Diocese of Oregon
Keynote address delivered on September 25, 2010 at Trinity Cathedral in Portland, Oregon
We have gathered here for an opportunity to be in community with one another as we explore what it means to be a church that passes on its faith from generation to generation. It is also the time of year when we are re-energized and have “come home” from Sabbath time of the summer months.
Mark Bozzuti-Jones, a priest for pastoral care and nurture at Trinity Wall Street wrote a book a number of years ago entitled, “Informed by Faith.” One of the chapter titles catches me off guard each time I read it – “Talking the Walk of Religious Education Today.” So perhaps that is where we should start before exploring our call to “walk the talk.”
Christian Formation
Our interest in Christian formation calls us here today. For many of us, our vocation involves education. The verb, educate, means to give intellectual, moral, and social instruction: it is to provide education to someone over time, to give information, and to train or instruct for a particular purpose. It is a process of leading out and calling forth wisdom so that others may learn. That’s different than instruction, in which we are teaching about things – factual, nuts & bolts. Education takes instruction and puts it into practice – how do I use this learning and apply it to my life? Today we talk about formation. Why the new word? Formation is that lifelong practice of learning and living out the person God has called us to be. It happens continually formally and informally. It is subliminal – not like the potter who may form a jar out of clay that is fired in a kiln so it is hardened for permanent use. We are never a finished product as a Christian. We continue to strive to be formed into the full form of our individual nature as God as created us. Each of us are unique individuals that have been known by God since we were in the womb and are companioned on our journey by the Holy Spirit. There is never an end point to our growth in love and service to Jesus Christ.
By definition, Christian formation is the lifelong process of growing in relationship with God, self, others and all creation. In this process we are transformed into the people God wants us to be. As twenty-first century Episcopalians, we still long for the inheritance common to all Christians in all times and places – to be united in Christ, who calls us in the power of the Holy Spirit to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and bodies; to love our neighbors as ourselves; and to make disciples, baptize, and teach.
In our Baptismal Covenant, The Episcopal Church has gracefully articulated the way in which we answer Christ’s call. Lifelong Christian Formation describes the many processes by which we live into that covenant. So it involves not just educational programs, but how we practice and reflect upon our actions as a community gathered and a community dispersed – through worship, outreach, pastoral care, service, fellowship and prayer. Maria Harris reminds us in her seminal book, “Fashion Me a People,” that the church is formed through the kerygma (proclaiming Jesus’ life, death and resurrection), didache (teachings of the apostles and early church), koinonia (community) leiturgia (Liturgy), and diakonia (service / deacons).
Our House of Bishops recently concluded a 6-day gathering in the Diocese of Arizona. I was especially struck by the press release that came out after their first official day gathered. Ecumenical guest and partner, Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America addressed the bishops about what the Church should be about today:
- Living the Gospel of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ by living the Christian life by following our Baptismal promises.
- Mission requires three kinds of listening: (a) listening to God; (b) listening to one another; (c) listening to the community that surrounds us.
- We need to revive a thorough knowledge of the Bible as part of our training in the Christian faith.
The Charter for Lifelong Christian Formation
To me, he has reminded us of what our core mission is. And to me, a central part of living that out is Christian formation. And I was wondering, how many of our bishops remember a small, but mighty, resolution they endorsed at The General Convention of The Episcopal Church in July 2009? Then the Episcopal Church adopted Resolution A082, the Charter for Lifelong Christian Education. There was an additional resolution, A083 that called upon all dioceses to promote and encourage lifelong formation. Last year at your diocesan convention, you adopted The Charter for Lifelong Christian Formation as an underlying standard for Christian Formation in the Diocese of Oregon. You affirmed that Christian Faith Formation in The Episcopal Church is a lifelong journey with Christ, in Christ and to Christ. You commended every congregation in your diocese to read and study the Charter for Lifelong Christian Formation and attempt to live it out locally.
The Charter itself is a document born out of the local level. It is not a top-down decree but one that came out of congregational and diocesan educators who desired the church to take education and formation more seriously, Barbara Ross being one of the dreamers that helped breathe life into what it is today.
There are some “catch words” in The Charter: invite, inspire and transform. To inform, form and transform. And it’s not a mistake that transformation is repeated several times. If we as a church live the tenets of the Charter out, we will be a transformed church.
Through The Charter, we are invited to a life of prayer, service, education and worship. We are inspired to experience our faith journey through the lens of worship, scripture, reason and tradition. We can then be transformed to live into our baptismal promises, serving, witnessing, empowering and holding all accountable.
The Charter provides an intentional opportunity to plan and support our lifelong formation. It provides a framework for your congregation to organize your formation ministries and programs. Faith formation for people of all ages informs, forms and transforms people and communities by providing an encounter with Christ and promoting discipleship. To inform, we impart knowledge of the Christian faith so that who we are and how we live is shaped and influenced by what we know. To form, we nurture people’s identity and lifestyle as a disciple of Christ. To transform, we promote the personal and social transformation of the world according to the kingdom of God that Jesus preached.
The Charter allows us to engage all generations in more active participation in church life; to equip and support families, especially parents, to practice the Christian way of life at home and in their daily lives; to transform the church community into a community of lifelong learners; and to utilize the whole life of the church as the faith formation curriculum through church year, feasts and seasons, sacraments and liturgy, justice and service, prayer and spirituality, and community life. You can use this Charter to provide clarification in what is meant by lifelong formation by bringing it back to your church and sharing it with your Vestry. Look at all the activities of your congregation – how do they (or don’t they) help form Christians?
We are aware that formation encompasses learning, action and reflection, that formation is ongoing, and that it is both formal and informal. Christian formation has increasingly moved to relational models that build upon the learner’s experience, the value of telling one’s story as well as recalling and reflecting upon Biblical stories, nurture and support in local congregations and communities, and hands on experiences in mission and service.
Christian educators have the unending task of drawing out of themselves and their students the wisdom that abides within them. Christian education in the church community points inward as a way of helping those who listen discover the gift of God within them. The tasks facing the church community that is informed by faith lie in the ability of the community to find new ways of helping others discover how much God loves them and how God gives them all they need.
- Christian education requires a reflective life that allows the individual to get in touch with the inner movement of the Spirit.
- Dynamic education requires grappling with the motivating forces, physical or moral, that educate or inform who we are.
- Education demands that the teacher be willing to share his or her inner life.
Teaching with a Mission in Today’s World:
One of the first things I do with a congregation when they call on me to help choose a curriculum is to ask them to ‘step back.’ Who are you? What kind of congregation are you? What is your focus and passion? Why do people attend your church as opposed to another? What do you want to teach? What is your mission? What is core to how you want to accomplish this?
Mark Bozzuti-Jones also shares, “The mission of teachers is to talk about God’s activities in the world, to study the Bible, to be transformed by the Bible, and to show ways in which the Bible and the Christian life bring decisive action to bear on the events in our lives . . . Teaching is the challenge that the Christian community faces in reclaiming its mission. Those with a good knowledge of human experience or the Bible will recognize that life is about humans and God learning together.”
The premises of Christian formation – holistic integration of learning, the importance of context, the need for interdependence and cooperation, and the value of relationships and dialogue – all inform how we conduct the Church’s mission. Mission involves sharing stories as well as building hospitals, social transformation as well as personal service.
Our role as teachers in today’s world is very different than what it was even a generation ago. We live in a society that is seeking individualistic and customized services with time and energy that is spread in multiple directions. We are no longer the central part of most people’s lives, let alone the only gig on Sunday mornings. This is where we can make a difference. An important part of being Christian in a multi-faith society is to understand one’s faith enough to be able to live in the world honoring that faith while honoring and affirming others’ faith. Christian formation and theological education even on the congregational level are essential to instilling that deep understanding and knowledge to empower Christians to be able to say what they believe in.
As part of the Anglican Communion, we also have the Five Marks of Mission – areas we are called to live out in our teaching, practice, and everyday living. This too was passed at last year’s General Convention.
- To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
- To teach, baptize and nurture new believers
- To respond to human need by loving service
- To seek to transform unjust structures of society
- To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth
The challenge is before us. In conclusion, I’d like to share a portion of the advocacy paper that a group of educators wrote to share why the Church needed a charter. As an institution, we have not entirely welcomed our Lord’s generous invitation to grow in knowledge and love of him. Our behavior does not always reflect our heart’s desire. For example, we have inadequately resourced our allocation of time, talent, and treasures. As a church, our people suffer from a widespread lack of knowledge of the traditions that form the foundation of The Episcopal Church. And moreover, in our post-Christian culture, Christian Formation has been given significantly less priority than our other community activities. We have also experienced a failure to address the formational needs of an aging church membership. We need to address and remedy culturally exclusive teaching practices and the lack of attention to the formational needs of non-English speakers. We need to practice tolerance and understanding of other faith traditions. We also need to continue our ever-growing response to stewardship of creation that merits our attention and resources.
Within your packet are some resources. They include some questions posed by Bishop Ian Douglas of the Diocese of Connecticut at the recent House of Bishops’ gathering. As we go forth today, we might also engage in reflection about them:
- What is the new invitation that God has given us in a changing world?
- What is God doing in my context?
- What Biblical stories and images illuminate and inform my understanding of the changing context?
- How can/will/do I respond to my changing contextual realties in light of my biblical reflections and my understanding of God’s mission?
Sharon Ely Pearson
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