Episcopalians Think...A LOT

I meant to write yesterday but by the time I got back to my room it was after 9pm and my mind was on overload and I needed some time to process all I heard and all I learned yesterday.

I'll post later today about today's workshops.

They have a great Spirituality Room here with different stations of activities. One of my favorite stations was about Baptism. The photo to the right doesn't do justice to the serene atmosphere the entire room had (we were allowed to take photos later), but at this station the action posted was to reach into the water,take a piece of shell, make the sign of the cross and reflect on our Baptismal promises (there was a BCP there as well.)

We talk about this a lot in Confirmation class...and if you haven't looked at them lately...they are pretty heavy duty promises. I won't retype them all here, but there is a lot about sin and wickedness and evil and your promise to renounce it and put your whole trust in God. I think it is important to tell our Confirmands that fulfilling these promises can be a life-long journey. That even as adults...we need to be reminded about the promises we made (or that our godparents made on our behalf) and that we are going to stumble and fall, but that God loves us and forgives us no matter what.

We had a really moving Worship service after the first session of Workshops, and I must confess that music can be very, very different from church to church and state to state. There was a combination of traditional, contemporary, praise/gospel--and everyone knew at least one, if not all of those songs. I was not one of them. I knew the traditional one, of course. But I really enjoyed seeing the differences in how we worship--yet are the same.

My first workshop was by Sharon Pearson (formally from the Diocese of CT for children's formation, but now with Church Publishing), called "All Generations Learning Together." What I love about Sharon is that she has some of the best resources to hand out for churches of all sizes. I have a packet of papers from her with some wonderful ideas that I am really anxious to share with our Evangelism and Fellowship committees, especially.

We talked about how, not only it is important for all ages to worship together, but to also learn together in an activity not inside the sanctuary. To connect older parishioners with younger ones through seasonal activities like Advent wreath making or having a grandparent pen-pal (similar to our Prayer Buddy idea, but to have communication going on both ways so that the adult benefits from the connection just as much as the child does).

One idea I really loved, was sending care packages from the Church School to our college students. Once our SYG graduate--we lose contact with them unless they come back to church at Christmas time or on weekends home. I really want to put this into place at Grace to keep that connection with our SYG.

After Worship and then lunch, the afternoon workshop I chose was "Formation Based Youth Ministry" by Andrew Kellner from the Diocese of Philadelphia. Andrew is young man in his 20's and is so dynamic, you can't help get excited about teaching youths. I was a little disappointed there were no real practical suggestions in this workshop, quite honestly. But, we did talk about what role Youth Ministry should be playing in our churches. He talked quite a bit about how many of our Christian Ed programs have fallen into the same trap of what is termed, the "default religion." And it actually has a name for it...Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD). I'm not making it up. It seriously is called that. Google it if you don't believe me

So what is MTD? The easy answer is that it is a watered down faith belief that people fall back on that is more about a moralistic approach to life...not a faith based one.

What does your community want from Youth Ministry, he asked. Are we not attracting families because we are too MTD in our Christian Ed programs? It made me think a lot about our program at Grace and what we can do to improve it.

I had many ideas swimming in my head after these two very full and interesting workshops, so while others had social time, I opted to take the walking tour around the French Quarter and get some fresh air. I will admit that I had preconceived notions of New Orleans as being a rowdy, carousing kind of place. But I really found a wonderful energy in the French Quarter. After a full day of Episcopalians thinking everything to death...it was refreshing to see people living--however it was they chose to do that.

More later about the workshops today and the rest of my stay. I fly home tomorrow afternoon.