Epiphany Paper #2 Community and Mission Epiphany Epiphany The diocesan Spring Learning Event on Saturday, March 5, 2011 will be one day out of several that focus on reaching new communities, church planting in our own neighborhoods, and reaching people with the Gospel in new ways as part of an Episcopal Village Mission Event www.episcopalvillage.org . What does it mean to be church in a post-modern society? Who are the people not in our pews and how do we reach out in a way that makes sense? How can we learn from one another in the process?
In preparation, these Epiphany studies are taken from the book Ancient Faith, Future Mission: Fresh Expressions in the Sacramental Tradition , edited by Steven Croft, Ian a Season of Mobsby, and Stephanie Spellers . Ian Mobsby is a Priest Missioner in the Church of England, currently with the Moot Community in London. He has more than 20 years’ experience working with emerging and fresh expressions of church, and he Revelation is coming from England to join us for this event.
Written about the book: “The spiritual practices and insights of the Anglican tradition make an extraordinary contribution to mission efforts in our postmodern, de-churched, never-churched, yet spiritually hungry society. In this timely and practical book, pioneers, leaders and theologians from the US and the UK share their stories and offer reflections for building a future-focused, mission-shaped church that is deeply rooted in sacramental traditions.” “‘Fresh Expressions’ and emergent church are the latest iteration in an ancient and essential tradition, ways of telling the old, old story for the people of today. . . Read, learn, question, seek wisdom and dream through these pages – and then go and do likewise.” – Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
Insights Enabling Community Life Ian Adams and Ian Mobsby, from the chapter “New Monasticism”
A key characteristic of the spiritual tourist is the desire to belong relationally in a community, and an equal measure of fear of that belonging.
One of the most crucial hallmarks of the postmodern situation is what might be called ‘the return to relationships’ … Humans are fundamentally social creatures and therefore the emptiness individuals sense can never be filled by the abundance of possessions but only in relationships with others. (Grenz, 2003, pp. 252–68)
Many of the new monastic communities are exploring how to develop a depth of relationship that can cope with two new forms of contextual community: the network community of people live apart, and the geographically specific community of those who live near or with each other. The use of a rhythm of life and regular communal events has been the focus for the network side of community. The real challenge begins when we attempt to live nearby or in the same house as each other. The highly individualized culture in which many of us were brought up has meant that few of us acquired the skills necessary for such forms of community; these must be learned by trial and error. Some groups have become aware of the need to function as therapeutic communities, to enable members to learn tolerance and compromise. This is a major challenge of being a community today, and yet Christian community is vital if we are to establish authentic Christian spirituality:
We do not undertake the spiritual quest alone. We need communities which nurture and hold us, communities which keep traditions and charisms alive and which hand them on to the next generation … Thus an individual, privatized or purely personal spirituality is an oxymoron. Authentic spirituality can never be an isolated, privatized or an individual affair. It is always located in a particular community from which it derives flavour, character and efficacy. (Grenz, 2003, pp. 252–68)
Many new monastic communities – such as Church of the Apostles in Seattle – have set up community houses that enable a spiritual patterning of life. These provide the benefit of shared monastic living: patterns of work, prayer, worship, rest and action, all of which bring real spiritual depth and vitality to residents and their guests. Living less expensively in shared accommodation frees residents up to give time to activities centered on worship, mission and community. Church of the Apostles has become a success precisely because their community houses have enabled real engagement with the Fremont area of the city, one of the least churched places in the USA.
Similarly, the Moot community in London seeks to take over a large clergy house to set up such an intentional community, which it is hoped will then provide the focus and energy for mission in an inner city estate. Being and doing intentional community is hard, but it is a crucial strategy for new monastics. Community houses can be the relational powerhouses of loving action and mission – what the friaries and monasteries were to traditional monastics. (Ancient Faith, p 30-31)
Ian Adams is a priest in the Church of England, and leader of mayBe , an emerging church community in Oxford. Ian Mobsby is priest for the Moot Community in London and a core team member of the Archbishop’s Fresh Expressions Team.
Questions for individual reflection or group discussion:
1. How is your church a ‘Christian Community’? 2. What characteristics do you think are important for the community of Christ in the local parish? 3. How might a lonely or isolated individual experience community in your church?
Theology shaping Mission Steven Cottrell, from the chapter “Letting Your Actions Do the Talking: Mission and the Catholic Tradition”
Many people today are uneasy about the slums, but it is too often an uneasiness produced by fear. It is not more policemen who are wanted in places like Battersea and Somers Town: it is God Incarnate in the hearts of loving human beings. (Ingram, 1936, p. 6)
So said Father Basil Jellicoe, Assistant Priest of St Mary’s, Somers Town, in 1924. Somers Town was a slum parish at the back of Euston Station and it was in that year that he and some associates formed the St. Pancras House Improvement Society, pledging to renovate and rebuild the slums in their area. Under Jellicoe’s direction flats were built, houses were bought and reconditioned; nursery schools and savings clubs were started. And controversially, in the interests of providing some alternative entertainment for his impoverished parishioners, Jellicoe opened what he called a ‘reformed pub’. ‘The Anchor’ was opened in 1929 and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prince of Wales were amongst its first customers. The ‘Parson running a Pub’ story ran in all the newspapers, giving publicity not only to this inventive ministry but also to the whole work of slum clearance and the terrible condition in which many people lived. It is a story to rival the most innovative of today’s pioneering ministries or fresh expressions. It reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun; that the whole history of Christian mission has been a history of innovation and fresh expression. As the Church encounters new cultures and new challenges it seeks to serve the needs of ordinary people and give expression to the gospel in a language they understand: something that meets them where they are and takes them somewhere else. …
The Fresh Expressions movement has been a breath of fresh air in the twenty-first century Church. However, it has not always been a movement that those from a catholic tradition within the Church of England, or indeed catholic Christians from other churches and traditions, have felt entirely comfortable with. Of course there are exceptions to this, but many priests and parishes have felt anxious that a mission-shaped church has actually turned out to be a church-shaped mission (Hull, 2006), with some of the vital elements of a truly catholic witness (especially a bias to the poor and a challenging of unjust structures), giving way to a kind of ecclesiastical niche marketing where churches are tailored to meet the needs of a particular group. The very word ‘catholic’ means universal: something that is for everyone. Therefore there has been understandable reluctance to embrace a movement that seems either to label everything ‘church’ (the worst bit of fresh expressions has been the re-branding of every parent and toddler group in the country as a fresh expression of church), or endlessly split people into coalitions of the like-minded, each with their own service to go to! Moreover, some of the keenest exponents of fresh expressions have also expounded a theology that over emphasized the so-called individual relationship with Christ over and against the corporate, incarnational and sacramental belonging to Christ within his body the Church – the bedrock of catholic ecclesiology. (Ancient Faith, p 50-52)
Stephen Cottrell is the Bishop of Reading. He has worked in parishes in London and Chichester, as Pastor of Peterborough Cathedral, as Missioner in the Wakefield diocese and as part of Springboard, the Archbishop’s evangelism team.
Questions for individual reflection or group discussion:
1. What is a “catholic tradition of mission and service”? What does that look like? 2. How might actually living in an intentional Christian community affect a neighborhood? 3. Why would the author dislike a movement that “endlessly splits people into coalitions of the like-minded, each with their own service to go to!”?
Text and questions taken from Ancient Faith, Future Mission: Fresh Expressions in the Sacramental Tradition , Including contributions from Rowan Williams, Brian McLaren, Karen Ward, Stephen Cottrell, Richard Giles, Phyllis Tickle and others . Foreward by the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori. Edited by Steven Croft, Ian Mobsby & Stephanie Spellers (Church Publishing, 2010).
Many of the contributors in the book will be present with us for our Spring Learning Event on March 5, 2011, including Ian Mobsby, Stephanie Spellers, Karen Ward, and Tom Brackett. For information on the event, visit www.diomass.org . Epiphany Papers are produced by the Episcopal Diocese of MA, 138 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02111.