Tell the story, turn chaos to Shalom, Presiding Bishop tells Communicators
Episcopal News Service, Virginia Beach. April 25, 2007 [042507-01]
Pat McCaughan, Senior correspondent for the Episcopal News Service
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori challenged a gathering of Episcopal Communicators April 25 to engage gifts such as proclamation, witness, storytelling, moviemaking, language, images to help usher in the biblical vision of shalom, of equality and justice for everyone.
"There is something gravely and sinfully wrong with a world where the division between the rich and poor continues to expand, where some still live in palaces and recline on ivory couches while others starve outside their gates," she told about 120 parish, diocesan and national church communicators from around the country.
"In our day, the prophets still speak for a world where the hungry are fed, the ill are healed, where all children are educated and no one is denied the basic necessities of life."
While the Episcopal Church is increasingly focused on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a basis for its mission and work, telling the story of how churches are engaging the United Nations guidelines for eradicating poverty is part of the "important framework for what shalom might look like," Jefferts Schori told the gathering, which is meeting in Virginia Beach through April 28.
So is incorporating chaos theory -- that very small changes in initial conditions can lead to radically different results -- into mission, she said. "Each and everyone sitting here is capable of changing the world. Somewhere, somehow each one of us has the capacity to tame the chaos around us and turn it toward the peace of shalom. So where are the prophets? Who's going to speak those words? Who's going to do that work?
"What you or I do in this moment can bring hope or wholeness somewhere," she said. "The language or images we use can inspire or move others to be change agents themselves ... to move people to a different place. Your ability to tell stories like these can inspire others to change the world."
The tools of communication can also effect both spiritual and political change, by reminding legislators that "they work for us and to pay attention when constituents call or email or visit them, and by reminding them we care about how our neighbors are faring in Zimbabwe, Sudan, or the Solomon Islands, that as long as some live in abject poverty we are all diminished … that none of us can say to another we have no need of you," she said.
Living shalom will require a focus on relationships, the willingness to try some new and untried things, and to employ the kind of creativity "that has its roots in courage, to honor the gifts and dignity of those whom polite society would rather ignore," she said.
"Courage comes in a myriad of forms, beginning with the mundane. When was the last time you challenged a litterbug or a parent applying undue force to a misbehaving child?"
Borrowing an image from Hinduism of a fishnet with a jewel at each junction of the web that reflects every other jewel in the net, Jefferts Schori encouraged the gathering to cultivate a sense of fundamental unity, to see connections, find common ground, in an attempt to build greater unity among people and positions that seem remarkably disparate.
"If we could see ourselves as a jewel like that, reflecting and involving every other jewel, we might begin to respond differently. You do reflecting work when you offer a vision of hope, a story about where God is at work or an invitation to enter into suffering of others," she told the communicators.
While thanking communicators for their ministry within the church, she added that their task is to "challenge the injustices and death-dealing realities around us and to inspire and encourage others to build toward God's dream of shalom of life abundant, not only for ourselves but for every creature in the cosmos.
"Prophets have two tasks, to critique what's unjust and to offer strength and comfort to the despairing," she said.
Transforming ministry
In response to questions, Jefferts Schori said she wants Episcopalians to know that the Anglican Communion "enjoys a diversity even in those places where the head voice is saying uncomfortable things about us.
"The communion is not monochromatic and that is often what you see in the secular media, as if the whole church of Uganda and Tanzania are ready to throw us to the wolves at the same time.
"I'd like for every Episcopalian to know more about the kinds of mission work going on around this church, what people are learning about the church in Tanzania, Haiti, Taiwan, South Korea, China. We can learn from those experiences. The church in Cuba has something to teach us about thriving on minimal resources and where at times the government seems oppressive. We can only learn from hearing those stories."
She added that "the vast majority of Episcopal churches are healthy and engaged in mission. All the stories we hear about disgruntled churches represent one-half of one percent of the congregations in the church. That's still an eye-opener for many people. They believe what they read in the secular media and they think it's more like 40 percent or like we're splitting down the middle. Talk about the health and vitality of this church. It's an incredible blessing to have my job and get to go around and see that people are doing transforming ministry."
Over the next several days about 120 Episcopal communicators from across the nation will join commemorations of the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement and the beginnings of the Anglican Church in the New World "as part of an effort to better tell our story," said Laurie Wozniak, outgoing president.
"We are hoping the experience of these next few days will give us grist to go home and share with our dioceses and churches and to acquaint them with the beginnings of our church."
Communicators will also: attend a re-enactment of the April 26, 1607 first landing at Cape Henry in Virginia Beach; visit the Bruton Parish Church , where many of the founding families worshipped, located in Williamsburg, the colonial-era capitol of Virginia; and participate in a brief prayer service in Jamestown, site of the first permanent English colony in the New World.
Other guest speakers include Chief Anne Richardson of the Rappahannock, the only woman chief among Virginia's Native American tribes, who will describe the earliest Anglican ministry, and James Rosenthal, communications director for the Anglican Communion and editor of Anglican World magazine.
Communicators will also elect new board members, attend professional development workshops and honor excellence in church communications through the Polly Bond Awards. The conference will conclude with a hip hop mass made possible by the Church Publishing Company.
Episcopal Communicators is an organization of about 200 that brings together people involved in communications work throughout the Episcopal Church.