Member Mission Newsletter #28     

This month:
  
STORIES
• Labor to management in a small company
• Twin high school seniors reflect on their wider world mission in Thailand
• Beware assuming that deacons think about the daily missions of each member
• “Habitat” for their local community
• Diocese of Spokane to use member mission resources
• EFM group contemplates action in their state

RESOURCES
• An overlooked helper

FOR MEDITATION
• Albert Borgmann
• Leo Tolstoy

 

STORIES
  
Labor to management in a small company

A small manufacturer in rural New York has development of its workers as one of its primary objectives.  It offers fair wages and basic benefits including health care.  Recently, one of its workers made the transition to a management role.  At stake was seeing that the company was not pushing for “more than was reasonable” and that neither labor nor management was the enemy.  The real challenge is competition in the context of broad world events – even from far away China – that dictate what can be done.  People on the floor tend to see it as the company’s “problem” when the macro issues of worldwide competition are the real problem.  The owner commented, “Finding common ground between what the company has to do to survive financially and what they have to do as individuals to support that can be adversarial.  He has been good at not going down that road but bridging the gap and explaining things in terms that the workers can understand.”

 

The owner goes on to say, “I saw someone who knew the importance of work and working together.  God was at work in giving this man insight into management, not being judgmental, and all the better qualities of humanity.  I saw an individual not trying to encourage division but, rather, understanding between people.  We need to understand what the workers struggle with and they need to see that we are not just laying things on them to make more money and to get rich but the nature of the free market and competition.  Let’s not be judgmental about each other but understand each other’s problems.  The only way it can work is to find common ground and understand each other.  Somehow, he had the inherent spirit given to him to see it in a constructive rather than a simplistic way.  Yes, that was the Spirit’s work.  He sees us as inherently good people instead of as nasty people out to get the worker.  He sees the real issue as the open market in a worldwide economy and we have to work together for a certain amount of productivity each day.  That’s how he has chosen to see it.  We can do what we have to do together.”
     Contact: The owner who has requested anonymity.

 

Twin high school seniors reflect on their wider world mission in Thailand

Edwina and Phoebe Clarke, of Willsboro, NY and members of St. John’s Church in nearby Essex, NY, are back from their three months in Thailand to teach English as a second language to Thai children.  They found the experience both rewarding and difficult.  After ten days of introduction to the language, the place, and the culture, they taught for nine weeks in small farming towns.  In Wang Jom and Toong Loo, Phoebe taught three classes of 8 - 12 year olds averaging about forty in each.  In Toong Lackon and Baan Doon, Edwina taught four classes of 6 - 12 year olds numbering about twenty-five in each.  Both taught five days a week.  Managing discipline and discerning when “you were getting through” were among their learnings.  Finding the children had little knowledge of geography and no atlases in their small libraries, they drew world maps on walls in Toong Lackon and Toong Loo – using handbooks from the Peace Corps.  After the schools closed, they ran a four-day sports camp introducing egg toss, pinatas, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Some adults said they had never seen the children so happy.  The twins say they had never seen them so full.  As for the practice of Buddhism, they found that outward religious observance seemed to decline with each generation.

 

Their community project was supplying each school’s library with almost 400 books – novels and nonfiction in Thai; easy-to-read Thai books for the younger children; easy-to-read books in English and English dictionaries for the older children; a few large picture books on subjects from anatomy to Zaire; and two years of a very popular Thai magazine like the National Geographic for thirty surrounding schools.  The program is sponsored by nonprofit Global Routes with participants paying tuition and raising their money for the community project.  Phoebe and Edwina had raised $2000 and pooled their funds with those of two other students to buy the books. 

 

Their goal had been to reach the villagers as well as the students and to have a lasting effect on the small farming towns.  Both are thankful for the chance to serve others and know full well that, in many ways, they received more than they gave – as their sponsors had suggested from the outset.  They valued the challenge of living, talking, and teaching in a third world culture.  This summer, they will waitress in a local restaurant before starting at Yale in September.
[For pictures, go to Newsletters > Member Mission News #28 on the web site.]

 

 

Beware assuming that deacons think about the daily missions of each member

Rich Hill finds the chart comparing congregational missions and member missions from Basic Tools 5 on the website (see the Making the Vision Work menu) useful.  He works with the deacons in training for the Lutherans of a synod in Suffolk County on Long Island in New York.  He discovered that after two years of training and four weeks from graduation, no one seemed to have gotten them over thinking of the pastor as the “minister.”  No one had talked to them about what they would really be doing.  This chart helped them to visualize what their work might be.  It was new to them to see that they have a role in helping the members to become missionaries. 

 

Rich has also been asked to offer continuing education and support for some twenty or so who have been serving as deacons for some time.  He sees the member mission vision and its resources as useful for an opening retreat for such training.  He would start with vocation: what is the call they have; what does it mean to be in ministry; and how will they exercise that vocation.  For a number of reasons, many of the deacons have never had the chance to deal with these questions.  He sees deacons as an important link in the whole process of motivating and supporting people in their everyday ministries.  They need to be leading support groups, prayer groups, and study groups and to have acquired the skills they need to do so.
     Contact: The Rev. Dr. Richard O. Hill, Hope Lutheran Church, 46 Dare Road, Selden, NY 11784; p631-732-2511; f631-732-8369; rohill@optonline.net; www.hopeluth.com.

 

“Habitat” for their community

Valerie Valle of St. Alban’s Church, Brentwood, CA writes about an outreach mission of the congregation: “Two years ago our deacon discovered that several Habitat for Humanity houses were going to be built nearby.  They were looking for organizations to sponsor a house.  To sponsor a house involves commitment to about $60,000 and a certain number of volunteer hours.  When she brought this up to the congregation there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the project.  However, as a mission congregation we knew that we could not do it ourselves. We thought about approaching our deanery.  Our deacon made an excellent presentation at the next deanery meeting and, with a number of phone calls and discussions, got almost all of the Episcopal churches in the area on board.  We sponsored a house that is now complete and waiting for the family to move in. Our congregation was particularly generous, not just financially but in giving of their time. It was deeply rewarding for all of us!” 
[Their mission statement reads: “We invite all people to know the love of God.  We welcome everyone to a personal relationship with God.  We offer a Christian community balanced in tradition and spiritual exploration.  We give of ourselves to those in need in our local community and in the world.”  Visit their website at stablansbrentwood.org.  Their Sunday congregations average 74.]
     Contact: The Rev. Valerie A. Valle, St. Alban's Episcopal Church, 508 2nd Street, Brentwood, CA 94513; or P.O. Box 101, Brentwood, CA 94513; or (925) 634-1893; or savicar@aol.com.

Diocese of Spokane to use member mission resources

Title III – Ministry, Canon 3 – Of Discernment of the Episcopal Church calls for each diocese to “develop an ongoing process of community discernment . . . for all persons seeking direction in their call to ministry.”  Wanting a ministry discernment process for all the baptized, Canon to the Ordinary and Deployment Officer Kristi Philip went to “Living Into Our Ministries” of the Cornerstone Project (www.episcopalfoundation.org/research/Living Into Our Ministries document.pdf) for ideas.  Cornerstone of the Episcopal Church Foundation seeks to strengthen ordained and leaders of Episcopal congregations.  From helps for individual members in Section 3, she chose “Model 3: Six Arenas of Daily Life” from WTMATM.  She sees it useful for small groups of laity to discern where the energy and the passion in their lives that can translate into ministry in any number of directions.  They would work with one arena at a time over a period of weeks.  To accompany the member mission resource, she has adapted Fletcher Lowe’s “Model 2: The 24-Hour Inventory” – also from the Cornerstone piece – and added ways for a group to use it.  Both would be resources for “discovery groups” such as people seeking more after the Via Media course (www.everyvoice.net/viamedia). 

 

Since the version of member mission in “Living Into Our Ministries” has been updated, Kristi will receive a draft of the new Workbook.  The mission field of church now has two sections – “my own spiritual health” and my part in “our church’s life and outreach.”  Also, the questions for each mission field are now more “user-friendly.”   These revisions will soon be posted on the member mission website.  (The whole Workbook draft is available on request to membermission@aol.com.)
     Contact: The Rev. Kristi Philip, Diocese of Spokane, 245 E 13th Ave., Spokane, WA 99202-1114; 509-624-3191; KristiP@spokanediocese.org.

EFM group contemplates action in their state

Among its procedures,  Education for Ministry (efm@sewanee.edu; 800-722-1974) calls on participants to hold “A Conversation Among the Sources of Action, Tradition, Position, and Culture: Compare and contrast the perspectives we have explored in the tradition and sources of our texts and our culture and society.  How do our own lives interact with these perspectives?  Where do these perspectives join or compete?  Where do they clash or contrast?” and to
“Decide on Social and Civic Consequences: What actions will you take to carry out the implications you have discovered?  What will you investigate further in your community in order to make a difference?  What action do you want to take?”  Bob Harvey, an EFM mentor in Tucson, AZ, leads his groups in such reflection on the implications of their learning for daily life at about two-thirds of their sessions.

 

For a random sample of such a conversation and decision, Bob was asked what his current group discussed at their last meeting just before the phone call.  They had chosen to reflect on an issue in their society – a proposed change in the constitution of the State of Arizona.  It reads: “Article XXX. Marriage: To preserve and protect marriage in this state, only a union between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage by this state or its political subdivisions and no legal status for unmarried persons shall be created or recognized by this State or its political subdivisions that is similar to that of marriage.”  This will apply to both heterosexual and homosexual partners who have not been legally married. No civil government entity at any level will be allowed to provide benefits to such couples.  Further, this may apply to hospital visits for partners and to speaking for partners in a terminal state of health.  The group saw it as a justice issue on which they need to make themselves visible and heard.  They will approach the churches of Tucson to look at this issue and what action they might take on it.  They will work through the Interfaith Rainbow Coalition to which Harvey’s church belongs.
      Contact: The Rev. Robert W. Harvey, 8084 W Arching Stone Way, Tucson, AZ 85743-5439; 520-744-7810; frbobh@comcast.net. 
  

 

 

• An overlooked helper from the Canons of ECUSA when commending member mission to your vestry or congregation is TITLE III, MINISTRY, CANON 1: Of the Ministry of All Baptized Persons.  It reads as follows. 
   “Sec. 1. Each Diocese shall make provision for the affirmation and development of the ministry of all baptized persons, including:
   (a) Assistance in understanding that all baptized persons are called to minister in Christ's name, to identify their gifts with the help of the Church and to serve Christ's mission at all times and in all places.
   (b) Assistance in understanding that all baptized persons are called to sustain their ministries through commitment to lifelong Christian formation.”
   Commend member mission as a “way that works” to respond to this canon.

 

FOR MEDITATION

 

 

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[You continue on this list because of past interest and / or work together with the vision in When the Members are the Missionaries. If you missed or lost any past newsletters, you will find them on the website under Making the Vision Work > Newsletters.  To be dropped from the list, just write us at membermission@aol.com.]

 

Edwina and Phoebe with their Thai awards

One of Phoebe's classes

One of their world maps

The sports camp

Distributing the books

A village street