Re-Imagining Mission in the Diocese of Calgary
By Jane Harris
WHEN SHE was a young mom living in Lethbridge, Pilar Gateman went to pick up pizza for her family. She encountered a homeless man slouched beside the restaurant door. No doubt a few customers had walked past him carrying their own hot lunches that day, but the Holy Spirit nudged Gateman to do something to help the man. So she came out of the restaurant carrying a pizza for the fellow and handed it to him. Looking back, she wishes she had done more.
“I did not ask his name or start a conversation. It challenged my sense of safety,” says Dr. Gateman, now Executive Officer and Archdeacon of Calgary.
Gateman was back in Lethbridge on Reign of Christ Sunday as The Most Rev. Gregory Kerr-Wilson, Archbishop of the Diocese of Calgary and Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert’s Land, urged the congregation to remember that all Christians are called to mission.
“God’s own people have been called out of darkness into a marvelous light, that we may ourselves go into the world and stand before the Pilot of this world and speak truth, speak love, and speak not only with our words, but our lives, with our actions, with all that we are and all that we can be,” said Kerr-Wilson.
“The transformation of our hearts for the transformation of the world happens because of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ and by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and because we offer ourselves to God in service as Lay People, as Readers, as Deacons in Service, and as Priests called to teach the love of God and Grace of God.”
Gateman believes that the most challenging mission fields usually aren’t overseas. They’re in our own communities, inside and outside the church. “The mission field is God working in us,” says Gateman.
Under the guidance of the Archbishop, Gateman has orchestrated a multi-pronged initiative to re-invigorate parishes by helping Anglicans grow their relationship with Jesus. To date, it has included training and chairing the Mission Action Plan Committee, building the Missional Coaching Team, creating and organizing the Month of Mission in June, developing workshops, and delivering presentations to groups across the Diocese.
Gateman has advice for parishes re-imagining themselves to better carry out the Great Commission. “Wrap yourself in prayer before you do anything. Resistance is inevitable. So is discomfort,” says Gateman.
In October 2019, Gateman invited a handful of people from across the Diocese to participate in a week of online training workshops. She envisioned the graduates forming a Missional Coaching Team that would visit congregations to present workshops while guiding parishes moving from an inward focus towards evangelism. As the new team prepared to get to work, COVID-19 shut down in-person worship, so they took their ministry online.
One of those invited to that first training session was Lois Reid, now a Missional Coach in Meota Parish. The rural three-point Albertan parish includes Christ Church in Millarville, St. James in Priddis, and St. George’s in Turner Valley.
“It crystallized for me what sharing your faith was all about. Being missional is not a ‘to do’ list. It is not a list of programs. Being missional is a mindset. It is asking what are we doing now that we can tweak or adjust to share to show that God loves us,” says Reid. She adds that rethinking a church community can transform everything from communication, to spending, to organizational structure and programs. It might mean reorganizing a traditional pancake supper to let newcomers who attend know people in the parish believe God loves them.
Keeping churches active during the pandemic meant revamping ministry to reach people in their homes. Clergy and lay people had to rethink every practice from children’s ministry, to finance, to Morning Prayer.
It was a difficult time for many long-time Anglicans, but the experience was not all negative. Online services connected congregations with people who never attended in-person worship. The crisis proved to be a catalyst that helped parishioners become more open to changing their thinking about what mission, evangelism, their local church should look like.
“A beautiful synergy happened with the Missional Coaches and Rural Ministries Team,” says Gateman. Both teams identified a need to switch to a dual focus – mission and discipleship – in order for parishes to chart a path forward.
“The old model with parish priest and passive congregation doesn’t work anymore,” says Rev. Jason Carroll, Rural Ministry Developer for the Diocese of Calgary. The Dominican Brother was seconded to St. Augustine’s Church in Lethbridge in June of 2020, initially half-time then two-thirds time, at the beginning of the pandemic. In October 2021, just prior to his ordination, he returned to full-time work with the Diocese. “Because of COVID, I still can’t travel,” says Carroll who is hoping to see the restrictions lifted soon.
Much of the focus over the last two years has been in the areas of prayer, preaching and technology,” says Carroll. This included figuring out how to duct tape a laptop to a music stand while broadcasting the Sunday worship using terrible Wi-Fi and a laptop microphone.
The Rural Ministry Team works with small parishes of 12 to 20 people. Many of these parishes have no clergy. They focus on discipleship, spiritual formation, and lay ministry to help congregations flourish and individual parishioners live out the life God is calling them to. In the near future, they will launch a “Reimagining the Rural Church” workshop.
Carroll believes the pandemic turned up the heat on Alberta’s rural churches, many of which were already grappling with fear of losing their buildings, few financial resources, strained relationships, and an aging population.
“We have to do something different, and we can’t put this off. Many small congregations are discouraged and exhausted,” says Carroll. He notes that the Rural Ministry Team’s greatest challenge is guiding people who don’t know what’s next in discerning what God is calling them to. “We’re listening for what the Spirit is telling us to do, but there’s no magic thing that’s going to be put in place. No one knows what this is going to look like,” says Carroll. Still, glimmers of hope are emerging.
Diocesan Council recently adopted a motion making it possible for disestablished parishes to become Missions of the Diocese. “In the next year we have at least two churches turning to the mission model,” says Carroll. He notes the strategy works in other parts of Canada, the UK, and Ireland. “It allows parishioners to focus on their relationship with Jesus,” says Carroll.
“We need to spend time with Jesus to become what Jesus wants us to be in the world,” says Gateman. She adds that Missional Coaches found too many Anglicans who know the Bible story and creeds, but are not aware of their own formation.
“When we were teaching workshops on personal sharing of faith we expected nervousness, but some participants said, ‘What do you mean my story? I don’t know my story.’ Some people start thinking about sharing faith only to discover that they are not confident in what they are sharing,” says Gateman.
“The effort to encourage people to be more missional simultaneously became an exercise in discipleship,” she adds. To address some of the issues, Gateman created and led a Spiritual Autobiography workshop. She renewed emphasis on teaching Anglicans to spend time in the presence of God and to practice spiritual disciplines such as those in the Book of Common Prayer or the Daily Examen.
“We need to see ourselves with the eyes of the one who made us. We need to examine our lives in the presence of a loving God,” says Gateman. Then, she believes, we will be ready to reach out to others in mission. TAP
