Old and New Expectations
Everywhere I go I am met with a similar look. There is the shock of the first encounter (assuming folks are not Facebook fiends) and then the inevitable questions, "So how old are you?" "Are you ordained?" "How did you get this job?" I am not what most expect from an 815 staffer, and I think that is part of why I was hired, to perhaps extend the box a bit. But no system actually likes to change, even if it has made the conscience choice to do so.
We collectively have made any number of new and adventurous hires and decisions in the last two years. I think particularly of the satellite offices in Seattle and Los Angeles, or the creation of the Offices for Intercultural Ministries and Environmental and Economic Affairs. Structurally we are choosing to raise our experimental and prophetic voice to reach new audiences and to reach existing audiences in new ways. But neither the expectations, nor the support for "815ers" changes overnight, so I'm packing my tool belt.
I've chosen to spend this week close to home at the College for Congregational Development in the Diocese of Olympia. The College as it now exists is a project of Bishop Greg Rickel and operates under the direction of the Rev. Melissa Skelton, Canon for Congregational Development and the rector at St. Paul's, Seattle. Together with about 70 other folks from Olympia, Spokane, New Westminster, and Arkansas, I am undergoing an intensive 2 year, 8 day course (as in 8 days during two consecutive summers) on the basics of organizational development as it pertains to Episcopal Organizations.
I'm hoping the training will aid me in my work and help recover a perceived deficit in seminary education and congregational experience. I'd love to post every learning I gain up here on my blog for folks to feast on, but I don't have copyright permission or the complete vocabulary and fluency of the subject, so I'll have to settle with sharing my application as it evolves.
The one thing I do want to share at the moment is a model many of us are familiar with, the concentric circles of the faith development in community model. The model looks like a target with Mature Practitioners at the center, the next ring being Sunday Sacramentalists, the next out, Occasional Attenders, and the final, Vicarious Affiliates. There are many versions of this model but this is the one we are working with. The model is meant to represent the degree of commitment to the specific tradition which falls at the heart of the bullseye. There is no value judgment associated with affiliation at any level nor would we want everyone at the center (i.e. a cult), but we do want to continually draw folks in and create opportunities for movement inward.
In young adult ministry on all levels it is easy to become obsessed with the numbers game, which in a period of rapid growth is composed primarily of folks on the outer rings. That is all too true of the anxieties of a church facing a shrinking population--even on the national level. But just as in a parish, its all about gravity, gravity built by strengthening and building up our mature practitioners. The Episcopal model is one of gravitational pull, people are drawn in by the faith lived by others in community. The center must not only get bigger, but it must get denser. If we want to increase the number of young adults healthily affiliated with the Episcopal Church as a collective body, we must build up the existing young adult mature practitioners of our faith into a tight community of faith and relationship. We must also ease the transition from one level to the next. When the "national church" becomes an entity unto itself with carefully guarded entrances, we run the risk of cutting off healthy organizational growth in terms of a national community of young adult Episcopalians.
Why do we need such a community? Aren't our local and diocesan communities enough? I don't believe they are. Why? Because we are a body, together, and because young adults are highly mobile. We need a body to which we all belong even as we move across the church, a body which is healthy and integrated. The potential for that body is great. As is the potential for its health. Where are our mature practitioners in the young adult community? How do we connect them? How do we build them up in new and inventive ways, even as we raise their visibility to one another? Loose thoughts, I know, but hopefully we can work together to piece them into a way forward.
We collectively have made any number of new and adventurous hires and decisions in the last two years. I think particularly of the satellite offices in Seattle and Los Angeles, or the creation of the Offices for Intercultural Ministries and Environmental and Economic Affairs. Structurally we are choosing to raise our experimental and prophetic voice to reach new audiences and to reach existing audiences in new ways. But neither the expectations, nor the support for "815ers" changes overnight, so I'm packing my tool belt.
I've chosen to spend this week close to home at the College for Congregational Development in the Diocese of Olympia. The College as it now exists is a project of Bishop Greg Rickel and operates under the direction of the Rev. Melissa Skelton, Canon for Congregational Development and the rector at St. Paul's, Seattle. Together with about 70 other folks from Olympia, Spokane, New Westminster, and Arkansas, I am undergoing an intensive 2 year, 8 day course (as in 8 days during two consecutive summers) on the basics of organizational development as it pertains to Episcopal Organizations.
I'm hoping the training will aid me in my work and help recover a perceived deficit in seminary education and congregational experience. I'd love to post every learning I gain up here on my blog for folks to feast on, but I don't have copyright permission or the complete vocabulary and fluency of the subject, so I'll have to settle with sharing my application as it evolves.
The one thing I do want to share at the moment is a model many of us are familiar with, the concentric circles of the faith development in community model. The model looks like a target with Mature Practitioners at the center, the next ring being Sunday Sacramentalists, the next out, Occasional Attenders, and the final, Vicarious Affiliates. There are many versions of this model but this is the one we are working with. The model is meant to represent the degree of commitment to the specific tradition which falls at the heart of the bullseye. There is no value judgment associated with affiliation at any level nor would we want everyone at the center (i.e. a cult), but we do want to continually draw folks in and create opportunities for movement inward.
In young adult ministry on all levels it is easy to become obsessed with the numbers game, which in a period of rapid growth is composed primarily of folks on the outer rings. That is all too true of the anxieties of a church facing a shrinking population--even on the national level. But just as in a parish, its all about gravity, gravity built by strengthening and building up our mature practitioners. The Episcopal model is one of gravitational pull, people are drawn in by the faith lived by others in community. The center must not only get bigger, but it must get denser. If we want to increase the number of young adults healthily affiliated with the Episcopal Church as a collective body, we must build up the existing young adult mature practitioners of our faith into a tight community of faith and relationship. We must also ease the transition from one level to the next. When the "national church" becomes an entity unto itself with carefully guarded entrances, we run the risk of cutting off healthy organizational growth in terms of a national community of young adult Episcopalians.
Why do we need such a community? Aren't our local and diocesan communities enough? I don't believe they are. Why? Because we are a body, together, and because young adults are highly mobile. We need a body to which we all belong even as we move across the church, a body which is healthy and integrated. The potential for that body is great. As is the potential for its health. Where are our mature practitioners in the young adult community? How do we connect them? How do we build them up in new and inventive ways, even as we raise their visibility to one another? Loose thoughts, I know, but hopefully we can work together to piece them into a way forward.
posted by Jason Sierra at 1:49 PM
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