HELLO!

In community, in relationship, we all find our way to a place where we live in a culture or a set of norms we call “home”. Spend any time in a community, or in a household, pay attention, and you will experience that pattern of behaviour and conversation. When I meet people who have recently shifted in work or family or just moved from one place to another, I listen for how they frame the experience. Some will be immediately critical of what they see as lacking, constantly comparing (in a negative way) what they previously encountered with what they now see or don’t see. As a minister I will sometimes meet long-time members of a church who have moved from another province, they come to the church where I am serving, these “new” folks will tell me how great their former church was, what they see missing here. Such a narrative is not endearing to their new home. Ministers are as guilty of this framing as lay people. “In my previous church we did this.” Lay leaders are not amused.

The other response to a new relationship or community is to settle in, find a new “normal” and adjust accordingly. These are folks who often subscribe to the “if it ain’t broke, why fix it” mindset. Having opened the boxes, moved things to a place where life is manageable and possible, and learned what works and what doesn’t, we turn to engagement.

I tend to fall more into the latter category and many people I meet, into the former. I tend to be guilty of spending my initial investment of time and energy on organizing my life into this new culture of people, norms, and spaces, and then…making lists, getting things done, building new relationships, creating new memories, and learning new stories. Meanwhile, I meet others who are anxious about feeling a sense of control over their common spaces and places, exerting their own choices into community. If I am guilty of “letting things be” so I can spend more time on creating memories/stories, others can be equally focused on getting things to where they are comfortable, moving others to accept their version of community. On the positive side, they feel a sense of righteousness about their changes. On the less positive side, they like to get their way, feel things have ended up “where they should be”.

I am self-aware enough to know there are times when I need to stop “being” and accept the invitation to make changes to the daily rituals and norms of my “home”. “New” for me are the people and places I meet along life’s journey, not the infrastructure of places, spaces and words.

When I came to Brunswick Street United Church in 2011, they were a collection of 12 people who desired to remain a community even though the larger church was encouraging them to consider closure. They were not ready for that. They wanted a minister who would stay with them, not a student, not a retired minister. They asked me to join them, which meant the service needed to be later Sunday. My focus was getting to know them, their stories, the hymns they liked to sing, how to encourage them to participate. We grew to 20, but our chaotic culture, the eccentricity of the participants, meant 20 was the ceiling. We eased into a new “normal”. Along the way other voices suggested “what we did in our churches”. We tested those, kept some, let other practices go. I focused on engagement, others on finding new norms (we closed in 2024).

Ideally, when we work together, these impulses can be complimentary. Community takes work, it is experimental, and it requires openness.

Peace, Kevin