Immediately following the release of The New Parish, Paul Sparks, Tim Soerens, myself, and a number of artists who joined us for legs of the tour hit the road. Our travels – which were a purposeful blending of on the ground organizing, book promotion, and field research – took us to more than 40 communities throughout the USA and Canada. While it didn’t always happen this way, we aimed to arrive in a city, and share a meal with a local group of leaders linking parishes across the region. As a group we would walk at least one neighborhood to hear the story of the church in relationship with their place, and then in the evening we’d have a public event.
After our public event, we’d get into our van and head toward the next community. But during our drive we’d spend time prayerfully reflecting back on where we’d been, thinking about each person we met, lingering in our experience of walking their parish, attuning ourselves to the practice of that church group highlighting things we were hearing, learning, while noting common themes, and unique contextual innovations. I kept a database of our findings. We met so many people practicing and discovering a way of love. We learned so much. We still carry so much gratitude for our gracious hosts, the many stories, and the profound learning we experienced… and the fact that we got to do this together… amazing!
By the time we wrapped up our tour we had the sense that we’d collected some important data about the emergence of this movement. When our intentional tour as the three co-authors came to a close, the three of us continued individually visit parishes, meet with leaders, and collect still more observations.
The three of us discerned that this movement was too big to be contained by our research, reflections, and writings. We talked it over with the Parish Collective board and decided to invite more than seventy parish leaders from all over North America for a retreat to collectively listen to the findings and discern what was happening. We convened at the Grunewald Guild in Washington State. Kate Pattison took a key role in facilitating our discernment process. And by the end of our retreat together, the collective had identified 5 signs of new parish expressions.
Sign 1. Centering on Christ. Following in the way of Jesus is vital to our identity and practice. Not: abstracted from everyday life, focused on “right” belief, focused on morality nor social issues, nor engaging in either conservative or liberal agendas.
Sign 2. Inhabiting our Parish. Becoming rooted characters within the story of reconciliation & renewal of the parish. Taking our cues from Jesus of Nazareth, Paul of Tarish, St Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Calcutta, etc.
Sign 3. Gathering to Remember, Discern, & Rehearse. Gathering locally to remember, discern, and rehearse our personal and collective lives as characters within a particular setting participating in the plotline of redemption God is enacting in creation.
Sign 4. Collaborating toward Shalomic Renewal. Growing in unity with all the followers of Jesus within the parish & partnering with all who seek the common good.
Sign 5. Linking Across Parishes. Linking across parishes in mutuality, encouragement, & solidarity.
In the diagram above the dotted green circle represents a local parish. What we were hearing was that the quest of the parish expressions and the members of those groups were seeking to live lives of faithful presence within their parish. The five signs bubbled up as intentional orientations of the leaders and groups. And these five signs were being engaged in such a way so as to render holistic faithful presence in the Way of Jesus more plausible within their respective parish. We heard from the practitioners that it was important to emphasize that the 5 Signs were to be engaged unto faithful presence within the ecosystem of relations necessary for life within the neighborhood. Many told painful stories in which any one of these values had been engaged as an end in itself… such actions always resulted in a form of unfaith presence.
Christina Rice and Tim Soerens of Parish Collective were asked to write up the core themes of that emerged from our intentional listening and discernment. This wrote this piece: “Five Hopeful Signs that Dare Us to be the Church.”
Peace, dwight
