In our opening session on Friday morning, we heard from Karen Wilk and Jonathan Nicolai-deKoning about focusing on the law of love not the love of law. That theme resounded through the rest of the day. Together they reminded us that in belonging there are no defined rules of who does what, but that we are called to do life with each other.
Aaron Helleman and Jon Mackereth shared the excellent work of the Belonging Group and collected feedback from all of us. The group of four, which also included Roy Berkenbosch and Paul Verhoef, had been charged by the board at the June working retreat to draft a Belonging Statement. The people chosen had disagreed with each other at the retreat about whether this is an association of belonging churches or whether the association decides who belongs. The full statement will be shared in the next few weeks; here is a snapshot of what it includes.
After lunch, we all had the opportunity to choose a workshop that best fit our needs and interests: Living with the Creator’s Gifts with Harold Roscher, Unravelling Religious Trauma with Amy Nydam, Restorative Practices for a Fledgling Community of Churches with Karen Gerritsma, Support for Observer Individuals with John Valk, Discernment in the Midst of Difference with Neil de Koning.
Those five workshops were chosen because they all fit with the theme of Way-Making and our goal of embodying a different way of leading and belonging together; embodying the law of love.
Later in the afternoon, we heard from Trevor and Julia Vanderveen speaking from the context of their ministry over the last 20 years. Trevor spoke about Always Reforming: Paths for Way-Making Communities, reminding us that we are called to be always re-examining ourselves, our communities and our context. Julia reminded us to be Steadfastly Resilient and shared a key agricultural crop metaphor from planting through harvesting, and the risks and rewards along the way.
Dinners on Thursday and Friday were held at the St. Albert Inn, up the street from Gardens Community Church. Good food and good conversation provided the opportunity to digest what we had learned that day, and reinvigorated us for another inspirational evening session.
A short paragraph can never capture the expanse of God’s love that Chong reminded us of on Friday night. He talked about the four signposts of the Jesus Way and how we need to be Jesus-Centred, not Jesus-Branded. He reminded us that our key identity is that we are Beloved by God. That’s it. And that calls us to the radical mission that is compassionate and comprehensive. The passage from the book of Luke where Jesus calls the tax collector Levi gave us insight into the radical belonging that Jesus embodies: we are called to be a hospital, not a social club or fortress. We are called to love and love is risky.
Today, we wrap up with a Walk and Talk activity, unpacking the seven Values of the Toward Canada association that were developed at the June working retreat.
