Forming Faith
For Christian education and nurture leaders.
Christian formation as a shared responsibility
By Ilene Bergen
Sabrina’s Sunday morning is a little scattered. During worship, following a Scripture reading from Genesis 1, the eight-year-old goes to the front for a children’s feature about creation and our responsibility to care for the world. After the service, Sabrina gathers with her friends for a pre-Sunday school assembly time. Here, they sing songs Sabrina loves, and run through a practice for their Christmas play. Then it’s off to Sunday school, where her class continues a series from the book of Exodus. This week they meet the Israelites, complaining in the wilderness. Sabrina can relate to that!
Sabrina has enjoyed all the activities. On the way home, however, her dad asks, “So what was your Bible story about in Sunday school?” Sabrina tries to remember. Was it God creating the world, or the baby Jesus, or people complaining? “Oh,” she responds, “I forget.”
We want everyone to be able to articulate clearly what they are learning on the discipleship path.
At Steinman Mennonite, the three of us on the pastoral staff have been asking ourselves how our formation ministries can help children like Sabrina, as well as adults, have integrated experiences of learning and worship where the different strands reinforce each other. We want everyone to be able to articulate clearly what they are learning on the discipleship path.
Integrate, integrate
We have made a few stabs at such integration. Last summer our children’s Sunday school took the form of a response time related to the biblical passage used during children’s story in worship. Adults have had the option of doing Christian Education around the same theme of the worship service. This January, we hope to launch an intergenerational group that will use the Christian education hour to rehearse a music and drama package that will be presented in an outreach-focused worship service. The rehearsal will include lots of time for reflecting on the Scriptural foundations of the presentation.
These attempts are related to the way our congregation recently re-structured around three core ministry teams, each involving a full-time pastor: Christian Formation (myself), Christian Community (Myrna Miller Dyck), and Christian Witness (Steve Drudge).
At Steinmann, the Christian Formation team gives overall direction and vision for Christian education, worship and library. But the Witness and Community teams also assume responsibilities that others might consider to be “Christian education.” Vacation Bible School, done in league with other churches in the community, is considered a Witness activity, while our club program and our junior youth group comes under Christian Community. The pastors and their teams often cross over in ministry areas to lend their expertise and leadership. VBS, for example, will use my education gifts as Formation pastor. Myrna will use her Christian Community portfolio to help draw in newcomers.
Discipleship team
Such collaboration is especially important as we call people to faith and church membership. As pastors we have agreed to follow the four stages of Christian initiation set out in our denominational guide, Welcoming New Christians: invitation, inquiry and exploration, preparation for baptism, and post-baptism support. It is exciting to see how these phases fit with our ministry responsibilities. Steve leads the invitation phase, which uses the nondenominational Alpha course that introduces seekers to the basics of Christian faith. I am responsible for the more formal enquiry phase and preparation for baptism. Myrna then attends to the post-baptism support and incorporation of new members into the life of the church.
This way of spreading activities requires a good flow of communication. Much of this happens on four Saturday mornings a year, when the three core ministry teams meet at the same time and place. They worship together, then discuss questions that concern the total ministry of the church. Following this, each team spends time separately on its own agenda. At the end of the morning, all meet together again to share information and opportunities for collaboration. Between the quarterly meetings, the pastoral team meets weekly to evaluate the implementation.
From our experience, I would distill the following practices that make team ministry work for our church—especially in formation activities. These can be adapted by any church, not just those that are able to hire multiple staff.
1. Have your committees meet together several times a year. Plan as separate committees, but spend significant time comparing notes, sharing vision, and looking for ways the groups can work together. Worship and education people, especially, should work closely together.
2. Keep structures nimble, forming and sizing ministry groups according to the current vision and needs of the congregation—not because “it’s always been done that way.”
3. Make your meetings a place for visioning new ideas and networking, rather than for dwelling on past accomplishments. Keep asking, “Who else needs to know about this?” “Can we use this worship theme in other aspects of formation?” “Who else has a passion for this part of our ministry?” Then free people to do the work.
Ilene Bergen is the Christian Formation Pastor at Steinmann Mennonite Church in Baden, Ontario.