Victoria Atkinson White: Leaders need not choose between improving and creating

Here are some thoughts from Victoria Atkinson White's essay on improving and creating, published at https://faithandleadership.com/victoria-atkinson-white-leaders-need-not-choose-between-improving-and-creating

• "(In the report, 'Faithful', Casper ter Kuile and Angie Thurston) explore the natural tension between 'loyalty to what has been and a desire to be part of what is next.'  In doing so, they reflect on the need for religious institutions to embrace 'two concurrent and vital jobs that need doing:  improving and creating."

• "Improving is learning new ways to do what we already know how to do; creating is learning new ways to do what we don't yet know how to do or may be prevented from doing by polity and practice."

• "Some churches lean toward a 'never stop improving' mentality.  They are established and know how to 'do' church.  They have been successful in the past, as evidenced by their physical plants and generations of tradition.  This stability and legacy can be an asset, both reputational and social, yet at the same time, as 'Faithful' notes, the associated bureaucratic structures can stand in the way of creating new ministries in the face of the unknown."

• "Improving, while it might sound like the lesser of two choices, is an important job.  If a church already knows how to do something well . . . , then it is only good stewardship not to abandon what works but rather to 'never stop improving' it (for example, with technology, safety and training)."

• "Church starts and new faith communities operate from more of a 'let's build something together' posture.  They see needs that are not being met and create new gatherings to address them.  These initiatives are often experimental -- coffeehouses, yoga studios, after-school programs, Christian social entrepreneurial ventures -- which means many of them fail."

• "Nonetheless, they are learning new ways to do what we don't yet know how to do, new ways to minister, that established churches may find more challenging."

• "The good news, as the authors of 'Faithful' write, is that the work of improving and creating need not be an exclusive choice.  Both jobs must be done.  There is a place at the table for both those who are loyal to existing religious institutions and those who are eager to usher in what the church will look like next."

• "'New expressions of community need support, stability, and access to the wisdom of our traditions,' (ter Kuile and Thurston) write.  'Established religious institutions need the joy of nurturing new expressions of our own highest values.'"

A Call to Venture to Places Yet Unknown: Reflections on Luke 5.1-11 (6 February 2022)

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            I have many favourite stories in the New Testament and today’s reading from the Gospel according to Luke is one of them.  Peter, weary from a long and unsuccessful day of fishing, has returned home and is probably looking forward to putting his feet up and thinking that tomorrow will be a better day.  But Jesus, a person I think Peter already knows, asks a favour and Peter agrees, allowing his boat to be a floating pulpit, so that Jesus can address the crowds on the shore.

 

            As Jesus winds up his sermon, I can almost feel Peter’s relief and desire to return to shore and the comfort of his home.  But Jesus has other plans and, for whatever reason, Peter agrees to put out further into the lake.  What happens next we all know.  Poor old Peter’s life is turned upside down and will never be the same again.  Poor old James and John experience the same fate for having pulled alongside to help their partner haul in the nets full of fish.

 

            This gospel story is rich with observations about God’s call to all of humanity to participate in the work God is doing in Jesus and, by extension, in the beloved community of disciples who follow in the path of Jesus.

 

1)   God’s call comes to us unexpectedly and to people whom we might not expect to be called by God to share in God’s work.

 

2)   God’s call comes to us in the midst of our daily work, wherever we might find ourselves.  For God every place is holy ground, a thin place where the world as it is and the world as it can be touch.

 

3)   God’s call  comes to us as a call to be co-workers with God in bringing the world as it is and the world as it can be into closer connection.  When the world as it is comes into contact with the world as it can be, there is both transfiguration and transformation.

 

4)   God’s call comes to us as a call to proclaim the good news of God in Christ.  The Greek verb translated as ‘to catch’ actually means ‘to rescue from the peril of death’.  The death we all face is one that Paul described last week in 1 Corinthians 13, a death that comes when we do love ourselves and others as God has loved us in Christ.  The good news is not a doctrine but proclaiming and embodying the truth that “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13.4-7)

 

5)   God’s call comes to us and irreversibly changes our way of looking at world and how we live in it.

 

            Today’s gospel reveals that Jesus’ message is now horizontal.  It spreads outward and outbound from Jesus and, after his resurrection and ascension, outward and outbound from the beloved community of his disciples.  Our daily lives become the stage for a cosmic drama, one where every human being enters the theatre as a member of the audience but leaves as an actor in a play without walls.

 

            In April of 2010 I returned to my office from a faculty meeting at Vancouver School of Theology.  The meeting was no different from any other nor did we discuss anything controversial or troubling.  But, as I sat down at my desk, I know that I was done and that I was being called from a place of comfort to something unknown.  When I told my family about my decision to leave VST, I thought that they would be surprised, but they weren’t.  They had known for sometime that God was calling me away.  Their surprise was that it had taken me so long to heed the call.

 

            God calls to each one of us and invites us to put out our nets – even when we are weary and dispirited and uncertain.  But God knows and we know that there are many who need to be rescued by the Love that will not let us go, a Love wider than the sea and deeper than the ocean, a Love that promises abundant life in the midst of difficult and uncertain times, a Love that embraces us even as we flop around in the boat of life.