In the past two weeks, I have devoted most of my weekends to making new friends, reacquainting with old friends, and learning how to do church better (HINT: Based on my experience at these events, it appears to require a lot of dialogue, listening, singing, and eating).
Last weekend I attended the first ever Slow Church Conference hosted by the Englewood Christian Church in Indianapolis (April 3-5). This weekend, I served as a delegate for the Church of the Larger Fellowship to the first ever MidAmerica Regional Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (April 11-12), a conference in four locations—Bloomington, IN—Topeka, KS—Wassau, WI—Ann Arbor, MI—linked via twitter and live streaming technology.
I learned valuable lessons at each event, with surprisingly similar messages resonating around the lunch table, in the hallways, and workshop rooms of each.
Here’s just a few the questions still stirring things up for me:What would I learn about others and myself if I attended to both with more intention?
- How would my life be transformed if I quit spending my time or investing my time in things and people who matter to me and, rather, devote myself to them, being fully present to them?
- What spiritual practices am I willing to devote myself to in order to fulfill my role in reconciling and restoring all things (Missio Dei) from a perspective of abundance and abiding faith rather than an anxiety-ridden, often frenzied sense of urgency?
- How would our churches change if we adopted the prayer, “Spirit, run us into the people we wouldn’t want to.” (Willie Jennings)?
- Do I know my church’s history? Why are we where we are? How did we arrive at this place? What implications does it have?What obligations do we have to the place in which we find ourselves?
- What changes must we make to live into the place we find ourselves?
- How would our response to mission change if we committed to being with people more than doing for people?
- Where can I go in the neighborhood to meet God today?
- What if changing the world really means changing our little corner of it through faithful presence?
- How do we do this all together, overcoming the terminal individualism characterized by our fragmented contemporary society?
Check out what others have said and let me know in the comments what is stirring for you?
We are lucky to have the audio of Willie Jennings’ keynote address (and Q & A session) that set the tone of the Slow Church Conference Thursday evening as well as the Rev. Ron Robinson’s summary of Dr. Jennings’ keynote posted to Facebook. Thank you to Chris Smith and the folks who got the audio up as well as to Ron Robinson for generously sharing his thoughts on this vital topic.
I live tweeted most of my notes, so I put together a story on Storify comprised of tweets from both conferences for folks to check out at the link above or embedded below.
Photo Credit: Slow Church Sign by Sara Sterley (@sx2 on Twitter)
