Archive for November, 2010
Urban Report Final Version
Below is the final draft of the urban report, with input from the participants at the Urban Leaders Summit. This is the version that will go to the Executive Board of MCUSA and its staff.
The report is the first step in an ongoing conversation. Please continue to participate in the conversation by leaving comments.
UrbanReportv10-Final (Word .doc)
Urban Leaders Summit- Top 5 things you take from all this
What are the Top 5 things you take from reading all this, seeing the photographs, following twitter feeds? What is missing in the report? (posted below in sections)
What are the essential things you want to put into the conversation that is going on in the summit in Kansas City where the others are gathering today?
Seth McCoy Introduces the Topic- Manifestations of Church
Seth McCoy describes himself as a recovering evangelical. He described his journey into Purpose Driven ministries, on into 6000 member church, and then into a wall. The wall was reading “Resident Aliens” by Stanley Hawerwas. He said he wanted to be strange and show his life as being radically changed by his belief and following of Jesus Christ. His life changed. He went on to work with Greg Boyd of Woodland Hills. Now Seth leads Third Way Community in Minneapolis, MN.
Seth likened his story of being adopted into his earthly family as new folks are adopted into the church and the Kingdom of God. “Churches do not grow by having natural born children. All churches grown by adoption.” But like adopted children it does take a while to feel apart of things. Especially when we came from the non-denominational side of the church. “It is difficult to be a part of a denomination because when we felt like we don’t like things we just go and start a new church. So we need help, like new adopted babies.”
Seth described Third Way Community as a “Contrast Community” as described as Hawerwas. He said they choose the Mennonite way, the Third way. He said growing up he only knew of “Reformation people” and “Catholics” but no other option. He was excited to know of the AnaBaptists. He described that a community like theirs comes to faith from choice. They choose each piece of the theology as well as the desire for community with other like minded theologies.
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The Urban Leaders Summit will now break into round table discussions again to take up these questions:
- How would you define church?
- How formal does a group need to be in order to be included?
- If a group doesn’t believe in God, but likes singing from the blue hymnal and potlucks can they be a Mennonite church?
- If a group doesn’t believe in God, but is active in social justice, peacemaking and community life, can they be a Mennonite church?
More photos- To catch up, read older posts
Still discussing while on 'break'
Good round table discussions
More Photos from Today’s Urban Leader Summit
November 18, 2010 at 12:55 pm heidiaspinwall Leave a comment
Discussion turns to INSTITUTION
Bishop Leslie Francisco and Nicole Francisco introduce the discussion on issues of INSTITUTION in the urban Mennonite Church. They began with an engaging video from beyondrelevance.com called “What if the Starbucks did Marketing like the Church?”
Bishop Leslie opens the discussion by asking the question what is our identity and how is it communicated. Does it mean the many posters and banners? Is it important that it is reflected in the name?
Nicole challenged the participants to consider how perception plays into our identity as the mennonite church. Marketing is the Management of Perception. How do we manage the many perceptions in our churches?
Environment plays another important role. The environment must be comfortable and welcoming. Environment must reflect the community you are in. The challenge comes to foster an environment that reflects who are but must be inviting.
We are addressing the issues of the institution. The statistics and facts are often repeated that the global mennonite church is surpassing the mennonite church here in North America. How do answer these questions of who we really are globally and theologically, but hold on to pieces that are only found in certain churches in the US.
When asked ‘What is a Mennonite?,’ Bishop Leslie said that often people of color hesitate. We must be able to communicate without hesitancy. The Franciscos suggest that we must discuss these three points of Identity, Perception and Environment together in our Branding.
Branding includes all three elements, not only how those inside understand it but more importantly how those outside understand it. How important is holding on to the name of “Mennonite Church U.S.A..” They shared the story of their church, Calvary Community Church, Hampton, VA and how they moved from their previous name and identity to their new identity and motto. Bishop Francisco challenges the participants to think about how the branding and the name of the mennonite church should move forward into the future.
November 18, 2010 at 10:29 am heidiaspinwall Leave a comment
Discuss Now- DIVERSITY
Referring to the working report- posted here http://urbanmennonite.org/2010/11/17/report-part-2-subsection-on-diversity/
Small table discussions on focusing on the following:
- Define Diversity
- What skills does an inter-cultural leader need to possess?
- Is it possible to have too much diversity?Where do you draw the line?
- What is out unity that holds our diversity together?
- Who gets to define the limits of our unity in diversity?
Please add your comments here and I’ll insert them into the discussion at the Summit.
Conclusions & Recommendations- NOT FINISHED OR COMPLETE
This is for your consideration. It is NOT FINISHED OR COMPLETE. It is meant to be a starting point for discussions over this summit.
Conclusion
All of us on the team have considered it a privilege to participate in this project. The urban Mennonite church is alive, well and thriving. We have become convinced that the future of MCUSA is inextricably tied to the health and vitality of our urban brothers and sisters.
It is possible to view the issues of Diversity, Institution, Being an Urban Mennonite and Different Manifestations of the Church negatively. Doing so would be a misunderstanding of this report. Choosing to engage each of these concerns positively and with intentionality will only serve to make MCUSA a healthier, stronger and more prophetic church.
Does it make sense for MCUSA to have a national urban strategy? After nine months and countless conversations, we believe that the answer is yes. It is critical that any urban strategy be developed and owned by urban people. With this in mind, we offer the following possibilities and suggestions; understanding that this is just the first step towards what we hope will be a healthy national urban agenda.
Recommendation #1
Develop a national networking/ listening team. Ideally this would be a 2-4 person team. It is critical that this team be given 5-7 years of “open job-description” time. Members of the team would need to commit to this time frame as well. This first 5-7 years would be dedicated primarily to building relationships and trust.
Recommendation #2
Instead of hosting annual urban leader gatherings, create spaces and opportunities for folks working on similar issues to get together. We imagine gatherings of intentional community leaders, bi-vocational pastors, immigrant church leaders, pastors leading multi-cultural churches, and so on.
We believe that supporting these kinds of gatherings would allow MCUSA to collaborate with emerging initiatives at a more organic level. Strategically MCUSA would be viewed more as an equal partner and less like a cold distant institution.
Recommendation #3
That MCUSA develop a strategy for the training and deploying of inter-cultural experts. There is a need for leaders who know how to communicate across multiple cultures and theological perspectives.
