How to we set a welcoming table when we're missing different things?

Beloved,

In June, Pacific Mountain Regional Council Executive Minister Treena Duncan welcomed United Church researcher Rev Janet Gear to one of the PMRC online Townhall sessions. Treena has gathered folks online, from across the Pacific Mountain regional council since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. What began as a way for United Church people to review and flush out important, logistical pandemic information through our UCC lens, the PMRC Townhall sessions grew to embody and make space for community, shared experience, prayer and reflection.

LeaderShift has a long relationship with Janet Gear and her research project The Theological Banquet - and you may have participated in one of Janet's sessions. We're pleased to share this recording of the PMRC's June 24, 2020 Townhall meeting for you and your networks - for the gift of hope and grounding it brings. Janet explores what we know, understand and feel about being United Church, and missing church, in these COVID-19 days.

We are still living a physically distant reality, bearing witness to racialized prejudice and murder, labouring for justice and transformation, yearning for ease and peace, and we hear how weary and isolating it feels at times. Janet's work and this recording calls us back to the table of grace, community and love. Articulating the ways United Church people live and experience God, Janet's conversation with Treena and those gathered online, reminds us how well we are connected, supported and ever-growing when we listen for, and respond to the Christ-call to be heart-open and present to one another, especially in our differences, especially when we're not gathering in person.

Gosh -- our work of birthing, raising, walking God's kin-dom isn't finished. What a gift to never be done in growing with God and our church! After a few weeks of intentional space and rest, LeaderShift is readying more ally workshop sessions with Angela Ma Brown, getting excited for Kootenay Faith Fest, and refining opportunities for personal and professional reflection for church leaders - for you. Maybe your rest time isn't quite finished yet - that's okay, keep still till it's time to rise. We'll write again soon.

Faithfully,
The LeaderShift Team

Tressa Brotsky - communications
Rob Crosby-Shearer - LeaderShift Church Plant Project
Allison Rennie - director
Rhian Walker - program staff
Brenda Wolff - administrative assistance

Online Course Announcement :: Good. True. Pleasing.

“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things…”
Philippians 4:8

And friends, there are true things,
    and worthy things,
        just and commendable things,
            and excellent things
        emerging
        from the heart of the ministry and leadership that is happening in these days.  

Dear One

The continuing rupture in our patterns of being and believing allows us a chance to voice the lament, and also to turn our gaze and minds to the surprise of what is actually good, true, pleasing. It allows some very good questions to guide our next chapter of discovery. One colleague recently identified that the focus has shifted from “How are we going to do this?!!" and "What’s going to happen tomorrow and next week…”, to “I wonder what faithful ministry could really look like for us in the coming year?”. What an excellent inquiry for a community of faith to hold.

At LeaderShift, we continue to pay attention to the places where online engagement is rewarding - where skills, spiritual practice, and theological reflection are deepening. Because of some of the beautiful and good experiences arising from recent programs, we are excited to repeat three online engagement sessions from LeaderShift partnerships.

Faith Leaders for Such a Time as This with Janet Gear and Rev Brian Thorpe is on the calendar again beginning June 16th. This is a chance to go deep into the questions of the moment, both theologically and personally. Register here now.

“During the month of May a highlight for me was the weekly meeting with Brian and Janet online. Their input was rich, conversations with others in the group were enlightening and the group facilitation was sensitively done. How fortunate we are to have this opportunity for ordered and lay people to learn together. Thank you.”

— Marion Best, 'Faith Leaders for Such a Time as This' participant

In the future, watch for the Stewardship Buzz – a hands on learning for small teams within a community of faith, and Nourishing the Soul of the Preacher – a small group geared towards the unique context of rural and remote ministry personnel to help you develop practices that build collegiality in the face of isolation, and find spiritual practices that support grounded worship leadership.

In the meantime, I want to share with you the outstanding work of our colleague, Blair Galston PMRC Archivist and his support of the Vancouver Japanese United Church community as they created and launched their website, www.vjucarchives.ca Enduring Faith. It's an excellent place of image and story that connects us more deeply to our shared history.

And I want to recommend the excellent work of the PMR First Third Ministry Network and their encouragement to equip ourselves for leadership with children, youth and families. Their upcoming series called the Spirituality of Play still has a few spaces left. You can register here: www.pmrfirstthirdresources.ca. What a worthwhile invitation to engage creativity at a time when imagination may be limited by the video-conference squares on your monitor!

So, as you rest this weekend and prepare for the coming week, may your conversations, prayers, writings and reflections hold lament and praise in tension – and may this tension allow Spirit to forward compassion and creativity in your leadership, as you serve your community.

Faithfully,
Allison Rennie
LeaderShift Director

Who Are We Now?

The intensity of the first weeks of COVID-19 life and work is giving way to a time of settling. Not settling in a comfortable way, not settling in a familiar pattern, but settling into accepting that for now, we will pray and sing and eat and gather together at a distance. The physical distance is obvious, but the emotional impact of that, and the spiritual questions this way of being stimulates is also very real.  

In the first weeks of the pandemic we cancelled many good in-person learning events and pivoted to offer online training in skills related to shifting some of our ministry online. Over the past 5 weeks we have hosted over 400 people in learning, many workshops in partnership with the PMR First Third Ministry Network. Thank you to all the workshop facilitators who patiently and promptly showed up to offer their gifts in equipping others!   

Now LeaderShift is shifting our online engagement to deep theological reflection and to re-tooling pastoral care skills for trauma-oriented response. What is being unveiled for us at this time? About the Holy, about being the church, and our own resilience and spiritual capacity?  We hope you’ll lean into these offerings this May and June.

Faithfully,

Allison Rennie, Director

Faith Leadership for Such a Time as This with Rev Janet Gear and Rev Brian Thorpe

Transforming Pastoral Care Amidst COVID-19: deepening skills for trauma-oriented ministry practice

Dr Julie Clayton and Michael Collins of Tipping Point Counselling

Registration is open

Transforming Pastoral Care Amidst COVID-19: deepening skills for trauma-oriented ministry practice

Faith Leadership for Such a Time as This with Rev Janet Gear and Rev Brian Thorpe