The main focus of my work with the diocese is to lead congregations through a formation process that helps the church build relationships with the community and work to shift their ministries to be both missional and sustainable. Sustainability is about making sure that ministry is infused with different currencies: truth, relationships, wellness, gracious leadership, time and space, and money.[1] It is a shift away from fixing what are perceived as problems of others, and learning how to be in relationship and work together towards holistic transformation.  It’s a shift in the way we think to say the very least.

Recently, one of our congregations that is engaged in the work hosted a “Currency of Truth” event.  I am grateful for this reflection, from Dr. James Gholson, a parishioner of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and a member of their Holy Currencies team and I think there are a few insights that can be gleaned.

"In the past few months, members of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church have engaged with the Holy Currencies process through our diocese.  This process has been helping us explore how to infuse each of the currencies into ministry. On April 2^nd at 10:00am, we hosted our Currency of Truth event. 

For our Truth event, we invited the newly elected council-person Jamita Swearengen. Council-person Swearengen is a teacher with the Shelby County Schools and daughter of former Memphis Judge James E. Swearengen. Our Priest-in-Charge, Fr. Cubine kicked off the meeting with a short synopsis of the concept of Holy Currencies and the efforts of Holy Trinity Church to connect and dialogue with citizens in its immediate physical community. This area includes Getwell to the east, American Way and Lamar to the south, Semmes to the west, and Park Avenue to the north. Holy Trinity has created a network called a Shalom Zone with the Center for Transforming Communities as a way of building the currency of relationship to bring enabling tools and dialogue to this effort. Several citizens from the community attended this event.

Council-person Swearengen was vigorous and specific in her dialogue with attendees. Along with staff from MLGW, she outlined procedures for using the 311 application, recently rolled out from city government to report blight and non-emergency issues to MLGW (and government officials). Jamita also presented a story of how citizens in the Cooper-Young district funded street and security lights in that area. They used unique technical definitions to fund additional lights and security options. Citizens from the community responded with questions and used the meeting, not only as a quest for information, but as an additional opportunity for fellowship. Members of Holy Trinity Church were especially interested in lighting for the church parking area and fresh options for security at St. George's Memphis. One member sought answers for a question regarding Ethernet broadband in the Memphis employment/education enterprise. Attendees were respectful and dutiful in their questioning. Part of the Currency of Truth is making sure that people who traditionally have not had a voice, not only have a seat at the table, but are empowered to speak and share. At no point was the meeting susceptible to the kind of emotional hijacking that sometimes occurs when citizens of an angry and frustrated community engage for good. Holy Trinity is deeply committed to Holy Currencies and walks arm-in-arm with our CTC Shalom Zone to enable sustainable success on the part of Memphis citizens. Thank you council-person Swearengen!"

When I really think about connecting with people, those moments when time seems to dissipate enough to feel like something new has been generated, a truly organic moment with others, it always seems to come from the sharing of stories.  Maybe it is hearing the reflection of another that resonates with something I have experienced or felt before that rests fallow waiting to emerge and find new life.  The world is now home to over 7 billion people, yet loneliness seems to be one of the most pervasive human conditions.  Maybe that is why storytelling is so important, we need to hear of others’ experiences and know that we are not alone. 

The Bible is important in how I understand my faith.  For me, it is the story of people wrestling with what it means to be faithful. The more I study the story and the more I dig into the story of people wrestling with God, the more I am invited to become a part of that story.  I am reminded that I am not alone. For me, it doesn’t matter if events happened the way they have been recorded because truth exists in how that story shapes the way I view the world. 

As I reflect on the missional church, I am more and more convinced that one of the key tenants we should be focused on is collecting the stories of those whose stories are aching to be told, and yet maybe because of the power that exists in the historically dominant culture, or just a lack of seeking, those stories also lie fallow waiting to be told.  How can the church be the collective of our experiences that help a community make our story a part of the great story of our faith? Isn’t this the missional church?

My new friend, Bob Leopold, is a part of a community called Southside Abbey in Chattanooga.  He helped start a community which has been asking the question, “Can there be an Episcopal Church with, by, for, and in the poor?”  He has been on a beautiful and challenging journey for the last three years as the Southside Abbey community grows.  He shared a story recently about coming into possession of some cucumbers.  Someone thought his community could use fresh food and unloaded a ridiculous amount of cucumbers.  They handed them out until no one could handle any more.  Yet he was still left with a massive surplus. 

Bob is a storyteller. I believe he even has a degree in storytelling, so he gets the importance of creating the space for people to share their stories.  So he took the cucumbers, turned them into pickles, and began knocking on the doors of a hotel in their neighborhood where many people without permanent housing lived.  “We have pickles for you and we would like to hear your story.” A little ingenuity became a storyteller incubator as a way of continuing to generate the community in Southside Abbey.

For the Southside Abbey congregation, community is about creating the space to hear the stories of others.  This community used pickles as an instrument for storytelling. It makes me wonder what we have an abundance of in our own lives and communities that could be used as a vehicle to empower others to share their story.  Maybe this is what it means to be missional.  And maybe then we could expand the human story helping others become a part of the larger narrative of our own faith story.  All we need is a little creativity (and maybe some vinegar). 

Next Diocesan Holy Currencies Workshops:

Currency of Gracious Leadership: April 23 @ St. Mary's Cathedral

Currency of Time & Space: May 21 @ St. Mary's Cathedral

Currency of Money: June 25 @ St. Mary's Cathedral

“Christ is the population of the world, and every object as well. 

There is no room for hypocrisy.

Why use bitter soup for healing when sweet water is everywhere?”

-Rumi (mid 13th Century)

If you have been reading along, you have probably by now noticed a theme: for the church to be vibrant and working towards neighborhood and community transformation and revitalization, it must be rooted in the local community. While this seems obvious, the more I learn about churches and faith communities, the more I realize that most Christian congregations that have been around for at least a few generations, especially smaller mission churches, are destinations for those who attend. Because families move and relocate, overtime churches loose their neighborhood identity.  What has been most surprising is learning that many of our larger resource congregations in more affluent communities are less likely to be destination churches and more connected with the communities where they are located. At this time, I am not going to speculate as to why this is.

So what can we do as members of faith communities to become more connected to the neighborhoods where our churches are located? I think the answer is much easier than we might assume, although it might be a little daunting. I wonder if the key to connectedness can be found in three simple words: walk, greet, and listen.    

Walk:  With spring weather just around the corner, I know I am eager to get out and wander the neighborhood. What if walking and wandering can become a spiritual practice and part of life in a church.  Even if we do not attend church in the neighborhood where we live, what if we arrived early, or stayed after services and took a walk around? Walking could become a practice of the faith community. We might begin to notice who lived in the neighborhood, or we might begin to recognize faces. We could see more fully where people gather. At the very least we would have a better understanding of our neighborhood context. 

Greet:  Walking is the easy part. The next logical step is to learn how to say hello. When I was a college student, I worked for the University calling hundreds of alumni each month to ask for money for different departments and programs. For me, the idea of asking for money is incredibly unnerving but having a script made it much easier. The same applies to learning to say hello to neighbors. “Hi. I am John. I just wanted to say hello. I am trying to learn more about the neighborhood.” Maybe as a faith community, we need to create a script to make this practice easier. Scripts work in my own Episcopal tradition as this is what it means to be a part of a liturgical tradition. 

Listen:  And now is a chance to step back. You may get a response. You might not.  At the very least, you will know someone’s name in order to say hello next time you are out and about. If you live in the neighborhood, you have begun the process of getting to know someone. If you don’t, chances are you did it at one time, so share that. “My family lived here years ago and much of this place still feels like home. I still go to church here and care deeply about this place.” Be honest. Who knows what will happen.  Your job is to listen.

Sometimes the hardest part of asking someone a question is designing the script.  Start small.  It all begins with a hello.  Remember, Christ is everywhere.


The next Diocesan Holy Currencies Workshop is Saturday, February 27th at St. Mary’s Cathedral from 10am – 4pm. 

I love orchids.  On my kitchen window sills rest six different orchid plants of various sizes.   Most are at least three or four years old and bloom twice a year.  One smaller plant has looked healthy since my sister gave it to me after the blooms fell off two and a half years ago. It has yet to flower again despite its healthy leaves and stems.  No matter what I do, no flowers have emerged, nothing has changed. One of the larger plants was knocked over a few months ago, snapping off a stem with flowering buds.  A new stem emerged a few days later and has already produced one single flower. I can’t figure out why they grow differently. 

My process for caring for the orchids is simple.  About once a week, I pull the plants out of their pots and run lukewarm water over their roots and dampen the soil.  Sometimes I miss a week. Once in a while I will have to clip off a dead stem. The process is teaching me patience, the need for regular but not overwhelming commitment, and that the life of the plants is much more resilient than I would have expected. 

Relational seems to be a new (maybe re-emerging) way of describing ministry.  It certainly seems to resonate with Jesus’s ministry of spending time with those on the margins, of knowing people’s names, and of being present.  There seems to be a push for churches to move from providing goods and services to being in a relationship with others. On popular reference in these circles, Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, canned every outreach program in order to focus on building relationships with their neighbors.  They trained roving listeners and developed skills in Asset Based Community Development.  One of the sessions we use out of the Holy Currencies Curriculum for our congregational training in the diocese that seems to most successful in help churches make a shift in their approach is called “From Task to Relationship.”  One of the key shifts we are trying to make as a diocese is to move from need-based to relationship-based ministry.

One month ago, at our annual diocesan convention, when prompted with a question about the needs of the neighbors in our local communities, a congregational leader answered, “We don’t know their needs.  Things seem just fine.  We have made lots of assumptions, but we don’t know how to really get to know our neighbors.”  

I think there is some risk in thinking there is a magic formula that will enable us to know every detail about the people who live in our community. We become lured into the belief that if we just change this one thing about the way we function or program, everything will be fixed and we will live in perfect relationship and harmony with our neighbors. 

But I wonder instead, if relationships in ministry, especially with those who are not a part of our faith communities, are a lot like caring for orchids.  We say hello every week or so.  Sometimes we miss a week or two.  We ask questions about our local barista’s mother, or we shop locally and make a point of getting to know who lives next door.  Maybe we leave our smartphones in the car when we shop or dine, or make the conscious decision to cut back from our Amazon.com purchases. And maybe, we have to see this as a necessary component of our faith, the need to be a part of a local neighborhood economy.  But this does not mean that as a faith community we will see instant results or radical changes right away.  That is what we can't be lured into believing.  I am however confident that from time to time, we will be absolutely amazed at the beauty that emerges.  And this beauty will be well worth the gift.  

Next Diocesan Holy Currencies Workshop scheduled for January 23rd at St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral.  Email John Burruss for more information.