Transcript EDMONTON-TORONTO REDEMPTORISTS

In an emerging church,
we are participating in
God’s work of healing and
mending creation
03 – 04 June 2011
In grateful response to God’s abundant love,
we bear in mind our integral connection
to the earth and one another;
we participate in God’s work
of healing and mending creation.
United Church of Canada
Song of Faith
PURPOSE OF THE DAYS
 To present a survey of changing realities in
society and in church
 To reflect through the lens of Scripture on
major themes flowing through these social
realities
 To lead in the exploration of implications
for churches and church leaders in our
province today
 To do so in the context of an emerging
church in which we believe that we are cocreating with our God
PROCESS FOR THE DAYS
 Friday pm
 A survey of changing social realities within Canada generally
and within Newfoundland & Labrador specifically
 Saturday am
Reflection through the lens of Scripture on major themes
flowing through these social realities
Exploration of implications for us as leaders in church in our
province today
 Input from Sister Elizabeth
 Small table conversations
 Large group conversation
THE 21ST CENTURY:
TIME OF CHANGE
IN CHURCH &
SOCIETY
MY ASSUMPTIONS
• Our world is changing dramatically
• Our understanding of religion and church is
changing dramatically
• Our church must be transformed in
response to this change
• Every one of us, individually and
communally, must be leaders in bringing
about this transformation
SOCIAL SHIFTS IN CANADA
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Demographic shifts
Role of women
Changing face of family
Financial crises – personal, corporate,
sovereign
Increasing urbanization
Increasing cultural diversity
Impact of computerization
Realities of violence
Changing face of religion
DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFTS
 Many more older people and many fewer children
 Four generations of adults are living at the same
time all formed with different values:
 Elders born before 1946 who value sacrifice, hard work,
conformity, law and order, patience, respect for authority
and duty before pleasure
 Baby boomers born between 1946 and 1965 who value
optimism, teamwork, personal gratification, health and
wellness, personal growth and youth
 Generation X born between 1965 and 1980 who value
thinking globally, balance, techno-literacy, fun, informality
and self-reliance
 Millennials born since 1980 who value civic duty,
achievement, sociability, diversity and street smarts
StatsCAN – CENSUS 2006
Demographic Map: Newfoundland & Labrador
(2001, 2006)
2000 NL = 11.6% > 65y
2021 NL = 22.5% > 65y
WOMEN IN OUR WORLD
• Society growing in its awareness of need to have women
and men together taking responsibility both in the home
and in the society
• Stereotypical attitudes and practices are still working to
the disadvantage of women and girls in families,
educational institutions, religious institutions, workplaces,
political bodies and media
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Increasing violence against women
Under-representation of women in decision-making in all areas
Disproportionate share of household and family responsibilities
Lack of equal employment opportunities
Lack of attention to mechanisms which support a balance
between family and work responsibilities
Disproportionate effects of poverty and conflict
Trafficking in women and girls
CHANGING FACE OF FAMILY
• Common-law couple families increased 20% since 2001,
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almost 60% of first unions are common law
Lone parent families increasing now nearly 1/5 of families in
many large cities
Significant increase in same-sex couples
More census families comprised of couples without children
(42.7%) than with children (41.4%).
43.5% of young adults aged 20 to 29 live at home
Custody of less than half of dependents (47.7%) in divorce
proceedings awarded to the mother, down from threequarters (78.2%) in 1980
Members of lone-parent families 2X more likely to live in
low income neighbourhood
Increasing number of mixed unions – 33% increase from
2001 to 2006 [3.9% of all unions in Canada]
POVERTY
• No decrease in poverty in our world
• Extreme poverty among Aboriginal people, recent
immigrants and non-permanent residents, visible
minorities, persons with disabilities, lone parent
families and unattached individuals
• Child poverty rates disproportionately high among
these vulnerable social groups
• Approximately half (52%) of low income children
in Canada live in female lone parent families
• One half of children in recent immigrant families
are poor
CHAMPAGNE GLASS OF
WORLD POVERTY
ENVIRONMENT
The planet’s warming is unequivocal, its impact is
clearly noticeable, and it is beyond doubt that
human activities have been contributing
considerably to it. Adverse effects include:
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Agriculture and food security
Oceans and coastal areas
Biodiversity and ecosystems
Water resources
Human health
Human settlements
Energy
Transport and industry
Extreme weather events
Climate Change 2007
TODAY’S COMPUTER MINDSET
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Computers are not technology but part of life
Internet is better than TV
Reality is no longer real
Doing is more important than knowing
Learning more closely resembles Nintendo than logic
Multitasking is a way of life
Typing is preferred to handwriting
Staying connected is essential
There is zero tolerance for delays
Consumer and creator of information are blurring
Jason Frand (2002)
COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY
The moral problem of contemporary technology
results not from its ubiquity and not from the
power of its specific applications but from the
dominance of a specific technological pattern, the
device paradigm . . . this displacement, in spite of
its seductive promises of liberation and enrichment,
corrodes creative relationships between and among
selves and between selves and their environments.
Michael S. Hogue, 2007
GLOBALIZATION
• $4 billion in cross-border currency change hands
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every six hours
800 million persons crossed international borders in
2005
40 million people migrate a year
They know no borders: drug and private arms
trade, terrorism, money laundering, pollution,
refugees, ocean and atmosphere, television, global
warming, Internet, infectious diseases
We share: “A community of common fate and
responsibility”
THREATS TO SECURITY
Terrorism
Epidemic disease
Organized crime
Conflict over natural resources
Climate change
Environmental degradation
Security is increasingly interpreted as security of
people, not just territory; security of individuals,
not just of nations; security through development,
not through arms; security of all people everywhere
– in their homes, in their jobs, in their streets, in
their communities, and in the environment.
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Dr Mahbub ul Haq (1997)
CONSUMERISM
We build a public self in what we buy and what we
voluntarily choose to do. This front runs from
cuisine (Thai, French, or Mexican tonight?), to
fashion (Ferragamo shoes or faux furs?), to
particular products (antiques or Swedish
contemporaries?), to music (Bach or the Grateful
Dead?), to sexual lifestyles (monogamous or casual,
heterosexual or gay?), to beliefs (Christian, New
Age, or postmodern doubt?).
We slide from product to product, from relationship
to relationship, from style to style, seldom
lingering long before the shape of our internal
inventory tugs us in another direction in search of
different fulfillment.
David F. Wells, 1998
In order to maintain itself, consumerism desires that
every person be unhappy and works to ensure that
this would be so.
CHANGE IN CHURCH
• Ministry belongs to the laity as well as the clergy
• Third world theologians remind us:
Spirituality is the name we give to that which
provides us with the strength to go on, for it is
the assurance that God is in the struggle.
Spirituality spells out our connectedness to
• God
• our human roots
• the rest of nature
• one another
• ourselves
CHANGE IN CHURCH
• Financial challenges hurt parishes and dioceses
• Church is losing much of its authority & credibility
among its own members and in society at large
• Eighty-five percent of Canadians indicate
affiliation with an established religion yet fewer
than 25% attend church regularly
• Private devotion now plays a more important part in
people’s lives than attendance at religious services
• Increasing attention to activities reflects
spontaneity and community (e.g., mindfulness
meditation, pilgrimage to Iona, praying with EWTN)
CHANGE IN CHURCH – YOUTH
 Church in mission (active in service and volunteer
programs)
 Church in search (single and divorced young adults
under the age of 30)
 Church youthful (active in college ministry)
 Church apologist (favouring devotional prayer and
official teachings)
 Church devotional (Theology on Tap, parish
activities)
 Church busy (young professionals and young
families)
 Church creative (open to blending different faith
traditions)
 Church disconnected (distant from church)
Mary Anne Reese
CULTURAL DIVERSITY
• Race, nationality, ethnicity, gender, class,
wealth/poverty, age, (dis)ability, sexual
preference, religion, political party
• Personality, needs, abilities, perspectives, ways
of seeing the world, ideas, feelings, opinions,
attitudes, beliefs, values, dreams, connections,
resources, habits, lifestyles, experience,
stages of development, physical appearances,
roles, families, education, health, status
• Differences among and within religious
traditions, within our own Church
CULTURES DIFFER
FROM EACH OTHER
 Basic
personality
 Perception
 Time concepts
 Space concepts
 Thinking
 Language
 Non-verbal communication
 Values
 Behaviors
 Social groupings and relationships
They are interconnected and influence each other
CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Human diversity is essential to the
health of organizations and
communities.
The dignity of difference is a source
of blessing.
Elizabeth Johnson
Quest for the Living God
QUALITIES OF
POST-MODERNISM
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Rejection of objective truth
Valuing of multiple forms of knowledge
Deep suspicion of authority
Search for the transcendent
Sense of fragmentation
Blurring of morality
Influence of the media
Weakening of government
Quest for community
Living in the material world
CONTEMPLATIVE WITNESSING TO
OUR OWN INNER SPACE
GUIDE FOR TABLE
CONVERSATIONS
Following Judy Cannato’s three Rs to guide you in
a contemplative witnessing of your own inner
space:
Resonance = what part of what you have heard
rings true with your own experience?
Resistance = is there incongruity between what
you have heard and what you hold as true?
Realignment = as a result of what you have
heard, has something shifted in you? Has
something reconfigured so that you might live
out of a slightly different place?
EMERGING
IMAGES
Then afterwards I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female slaves,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit.
Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:17-18
ELEMENTS OF
RE-VISIONING
• Awareness that transformation does not
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happen suddenly or in a moment in time
Confidence that one can actually do the revisioning
Knowing the social and historical contexts of
our age, “the signs of the times”
Knowing the essentials, the non-negotiables,
so that in the re-visioning the essence is not
lost
Sensitivity to the new images emerging among
us
FIVE FRONTIERS IN THE
THEOLOGY OF GOD
• Wretched poverty = biblical justice
• Women’s experience of gender-based discrimination
= biblical justice for women
• White privilege and racism = racial justice
• Religious pluralism = dignity of difference is a
source of blessing
• Awareness of earth as a place of beauty and
suffering in an evolving universe = ethic of
responsible, assertive care for Earth
Elizabeth A. Johnson
Quest for the Living God, 2007
EMERGING IMAGES
Recognition that all theology is contextual – God
speaks to us and we speak to God is this time
and in this place
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:19
EMERGING IMAGES
 Growth of creation spirituality, focus on ecological
theology, emergence of awareness of the universe
story, commitment to care for Earth
 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and
remember the everlasting covenant between God and
every living creature of all flesh that is on the
earth. Gen 9:16
EMERGING IMAGES
 Focus on right relationships with God, self, others,
church, and Earth
 He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
all your mind.” This is the greatest and first
commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall
love your neighbour as yourself.” Matt 22:37-39
EMERGING IMAGES
Increasing respect for diversity, recognition that diversity
is essential to all life and growth, awareness of the
dimensions of diversity, sense that integration and
diversity are not only compatible but necessary for
health of body, mind and spirit
All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who
allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and
all the members of the body, though many, are one
body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were
all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or
free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of
many. 1 Cor 12:11-14
EMERGING IMAGES
 Yearning for God to be imaged as female as well as
male so that women will have the confidence of
knowing that they have been made in the image of
God
 So God created humankind in God’s image, in the
image of God, God created them; male and female
God created them.
Gen 1:27
 Can a woman forget her nursing-child, or show no
compassion for the child of her womb? Even these
may forget, yet I will not forget you. Is 49:15
 As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort
you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Is 66:13
EMERGING IMAGES
 Increasing participation of women in leadership and
policy formation
 The daughters of Zelophehad are right in what
they are saying; you shall indeed let them possess
an inheritance among their father’s brothers and
pass the inheritance of their father on to them.
Num 27:7
 Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she
laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth
with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her
tongue. Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the city gates. Prov
31: 25-26, 31
EMERGING IMAGES
 Witness to the energy, the wisdom and the influence
of older people in a society which devalues older
people
 The righteous flourish like the palm tree,
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are
planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and full of sap,
showing that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in
him.
Ps 92:12-15
EMERGING IMAGES
Recognition of the negative impact of globalization and of
our ability through our global connections to be more
engaged cross-culturally and globally and to engender
common values for a global world (respect for human
dignity, responsibility, solidarity, subsidiarity, coherence,
transparency and accountability)
Christ is all and in all! As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,
meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone
has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as
the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all,
clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in
perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your
hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And
be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach
and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in
your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.
Col 3:11a–17
EMERGING IMAGES
 Commitment to collaboration and partnerships in
ministry
 The glory that you have given me I have given
them, so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me, that they may
become completely one, so that the world may
know that you have sent me and have loved
them even as you have loved me. Jn 17:20-23
EMERGING IMAGES
Awareness of our own complicity in the brokenness and
woundedness of people and Earth and our own need for
forgiveness
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your
heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and
merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast
love, and relents from punishing. Joel 2:12-13
Before conscious thought or action on our part,
we are born into the brokenness of this world.
Before conscious thought or action on our part,
we are surrounded by God’s redeeming love.
Song of Faith
CONTEMPLATIVE WITNESSING TO
OUR OWN INNER SPACE
GUIDE FOR TABLE
CONVERSATIONS
Resonance = what part of what you have heard
rings true with your own experience?
Resistance = is there incongruity between what
you have heard and what you hold as true?
Realignment = as a result of what you have
heard, has something shifted in you? Has
something reconfigured so that you might live
out of a slightly different place?
EXPLORING
TRANSFORMATION
TODAY
In this troubled world we wish to express
God’s love for wounded humanity and
always we must answer the question:
How can we dare Wisdom
in the mosaic of our realities?
Sister Inès Maria dell’ Eucaristia (1994)
ROLES OF LEADERS
Visionary
Catalyst
Partner
Decision-maker
Inspirer
Facilitator
Implementer
Evaluator
VALUES
Values are sets of freely chosen
convictions which compel action as
they are cherished and publicly
affirmed.
Charles McCoy
RELATIONSHIPS
 Wholeness
 Inclusion
 Interconnectedness
 Interdependence
 Enculturation
 Appreciation of diversity
I’m sittin’ on my stage-head lookin’ out at
where Skipper Joe Irwin’s schooner is
ridin’ at her moorin’ … thinkin’ about how
weak are the things that try to pull
people apart – differences in colours,
creeds and opinion – weak things like the
ripples tuggin’ at the schooner’s chain.
And thinkin’ about how strong are the
things that hold people together – strong,
like Joe’s anchor, and chain, and the good
holdin’ ground below.
Ted Russell, The Holdin’ Ground
LET US BUILD AN INUKSHUK
WHERE DO WE FIND HOPE,
ENERGY AND PASSION?
• It is not about us – it is about those with whom
we walk and among whom we minister
• In this new age with the intensity of social
change and the growing fragility of Earth, we
must be about this new thing
• We must be intentional in our focus, persistent
in our pursuit, courageous in our undertaking
and confident that, if this is God’s work, it will
flourish
WHY WE DO IT
Divine creation does not cease
until all things have found wholeness, union, and
integration with the common ground of all being.
As children of the Timeless One,
our time-bound lives will find completion
in the all-embracing Creator.
In the meantime, we embrace the present,
embodying hope, loving our enemies, caring for the
earth, choosing life.
Grateful for God’s loving action,
we cannot keep from singing.
Creating and seeking relationship, in awe and trust,
we witness to Holy Mystery who is Wholly Love.
Song of Faith
BLESSING
May the light of your souls guide you.
May the light of your souls
bless the work that you do
with the secret love and warmth of your hearts.
May you see in what you do
the beauty of your own souls.
May the sacredness of your work
bring healing, light and renewal
to those who work with you
and to those who see and receive your work.
May your work never weary you.
May it release within you wellsprings of
refreshment, inspiration and excitement.
May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in bland absences.
May the day never burden.
May dawn find you awake and alert,
approaching your new day with dreams, possibilities
and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night
blessed, sheltered and protected.
May your souls calm, console and renew you.
Adapted from
John O'Donoghue, Anam Cara