Radical Sending

Go to Love and Serve

Demi Prentiss, Fletcher Lowe

• Publisher: Morehouse Publishing
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780819231857
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

As congregations explore their emerging visions, they need support in "equipping the saints" for their day-to-day lives and ministries beyond the doors of the building. The Dismissal — "go in peace, to love and serve the Lord" — becomes as important as the Eucharist in feeding the people for the journey. But churches often fail to focus on this baptismal calling to "go" into the worlds of work, family, and community. This book fills that void, focusing on how the baptized become "go-ers, " providing practical and tested ways of fulfilling that calling.

Go to Love and Serve builds on and complements the work of Stephanie Spellers' Radical Welcome, which called congregations to move beyond diversity and inclusion to be places where the transforming gifts, voices, and power of marginalized cultures and groups bring new life to the mainline church. Each chapter is followed by discussion questions for use with small groups or for personal reflection.

PART I

The Theology of

Radical

Sending

The Base Camp

God is calling us to strengthen the ministries of
our congregations … as the spiritual base camps
where we gather for inspiration and renewal
and strength, and from which we go out to
help Christ heal and reconcile the world.

THE RIGHT REVEREND MARIANN EDGAR BUDDE,
SERMON TO THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF WASHINGTON,
NOVEMBER 13, 2011

Hikers who do serious mountain climbing, like scaling Denali in Alaska or the Himalayas in Nepal, know how important a base camp is, how dependent they are on what it provides for their journey. Even nonhikers can imagine a list of what they find helpful and supportive:

• A staging area, launch pad, resting place, respite for restoring the spirit

• A safe haven, refuge from the storm, warmth, hospitality

• Encouragement, affirmation, celebration

• A nurturing environment for coming, going, returning

• Regrouping, retooling, restoring, refueling, renewing, rejuvenation

• Provisions: equipment, tools, repairs, food, and other supplies

• Training and acclimatization

• Healing when injured, emergency care

• Maps, guidance as to what is ahead

• Communications center, a place to share stories, connection with other base camps

• Community, fellowship

Impressive: A base camp can mean the difference between making an ascent and having to give up, between celebration and failure, between life and death.

Now take another look at that list. What would you strike as not being applicable for a congregation? The vast majority of this list reflects what any faith community would like to see as its reason for being.

From a Christian perspective, then, let us look at the base camp as a metaphor for the local congregation. Presbyterian pastor Steve Jacobsen put it this way:

One image that may be useful is that of the church as a base camp. … The church is a base camp in which a community of people gathers to reflect on life, be reminded of their identity, and make plans for exploration. From there, each person goes out during the week to take on that part of the mountain that is theirs to explore. The base camp exists to serve the climbing team. In itself, it is neither the goal of the expedition nor the mountain itself. The value of this image is that it affirms the importance of the community … but does not mistake the institution for the central reality. The hikers don’t exist for the good of the base camp. The base camp exists for the good of the hikers. The implications of this view of the church’s role for working people are clear. The church needs to focus on its timeless tasks: it is to be a place of worship, education and community. But it also needs to evaluate how well it is empowering people for the work on the mountain those other six days. The church exists for the people, not the reverse. People deserve our help in making sense of all seven days.”¹¹

Let’s be clear about what Jacobsen is saying, and what the base camp metaphor (as congregation) teaches us: The hikers (members) don’t exist for the good of the base camp (faith community). The base camp exists for the good of the hikers.

We in the church often get that reversed. We may be good at paying lip service to lay ministry in daily life, but our actions speak louder than our words. We act as though the role of hiker/layperson is to help the pastor succeed in running the base camp. What if, instead, the ideal was for the pastor to support hikers/laypersons in living into their baptism in all the aspects of daily life? The concept of the congregation as base camp then calls on the ordained to move beyond concerns for a congregation’s survival and programming, to see their role as “equipping the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph. 4:12) in their day-to-day hiking/baptismal journeys. The Christian life is not unlike the hiker’s journey with its straight and crooked places, its peaks and valleys, its potholes and smooth places. And every hiker needs the support of a base camp in order to engage in the journey.

When we understand the congregation as a base camp, the focus of the congregation’s life shifts away from making sure the congregation survives and thrives. Its priority becomes the support of the hikers on their life’s journeys. The congregation is not therefore the destination, but a way station, staging area, watering hole, launch pad for the journey. The base camp (congregation) is a safe place and shelter—a place of refuge, renewal, regrouping, recommitment, restoring, refueling, retooling, refreshment, re-creation, and respite for reviving the spirit. It is a place of healing, emergency care, and repair; it is integral to the hikers’ world, providing a bridge from liturgy to life. The base camp exists for the hikers. Their journeys are taken seriously. Worship becomes sustenance for the hard work of the climb. The Word is food for the spirit. The Bread and Wine are food for the journey.

The hike is wherever the baptized person spends time living life—work, family, community, school, leisure, and wider world. That is why the hike matters to God. Those are the venues where hikers spends their God-given gifts of time, talent, and ability. As in the Eucharist, Christ is really present in those places. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” It is the base camp’s (congregation’s) mission to guide, support, and equip the hiker to live into that presence.

As with all metaphors, so with the base camp: It has its limitations. Unlike the Denali base camps, those working in the congregational base camp include not only those hired, but also many of the “hikers” who volunteer for liturgical, formation, and pastoral care ministries. But the focus of the metaphor is not lost. The vision is still on how those “in house” ministries are equipping the hikers for their callings in their daily lives.

The Lord is my Sherpa; I shall not want.

The Hiker’s Commissioning

One expression of the hiker’s commissioning is embedded in the Episcopal Church’s catechism (BCP, 855).

Q. Who are the ministers of the Church?

A. The ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons.

Q. What is the ministry of the laity?

A. The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world; and to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church.

The Book of Common Prayer lists laypersons as the first mentioned ministers: before bishops, before priests, before deacons. Notice too that the priorities of their ministry are “worldly,” and that the “churchy” functions are left for last: “to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church.” Preceding that are the crucial ways that the laity live out their faith in the world—their hikes: “To represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world.” The very insightful layperson Verna Dozier put it this way:

Laypeople carry out those functions in the church (e.g., assist in the liturgy, serve on the vestry, teach church school, etc.), but to me they are always secondary functions for laity. The layperson’s primary function is out there in the world.¹²

Jean Haldane, another layperson, reflected, “Let us see the laity as people who must be nurtured for ministry in society rather than as recruits for tasks in and for the church.”¹³ The key question then for a congregation, the Christian’s base camp, is how it is preparing, equipping, enhancing, affirming, and supporting its laity, its hikers, in their journey, in their primary ministry in the world to which they have been commissioned by their baptism—work, leisure, family, school, community, and wider world. It is for this ministerial/missional priority in the world that the base camp exists. For some this may call for a paradigm shift.

The Hiker’s Job Description

The Book of Common Prayer uses the Baptismal Covenant (pp. 304–5) as its primary job description for hikers with parallels in other denominations, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Evangelical Lutheran Worship (pp. 232–44). The orientation of the Covenant is significant. First comes the Baptismal (Apostles’) Creed. This foundational declaration roots each baptized person in an historic statement of faith. This sets the tone for why we, as Christians, live as we do. We are not humanists or atheists, promising to act for the greater good of society. We are first and foremost Christians, living out our lives rooted and grounded in the context of our faith in the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is that faith, which undergirds all that comes after, the raison d’être, the motivation for all that follows in the Covenant. We carry out the rest because of our belief in God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. In the context of the Episcopal liturgy the entire congregation, in making this ancient baptismal statement of faith, joins the person being baptized, supported and accompanied by sponsors.

Celebrant	Do you believe in God the Father?
People	I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
Celebrant	Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
People	I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Celebrant	Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
People	I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Then, like concentric circles radiating out from the center, the Covenant moves from the base camp to the world.

Celebrant	Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
People	I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant	Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
People	I will, with God’s help. (BCP, 304)

These first two questions spell out the essential role of the base camp in the life of the hikers. For the hikers, life in that community is crucial for their journey—their ministry in daily life. The hikers depend on the congregation for their worship and nurture. “No man is an island,” John Donne said. No Christian can be a Chr...