be::community Session IV Homework with Eric H. F. Law Missional Ministry in the Grace Margin The Rev. Eric H. F. Law Executive Director Kaleidoscope Institute for competent leadership in a diverse changing world www.kscopeinstitute.org Check out the latest blog post from The Sustainist (Eric H. F. Law) at: http://ehflaw.typepad.com/blog/ Page 1
Holy Currencies Page 2
Six Currencies for a Sustainable Ministry Currency of Time and Place: Paid and volunteer time that leaders/members offer to the church/ministry. Properties from which your church/ministry operates, and other properties owned or have access to by your church/ministry. Currency of Gracious Leadership: The ability to use skills, tools, models and processes to create gracious environment (Grace Margin) within which mutually respectful relationships and the discernment of the truth across differences can be built internally, among existing members, and externally, with non-members. Differences can be racial/ethnic, age, gender, sexual orientation, class, political affiliation or just church members and folks in the neighborhood. (Developing this currency often requires the commitment of time from leaders/members to come together in a place to learn and practice these skills.) Currency of Relationship: Internal and external network of mutually respectful connections that leaders/members of the church/ministry have. Internal connections include constructive relationships among members/leaders, area churches/ministries of the same affiliation, area denominational organization and national and international denominational structures. External connections include constructive relationships with non-members, people with resources and people in needs in the community, civic community leaders, ecumenical/interfaith partners, community and civic organizations, and local businesses. (Relationships are the platform on which truth can be told, wellness can be nurtured, gracious leadership can be developed.) Currency of Truth: The ability to articulate individually and corporately the global/wholistic truth, internally, the experiences of the different individuals and groups within the church/ministry, and externally, the experiences of the different individuals and groups in the community, the neighborhood, the city/town, the nation and the earth. The truth might be gifts that need to be lifted up and celebrated, naming the injustice and oppression against certain population, or discovering our own lack of spiritual wellness. Currency of Wellness: The state of being healthy socially, economically, ecologically and spiritually within your church/ministry, the neighborhood, the town/city, nation and the earth especially as the result of deliberate effort. Sustainable wellness requires re-generative and recirculatory flow of material, human, financial and natural resources. Currency of Money: Something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment. Page 3
Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slaves may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Deuteronomy 5:12 15 For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. Exodus 23: 10-11 You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years....you shall have the trumpet sounded through all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and everyone of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat only what the field itself produces. Leviticus 25:8-12 Page 4
Currency of Wellness God Creator Abundance Creation!! Human Community Co-Creators The state of being healthy socially, physically, economically, ecologically and spiritually within your church/ministry, the neighborhood, the town/city, nation and the earth especially as the result of deliberate effort. Sustainable wellness requires re-generative and re-circulatory flow of material, human, financial and natural resources. Page 5
Body Analogy of Wellness! How do you know your body is not well? What are the external signs? What are the internal causes for the body not being well? Application of the Body Analogy to Sustainable Community: What are the different cycles and systems that make up a healthy sustainable community? Page 6
Social Wellness How do you know your community is not socially well? Wbat are the external signs? What are the internal causes? Ecological Wellness How do you know your community is not ecologically well? Wbat are the external signs? What are the internal causes? Page 7
Economic Wellness How do you know your community is not economically well? Wbat are the external signs? What are the internal causes? God Creator Abundance Creation!! Human Community Co-Creators Spiritual Wellness How do you know your community is not spiritually well? Wbat are the external signs? What are the internal causes? Page 8
Inventory of Your Church s Wellness Currency? Church Leaders List Sabbatical Activities Categorize these activities: - Spiritual Wellness - Physical Wellness - Social Wellness - Ecological Wellness - Economical Wellness Currencies exchange: - gracious leadership - relationship - truth - time/place - money Church Members Neighborhood Folks The Environment Page 9
Developing Currency of Wellness Create a Wellness Event 1. Review the Inventory of Your Church s Wellness Currency worksheet. a. Where are your strengths? b. Where are your weaknesses? 2. Select one area where you are lacking in wellness activities, create a wellness/sabbath event. a. What are the timeframe of this event? b. For whom is this event a Sabbath? c. On what areas of wellness is this event focused? d. At the event: i. We will... ii. We will not... Page 10
Congregation Development and Stewardship The Kaleidoscope Institute For Competent Leadership in a Diverse Changing World www.kscopeinstitute.org Holy Currencies The Kaleidoscope Institute provides resources for congregation development and stewardship in two ways: 1. Consultation with congregations: We consult with individual or a group of congregations to explore how they can move toward becoming missional and finding new and exciting ways to be sustainable do more with less. 2. Leadership training courses offered through out the year a. Holy Currencies Discover other currencies (time, place, leadership, relationship, truth and wellness) besides money that can be utilized to build sustainable missional ministries. b. Missional Ministry in the Grace Margin moving your congregation from fear to grace, from holding on to power to sharing blessings, from maintenance to authentic relational new expression of ministries. c. Models and Processes for Community Transformation tools for transitional/interim ministries, innovative change process and faithful transformation. 2012 Courses and Worships in Province VIII: Los Angeles July 16-20: Missional Ministry in the Grace Margin Model and Process for Community Transformation Seattle Area August 13-17: Holy Currencies - Creating Sustainable Missional Ministry For more information, see website: www.kscopeinstitute.org. Also, check out the weekly blog The Sustainist Spirituality for Sustainable Community in a Networked World posted by the Rev. Eric H. F. Law, the Executive Director of the Kaleidoscope Institute: http://ehflaw.typepad.com/blog/ Page 11