Deeper (and Broader) Than I Expected: Reflections on a Faith Formation Conference

Because of the subtitle of this conference, “Deep Faith: Faith Formation for All Ages” I went with a pretty narrow expectation.  It’s one I was looking forward to, but narrow nonetheless.  I hoped to engage the question of how to work at education and formation intergenerationally.  How does one shape a Sunday school class or worship service such that it appeals and genuinely connects with people from toddler to senior and allows folk of all ages to learn with and from each other?  I did come away with a few ideas.  Ideas I hope to work at and explore more in the future, including an understanding that building bridges of learning and connection intended to meet the particular challenges of, for example, a four-year-old in worship, may might also be wide enough to include others with different demographics but similar needs.  Wide enough to welcome many into an experience of God.

What I came to experience in this conference was not wholly what I expected but was still pretty exciting. Two workshops in particular had me excited to come home and think about how we implement elements in my context.  The first, led by Carrie Martens, was a workshop about marking faith and milestone moments across the life span.  Like most congregations we offer some ritual life-marking moments in worship, like infant dedication and baptism.  We also offer young adults hand-made comforters when they are ready to move on after high school.  But I was challenged to think about the many other ways to mark life-moments as sacred through adulthood and at points throughout childhood: the beginning of school for a child, consecration of singleness for adults who remain unmarried, blessing on retirement when adults complete work marking a ‘fruitful past and fruitful future.’* Since there is no beginning or ending to the formation of our identity in Christ, ritual markers along the journey give us a vocabulary to name that identity.  Being able to name our identity allows us to further deepen and claim it.

One of the areas we Mennonites have claimed as central to our identity is that of peace-makers.  Yet it seems to me that it’s rare for a congregation to actively engage in educating and forming members (young and old) in practices of engaging conflict in healthy and transformative ways.  I have certainly heard many stories of unhealthy and passive aggressive ways that churches have dealt (or not) with conflict. That’s why Rachel Miller Jacobs’ concept of ‘Ordinary Time Forgiveness’ seems both so simple and so radical. 

Rachel introduced those who participated in her workshop to some tools of non-violent communication and in particular we had fun with her deck of ‘Feelings and Needs’ cards.**  These cards, as the name suggests, each name either a feeling or a need.  When confronted with a conflict or situation in which discernment or transformation is necessary, one may use these cards, either alone or with another, to identify the two or three feelings that are primarily evoked.  This allows a listener to use empathetic responding when choosing cards for the story-teller to test if the feeling is right and for teller to respond.  Once primary emotions are identified, the needs cards come into play.  It is the met or unmet needs that evoke those feelings and when identified, we can so much more easily communicate – the first step in moving toward resolution and forgiveness. 

It's more complex than that, of course.  And conflicts, like people, may be much more multi-layered, but because this is about the every-day, ‘ordinary time’ conflict, each of us being formed with the useful tools of engagement is so important to confronting the really fraught and complicated stuff.  It makes so much sense to begin engaging the notion of conflict as normal and forgiveness as central in childhood, then to continue to deepen our understanding of self and other as we mature, growing in faith and experience.  I am looking forward to trying testing these and many of the ideas I encountered at Deep Faith and I’m very grateful to have been able to participate.

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* Carrie Martens, “Faith Markers at Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church (in worship),” table.

** Rachel received her cards from Malinda Berry, Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary.  They were developed based on the Non-Violent Communication practices and principles of Marshall Rosenberg and much more can be found at Malinda’s website here.

Meeting Jesus

This week Megan will be heading up to Camrec for Pre-Junior Camp and next week Pastor Melanie and I will share the pastoral leadership at Junior Camp. So yesterday in our pastors meeting, Megan read the summer's theme verses from Mark 10. Parents bring their kids to Jesus to be blessed, are scolded by the disciples, but then welcomed by Jesus. Megan invited us to hear the passage with the ears of parents. I invite you to do it. Read it. Live it like you're there with the children you love, waiting to see Jesus. Really imagine your own kids and all they bring to that kind of situation. 

Parenting is a vulnerable thing and I experienced this story with a lot of emotion. It was like I was right there, one kid on my hip because he refuses to be put down, in a power struggle with the other because why should she be in this place doing this thing I'm making her do. And then the presumption and effrontery of Jesus' disciples to keep me from this meeting we've been planning, that I've had to wrangle my kids. We just want to see him for a minute! The anger and frustration have already been building in me and that's just the limit. I'm ready to explode or to cry.

But then Jesus. His welcome, his blessing. The immediate ease and release of breath and tension. The knowing his love for me and for my children. Seeing him embrace them and them welcoming the embrace, the recalcitrance disappearing. Holy cow, you guys, I could not stop the tears. Jesus loves me. I never felt it more profoundly and with more gratitude and picturing Jesus loving and blessing my beloved ones. May you all be blessed with the knowledge of Jesus' love and care for you.

And here are some cheesy but (if you're in the mood I was) tear-inducing pictures of Jesus with children.

Inside Out

You may already have seen the newest offering from Pixar.  Like almost all Pixar movies it’s really well done and the media loves it.  There are some good reasons for that.  It’s colorful, fun and funny.  There’s great voice acting and casting.  (I’m a big fan both Amy Poehler and Mindy Kaling.) It appeals both to little ones and to parents.  But more than that, it’s central message is about the importance of acknowledging all of our emotions, not only the ‘good’ ones.

Inside Out takes place mostly inside the brain of a girl named Riley and centers around the personification of 5 emotions: Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger and Fear (pictured above).  For all of Riley’s 11 years, Joy has been used to being the centrally experienced emotion, but as Riley goes through a big move, other emotions come into play.  Suddenly there’s a shift in which emotions are at the helm, and which emotions are coloring Riley’s memories.  The feelings need to re-establish a balance and they learn how important each of them is.

I love all of this about Inside Out.  When our SMC children were doing the Circle of Grace curriculum, they learned that our emotions are signals from the Spirit.  Paying attention to what we’re feeling is an important way of hearing God speaking to us about what we’re experiencing.  It helps us understand how to respond to others and to situations.  Tiffany and Kyle have always begun their Sunday school lessons asking the children in their K-2 class which ‘color’ (feelings fit into several color categories) best fit them that morning.  This helps the children find their place with each other and with their teachers. God has given us feelings to help us experience the world and be in relationship with each other.  Finally, as the parent of a school-aged daughter I loved that there is a girl (who is not a princess) at the center of this movie.  God made us male and female, but boys are over-represented in popular media.

The questions I had for this movie come arise out of having the emotions placed literally at the helm of Riley’s brain.  They control her responses.  It makes for some great comedy but  seems to take away both awareness and autonomy from Riley or other characters whose ‘control centers’ we see glimpses of.  Maybe that’s the reality for and 11-year-old – a non-awareness of emotional responses – but I’d like to think that as persons we have the choice, even though we’re burning up with anger, to respond with gentleness, if not joy.  It also seemed to me that even though the characters discover a new kind of balance, it comes down to Joy being the centrally important character and our goal should be to be happy in the end. 

I don’t think my reservations would get in the way of this being a worthwhile movie to see – especially if you’re looking for an air conditioned way to spend a few hours with kids.  It’s fun and it does help to talk with kids about the feelings that their experiencing.   It gave me the opportunity to ask questions like, “So when X happened, which character do you think was pressing the buttons in your brain?”   I also wondered in conversation what other emotions might be there or how other emotions might look. 

I have heard from parents of pre-school children that they don’t ‘get’ this movie the way older children might, but it’s still enjoyable strictly from an interesting-stuff-is-happening level.  So go see it and when you do, tell me what you think!