Post on 16-Mar-2016
description
If you can see this, you're connected
correctly!
We'll begin at the top of the hour. In the meantime, please use the “flipchart” at the top left of your screen for some
informal conversation as people gather. You might
begin by typing your name and location into the white space
at the bottom of the box.
Session One:Behold I am Doing a New Thing
Welcome
Introductions
The presenters
“The Flipchart”
“Questions for Steve”
Opening Prayer
Meeting One Agenda
Context: where we find ourselvesSome words about Bruce's context
Observations about The United Church of Canada in 2012
Cultural ShiftsNew strategies for ministry
The Meaning of Hope in Evolutionary Spirituality
Context
• Urban/Rural
• Large/Small
• Affluent/Less affluent
• Culture: Traditional/Modern/Postmodern
Mitigating Contextual Differences
• Focus on transformational depth, not numbers
• Focus on evolution, (your unique, next-best adaptive step) and not ideals
Small Group Discussion(5 mins)
Name
Location
A sentence or two about your own context
Bad News
David Ewart’s Video:
“The United Church at 100”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF4LMiqc370
With statistics drawn from the Year Book, and projections after 2007
http://www.davidewart.ca/United-Church-People-Trends-Projected-Based-on-2010.pdf
http://www.davidewart.ca/United-Church-People-Trends-Projected-Based-on-2010.pdf
http://www.davidewart.ca/United-Church-People-Trends-Projected-Based-on-2010.pdf
http://www.davidewart.ca/United-Church-People-Trends-Projected-Based-on-2010.pdf
How does the context of the congregation you serve compare to the national
trends?
6 Quick Polls
Small Group discussion (10 mins)
How do you respond to the “bad news”?
What strategies have you been using already to address these
issues?
Do you feel like the strategies you're using are working? Why
or why not?
Good News
It’s not your faultYou are part of the solutionChristendom is over – people are
in church because they choose to be.
Disciplined practice may become the norm
It may be hopeless enough that finally real change is possible.
Culture Shift
From What toward What?
Culture Shifting
Out of meetings and into ministry
Culture Shifting
Out of meetings and into ministry
From membership toward discipleship
Culture Shifting
Out of meetings and into ministry
From membership toward discipleship
From bureaucratically-based ministry toward gift-based ministry
Culture Shifting
Out of meetings and into ministry
From membership toward discipleship
From bureaucratically-based ministry toward gift-based ministry
From clergy as personal chaplain toward clergy as leader of leaders
Culture Shifting
Out of meetings and into ministry
From membership toward discipleship
From bureaucratically-based ministry toward gift-based ministry
From clergy as personal chaplain toward clergy as leader of leaders
From superficiality toward deep connection
Culture Shifting
Out of meetings and into ministry
From membership toward discipleship
From bureaucratically-based ministry toward gift-based ministry
From clergy as personal chaplain toward clergy as leader of leaders
From superficiality toward deep connection
From organizing around emergencies toward organizing for emergence
Small Group discussion:What would ministers do differently?
What would church members do differently?
Out of meetings and into ministry
From membership toward discipleship
From bureaucratically-based ministry toward gift-based ministry
From clergy as personal chaplain toward clergy as leader of leaders
From superficiality toward deep connection
From organizing around emergencies toward organizing for emergence
Good News
“And the day came when the risk it took to remain tightly closed in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom”
—Anais Nin
More Good News: Reframing Crisis In An Evolutionary
Paradigm
Parable of the prenatal pessimist
The Crisis is the Birth
Hope in an Evolutionary Paradigm
Crises are evocations or provocations of new intelligences necessary to adapt and thrive
Hope in an Evolutionary Paradigm
Crises are evocations or provocations of new intelligences necessary to adapt and thriveCrisis is information, not the enemy, in a living, learning universe. Crises are part of the information feed-back loop system of cosmic intelligence.
Hope in an Evolutionary Paradigm
Crises are evocations or provocations of new intelligences necessary to adapt and thriveCrisis is information, not the enemy, in a living, learning universe. Crises are part of the information feed-back loop system of cosmic intelligence. In evolution, optimum creative tension is required.
Optimal Creative Tension is ...
The persistent experience of some frustration, organizational
dilemma, or personal problem that is…
The persistent experience of some frustration, organizational
dilemma, or personal problem that is…
perfectly designed to cause us to feel the limits of our current way
of knowing and acting
Optimal Creative Tension is ...
Optimal Creative Tension is ...
In some sphere of our living that we care about, with…
Optimal Creative Tension is ...
In some sphere of our living that we care about, with…
sufficient supports so that we are not overwhelmed by it, nor able
to escape or diffuse it.
More Good News
Church is a habitat of creative emergence
More Good News
Church is a habitat of creative emergence
Role of leaders is to hold congregations in the tension, and persuade folks that remaining in bud form is more painful than the risk of blooming.
More Good News
Church is a habitat of creative emergence
Role of leaders is to hold congregations in the tension, and persuade folks that remaining in bud form is more painful than the risk of blooming.
Create the habitat and the universe will bloom!
Emergence
The universe is creativity in motion. It is arising in every moment, forming increasingly complex wholes from the parts. It does so from the inside-out—a natural grace. When we feel our lives, and our organizations, to be an occasion of this ever-emergent grace, we tap into a gracious dynamism—and a restless desire to bring forth new futures.
Toward a theology of Promise
What yearning drew you into ministry?
Please join us next week at the same time, for
Session Two:“Church as a Habitat
for Creative Emergence”
Ministry Anywhere, Anytime, by Anybody
Theology of “Creative Emergence”
Practical steps to creating “the Deal” that allows for change