Some Concluding Thoughts...

By Bishop Alan Scarfe

Bishop Alan Scarfe

It is fitting in a year in which the lectionary does not bring us the Easter story of the two men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35) that we are invited to enter into that story as a concluding reflection on all we have been reading as we come to the conclusion of The Agile Church. The hope offered is that Jesus always finds us and accompanies us in our various stages of seeking to understand the faith. The two disciples were confused and disoriented, grieving from what they had experienced in Jerusalem. Their experience of following Jesus had not ended as they had expected, and they were returning to home. “He meets them where they are, in their concerns and reality. Jesus listens them into speech, hearing their interpretation of the events that transpired in Jerusalem. Then he begins to help them reinterpret their experience and world through a different lens. Connecting what has happened to the biblical story of Moses and the prophets, Jesus invites them into a new imagination. He helps them make sense out of their situation using a common story” (p 146).

Recognizing that He is alive as He breaks bread with them becomes their turning point. Nothing else matters. They rush back to the other disciples and life begins again. Zscheile says, “They move from disorientation and despair to community and witness” (p 147).

What would it take for us to have that same power of conviction of the Risen Christ that would drive us past the resilience and indifference of our culture to present the message that there is a new way of looking at life that goes beyond consumer competitiveness and self-driven and self-loving directives? Perhaps many of us are closer to Thomas than we like to think, only we haven’t come back for a second look.

I am convinced by the basic tenets of Zscheile’s thinking. There is a sense that life is passing us by and that is not all of our doing. We exist, however, as people of faith for a way of life as a people sent as witnesses by word and deed. The Gospel, by its very essence God’s Living Word, urges to be taken by us into the neighborhood. God wants to stir up our imaginations and creativity as to how we might do this, as well as find us courageous in the risk-taking that may involve. Some things we have done forever might have to die for new things to emerge, and we will not always know what these things might be. And it is very alright to fail, try and fail better. Above all, we are to listen to our neighbors before we speak, and then trust God to provide the good news which becomes God’s response of healing and turning. These things must be considered at every level of what we know as being Church.

It is not as though we have not been here before. John Wesley saw need all around in society while a church was sleeping in its self-contentment. It was not until the powerful conviction of the Risen Christ gripped his inner being and he knew for himself that Christ was risen for He had risen in Wesley and for Wesley.   Another John—John Keble—found the risen Christ in the treasure of traditional sacramental practices of the Catholic Church, which had been hidden from neglectful sight for many centuries and had come alive just as Jesus came alive in the breaking of the bread before the men on the road to Emmaus. Once we come in contact with the Risen Christ, we are sent out, for we realize that we have riches that cannot be contained and a compassion that knows no bounds. Let us be agile because we have rediscovered a way of life that has to be lived out and shared. That is my prayer for us all.

Chapter 6: Organizing for Innovation

By The Rev. Steve Godfrey, St. Martin’s, Perry

The Rev. Steve Godfrey

This spring, the Board of Directors of the Diocese of Iowa invited people attending Chapter meetings to have Indaba conversation around the question, “How would we characterize our current diocesan budget in terms of gathering and sending, and where does our reach need to be extended or increased?” The feedback from these conversations has been fascinating and offers a case study to illustrate Dwight Zscheile’s chapter on organizing for innovation. What we are hearing from all corners and the center of the state is that we want conversation, but this question is very confusing. It feels bureaucratic and distant. We wonder whether the diocesan leaders are really interested in the people in local churches. Honestly, although I did not create the question, I initially really liked it, loved the idea of inviting conversation feeding into the budgeting process, and felt disappointed and a little hurt by the response, as one who strives to invite conversation and involvement from everyone. But as I have reflected on the question and responses, I have begun to understand the failure of this effort, and its ultimate success!

In chapter six of The Agile Church, Zscheile challenges the current structure of the church and suggests some new ways of seeing it. In congregations and at the diocesan level we are currently structured for managing an establishment, or at least that is our assumption. While there is need for management—liturgical, pastoral, and administrative—in congregations and dioceses, and that is perhaps the primary work of executives and officers, ultimately leaders need to be agents of connection, encouraging and supporting innovation by ordinary people at the grass roots, and harvesting learning from it.

The Chapters’ frustration with the budget question stems, I think, from the establishment management assumptions behind it. Chapters are thought to be official districts of the diocese that elect representatives to the board and thus participate in the leadership of the diocese. The “gathering and sending” language came right out of a very exciting speech at the last diocesan convention. And we emailed everyone we could with the invitation and question, the speech and the whole budget! Fortunately people have responded to the invitations to attend the meetings and have been able to articulate that mass emails and questions about the budget are not very helpful. But gatherings for conversations are very helpful.

There has been a growing interest in conversations in the Diocese of Iowa. Indaba Conversations at Convention and the Epiphany Conversations have all yielded a deep yearning for more connection and conversation. We seem to get that we need each other and that the solutions to our challenges will not come from on high but from within gatherings of ordinary people throughout our congregations. This is very exciting and this represents the ultimate success of the Chapter strategy.

We still need the bishop and the board to be concerned about the budget, and to somehow get input about it from around the diocese. We need them to manage the environment that holds both the tradition and the innovation, and to care for those who are struggling with the loss of the establishment and the effects of the simplification and pruning that is needed to make room for innovation. But ultimately the bishop; the board; the budget; the diocesan staff; the discernment and formation processes; convention and other structures need to be critically interested in what is happening in local communities, how God is moving there, how congregations are struggling and responding, what knowledge is being created, and what can be learned and shared with others facing similar struggles. The structures need to support innovation and connection. The leaders need to be “architects of communal spaces of conversation, practice & experimentation” (p. 126). I hope that Chapter gatherings might soon evolve into a platform for exactly this kind of conversation, practice and experimentation, and I invite anyone interested in helping to facilitate this development to sign up for “Conversations that Matter,” Track 3 of the Summer Ministry School and Retreat this June!

What has been so gratifying about reading The Agile Church, is the extent to which it validates some of the most exciting, hard work we have been doing in Iowa, with the bishop's leadership, convening intentional conversations that bring different kinds of people together to share yearning and learning with an eye toward innovation, toward discerning and building the church that serves God’s mission in the places where we live and work today. I am excited to see how our collaborative leadership develops in the years to come.