Collegiality

What a great day it was today. I was able to meet with my clergy cluster today for the first time in two months, and it felt great to reconnect. The cluster I participate in was set up for Presbyterian clergy, but I'm eligible to participate even as a UCC clergyperson due to Mountain View's ecumenical ties. Today's gathering gave me a chance to explore some of the issues I've been considering these past seven weeks. We talked, for instance, about the missional nature of ministry and grappled with two very different models for global mission. We also talked in depth about the challenges of integrating "postmodern" ways of being within congregations that are often very "modern" in their orientation. And of course we had a chance to simply be supportive with one another as we explored with one of our colleagues what it means to live out one's call when you don't currently have a ministry setting. Needless to say, I felt very rejuvenated through our time together. Thank you Holly, Laurene, and Ashley!! This sense of collegiality made me long for a deeper sense of community within the emergent culture. I realized that in all of my explorations to date, I have yet to find individuals/communities who are (1) non-creedal in theological orientation; and (2) welcoming of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community in practice. Needing to find this branch of the emergent movement, I fired off an email to two of the emergent leaders with which I felt the greatest sense of kinship. We'll see if I am able to track down parts of the emergent community that - 7 weeks into my sabbatical studies - remains largely hidden. This afternoon I also started Doug Paggit (& the Solomon's Porch Community's) book "Church Re-Imagined: The Spiritual Formation of People in Communities of Faith". Right away, I knew that reading this book would be a perfect way to start exploring approaches toward spiritual formation within the emergent movement. I say that for three reasons. First of all, I knew the book would take a balanced approach toward spiritual formation (I say balanced meaning "balanced between individual and communal formation practices") when I saw that Pagitt acknowledge the community as co-authors of the book. Second, I loved Pagitt's understanding of the role community itself plays in the individual's spiritual formation. Pagitt wrote, for example, that at Solomon's Porch "we look for ways to make our community of faith a place where we become invovled in one another's lives in intimate, meaningful, and transformative ways" (27). What wonderful adjectives to capture the kind of community I believe we are all called to create. And third, I loved the community's shift away from a dogmatic approach toward spiritual formation to a lived approach. "Many of us in the Protestant Church," Pagitt wrote, " have erred in our overemphasis on teaching about Jesus to the exclusion of the call to the Kingdom life" (33). In capturing the fullness of their committments, Pagitt (and the members of the community) emphasis that they pursue a path toward spiritual formation that allows them "to be Christian in and with our bodies and not in our minds and hearts only." This includes a plan that understands various types of spirituality: (1) a spirituality of dialogue; (2) a spirituality of hospitality; (3) a spirituality of the knowledge of God; (4) a spirituality of creativity; and (5) a spirituality of service (35). I'm looking forward to diving in further to Pagitt's book tomorrow. Oh, the final piece of my great day was that my father (after spending nearly 4 weeks in the hospital following his heart attack on June 23) finally made it to a care/rehabilitative center. Yes!!!! Our family would appreciate continued prayers for him during this ongoing period of recovery. Til next time...