The Jeremiah Project: New Monasticism in Toronto

One of the most interesting (to me, at least) movements of the Spirit in Toronto Anglican circles is happening around The Jeremiah Project. This is a group of folks interesting in forming a New Monastic (aka "Neo-Monastic") in downtown Toronto. They are deeply committed to monastic principles and also to the health of the city. They are basing themselves at St. Anne's, Gladstone, a parish that has experienced decline for many years. Hopefully the Jeremiah Project will bring new life and mission.

It will be very exciting to see what shape this new community will take!

-t

Notes from The Vital Church Planting Conference

Today was the last day of the Vital Church Planting Conference here in Toronto. I'm very tired and bit brain-fried. Ever heard the expression "going tharn"? But I learned a lot and, just as importantly, made a lot of contacts that will move some these projects I'm involved with forward.

An E-Church Conference?
For instance, several of us more technologically minded folks got together and started talking about having some kind of conference on information technologies and church. That means talking about internet, video, blogging, e-church, etc., etc. There is a lot of work to be done on developing church media rather than merely consuming it. One of the people in that conversation is Imbi Medri, whose company mkpl.tv does media production and design (primarily for secular clients). She is very, very interested in how the church can become more savvy when it comes to new information technologies. She even brought a crew of volunteers with her to the conference to videotape it.

Incidentally, Imbi's husband, Bill Kinnon, is a prolific blogger about missional church issues. I haven't had a chance to really dive into his blog, but it looks pretty interesting at a glance.

ARC - Anglican Resource Centre
Another interest shared by many of us at the conference is the development of an Anglican Resource Centre (ARC) that could create the physical and relational space to support some of the really important conversations happening right now in this period of rapid change. If we want to change church culture around how catechesis is done, for instance, we need to have a sustained conversation as well as bricks-and-mortar resources people can look at. I know the current climate won't support a Diocesan-level ARC (at least, not one that costs them anything). I become increasingly convinced we should just start something. I imagine the ARC will have room enough to also support the conversations happening around Missional Church and e-church. As a precedent I remember the Ministry Resource Center at Yale Divinity School as well as the library/resource centers I encountered in the Diocese of Los Angeles, Newark, Rhode Island, Connecticut, etc. As a first step I'm going to see if I can just find some extra space somewhere to set a library just to start off. We already have plenty of material to begin such a library. After that we can start worrying about finding a volunteer librarian to help organize the material.

Making Room for the Spirit
So those are a few of the things arising from the contacts I made. In terms of the content of the talks and workshops what I came away with was a lot of hopefulness about the power of the Holy Spirit to do what we are unable to do by ourselves. I really need to be intentional about creating more room for the Spirit in these different projects I have going on. That mean, specifically, that I need to do a LOT more praying about it. I need to slow down and pray and let God do what She will.

For instance, at Church of The Messiah we have two of our three Wardens stepping down on Sunday. So far only one new Warden has emerged from the congregation. Rather than feeling anxious about that and desperately trying to convince people to take on the responsibility of leadership, I think I need to lead the congregation into a place of prayer and discernment about it. The fact that we have a hard time finding someone able and willing to serve out to tell us something important about leadership at COTM. We need to listen and learn.

So if that means that the position of Warden remains empty for a few months, so be it. We can function just fine with two Warden, actually! We may end up in a position of having two or three people stepping forward if we are patient and prayerful--or maybe no one wants to be Warden and we come up with some new structure entirely! Realizing that I could relax and put this back on God brought me tremendous relief. Whew!

"Affection will get us there"
Donald Schell said that at the Leadership in Community Conference in San Francisco last year. It stuck with me. I take tremendous encouragement from the love and affection shared by the temporary community formed at events like the Vital Church Planting Conference. There is real love among the happy workers in God's kingdom and this is a sign that we are receiving blessing.

At one of the workshops Pernell Goodyear, an urban church planter associated with the Salvation Army and currently serving a Cafe-based expression of church in Hamilton, said that no amount of demographic analysis or push pins in a map in some back office of careful planning could ever have reached his folks. Rather, it was by living in the community and soliciting his neighbors' stories that mission emerged. The result was The Freeway: a coffee house and community space that spreads the Gospel through service and radically incarnational values. His passion for living with his people and showing them through service what the love of God looks like was incredibly inspiring (and entirely intimidating).

So this will take some time to digest--but well worth the effort to do.

-t

Missional Church Among Torontonian Anglicans

I know I haven't written in this blog for a while, but not for lack of things happening when it comes to Missional Church and the Holy Spirit's work among us. So I thought I would catch you all up with some observations of things happening right now. This not a comprehensive list of things related to Missional Church in Anglican GTA circles--merely the stuff that I'm connected to in one way or another...

Fresh Expressions
Fresh Expressions, as you probably know if you are reading this, is a movement that started in the UK to create new church communities relevant to a rapidly changing mission context. Fresh Expressions (FX for short) has generated a lot of interest in the Diocese of Toronto, partly because the model fits the Canadian context much better than ones we see looking at the American (Episcopal) Church. Essentially, the UK has already made the transition to a post-Christendom society in a way that Canada is just beginning. Meanwhile, the U.S. is several years behind in terms of this social shift.

So, like I said, there is a lot of energy swirling around this FX stuff. There is even a Fresh Expressions Canada website. Also note Duke Vipperman's blog on the subject. We are bringing lots of guest speakers over from the UK to share their experiences and importing some of their models wholesale (Contemplative Fire, for example). They will also feature prominently at the Vital Church Planting Conference being held next week.

The VCP Conference is one of the main events gathering mission-minded Anglicans in Toronto. Beyond looking at new church plants, there is a ton of material relevant to established congregations looking to grow. I note that this year they have created "tracks" that implicitly acknowledge that some people have different levels of familiarity with the concepts being discussed than others. It's always an interesting and exciting time.

Missional Transformation Process
Alan Roxburgh and his folks are creating a process to help established parishes (i.e. "Inherited Church") become more missional. They are proposing to trial this process in the Diocese of Toronto and currently have a proposal in front of the College of Bishops of the Diocese. I'm hoping that this will be approved at my church will be one of the first to benefit from this work. The upshot is really the way it proposes to change the way leadership is done in our parishes. Once this kicks off, expect much more frequent updating of this blog!

The Christ-Centred Character Team
For about a year now I've been meeting with a group of folks interested in transforming how Christian Education is done in our parishes. Basically, we believe Sunday School initiatives need to align with the dramatic and rapid adoption of Character Education by the public school system. This movement towards teaching virtue and character in school requires a response from the church.

Initially our team focused on gathering and even producing resources to help Sunday School teachers. But we realized that two other major needs exist related to this effort. First, we need to develop a theological position regarding virtue! One critique of secular taxonomies of character being used by the secular school boards is that lack a foundation. Not surprisingly, exactly what constitutes "character" varies from board to board. A thoughtful Anglican approach to this problem could leverage the strengths of the historic church to provide our culture with meaningful guidance. Indeed, the Province has asked faith communities to contribute this sort of guidance to the character education movement.

A second need we identified was for a library or resource centre to support children's ministry in the Diocese. We need a place where educators can go to look at different resources and curriculum and even borrow them. We understand that the Diocese did have such a library at one time, but found it unsustainable for several reasons. We recognize that developing such a resource centre in the current budget climate is problematic, so we've been exploring the ways in which such a centre could be an independent and ultimately self-sustaining project.

The concept evolved into the "ARC"--the Anglican Resource Centre. Imagine a cross between a library, Starbucks, ABC, and the Christian Science Reading Rooms. It's similar to the Paulist Centre for Catholic Evangelization on Bathurst. Such a place would not only hold resources and host training events--it would also form the centre of a spiritual community of educators. In other words, it would be church for teachers. It's a neat concept, of course, the trick is figuring out how to make it self sustaining!

So these conversations are ongoing. If you're interesting in joining our working group, just let me know!

Toward a Theology of Urban Ministry
Rev'd Canon Gerry Loweth is teaching what we believe to be the only seminary course exclusively on Urban Ministry in Canada. We could be wrong about that. If you know of one, do tell!

Anyway, he has been speaking to some of us interested in Urban Ministry about developing this line of enquiry for the Diocese. The fact is, we do not seem to have a very good foundational theology of urban ministry. I remember noting this was a big problem back when I was part of the Parkdale Ministry Development Council and it's associated commissions and committees and meetings. Back then we struggled to find workable models for urban church and build support for them. Foundational theological work on how the urban church is distinct from other mission fields would have gone a long way to help us move beyond old parochial models that are frankly more appropriate for suburban or rural settings. Without such ideas and models to guide the efforts of urban evangelism, we are likely to find ourselves constantly reacting to challenges rather than embracing opportunities.

Again, this is just in discussions, but they are good discussions. At the very least we should publish an annotated bibliography for those interested in reading about urban ministry!

New Workplace Bible Study
When I came to COTM I inherited a workplace bible study held downtown that was clearly loosing steam. At the last meeting it was just me and one other person--not a good use of our time or precious ministry resources. So I suspened it for revision and have since been talking about developing a partnership between several downtown parishes to create a work place bible study that will reach as many people as possible. Stay tuned...

Projects at Church of The Messiah
Missional Church, at it's core, is about the way Christians understand their relationship to the world. Nonetheless, a fruit of this spirit ought to be concrete programmes, projects, and initiatives that are ministries appropriate to the mission of the church. So I'm trying a couple of things at Messiah that I would call "Missional" in that sense.

One is a Mother's Fellowship group that will start meeting in the next week or two. A group of neighbourhood moms getting together to talk, study, pray, and eat while their kids are being taken care of. It's kind of like the MOPS programme, but more homegrown. We discerned a need for this kind of ministry to the community and so we are reaching out to make it happen!

What's Next
More conversations, no doubt, because that's how the Holy Spirit changes things! I expect that enthusiasm for FXC will continue to grow. We are going to hear more about things like the Jeremiah Project and Contemplative Fire Canada and the Missional Transformation Process being designed by Roxburgh. But this is going to bump up against the legacy of inherited church, i.e., the Canons of the Diocese and the various restrictions they present. Note that one of the reasons FX has worked in the U.K. is that it received a lot of support and accommodation from the hierarchy (most famously from Archbishop of Canterbury). They created canonical infrastructure with things like the Bishop Mission Orders. We'll need similar sorts of things here.

Anyway, this is part of why my plate is so full at the moment, but these efforts to reform the church are essential to the calling we receive in the Gospel, so I don't feel like I have a lot of choice about it!

-t