Children
at worship wishes to thank Kathy Bozutti-Jones for her
contribution of the following article.
Office
for Christian Formation
A Brief Report on the National Episcopal Conference:
"Will
our Faith Have Children? Christian Formation Generation
to Generation"
Kathy
Bozzuti-Jones
I
went to the last national conference three years ago
in New York City and was impressed by the high energy
levels and the wonderfully committed educators who gathered
there. But the Chicago conference on Feb 11-17 had all
that and more. This was intended to be - and truly was
- a wholly new way of designing and experiencing a major
conference. It was representative of the whole Episcopal
church in this country, with 91 dioceses sending delegations.
There were attendees from Haiti, Australia, Jerusalem,
England, Wales, and Ireland as well. In all, the conference
was attended by over 600 people. Aside from the healthy
sense that everyone was 'at the table,' the conference
was notable for its design. The goal was to create a
learning environment of intimacy and community, as a
way of modeling the types of formation experiences we
lay leaders, priests, and bishops want to model for
our communities. How can a conference of over 600 people
offer such a learning atmosphere?
While
the format of the Conference included daily worship
and keynote speakers several times a day, the real work
of the conference took place in small workshops called
tracks. There were 22 tracks in all and each participant
chose a track before attending the Conference. The tracks
were organized into four clusters. The four Clusters
were: 'Liturgy and the Arts;' 'Christian Formation and
Education;' 'Leadership Development;' 'Evangelism: Social
Justice and Transformation.' My track was from this
last cluster and was called, Talking Faith Across the
Boundaries. There were about 16 of us in the track and
we spent sixteen hours together learning, sharing our
knowledge and experiences, and sharing our stories.
The point was to establish a place of trust, where questions
could be asked and ideas could be explored among peers
committed to the question of how to create atmospheres
where genuine cross-cultural, inter-faith dialogue can
flourish. The track was led by the Rev. Dr. Michael
Wyatt from the National Cathedral, the Rev. Whitney
Robertson from the Diocese of California, and Mr. Abdul
Rashied Omar, a Muslim from South Africa, currently
working on a doctorate at Notre Dame University. As
a group, we developed three questions as Learning Goals
to guide our time together:
Between
the track sessions, where we brainstormed the kinds
of formation necessary to be able to tell our stories
across faith boundaries, we listened to some distinguished
speakers, including Parker Palmer, the famous writer,
educator and activist. He suggested that there is a
question prior to the question posed in the conference
title, "Will our faith have children?" That is, "Will
our faith have adults?!" For faith to have children,
there must first be adults who can tell their own faith
stories, who are engaged in their own faith journey
and can pass on the stories. He noted that many adults
are more like observers, unsure of their faith stories,
without the permission to discover them, without the
tools and language to express them. This, he feels (and
I think he is quite right), is the challenge to those
involved in Christian formation. Our Presiding Bishop,
Frank Griswold, echoed these sentiments in his address:
"In this era in which the
Episcopal Church is becoming more and more mission-minded,
it is important that people assimilate their own faith
story… learn to speak out of the scripture of their
own lives. And I think that many people aren't confident
about doing that, they don't have the vocabulary, they
don't have the connection between their own sort of
inner reality and what they perceive to be 'church.'"
I
was also impressed by the Bishop's realistic understanding
of the role of suffering in Christian formation. In
his words:
"I
think life does involve suffering and loss. It does
involve confronting one's own poverty. I think sometimes
a kind of happy religion that never makes room for the
shadow side of life is doomed … suffering actually produces
a whole new character. It can shape and form us in a
very positive way. It is not that we look for suffering.
Rather the shadow side of life, the arrows and wounds
we bear, are all part of our being shaped and formed
and made authentic, rendered faithful."
For
me, I left the conference with a strong sense that for
many, many people, (and it is ironic and rather sad),
the church is the last place where one feels safe enough
to share the shadow side of their lives, the pain, the
vulnerability. In my vision of a community of faith,
we must set about to create a safe place, a place where
we can let our lives speak. I think we have a sacred
responsibility to one another to create a space for
the soul to speak, for the timid soul to venture out
and explore, and for the developing or battered soul
to renew itself. The benefits and effects of creating
this kind of community are far-reaching. When we can
experience transformation in a supportive environment,
that new life gets carried into all the other contexts
in which we live each day.
What wisdom did I carry away about our children and
how to nurture their faith lives? A developmental psychologist,
Dr. Robert Kegan (Harvard University), suggested something
that resonated deeply within me:
"Beyond
the current popular wisdom of 'programming children
within an inch of their lives' to ensure their ability
to survive in a difficult world, the best gift we can
give to our children is the gift of being surrounded
by adults who are intentional and prayerful about their
faith journeys. The best gift we can give is genuine
accompaniment - being attentive and open - so that our
children feel 'held' on their own budding faith journeys."
--reprinted from The Bell, St. James's Episcopal Church,
Cambridge, MA
