Mary, Theotokos, full of grace? (My homily for the fourth Sunday of Advent)

Let's talk about Mary.

In the many and various Christian traditions of the world, Mary is referred to by many titles:

She is known as the Mother of God, the Mother of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin, Immaculately Conceived, Madonna, Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Seat of Wisdom and the Cause of our Joy. She is also called full of grace. Most of these titles come from the Western Church that was once gathered around the Bishop of Rome.

In the Christian East, which includes the Churches of the ancient Byzantium, Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, India, Egypt, Iran and Ethiopia to name a few she is known by other names. One of my favourites is the one whose womb was wider than the heavens, for from it come forth the infinite God, but mainly she is known as the Theotokos – the God-bearing one.

Mary, Theotokos, full of grace.

What does it mean to bear God into the world?

What does it mean to be full of grace?

Well, what is grace?

As Bill Cliffs succinctly puts it “Grace is when you get what you don’t deserve.”

So why is Mary called full of grace? Did she get far more than she deserved by bringing Jesus into the world? Or is she full of grace because she recognized in Jesus the one who would be her saviour?  

I believe that to be full of grace is more than just a conscious recognition or a realization that we are saved. It is more than just accepting Jesus as our personal saviour. To be full of grace is to let it rule your life, mandate your actions, direct your ways.  To be overwhelmed with gratitude for the abundance of undeserved gifts that God has bestowed on us. To be full of grace is to live in response to the call of God in our lives.

Mary is called to bear God by giving birth to God in this world. God asked Mary to share her human nature with God and to make her body a dwelling place for the implanted Word.  She is asked to put herself in a very vulnerable position – to become an unmarried, pregnant woman in a society that more than frowns on this. It is a position that many people have found too much to bear.

But not only does Mary accept this calling, it becomes the centre of her life. Mary’s answer to the angel, which the choir will sing for us in their anthem today, is more than just an agreement to have a baby. "Dixit Maria ad angelum, 'Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum'" You all speak latin right? Just kidding, she says, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.” She doesn’t consider her given task to be accomplished after Jesus is born, but Mary follows Jesus throughout his ministry, not just as a caring mother, but as a faithful and loyal disciple. She follows him to the foot of the cross and mourns his death. She rejoices with the other disciples in the Resurrection of her God and preaches the Gospel along with them.

Mary is the example of one who is filled with grace and she is celebrated for this by saints and angels. Saints like her cousin Elizabeth, who we hear from today in the Gospel, calls her Blessed and Angels like Gabriel who calls her Favoured One. What is this blessing or favour from God of being asked to bear God into the world? This blessing and favour of becoming the God-bearer might have felt or appeared at times more like a burden. But it was grace, “Grace is when you get what you don’t deserve.” Mary is full of grace.

Back to that other title that I mentioned earlier, Theotokos, God-bearing One. In the Eastern Church, Mary is venerated many times in every service. Several of the major feasts of the Church year concern her life even before Jesus is conceived. Her whole life is important. This is because unlike in some Western Churches where Mary is considered the great exception from human depravity, in the East Mary is the great example for what humanity can accomplish with God.  Because the incarnation was not just God’s work, but also the work of humanity, of Mary who accepted to participate in God’s plan. 

Recently I was working with some youth in Ottawa at St John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Shrine where I used to be a youth group leader. We were reflecting together on why God chose Mary to be the God-bearer. Was there something special about her that made her suitable for this job? One of the youth was very clear on his view of this point – it could have been anyone, God could have picked anyone for this task, but it was Mary’s answer, her choice to participate in God’s plan that set her apart. Mary wasn’t chosen to bear God because she was more holy than any of us, she is holy because she chose to bear God into the world. “Grace is when you get what you don’t deserve.” Mary is full of grace.

The life of Mary shows us that if we receive God and accept the call to bring God into the world through our actions, it can be life changing, and that which seems impossible is possible. “God's power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” What seems impossible? “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” These words are from the Song of Mary, the Magnificat which we sang today in the place of the psalm in the form of the hymn "Tell out my soul!" This vision is expressed a little differently in this hymn "Powers and dominions lay their glory by...the hungry fed, the humble lifted high." In the Canticle of Turning which the choir sang for us a few weeks ago with the help of some of the children and youth the phrase is "...the hungry poor shall weep no more for the food they can never earn." These words are a vision of the Reign of God where worldly favoritism is turned upside down and people are no longer treated or mistreated according to their station in society. “Grace is when you get what you don’t deserve.” Mary is full of grace.

These words that Mary sang, they come from throughout the Hebrew Bible. They are not just her words. They were spoken by other holy people before her – prophets, judges, psalmists – and have been spoken by many holy people in one way or another since. These people accepted to bear God into the world, and were holy because of it. One of these people is Chief Teresa Spence of the Attawapiskat First Nation. She is currently on day 12 of a hunger strike. Her request is simple, a meeting with the Government and the Crown about the conditions in which her people and all First Nations people are living, the way they are treated by the government and the relationship between them and all Canadians. In her hunger strike, she has made her body a dwelling place for this hope for justice. She hopes for the kind of justice that Mary was singing about in the Magnificat – where people are no longer mistreated because of how society views them and the hungry are filled with good things. These holy people like Chief Spence and other saints are just like us in their humanity: some are children like Samuel, some are elderly like Elizabeth. They fight with their families, they commit crimes, they are greedy, they rejoice when things go well, they struggle with God in times of difficulty and resist what God is calling them to do. But nevertheless God called them and eventually they chose to respond and be part of God’s plan. They were full of grace, like Mary. “Grace is when you get what you don’t deserve.”

What about us? We gather around this altar today because of the life that Mary along with the Holy Spirit brought into this world. Jesus Christ Emmanuel, God with us. God with us in a tiny baby born in a stable, in a vibrant youth preaching from a boat or a hilltop, in a body broken for us on the cross and raised up to give new life to all people – new life we could not earn or deserve. God with us in darkness – whether it is the darkness of the womb or the darkness of grief. God with us in bread and wine and the gathered community. This feast is one of God’s many gifts to us – which we receive not because we are holy or special or worthy, but because God is generous and compassionate. It is a sign of God’s grace, and “Grace is when you get what you don’t deserve.” Today, at this feast, we are filled with grace, full of grace. Blessed, favoured by God.

And so, we are called to be like Mary, to make our bodies a dwelling place for God and to bear God into the world.  To be full of grace, overwhelmed by the abundant generosity of God. To magnify God with our souls and our songs and our lives.

Children's Bulletins - Keeping Kids in Worship

As some of you may already know, my main field is not actually youth and children's ministry - it is liturgy and worship. It should come as no surprise then that I have some pretty strong views on the relationship between young people and worship. To be blunt, I think everyone benefits from young people being in worship. People of all ages are full members of the Church and so when we worship without any one group, a significant part of the community is missing. Worship is also important for young people. It offers them a time to pray, to hear from Sacred Scripture, to sing and also to relate to the other members of the Church community of all ages and learn about what is important to them and their faith.

This is not to say that I think we should just throw kids into the way we do worship which is geared almost exclusively to adults. I believe that we need to work in two ways, through education for young people about why we worship the way we do and education for adults in the congregation about how to make worship more accessible to young people. This approach will help people of all ages learn to value things in worship that may not be immediately appealing to them, because they are important to others in the community and it is important to them that these others be included. I think there are many things that we can do to make worship more accessible to children and youth - just like we make worship more accessible to seniors by using audio loop technology and allowing those with less mobility to remain seated during most of the service. One of the ways that we can make worship more accessible for school aged children is to provide them with what are known as 'Children's Bulletins.' 

These bulletins provide a brief explanation of what is special about this particular service, activities to help with the comprehension of one or more of the readings, some opportunity to respond creatively to the readings, information or activities on the different parts of worship and how to participate and questions and prayers to take home and discuss with their parents and families. These bulletins take the form of our worship as it currently is and introduce children to what we are doing and why. This is especially important because most of the time children are not a part of the whole Church service. Church school classes take place during the service and so they rarely experience the whole service from start to finish. On the occasions when there is no Church school - because of major feasts like Christmas or during the summer - these Children's Bulletins allow the children in the congregation to better participate in worship along with the adults in the community.

This is the front the Children's Bulletin for Epiphany

Beyond facilitating their participation, Children's Bulletins send an important message as well. The message is that children belong in the worshiping community. It is a message for parents, for children and also for the congregation as a whole. It is a message of inclusion and welcome for an important group in the community whose ministry and leadership in worship have not always been recognized. The Church needs the ministry of each person, regardless of their age. Children's Bulletins are one tool to help us engage young people in worship and empower them for ministry in the Church.

St Philip's will have Children's Bulletins available at the services without Church school over the holidays including the later services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning. I would be eager to receive any feedback on the use of these Children's Bulletins.

Guest Entry - Someone else's thoughts on Sustainable Youth Ministry

As I am sure many of you know by now, I have been leading a book study for the past few weeks on Sustainable Youth Ministry. This week, I have the pleasure of sharing with you, the reflections of one of the participants in this study. She wrote them for our parish newsletter and with her permission I am thrilled to be able to pass these along. I think it is always helpful to hear ideas from different perspectives. Also, it is nice to have a week off from writing my own posts. Next week will be even better as I result, I am sure.

Enjoy!

 As many of you know, in September, Caitlin Reilley Beck joined us as Family and Youth Worker. As we have not had anybody employed to work with youth for a while, we need to set about designing a youth group that meets the needs of our parish. For five Sundays in October and November a group of us met to study a book called Sustainable Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries. In this book DeVries outlines in detail how to build a youth ministry that lasts over time. Not a ministry that starts with a bang and then fizzles out. He also emphasizes the fact that a youth ministry shouldn't be dependent on a specific youth minister. The youth ministry should be designed such that if and when the youth minister moves on, the running of the ministry should be able to continue smoothly.

Over the course of the five weeks we talked a lot about the fact that the youth ministry is the responsibility of the whole congregation. One commonly held opinion is that now that we have a Youth and Family Worker we don't need to worry about our youth any more since they are taken care of. Also, if volunteers are needed the expectation is often that the parents of the youth should be the ones to volunteer. In fact youth ministry is the responsibility of the entire parish – much like outreach, hospitality, stewardship, Godly play etc. Why is this so?  We as parishioners have got a lot out of St Philips and Christianity in general and we want to share that with our youth. Also, they are the future of our church and this is the time in their life when they are most likely to leave the church- "More than half of adolescents who attend church as children leave the church before they reach age 17" (DeVries p. 31). More than simply being the future of the Church, they are part of the Church right now along with children and adults of all stages of life. It is important that some of the volunteers not be parents as teenagers may not be keen for their parents to always be around when they are participating in church activities. Also, interacting with non-parent volunteers will make the youth feel like they are important and special to the whole congregation. If they are asked by their parents to participate in activities such as the Christmas Fayre they might view this as a "chore" whereas they probably won't feel this if asked by another adult. So you can see why the youth ministry needs the help of the whole congregation. The current challenge is to identify a volunteer pool and to recruit volunteers from this pool.

In his book, DeVries talks about the importance of long range-planning including developing a vision, goals and a statement of values- "without a clearly articulated , compelling vision of what their church would like for its youth ministry to accomplish these ministries meander with no higher purpose than simply 'having a youth ministry'" (p.67). In other words we need to work out what it is we want to achieve and give to our youth before we design programmes (instead of setting up programmes and then seeing if they are offering what we want to offer). In order to identify our vision for our youth ministry we at St Philip's are going to have a visioning day sometime in the New Year. All parishioners are invited and we hope to see a good number of them there.

 

Bridgehead Blog Post

This past week has been spent enjoying some time away from the parish, away from Vancouver all the way back in Ottawa. Of course I have taken time away from my work to catch up with family and friends, but in doing so I have found a few interesting things that I will bring back to my ministry with St Philip's. I thought it would be a good idea on my last day here to stop and write a few of them down while enjoying a warm fair trade beverage at my favourite Ottawa coffee shop. It is called Bridgehead and it is lovely. I have not yet found a Dunbar replacement (more due to an over abundance of good coffee options than anything else).
First of all, last Sunday I had the opportunity to lead a discussion with the Ukrainian Catholic junior youth with whom I used to work. We used a resource produced by a Mennonite youth pastor in Winnipeg for the buy nothing Christmas initiative. The idea behind a buy nothing Christmas is to intentionally evaluate whether the consumption and commercialism that have become associated with Christmas are actually the best ways to celebrate what we as people of faith value about this season. The resource takes youth through three sessions on this theme. Each one includes a Bible passage, a written reflection by the author, discussion questions  and suggestions for actions the youth can take in their daily lives that connect to the theme. The resource is intended for high school aged youth which really showed in my discussion with the younger junior youth who needed a bit more help to understand some of the questions. Nonetheless we had a fruitful discussion about what the dominant secular culture values about Christmas and how this intersects with our own values as Christians.
As we question consumerism in the culture around us, I believe it is important not to throw the God-baby out with the plastic manger full of toxic, fake hay made in a sweatshop (so to speak). People in our culture engage in this consumerism out of a desire to express their love and care for family, friends and strangers. This love is an important part of what we celebrate in the incarnation as Christians; it is a divine love for all people that we see in God's choice to become incarnate as a fragile infant born to a young, poor, unwed couple. Whether this consumerism is actually the most appropriate way to celebrate this or not, neither is condemning those around us. As usual it is the challenge of seeing how our culture intersects with the Gospel and how the Gospel calls us to question it. This resource is great at helping youth to do this and I will get to use it again with the youth at St Philip's on December 16th. If you would like to see it, it is available for free on the buy nothing Christmas website at www.buynothingchristmas.org
Another lucky find from this trip is brought to you by the Anglican Church of Canada's liturgy for the Ordination of Priests. Last night I got to attend the priestly ordination of four of my friends and colleagues from the Diocese of Ottawa. While listening dutifully to the Bishop read the examination of the ordinands, I was struck by the following sentence: "You are to love and serve the people among whom you work, caring alike for the young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor." All priests are called to ministry with people of all ages. Way to go liturgy! Isn't it great when our worship says what we believe? I was pretty happy to be a part of this Church just then.
Well, my cocoa chai latte is all gone and I am ready to head back out into the -12 degree cold on my way to my next appointment. I am looking forward to heading back to Vancouver a little more rested and a little more resourced and to trade in my winter coat for my rain coat once again.

What does a blueprint for youth ministry look like?

Since I first read Sustainable Youth Ministry back in April, I have been looking for good examples of what this might look like applied to an Anglican Church in Canada. In particular the visioning documents DeVries speaks of: values and goals for the youth ministry; it all sounds very nice, but I need some concrete examples.

Well, I would like to thank Stronger Together 2012 for providing me with these examples. This second annual retreat for people working in regional youth ministry in the Anglican and Evangelical Lutheran Churches in Canada took place outside Calgary several weeks ago. Not only did it take place, but they produced a set of values and goals for youth ministry in these Churches. Good timing folks!

The values are as follows:

Our Values for Ministry With and Among Young People in Canada
 
Foundational to our understanding of the nature and task of youth ministry is “participating in God’s action.” Youth ministry then at the local levels is the ministry of the church that seeks to participate in God’s action with and among young people.
 
1) Knowing God
In all we do, we never forget who we are: humans created in the image of God beautiful, broken and loved.

2) Living in Christ
Our work is anchored in the priority of living out a vital relationship with Jesus Christ and sharing that way of life.

3) Missional Direction
Our work is to empower young people to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world.

4) Beyond Survival
Stories of effective ministry with and among young people inspire expectation and hope among Anglicans and Lutherans, inviting the church to move beyond survival and fear to trusting God and claiming what is life giving.

5) God Conversations
We are intentional about having God conversations with young people, equipping and encouraging them to share the story of their faith with the wider community.

6) Bold Experimentation
We foster experimentation recognizing the gifts of our rootedness in our rich heritage and story. Our ministries with and among young people are environments that empower creativity, leave room for failure and provide opportunities for learning and growth.

7) Spiritual Practice
We commit to re-affirming and renewing our faith through worship, the study of scripture and spiritual practices.

8) Individual Young People
We always keep in mind the reality that somewhere there’s a young person who is yearning to deepen their relationship with God and is waiting to be connected to a transforming Christian community. 

Personally, I love these values. I think they find a balance between tradition and innovation, individuals and community, and include all the important aspects of Christian life all the while addressing some of the unique characteristics and challenges of youth ministry. The best example of this is 4)Beyond Survival. So often fear and anxiety concerning the future survival of the Church (often the Church in its present form) shape youth ministry more than anything else. This value calls us to trust and look towards a future where the Church, as the Body of Christ in the world, is truly a source of new and eternal life.

In addition to these values they have the following goals for youth ministry from at a national level:

THREE-YEAR REVOLVING GOALS
TARGET DATE: DECEMBER 31, 2014
 
Visioning
1) 50% of the Anglican and Lutheran churches in Canada have discerned what youth ministry could look like in their context and identified a single measureable goal for making their parish youth ministries more effective.

Formation of Leaders
1) Within the next three years – Each Synod or Diocese has staff or a structure in place for youth ministry coordination. This could be:

• An active youth ministry committee; 
• A volunteer youth ministry coordinator; 
• A part-time (paid) youth ministry coordinator;
• A volunteer team; or
• A full time (paid) youth ministry coordinator.

Each has a clear and realistic job description for empowering youth ministry regionally and in congregations, with the aim of each diocese or synod to have a sustainable staff structure designed to best respond to the contextual realities of that diocese or synod.
2) Anglican and Lutheran Youth Leaders have sponsored a national workshop for youth leaders with attention to participation that reflects the diversity of leaders and contexts.
3) In the previous year, every region has initiated an annual equipping conference for paid and volunteer staff in youth ministry that is at least one day long.
4) In the previous year, every region has initiated an annual Sabbath retreat for paid and volunteer staff in youth ministry that is at least one day long.

Resources:
1) Annually updated Youth Ministry Facilitator Directory has been developed with a vehicle in place to keep these facilitators connected across diocese and synods.
2) A plan is in place for increasing the level of financial resources available for the future of Anglican, Lutheran or joint youth ministry. Including exploring an
endowment fund.

Promotion and Marketing
1) A plan for internal and external communication has been developed, including electronic, print, personal contact, intentional branding, and deliberate storytelling.
2) Every parish and every person on the youth ministry directory will be contacted about relevant events.

Student Leadership
1) A plan and budget for a year-long, residential, young adult discipleship program has been developed.
2) 75% of diocese and synods have had youth participants in one of many national or multi-synod or multi-diocese events in the past year.

Look at all those shiny numbers and concrete goals! These goals help paint a clear picture of what we want the future of youth ministry in the country to look like. They will make it easy to assess the progress of youth ministry and whether or not it is moving along in the right direction. While the actual goals at the parish level would be different, they would have a similar format and may even include the same helpful division by sections used by the Stronger Together crew.

In conclusion, I am grateful to all those who helped put these values and goals together as well as those who passed them along to me. They are not only an excellent blueprint for youth ministry in the Anglican and Lutheran Churches in Canada at the national level, but they are also a great example of what a blueprint actually looks like. These will be very helpful for us at St Philip's as we envision the future of youth ministry in this parish. 

Book Studying - The Final Episode

Over the past five weeks, meeting with my weekly book study group on Sustainable Youth Ministry has become one of the highlights of my week. In part this is because I am quite fond of having discussions with interesting people, but this is also because I am very enthusiastic about the idea of building a youth ministry that lasts and is successful over the long term. Call me crazy, but I am pretty sure this is what I was hired to help build and I do enjoy being successful at work.

In the final week of our discussions, we talked about what needs to happen next to move us forward in the building process. One of the steps that kept coming up was internal marketing. Devries describes internal marketing as raising the profile of the youth ministry for those within the Church who have a stake in its success. This includes staff, volunteers, the congregation, parents, youth, Church committee, trustees, etc. Sometimes this can mean helping people to realize that they do have a stake in that success when it might not be clear why. Other times it will mean offering stories of the impact of youth ministry. It can be helping people to realize that the intergenerational nature of Christian community and ministry is non-negotiable; it is a necessary characteristic of this ministry and for this reason our Christian faith calls us to be invested in developing it. This will build the foundational understanding of youth ministry as an important part of our parish vocation that will help us mobilize more people to contribute to this ministry in a variety of ways.

In addition to this internal marketing, we must begin by assessing the current state of youth ministry within the parish. In order to develop this picture, we assemble documents such as organizational charts, directories and lists of the volunteers that are needed. In addition, we meet with those who have a stake in youth ministry in order to discuss this topic. This assessment must happen before we can spend time visioning and planning for the future. 

Finally, one of the main hurdles to building youth ministry at St Philip's has been identified by the group as the gap that currently exists between the youth (and children) and the majority of the older parishioners. The youth, because of their busy schedules, are only at Church at a few key times (Sunday mornings being the main one). This limits the opportunities for parishioners to get to know them and build relationships with them. Perhaps this means we need to reevaluate how we use our time on these occasions both individually and as a community. In addition, how do we diversify and increase the opportunities for intergenerational relationship building in the Church?

As this book study comes to a close I am grateful for all of the thoughtful and enthusiastic contributions from the members of the group. I look forward to being able to share their insights and experiences with the parish as a whole. Stay tuned for a potential guest entry to the blog from one of my book study friends.

Godly Play Envy

You know that feeling when you see a really cool toy for kids and you think to yourself "Why didn't they have that when I was a kid?" Over the past week and a half I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the Godly Play programme and this is the feeling I get every time I do.

The thing I am most jealous of is the atmosphere of expectation, reverence and engagement that is created in the Godly Play classroom. I love the way that the children are prepared to enter the classroom by the doorkeeper; being greeted one by one and asked if they are ready to do Godly Play that day. This question of readiness is a really important one. It gives each child a chance to prepare themselves for what they will be doing and it also gives them an opportunity to recognize if for some reason they are not ready today. I think this is a really important part of Godly Play. It recognizes each child as a subject capable of engaging in the community of the Godly Play classroom. As the storyteller tells the story for the week, they continue this process by ensuring that everyone is ready and responding to any disruptions by reminding the children that they all need to be ready and what this looks like. The children themselves play a role in maintaining that atmosphere. It is a religious community where they are recognized as full and active members with responsibility for what happens therein. There is a great deal of thought and effort that goes into creating this community. It requires the support of the doorkeepers, story-tellers, children and parents as well as those in the wider community.

From the perspective of the Anglican Church, where even the youngest infants are baptized and considered full members of the Body of Christ, this is a wonderful vision of the Church. Children are not seen as objects of cuteness or entertainment for the sake of adults, nor are they treated as empty vessels or blank slates to be filled by those older members of the Church and prepared to be the Church of tomorrow. Instead they are the Church today. They are bearers of the image of God and as such they possess a divine spark which shows others something unique about who God is. Godly play offers children an opportunity to be recognized as full contributors to the Body of Christ through the means that are most natural to them; through play. This play for them is not simply a diversion, rather play, especially for children, is important work. It is how they learn to engage with the world around them and Godly play is their opportunity to engage purposefully with God in the context of the Christian community.

When compared to other Christian Education programmes that do not offer these opportunities it is no wonder to me now why the children at my last parish never wanted to age out of the Godly Play class. 

If you are interested in learning more about Godly Play, here are some great links to follow:

The Canadian Godly Play Website: www.godlyplay.ca
Godly Play Blog for a church in South Carolina: www.godlyplayblog.blogspot.ca
Godly Play Pinterest: pinterest.com/easterkind/godly-play-spaces-group-board

Adventures in Book Studying - Episode 2

 Once again our intrepid little group of book studiers gathered this week to continue our look at Sustainable Youth Ministry. We even gained two new participants! The most important part of these chapters for me is the emphasis on attending to the atmosphere and climate that surrounds a youth ministry and the tips on how to do this.

While tangible organizational structure is important to a sustainable ministry, so is the more intangible reality of the climate or atmosphere in which that structure exists. A healthy climate promotes sustainable growth by putting in place conditions where that growth is easier and therefore more likely. DeVries compares it to the way a greenhouse creates an environment with the ideal conditions for plants to grow. Creating a healthy climate is about recognizing what factors are within our control and which aren’t (such as school schedules, extra-curricular activities, economic factors, etc.) To assess the climate of a particular youth ministry we ask questions such as: What are the attitudes towards the ministry and those involved? How is the ministry perceived both from within and without? Often times, the climate in youth ministry is one of fear of failure, anxiety and defensiveness. The pressure on those involved to meet high expectations can create a lot of stress. The feeling that this ministry is important combined with a lack of knowledge about how to make it successful leads people to feel that it is out of control. In a sustainable ministry, however, the atmosphere is one of excitement and creative engagement where people can see the fruits of their efforts and trust they are on a path forward together.

DeVries suggests certain actions that can be taken in order to create a sustainable climate for growth:

1 We deliver results.

·      One token success can be the tipping point that shifts or jump starts the atmosphere of a ministry.

2 We trust the process.

·      It takes a lot of time and effort, moving intentionally and intelligently in the same direction before visible results are produced. It is important not to get discouraged and stop half-way through.

3 We import joy into the chaos.

·      This is by far my favourite tip because I think it is about recognizing the limitations of being human and living in this world. It is about seeing grace and mercy at work in the everyday. It is about not taking ourselves too seriously and being a non-anxious presence.

4 We instill stories and metaphors.

·      I may have spoken too soon, because I also love this one. Stories and metaphors are a very Christian way of learning and understanding the world. There is a kind of truth that we can express better using story and metaphor than with straightforward explanation. Also, it points to the power of positive reinforcement instead of punishment and chastisement as teaching tools.

5 We embrace rituals and traditions, signs and symbols.

·      Wait, I was wrong again, as a liturgist this is definitely my favourite tip. Rituals and traditions connect us across time and space with a whole wider community, while being still linked inextricably with the now. In their relationship with our everyday life, they can give new meaning to the mundane, elevating it to a place of encounter with the sacred. They are about inclusion and belonging in a community and exploring the relationship between the identity of an individual and a group.