Chapter One – “It’s Not About You” - Guest Blogger Ellen Bruckner

Chapter One – “It’s Not About You”

By Ellen Bruckner

I am a firm believer in conversations.  I love to spend time with friends and a cup of coffee or glass of wine.  These conversations are usually a lot of fun as well as a deepening experience.

Conversations that arise in study groups are generally very stimulating and I join way too many book clubs because of the opportunities for new ideas.

I was reared in an extended family that thrived on animated dinner conversations be it politics or the latest fashion trend and everyone was sure their opinion was most important.

And then, there are, of course, those conversations that are a bit more difficult.  You know – the ones with children about rules, the ones with bosses about performance reviews, the ones with health care professionals and loved ones, and those where one is confronted with one’s beliefs or habits that may be in question – “What do you mean I’m no longer able to drive safely?”

We all have our conversation groups and we all seek those conversations that stimulate, affirm, challenge and comfort us.  This is the thing about conversations, they keep us engaged.  We know there are others who enjoy being with us, who learn from us, who seek our advice and whose advice we seek.  So I agree with Robinson’s ideas that stories build relationships and these relationships keep us from feeling like we are the only ones in a particular situation.  We know this in our personal lives.  I believe this is also the case in our corporate lives as members of a church community in the Diocese of Iowa.  The more we, as members of one church, engage in conversations with members of other churches, the more we realize what we have in common and therefore that we are not in our Diocese and in our situation alone.

In chapter 1 of Changing the Conversation…a third way for congregations, Robinson outlines the shifts happening in our lives.  We see it, feel it all around us.  There are shifts in all aspects of life from our work like to our faith life.  People are no longer able to willing to do things the same way as the previous generations.  Focusing on our life of faith in North America, Robinson gives clear explanations about the end of Christendom – the shift in how culture views Church, the Church’s understanding of mission, the purpose of Church , and the role of all the people in a Church. 

And Robinson’s challenge to all of us is to commit to the conversations about these shifts – not the easy, fun conversations but conversations beginning with the identifying and articulating of our current realities.  We all exist within a community.  What are the realities of that community?  What are the demographics?  What is the economic outlook?  What is the quality of life?  How do we care for each other?  These and many more questions with which to wrestle and for which there will be a wide variety of answers are in front of us.  A real picture can only emerge if all the information is included.  Each organization/group within a community needs to dig deeply into itself with these reality questions.  These are tough conversations because we want to present ourselves in a hopeful light and we will look for answers with these hopeful lenses in place. 

Peter Block in Community…The Structure of Belonging offers questions that will get us to the realities we seek.  Knowing that all of our Episcopal congregations are doing the same kind of soul searching commits us to each other in this search and to the honesty that says we’re all in this together and “it is not just about us”.  We will keep the conversation focused on the realities and not on ourselves.

By honestly and accurately doing the hard work of identifying who we are in our contexts at this moment, we will then be given the opportunity to respond to God’s call to mission. 

To use a metaphor we Iowans understand, it is time to do the difficult tilling – to dig up the ground and uncover the rocks that have buried themselves over the years, to wake up the soil in order to provide the best possible growing experience for the new seeds.

 So what stands in our way of getting out the roto-tiller – maybe now is the time to make sure the tools are ready, to look for the new varieties of seeds that will do well in our conditions, to stir up the compost and till the ground, so that when the Son beckons us to dig deeply into our ground and the Spirit breezes begin to blow then we will be ready to hope for the new varieties to harvest.

 

Neighbors help neighbors - we know this in Iowa and we know we are all in this work together.