Mission Church Toronto

Yes, the church already has a great deal to say ab...

2010-01-03T06:51:26.238-08:00

Yes, the church already has a great deal to say about the subject of virtue, including that formulated by the great Doctors of the Church such as Aquinas--but these will need to be boiled down and brought to bear in a constructive critique of how our secular culture understands terms like "courage" in our day. I wouldn't expect the typical School Board member to apply Aquinas without some help!

In response to... ============================== &...

2010-01-02T20:17:38.867-08:00

In response to...
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" 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. .... "
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What about existing theological positions regarding virtue (like that of Aquinas)?

Thanks for the links to some fascinating stuff. Of...

2009-02-20T13:40:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the links to some fascinating stuff. Of course, the career-related links (my career, that is)were especially enlightening.

Tay, Thanks for the post - and strength to you at ...

2008-07-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

Tay, Thanks for the post - and strength to you at Messiah.

On my recent Fresh Expressions Pilgrimage... (see http://dukeviperman.blogspot.com/
...we made it to Lindisfarne on a day off. Only afterward did we realize how close we had come to the Northumbrian Community (NC). Drat.

In penance I have been using their Celtic Daily Prayers and learning some of their tunes from the CDs I have.

NC is listed as among the early new monasticism movements. I am now registering as a friend of NC and am in touch with one other Canadian NC associate. On my return I've read up on Columba, Aidan and the Lindisfarne gospels.

In the meantime, I've been also devoured Punk Monk (loved it) and am 1/3 through The New Monasticism.

If a "meet-up" around this topic could be arranged, I'd be willing to join in.

Yes... Bede, at over Holy Cross, was involved in ...

2008-03-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Yes... Bede, at over Holy Cross, was involved in the formation of a number of mixed celibate/married communities of this type and said that they usually broke up over precisely this issue of family vs. group. Often this happened when the question came up of how group resources should be spent on the children. He thinks this is one the real values of celibacy in traditional monasticism--it eliminates this conflict.

-t

Plus ca change ... This makes me feel real old. I ...

2008-03-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

Plus ca change ... This makes me feel real old. I remember one such Christians-living-in-common group in a house in the Annex not far from St Thomas' Church in the 1960s. And I think Anson's book The Call of the Cloister mentioned a couple. Anyway, I wish these neo-mon groups well. It seems that combining the demands of family commitment with group commitment is a make-or-break issue.

Excellent. In that case, I'll give you "admin" pr...

2008-03-16T04:18:00.000-07:00

Excellent. In that case, I'll give you "admin" privileges so that you can create your own posts on this blog. My intention is really just to create a kind of bulletin board for people to post thoughts, resources, etc. Your Bibliography here is a good example of that.
-t

Tay,

Doug Cowling told me you had a blog wi...

2008-03-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

Tay,

Doug Cowling told me you had a blog with pictures of the Lenten physical layout for the liturgy. I think it looks great. We did similar things in the past for one-offs or seasons but always went back to the ‘default’ design. It may be time to keep it that way. Having been to St Gregory of Nyssa I experienced the benefits of such a design – although I’m having a hard time imagining certain persons dancing to the altar!

Anyway I went to look at the pictures but was most interested by your interest in the missional church and your new blog. I was introduced to the concept many years ago when I began my D Min at Seabury Western. There I discovered Leslie Newbigin, Donald Bosch, and the seminal book 'The Missional Church’edited by Darrell Guder. I notice that you are aware of Allelon but another organisation and website is The Gospel and Our Culture Network www.gocn.org. They developed a list of empirical indicators which I have used as a template for missional faithfulness.

I, of course, began to introduce the concept at Messiah, and began implementing missional practices. We upped the ante on hospitality with good food before and after the liturgy and began to create a culture of welcome and acceptance. Having studied missional liturgy with Ruth Meyers we made changes to reflect these principles. Fundamentally we wanted the liturgy to be an opportunity for people to encounter and be transformed by God and also to be called out into service in God’s mission. This is well articulated in a book written by Thomas Schattauer titled 'Inside Out'. Practically speaking at Messiah we put all the service in the leaflet and had the music for sung bits – both a practice of hospitality and removing the many books and paper that distract from the possibility of the divine encounter. I also made an effort to preach more missionally. That is that I wanted my preaching to reflect the sacramental notion that suggests that God is active in the community, in the world, and therefore the preaching enterprise is that of discerning, indeed facilitating God’s activity. There is a good new book out on this by a friend of mine named John Dally. It is titled 'Choosing the Kingdom: Missional Preaching for the Household of God'. In faith formation we instituted Godly Play and tried to bring that model even into sermons and adult faith formation. The genius of Godly Play is that it operates on the decidedly missional notion that children (and adults) already have an understanding and experience of God. It's no coincidence that the growing emergence of the mission shaped church is accompanied by the significant growth of Godly Play. But I know that there is still much to do and am pleased that you are there and poised to do it.

I will say that it takes a lot of work to get a parish to think and act missionally. Many transistions need to take place - from believing to behaving, from maintenance to mission, from information to transformation, from scarcity to abundance, from destination to journey and so much more. And you can expect resistance. Many of our parishes operate as clubs and our buildings become clubhouses for people whose hobby is Anglicanism. The mission identity calls us to look out but too many only want to look in. As someone once said to me at a Messiah Parish Council, "I know, it's not about us!" And certainly there has been resistance at my new posting.

As you may be aware my particular passion is for leadership development. When Momentum was developed we were intentional in including missional principles and this term I am teaching the Trinity College 3rd Year students on missional leadership.

Anyway I could go on all day about this stuff. I'm thrilled you are starting this blog and I would be pleased to be involved with whatever proceeds from it.