restaurant that operates on the concept of “GracEconomics,” where people pay what they can. The restaurant was self-sustaining within two weeks, and now earns more than $30,000 annually to support the community center. Through building relationships within the community, this group was able to accomplish grand things on a limited initial budget.

Here’s the announcement of a new blog being started to support the work, the blog itself, and its first post.

What if the real benefit of opening our church doors is to move ourselves out into the world to be church? How can we see our Christian identity not grounded in where we gather for few hours on a Sunday morning, but our expression of God’s love conveyed in every relationship we encounter?

This is the paradigm shift that the Church must make. An assumption can no longer be made that people will find a church to be involved in. We can no longer wait for people to come in our doors. This shift means we must leave the church in order to share the Gospel.

This is an interesting experiment. I believe the goal of the position includes enabling the congregations of the diocese become more sustainable through working for the sustainability of their wider communities. I am sure I am not the only person who is curious about how this will work.

Meanwhile, bravo to the Diocese of West Tennessee and to Rev. Canon John Burruss for imagining new ways to equip congregations to live into God’s mission. I offer prayers of gratitude for their example. They are doing more than talking about change; they are investing in change.

General Convention resurrection sighting: a diocese daring to staff differently.