Meeting People with Fire and Imagination
I am in Florida at the Duncan Conference Center in Delray Beach. It is hot and sticky—sort of like Hawaii with out trade winds. The event is the annual gathering of ELCA, TEC, UMC, PCUSA, RCA, ACC (Anglican Church in Canada) catechumenate leaders from all over North America. For almost twenty years, NAAC, the North American Association for the Catechumenate, has offered support, relationship, and resources for church leaders seeking to appropriate an organic and authentic liturgical evangelization. But don’t get any grandiose ideas: we are not here by the hundreds; we are just over three dozen.
It is not surprising that recovery of an ancient pattern of welcoming and forming disciples who are approaching the waters of baptism is a marginal (marginalized?) concern for much of the present-day Protestant churches. This is not a rock concert. Present-day church culture is too addicted to the program de jure approach (as someone recently put it) that offers something to titillate and tease our interest for six weeks without changing our behavior or practices in any serious way. So, try as we might, the numbers are not impressive, but passion and energy is.
These are people of fire and imagination. They are gifts of God holding onto a hot, molten reality that is substantive but malleable enough to fit the emerging missionary context of the North American churches.
There is Wayne Schwab, a “retired” Episcopal priest and founder of MemberMission, will be leading a workshop on “Behaving, Believing, Belonging.” I’ve been inspired by Wayne for well over a decade. I invited him to come because even those churches that are seeking to implement the catechumenate often major in belonging and believing without taking behaving seriously. Conversion in the North American context has too long been confined to a reductionist “I got religion” or “I accepted Jesus” transaction rather than accountability for daily choices and practices that bring transformation in our relations with God, each other and the creation. Wayne has imagined Christians taking seriously their behavior in the contexts of their lives. By the way, he was instrumental in finding funding to get NAAC going back in the mid-nineties.
Then there is “J” from England. I just met her in the hallway. She is a British Methodist denominational leader who came across “the pond” to discover what this “cat” thing is all about. I find it immensely hopeful that she would come all that way to see if this thing has claws and a fire. Not because she will go home and Methodism will be radically altered with a parade of baptismal candidates marching to the waters at Easter. It’s about the imagination: people imagining a way of walking with people who are asking questions and are open—yes, even starving—to discover how their story connects with God’s story. Then, maybe drowning with Jesus and the church in the waters of baptism could be a worthwhile cross-the-line venture with lifelong transformation.
There is another woman here from Honolulu. I just met her three weeks ago. The Episcopal bishop of Hawaii told her to “sick em”—you know—what you say to Rover when you want him to go after the neighbor’s cat that keeps pooping in your flower bed! He charged “C” with helping the cathedral community to reach out to seekers to form them as Christians first and Episcopalians second! She has invited me to work with her to see if we can start a catechumenal fire at Saint Andrews. I have wanted to participate in a hands on, locally implemented catechumenate for a long time. Another “retirement” opportunity.
I keep looking for people like Wayne, “J”, and “C.” They point to the coming reign of God.