Monday morning saw a great presentation on Fresh Expressions, which is a response to the changing times that allows parishes to ask themselves “how do we respond to change?” Everything is changing… changing times, changing relationships, and changing cultures… And how do we invite, bring, and make new people feel welcome? With more and more generations knowing less and less about faith how do we share with those who are just starting off the exploration of their spiritual journey? During the presentation I began to feel so excited about church! Just the possibilities, the conversations that can be had, and looking at the experience and “education” we can provide to people in the world just made me feel so excited and hopeful!
We also began our sexuality dialogue in small groups. We each had a chance to respond to the question, “What at this time would you like General Synod to affirm, request, and/or hope for the Anglican Church of Canada on the Blessing of Same Sex Unions?” (The question may not be exactly worded as was presented to us – but that is the just of it!)
The group I was in had an amazing facilitator who kept us to our three minute limit on sharing and helped all to feel comfortable and safe – these are very key components to the conversation at hand. There was also the general sense that we don’t have to agree… at this time especially we just really need to be engaging in the conversation and be open to the Holy Spirit to work through and within us.
I don’t want to go into too much discussion on this, but if you have questions just send me a message! I will share with you that I was super surprised to find out that the church has been in 34 years of conversation on this topic – 34 years! It causes me great pain to know that we are still talking about this, still have not acted either way, and still are keeping individuals and couples not knowing what the church is going to do. Thirty-four years… that is thirteen years more then I have been alive… thirty-four years… wow! We need to continue to commit to walk together and engage in discussion, and I really, really hope that this body gathered can come to some level of a resolution.
After our dialogues I went to my second Port of Call and chose to attend the one on Faith, Worship, Ministry on Theological Education. It was great to hear what is happening in terms of education for ordained ministry, what conversations are being engaged in, what changes might be being made, so on and so forth. There was a lot of talk about equipping our leaders to be ordained and put into a parish because the reality is that we can’t afford curacies any more… the post-graduate life does not end, there is a huge role of spiritual direction and mentorship which is very important.
The church is looking closely at a set of national standards for all persons being ordained – this I feel is very important. Someone made the comment that we are forming individuals to go into a church and we have no idea how the church is going to look… I think this is also reality. It was a great Port of Call - very informative.
The evening consisted of many, many resolutions. We looked at a resolution that had been defeated earlier in the week and was being presented again with some revisions. The conversation and debate that took place blew my mind… I have never experienced this side of the church before. It was fascinating but oh so crazy!
We ended the evening with a lovely service of light, which was the perfect way to end the long day. Relaxing, filled with lovely and soft music, and just relaxed me. It was great and reminded me of Evening Prayer during the summer at Sorrento Centre.
