Episcopal Church Foundation Vital Practices - Vestry Papers - Advocacy

March 2015
Advocacy

Called to be Catalysts

Kate Heichler

This article is also available in Spanish aquí.

Jesus compared the kingdom of God to yeast - which functions by catalyzing other agents to bring heat and air and life and growth to the loaf.

Congregations can be great germinators of Good News, what we claim is the best news the world has ever known. As local outposts of the worldwide Body of Christ, we are invited to receive, integrate, and seed this Good News within the communities around us in an active flow of communication and presence, between us and God, and us and our neighbors.

In many churches, this flow has become a trickle. The Good News of God’s love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ often seems neither all that new nor all that good. Our message of hope falls on deaf ears, drowned out by the abundance of “bad news” all around us. It is hard to be excited about our faith in the face of such challenges, and so we often turn inward, nursing our small fires of dwindling community in aging buildings, wondering how we might better connect with the world. Outreach often becomes something we do for people, not with them; for God, not with God.

What if we found in those very challenges, that “bad news,” an opportunity to engage our neighbors and our community’s issues more fully? The mission of God is about transformation – personal, societal, global. God invites us to participate in the reclaiming, renewing, restoring work of the Spirit. Jesus calls us to be catalysts in our communities – and as we engage the hard issues with our neighbors, especially those who are not part of our church communities, we might just find our way to becoming catalytic converters.

Invitation to conversation

This January, the Interfaith Council of Southwestern Connecticut, which I head as part of my priestly ministry, held its first “Community Catalyst Conversation” in Stamford. This monthly series convenes people, anyone who wants to come, to discuss and strategize actions to address big challenges. We started with “Moving Beyond Racism,” on Martin Luther King’s birthday, no less. Over 100 people showed up, and there was a tremendous energy in the room. One of my congregants was there and facilitated a small group. She said she was struck by how people could look at the same set of circumstances and draw vastly different conclusions. We knew we wouldn’t “solve racism” that evening, but it was a blessing to see so many people from many different backgrounds and sectors of the community come together to begin a hard conversation and discern some actions we could take.

The next month we tackled “Eliminating Homelessness,” which yielded some interesting ideas for action, and connected participants with local nonprofit agencies working to break the cycle of homelessness. On March 17 we will look at Addiction and Recovery. Each event includes local nonprofit leaders focused on that issue, and invites participants to gather in facilitated “strategy circles” to plan actions. The main idea is to move beyond merely discussing difficult issues and find our way into strategic actions that both engage us and begin to make a difference. And as we do that, people are forging connections with people they may not have known before, around matters for which they share passion.

What’s next?

We don’t yet know what outcomes will emerge from this initiative. What I’m pretty sure will result is more people engaged in positive action, more relationships developed and deepened between churchgoers and people who are religiously unaffiliated, more people introduced to the love of God in Jesus Christ, and tremendous energy unleashed in our communities.

Community Catalyst Conversations can be done on any scale. Stamford is a city, so we are partnering with the public library and local university to offer the series to the public. Such a forum could as easily be organized by a church or group of churches coming together, inviting the community to join in seeking solutions to specific challenges. What a wonderful way to connect with those people in our neighborhoods whom we so wish we could get to know. Some might not be interested in joining us for worship, yet they’d be thrilled to get to know us around issues of justice and service. And what might come from those relationships? The possibilities are endless.

As I survey the ecclesiastical landscape, I see churches that are smaller and less robust than they want to be, sometimes isolated from the communities around them. I see us wringing our hands at so many seemingly intractable issues, or wearing ourselves out in outreach ministries that rarely go beyond addressing immediate needs. Why not invite people we don’t even know yet to come together around issues that matter to us and to them, hear about things that are working, and see where our energies and passions can lead us? Some of the strategies decided on may involve direct service – perhaps people will want to partner in some of our own ministries. Other strategies might involve raising awareness, or legislative action, or advocacy, which will take us even further beyond our own church centers.

Jesus compared the kingdom of God to yeast, which functions by catalyzing other agents to bring heat and air and life and growth to the loaf. Yeast generates outcomes far beyond its own size and strength. So can our congregations. Jesus never said we had to be a big loaf; he said we are to be bread for the world. He said we are to be yeast – and yeast that is alive makes for bread that can feed a lot of hungry people.

Try This: If you are interested in convening a Community Catalyst Conversation, you can start small – or big! I would strongly urge you to partner with at least one other church or community organization; that collaboration will ensure more participation and get your own leadership thinking in broader terms.

Start by convening people interested in exploring such a ministry and hold a gathering in a comfortable place, with food and beverages, to encourage creative brainstorming. Talk about what issue you might want to bring the community together to discuss and strategize solutions for. It might be a very local issue – a playground in disrepair, or a national or global one – addressing hunger or climate change. You don’t have to solve the issue - you will begin taking steps that will lead to other steps that will lead to other people working on effective solutions. And one step at a time, we’ll find ourselves agents of transformation.

You are welcome to contact me – I can share the materials we’ve developed which can be adapted: kateheichler@gmail.com

Kate Heichler, DMin, is priest-in-charge at Church of Christ the Healer in Stamford, Connecticut and the part-time Executive Director of the Interfaith Council of Southwestern Connecticut. Kate is a writer, speaker, retreat leader and, in earlier life, a playwright. She has initiated a missional outreach to young adults called “Spiritual in Stamford,” and is active in ministries of healing and innovative liturgy. Beyond church, she works to prevent gun violence and promote environmental healing. She holds MDiv and STM degrees from Yale Divinity School and a DMin degree from Hartford Seminary.

Feel free to contact me if you’d like help launching a Community Catalyst Conversation. kateheichler@gmail.com.

This article was adapted from “Catalytic Converters” in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut’s January Clergy Newsletter, published January 22, 2015. It is reprinted with permission.

Resources

Community Catalyst Conversations: Empowering a connected, engaged community proposal – includes structure, process for strategy circles, follow up, proposed budget, communications and publicity ideas, and suggested topics