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Reflections

Every event & activity should have a harvest. You can find them here: articles, how-tos, and learnings gleaned from our life together.

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January 24, 2019 by Jane Gerdsen

The Church – A Video Series

Dan Carlson and Kim Taylor, the visionaries who helped create the Noon Service at Christ Church Cathedral have created a series of videos to reflect on the story of the church and our theology. Here is one of the first. They have interviewed our cathedral Dean Gail Greenwell about what church is. So much wisdom in this video to share!

We are reforming and transforming ourselves into what the world needs today….The expression of church in the 21st century is going to be a lot more about drawing alongside people and assuming that God is already present in their lives and in the work they are doing, rather than inviting them come to us and say we have got the key to helping you understand who God is. There is a certain humility, openhandedness and letting go in that attitude.

– Dean Gail Greenwell

 

 

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What is Church?

Posted in Featured, Reflections · Tagged Church, noon service, video, worshiping communities · Leave a Reply ·

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April 24, 2018 by Jane Gerdsen

Nuestra Familia – Growing a New Community of Faith by Maggie Foote

Maggie Foote, shares her experience of growing a new community of faith in Forest Park and the wonder of inviting people to co-create a community walking in the way of Jesus and the questions that emerge through the process.

Maundy Thursday Footwashing

Recently, I went to the Christian bookstore around the corner from the Latino Ministry Center to buy some communion wafers, and as I was perusing the very limited Spanish language section of the store, I came across a small wooden plaque that said:

“Nuestra familia vamos a… amar y aceptar uno al otro; orar uno para el otro; decir la verdad uno al otro; ser amables uno con el otro; brindar alegría uno al otro; servir uno al otro; ser paciente uno con el otro; consolar uno al otro; perdonar uno al otro; ser generosos uno con el otro; honrar uno al otro.”

Which means: “In our family, we’re going to… love and accept one another; pray for one another; tell the truth to one another; be kind to one another; share joy with one another; serve one another; be patient with one another; console one another; forgive one another; be generous with one another; honor one another.”

Nuestra Familia

I decided to buy it because we don’t have a lot of decor around the church, and certainly not too many things in Spanish apart from informational signs.  Once, I bought it though, I didn’t really know what to do with it. Where should I put it? Should I host a conversation about what it says and if we agree to it? Am I taking this community thing too far? Do the members of the Latino Ministry really see themselves as a community, or am I trying to force it?  So, I settled on just putting it on a table near the entrance of the building and just seeing what happened.  No one mentioned it to me or said anything about if they liked it, or hated it for that matter.  So I never brought it up and figured that maybe I would just put it in my office or something if it’s not speaking to our community.

That following weekend, some of the members got together to come in on a Saturday to clean up a little around the church in preparation for an upcoming worship service.  When I returned to work that Monday, to my surprise, I found the plaque displayed in a place of honor on the bulletin board right inside the entrance to the church, and hung up around it were a few pictures of our community from the past year or so.

Things are changing at the Latino Ministry Center, the way that we see ourselves is changing, and we are starting to call on one another to begin to live up to the standards of Christian community.  Will this plaque be our guiding light as we begin to respond to the call of the Spirit and live life together? Maybe. Maybe not.  What’s important about this moment in our life as a church is that we are starting to ask that question. What does it look like to live as a people committed to following the way of Jesus as a community?

Baking Class at the LMC

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Posted in Communities, Featured, Reflections · Tagged Church, church plant, Community, growing, latino ministry · Leave a Reply ·

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July 26, 2017 by Jane Gerdsen

Tune My Heart to Sing Thy Grace

“Come, Thou Fount of every blessing; Tune my heart to sing Thy grace; Streams of mercy, never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise”

In June, we hosted a training with the amazing team from Music that Makes Community. We spent 3 days learning how to engage our faith communities in singing as a spiritual practice. During the training, we explored the ancient and new practice of paperless music leadership, sharing songs as people did before music or words were written down. We learned new songs, practiced improvising our own tunes, and sang and laughed and played and prayed.

One afternoon, my small group spontaneously began singing “Come Thou Fount” during our time together. And when I got in my car to drive home that night, the words and music were still lingering there, and I began singing it to myself as I drove home.

 

I began wondering….how do we tune our hearts? I recently watched a video of a teacher demonstrating how a gong should be played. The students kept asking for specifics of where to hit the gong, and in what order and the teacher simply said, that is the art. He went on to explain that the only way to tune a gong is to play it. Most instruments you tune them first and then you play them, but the gong finds the right pitch and vibration only through being played.

I wonder if our voices and our hearts are not the same. We only find the right pitch by playing, by singing, by practicing, by trying. And in fact, perhaps that is not work that we do alone, but work that is done only in community – we hear the vibrations differently when they come together with other voices and what if that in turn tunes our hearts?

What if we learn to listen, really listen, as we tune in to each other’s voices and to the sound at the center, a sound that can only be created together. What happens when we tune in? When we hear and find our own voices which as we discovered is not just something we do with our vocal chords. It starts with breathing in, and opening up and releasing back to the world. Tuning in isn’t just a physical body thing (although it happens in our bodies – we feel it), it is a spiritual experience, a place of transformation. Because when we tune in to our own breath, we begin to notice our emotions and to pay attention to our anxiety and our tears, our anger and our fear. We discover how to hold space for all of ourselves and we learn to use the MMC mantra, “what did you notice.” This isn’t just a way to learn, it’s a way to wake up to our true selves, to really notice what God is doing in us and through us. To allow all of ourselves to be part of God’s holy work of transformation – of making us new.

I struggle to carry a tune and feel incredibly nervous stepping in front of a group to share a song, but I love to sing, I love the experience of grace that I find in bringing my voice into relationship with other voices and of hearing myself differently in community than I do when I am alone. I come to Music that Makes Community, because I am offered this grace and encouraged to share it, give it away to others. I don’t know about you, but I want to live in a world with a lot more of that. I think Jesus came among us to remind us that is what God wants too. I pray that this work will continue to resound in my innermost being, to sense the way that my heart has been tuned, and that I will find opportunities to continue to gather with others to sing God’s grace.

To find out more about the work of Music that Makes Community – check out their website! I’m immensely grateful to Paul Vasile, Emily Scott, Ana Hernandez, and Charles Murphy for the gifts they shared with our community during their time in Cincinnati!

Posted in Communities, Featured, Reflections · Tagged sing; music that makes community; spirituality; praxis communities; · Leave a Reply ·

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July 26, 2017 by Praxis

Midwives – A Reflection from Karl Stevens

Our own Karl Stevens, continues to blog on his website Prayerbook Art, where you can purchase his amazing art as well! His latest post is called “Midwives” and is a beautiful reflection on the work of the midwives in the Book of Exodus, which we are reading this year for our diocesan “Big Read” and also on what we are being called to midwife in our own spiritual lives. Here are his words:

Midwives

Birth has always been perilous. For most of our history, conceiving meant reconciling oneself with the possibility of death, even in the act of bringing forth new life. Death and life sat very close together on the birthing bed. Midwives, or wise women, would accompany women in labor into that liminal space between life and death, and would guide them through it with their rituals and plant lore and coaxing hands. They have always been the ones who ensured the human future.

The midwives in Exodus have names, Shiphrah and Puah. Pharaoh is known only by his position, not by his name. His dominance would suppress life and bring about death. He is the opposite of a midwife. When the midwives oppose him, it is life opposing death, the named and specific opposing the general and indifferent.

The spiritual life is about putting away the old and welcoming the new. It is about coming through death into new life. It is about discovering ourselves – finding our true names. And it is about standing with God in opposition to dominance and indifference. This is a journey we undertake many times. Again and again, old selves die so that new selves can be born. It is always perilous. And it is when we are faced with this peril that we might cry out for a midwife. We might hope for someone wise to come and aid us with rituals and lore and kindness.

What has died in you?  Do you feel the empty spaces where the dead thing used to be?

What has been trying to be born in you?  Are you struggling with a new birth of self?

Who are the midwives in your life right now?  Who is helping you?

Check out Karl’s other art and reflections on the Prayerbook Art site!

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Posted in arts communities, Featured, Reflections · Tagged Art, Bible Study, new thing, Spirituality, theology · Leave a Reply ·

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November 9, 2016 by Jane Gerdsen

Life and Death

I have been sitting with death these past few weeks. My uncle died two weeks ago, our family gathered around his bedside and said prayers and told stories and wept. We honored him and said goodbye and had a service and a celebration. And yet, grief is a strange creature. It seems to wind its way into your heart and take up residence, and then it overflows in the most unlikely moments. I have found myself weeping in the shower and oversharing in front of colleagues – I’m noticing how my own family story plays out in other relationships at work and at home, and the things I’m mourning are more than one person but layers and layers of unexpressed emotions and frustrations with myself, my family, the church, and our society at large.

muertos-altar-copyA week after my uncle died, I attended a Dia de los Muertos service at the Latino Ministry Center in Forest Park. Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead is a time of joy to celebrate the lives of our loved ones who are no longer here with us but to remember them as part of that ‘great cloud of witnesses’ who surround us in prayer and community throughout time. I loved the opportunity to gather with more than 75 people and to pray in Spanish prayers of remembrance. My friend, Maggie, asked us to share stories of loved ones and a few people did, but mostly there was an awkward silence – one woman just shook her head and said “I can’t, it’s too sad.” I found beauty and holiness there that night. Praying those prayers in Spanish, trying to sing and respond in a foreign language reminded me that grief is a foreign language. It feels awkward and vulnerable and hard. You feel like you are saying and doing everything wrong. And yet, it’s all we have – we show up and speak words that can’t be fully formed because we don’t know the words, we laugh awkwardly because we don’t know what to say, we sit in silence and hope that our presence and leaky eyes somehow give honor to what our jumbled words and emotions can’t adequately express.

Something else has happened during these weeks of grief, as I think through endings not just of physical life, but death in all forms – shifting collegial relationships, our dog is living out his final days, and this election season has for me been a reminder of the dying of systems of influence and power that all too often the church has been complicit in creating and re-creating instead of transcending. I have been wondering what we leave behind when things die. What is our inheritance – what seeds will fall to the earth, the hope of a future re-birth not yet seen? I have been afraid that our inheritance is fear and anxiety. That we care more about preserving ourselves, our money, and power, and egos than we do about our common humanity. What if we care more about self-preservation than about love poured out for others?

But I am realizing that it is all bound up together – this grief and fear and anxiety is mixed in with joy and hope and beauty. We are our best, when we stand together in our grief. In the moments after my uncle died, my dad and aunt and cousins and my cousin’s three year old son were sitting in my uncle’s hospital room. My uncle had always loved tennis, so they had put tennis balls under his hands as he lay dying. My aunt handed her grandson, one of the balls and asked if he would like to have it. He nodded and with a big smile stretching over his face – he took the ball and raised it over his head and sent it bouncing across the slick floors of the hospital room and his laughter rang out – we couldn’t help ourselves, we laughed with him and began bouncing balls back and forth over and under my uncle’s body – life lived in the midst of death.  Our tears and laughter, life and death these things cannot be unwound or compartmentalized.

dia-de-los-muertos1_01-november-2016At Dia de los Muertos, the very best part for me, was the abundance of children, coloring, playing, talking, singing, praying, and making lots of noise. As a mother and a priest, it was so refreshing to see children welcomed with their exuberance and life into the midst of a service remembering and honoring those who have died. I think we want to protect young children (and maybe more ourselves) from realizing just how thin the veil is between life and death, that we are one body, one church, and that the saints here on earth and the saints at rest are united together both now and in the time to come.

Part of the Eucharistic Prayer that night was translated, “In the fullness of time, you sent your own Son, who emigrated from heaven to earth, and he who was in communion with you made himself one with us.” We are one. With God, with one another, with the living, and the dead. We are one. Which means if we are to live together, we have to be willing to die together.

karl-grain-of-wheat-copyOn this morning after the election, when so many are feeling all is lost, my dear friend, Karl Stevens, gave me hope in posting this: “Giving up power is what Christians are called to do. There is no resurrection without death…it feels like something is dying. I can only hope and pray that this feeling of death will bear fruit, that there will be a resurrection which will, like all resurrections, be utterly surprising.”

 

May we learn to live with such hope, and may we let each other and the things of this world die with grace. And may we search out the seeds of joy that will bear fruit now and in the time to come! May it be so.

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Posted in Featured, Reflections · Tagged life and death, Spirituality · Leave a Reply ·

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October 27, 2016 by Jane Gerdsen

Praxis School of Mission: Our Newest Experiment

We are officially announcing our newest experiment!  We are inviting you to join us in what we are calling Praxis School of Mission.  The idea for this emerged during our pilgrimage to England last year as we noticed a series of learning hubs spring up around England to explore fresh expressions of church. We were inspired by these communities and got to spend some time with the students/pioneers/missioners while we were there.  Our Praxis “School of Mission” is birthed out of a longing we have to have a more regular way to gather together, to deepen our learning, and to support each other in our various communities. We hope to provide a place of co-learning and a community of practice for missioners and spiritual entrepreneurs. It is our goal to help generative leaders (like you!) imagine new ways to engage God’s mission in the neighborhood and create a place to reflect together on what we are learning and doing to deepen our experiences.

Who is this for?
We are seeking people who can commit to meet one Saturday a month.  Each session, we use half of the time for a speaker or an in depth study discussion on a book or other resource and half of the time is to be a cohort gathering where we might share case studies and practical applications for what we learned together. We plan to explore a theology of mission, learning about our contexts through topics such as asset based community development, ethnography and listening to non-dominant cultures, and ways of starting and sustaining missional endeavors.  We hope to hear from practitioners who have done this in other places and to do some immersions in our own communities and even co-host these gatherings with you.

When?
This year’s cohort has already launched. The dates for 2016-2017 are: September 17, October 8, November 19, December 10, January 7, February 11, March 4, April 8, May 6, June 2-3. We know not everyone will be able to attend each session but we hope you will commit to attend regularly. This will help us build a cohort community and support each other in our missional endeavors. This year is a pilot program, but we intend to open the School of Mission up more broadly in 2017-2018.

Apply

If you are interested in being part of the Praxis School of Mission or are beginning a new missional initiative, we invite you to fill out the registration form we have created.  Register Here! It is our expectation that participants in the Praxis School of Mission will be actively leading or engaged in the formation of a community or missional context. We expect that in order to fully engage in this work you will be an active practitioner. Filling out the registration form also helps us to know more about what you hope to learn or what you are working on in your own context.

Join us in following Jesus into the Neighborhood!
Will you join us in creating a community of practitioners who will support, affirm, challenge and hold each other accountable to living out God’s dream together? Please feel free to call or email me, Jane, (or my co-conspirators, Aaron, Jed, and Karl) with any questions or suggestions about the School of Mission.  I pray this dream speaks to your own hopes for what God is doing in your neighborhood and in your heart!

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Posted in Featured, Reflections · Tagged Community, Fresh Expressions, Intentional Community, school of mission; learning; context; cohort; mission, Service, Spiritual Practice · Leave a Reply ·

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June 7, 2016 by Jed Dearing

A Whisper of Something Else

By Anna Berger

No one in the world knows you’re here,
Atop this ridge with your rose-flushed face and the dirt smudges up and down your faintly aching legs,

you are alone.

But God is no one because God is the One and the world is God’s and there’s a whisper of something else in this place amongst the silence.

Someone else?

It takes the solitude to realize that the solitude is not absolute,
To realize that you are you anywhere and everywhere,
Under the din and the clamor and the glare from the sun that reflects and distracts and detracts from the thing itself.

To realize that life is life everywhere,

That true faith and true life are in the little moments, the sticky moments, the ones that the writers and the filmmakers conveniently pass over.

You are here,

and the other creatures in these woods, they too are here,
and you are all here together and that is important.

In mid-May, the Confluence Service Corps members spent a contemplative weekend in silence at the Abbey of Getsemani in Bardstown, Kentucky, taking the time to reflect on their year of service, justice, and community, further engaging in discernment through prayer, journaling, and meditation. Follow the link for other selected reflections from their time. 
https://confluenceyear.org/2016/06/02/reflections-from-the-monastery/

Confluence is accepting applications for the 2016-17 Episcopal Service Corps Year. College grads between the ages of 21 – 30 are encouraged to apply today! https://esc.hiretouch.com/

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Posted in Communities, Confluence, Featured, Reflections · Tagged Body Spirituality, Community, Confluence, Gap Year, Nature Spirituality, poetry, prayer, Relationship with God, Retreats, Spiritual Practice, Young Adults · Leave a Reply ·

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May 6, 2016 by Praxis

How can we respond to the climate change crisis from disciplines that aren’t in the sciences?

Climate change is both a wicked problem and a grand challenge. These are OSU Dance Professor Norah Zuniga Shaw’s words, and, as she pointed out to the Ministerium a few weeks ago, most people don’t feel personally equipped to do anything about wicked problems and grand challenges. We all know that climate change is a reality, but, beyond recycling and watching our energy footprint, most of us feel that there’s very little that we, personally, can do about it. Particularly at a time when we are overwhelmed by change. New technologies, new social behaviors, and the collapse of old institutions can leave us feeling lost at sea. But for Norah, this means that it’s time to take stock of our gifts, abilities, and choices, rather than to despair.

“What do you do to respond to uncertainty and change?” She asked us, and then asked us to list out some answers to that question. This was what she calls a “priming process,” in which a problem is stated (we live in a time of great change) and people are invited to name the agency they already have (list the responses). As a pedagogical method, these priming processes come out of the world of dance, and especially out of the work of one of Norah’s mentors, the West Coast dancer Simone Forti. They allow groups to have a certain kind of conversation and then see what kinds of associations arise from those conversations.

Having been primed in this way, we were then asked to think about that huge, overwhelming question of climate change, and relate it to our own disciplines. Since most of us in the Ministerium are clergy, lay religious leaders, and theologians, it came as no surprise that many of our disciplines had to do with God and community. But Norah pushed us to think beyond our work and consider our practices and our identities as well. She handed out a worksheet that had three simple questions, and space to answer them.

How do we confront ecological crisis through __________? (Make a quick list of your disciplines, working methods, experience you bring, and who taught you.)

What are your practices of taking action/making/doing and what role might your practices play in activating alternative futures? (List your practices and where you learned them, try not to edit yourself, just write what comes.)

What do you know already about climate change as a _____________ and who else can you turn to for answers? (List your relevant identities, relevant geographies, disciplinary groundings, relationships, and what you already know from these positions.)

Norah used these methods with dance students to create the piece “Let’s Make Climate Change.” She found that bringing the topic of climate change into the studio helped students engage with it. Suddenly a wicked problem was scaled to a size where they could respond to it by using their gifts, not just as dancers but as students, young people, women and men, children, romantic partners, and everything else that comprised their identities. And the things that they already did, those daily practices that we all have, could be brought to bear on the problem.

We’re all in the position of those dancers. We have gifts and positions within our wider culture that help us address any problem. We have daily practices that have great power. Solutions to any problem arise when a great number of people bring their diverse abilities to bear on it, when they name their personal responses and bring these responses together into grand collaborations.

Posted in Featured, Ministerium of Ideas, Reflections · Leave a Reply ·

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May 3, 2016 by Aaron Wright

The Real Reason We Are Here

IMG_2510 There was still a lot to do when I woke up early that rainy gray Saturday morning in March. In just a couple of hours I was to be at Gabriel’s Place setting up for a potluck and conversation with gardeners, farmers and foodies to connect and share our passion of growing, sharing and eating food. I felt my anxiety rise as I stared at the task list I had scribbled down the night before. One of the tasks “Make chicken and rice,” made me say aloud, “What was I thinking? I don’t have time for this.”

As I began chopping shallots that Leslie had planted in our Brendan’s Crossing garden last spring, I noticed it was quiet enough to hear my own thoughts and more importantly the words of Wendell Berry and Brian Andreas that I would later share with the group. This morning silence is a rare luxury afforded to me by the fact that my three boys had spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and my wife, Brooke, was still sound asleep. I took a deep breath, slowed down and chose to focus intently on this task and the gift of this quiet morning.

riddlegardenThough we had dried herbs in the cabinet, I decided a potluck for gardeners and farmers required a walk out back to the backyard of the Riddle House to see what other gifts might find their way into the pot. I pulled on a jacket and my mud boots and headed out into the drizzle and a rare moment of greater awareness.

I walked past the old garden the Mennonites tended for nearly a century before us.

I picked two of this spring’s first asparagus spears that Jason and Emily helped plant over 6 years ago.

I walked past the chicken that Chad gave us and that Johnna nursed back to health (Don’t worry! He stayed in the coop – for now.)

I crossed the bridge that Te helped build.

I picked some sage that Jane gave us.

I opened the garden gate that Riley built as part of the fence that Darrell built to keep out the pesky deer.

I picked the marjoram that Brianna planted from the soil that Carl and Paul helped her shovel.

I picked the kale that Oliver loves to eat fresh each time he visits the garden.

I picked the thyme that Mac planted.

I brought it all back and threw it in the pot that was a gift from my parents.

I added the stock that Brooke made.

And most importantly – I sipped the coffee that Les, Ryan, Adam and Courtney roasted on Greg and Mary’s farm.

On this one quiet morning, in this one dish, in this one moment of awareness, all these gifts and all these connections came together for me in this one pot.

I thought about the words of Brian Andreas that we painted on the wall of the community house kitchen over a decade ago. They’ve remained a constant truth as eating together has been the one consistent act through all the “fits and starts” of community life.

riddlekitchen2“There are things you do because they just feel right and they may make no sense and they may make no money and it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each other’s cooking and say it was good.”

And on this morning in this dish I would add, “…to eat each other’s cooking and say it was good and realize it’s all connected.”

My wife Brooke often “comments” on the fact that I can never recreate a dish because while I may reference a combination of recipes, I tend to make it up as I go. I’m pretty certain this dish will never be recreated, but here are the ingredients if you want to try:RECIPECARD-1024x689

This story was originally published in the Diocese of Southern Ohio’s latest issue of Connections all about food and farming initiatives in our diocese.  Find it and other stories about food and faith here!

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Posted in Brendan's Crossing, Communities, Featured, Reflections · Tagged Brendan's Crossing, Community, Food, Garden, Intentional Community, organic farming · Leave a Reply ·

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April 7, 2016 by Aaron Wright

To Hull and Back

To Hull and Back

IMG_0055Throughout our pilgrimage people would ask where all we planned to visit during our time in England.

We’d happily answer, “Oxford, London, Nottingham and Hull.”

“Hull?!” the questioning response came with faces that ranged from contorted disgust to sincere concern for our mental well being.

 

Some of our favorite responses were:

“That’s only one letter away from Hell.”

“Why on Earth would you go to Hull?!”

…and my personal favorite from an iconic older proper British woman,

“Hull?!… Well you’ll have a lovely time in Oxford.”

For all who expressed concern about our plans, I’m happy to report we’ve lived through Hull.

I must say (now that I’ve lived through Hull), I’d encourage all of the naysayers to simply, “Go to Hull!”

(To her credit we did find one enthusiastic Hull advocate. Lois, a well-spoken primary school girl, had taken a field trip to the Aquarium in Hull and was a particular fan of the large bridge which she assured us would remind us of the Titanic – this wasn’t exactly a selling point as we’d need to use said, “Titanic Bridge” to cross a large body of water and enter Hull – “from the mouth of babes”).

From all these reactions, we were bracing ourselves to enter one of the “cities we’ll never see on screen” Lorde sings about. A few clicks online told us that it had a long history as a working class, military, and fishing city. The fishing industry had tanked and was followed by the signs of generational poverty and addiction.

As we drove in, Lois, Hull’s sole advocate, was right – the Bridge is striking! The water too! Then came the less striking signs of suburbia – Staples, Fast Food, big boxes of all kinds… But with one turn off the main road we seemed to step back in time as we entered the Old Town to meet our friend and Pioneer Missioner, Ben Norton. We walked through a side door and were immediately greeted with a vibrant community meeting in the vast beautiful relic of Holy Trinity Hull, England’s largest parish church building. It’s full of beautiful history but is currently undergoing a major and thoughtful renovation to not only preserve its history but more importantly to engage and serve the community of Hull today in relevant ways by adding a café and outdoor concert area and throw open the doors to become a cultural hub as well as a place of worship.

Holy Trinity Hull was just the beginning. We spent three days in Hull and were surprised and delighted at every turn. We witnessed hope, passion, creativity, a variety of Fresh Expressions and many times the undeniable signature of the Holy Spirit.

My fellow pilgrims were so impressed that we decided to join Lois and become advocates for Hull upon our return to the U.S. We experimented with many hashtags to encourage visiting Hull. Ultimately my favourite was #HullYes. It’s the perfect answer to many of the questions you may have while planning your upcoming visit.

I’ve put some of those questions into call and response form below. We’ll start with an easy one for practice:

Hull Advocate: Would I go to Hull again?

People: #HullYes

Will I be able to find “American Style” stuffed crust pizza and an all you can eat sundae bar with sprinkles?

#HullYes

Will I see Jesus?

#HullYes

Will I find the most amazing and innovative school run by the Church of England focusing on the whole child?

#HullYes

Can I see the largest parish church in England?

#HullYes

Is that also the church that contains the baptismal font used on William Wilberforce?

#HullYes it is

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Will I see that same church turning outward and creatively reimagining its use for the benefit if the whole community?

#HullYes

Can I find faithful people living deeply into a challenging neighborhood for 20 years, learning how to love their neighbors, consistently feeding children, and demonstrating Christ to the community after the church building has closed and sits empty?

#HullYes

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Can I find Christian anarchists occupying an abandoned vicarage with Brazilian artists who paint things like “The Last Cuppa” (Jesus having his last tea with his disciples)?

#HullYes

Will I see families finding a fresh opportunity to experience church in a way that makes sense to them?

#HullYes

What more can I say? Hull was certainly a highlight of our pilgrimage. We were warmly welcomed and inspired over and over again. I could tell story after story to encourage you, but I’ll simply offer one last recommendation:

Go to Hull!

 

Shortly after our return Hull made the news for an upcoming cultural event. If you’re looking for an excuse to go, maybe this is it 

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Posted in 2016 Pilgrimage to England, Featured · Tagged Hull, Pilgrimage, pioneers · Leave a Reply ·
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