On the Road in Maritime Conference

As I left Sackville, somewhere around Memramcook a large black bear lumbered across the road right in front of us. I wonder if she heard me clicking my stones together, Saturday morning. At any rate, she gave me cause to send my mind back, not just over the last four days, but over the last year, and appreciate how this year of moving widely amongst you has opened me to pay attention to what the Spirit is saying, through your congregations, your committees, your ministries.
I am deeply grateful for the grace that moved through our annual meeting, and all the ways your encouragements and creativity and holy manners moved us through the work before us, with the sense that we are in this together. And I am sure glad I was up there with David and Jennifer. It takes at least three minds to think of (almost) everything, and at least three pairs of eyes to see through those blankety-blank lights.
I have no idea how many hundreds of hours of behind-the-scenes work have gone into pulling off this weekend. Or how much heart and brain and soul you have have poured into your work and witness, that we catch only a glimpse of in the reports and presentations. I am so proud to be associated with all of you close followers of Jesus.

Thank you to Phillip Griffin-Allwood, who didn’t want my last blog entry to be picture-less, and sent a couple he had taken on his phone.

And like mother-bear, my presidency has safely crossed the busy highway, and dissappeared into the New Brunswick Woods.

with love,
Jane Johnson
past-president,
Maritime Conference
United Church of Canada

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Can’t tell the players without a program.

And in preparation for this year’s Conference Annual Meeting, the only program you’re going to need is right here on the internet, at http://marconf.ca/annual-meeting/

Do you know who the ordinands are?  You can find them by clicking on COMMITTEE REPORTS, then scrolling down under Ministry, Personnel and Education Committee, and clicking on BIOGRAPHIES OF CANDIDATES FOR ORDINATION.

Do you know what proposals we will be debating?  You guessed it.  Just click on PROPOSALS.

Do you know who is being nominated for president-elect?  Don’t even have to click on anything for that. They’re right there in the index.

Jennifer is adding stuff to the Annual Meeting webpage all the time.  If you haven’t been to it yet this week, you might be missing something.  Kelly says it’s kind of like shopping at Frenchy’s.  You have to keep dropping in and checking to see what’s ‘new’.

Besides, there may be a prize for the first person to find Waldo.

Yup.  He’s in there somewhere.

Were you at Maritime Conference Annual Meeting in 2005?  Do you remember the Youth Forum’s paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer?

We prayed it together this evening, at Centenary/Queen Square United Church in Saint John, as folks from church and community came together in worship and witness, on this International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Our Jesus,
Who are an activist,
How could you be a carpenter?
Thy Kingdom is Queer Positive
Thou are only a human on Earth as you art in heaven.
Give us your trippy Transfiguration
Forgive us for being judgemental
As we comfort others who are vulnerable.
Let us not to hate
But teach us to love
For thou are a xenophile
All poor and displaced, forever inclusive,
Forever we love you.
Amen.

Thank you to the Rev. Don Uhryniw for inviting me to come preach at this event, and to his daughter Ariel for showing him how to set up the event on facebook and actually invite me.   And for taking some great pictures of this event for me as well (that’s why she’s not in any of the photos).

We read Psalm 139, which has been transformational in my self-acceptance, and that great story in Acts 10, where Peter believes his dream enough to break the religious rules and reach across the boundaries to those who are not like him.  It took me a lot longer than Peter to believe my dreams!  For me, the hardest homophobia to tackle has been internal.  I am deeply grateful to the United Church of Canada, for being a safe place to grow into my dreams!   And I am grateful to Centenary/Queens for being that safe place in Saint John.

What am I going to do tomorrow to combate homophobia and transphobia?

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The moose  at the edge of the clearing paid no attention to my little black Civic as I passed.
But once I got to Campbellton,  everyone was paying attention!  Before I even pulled the car over, kids had the church door open, and were waving  to welcome me.  I was handed a cool blue t-shirt, and a spatula, and a huge bowl of onions, and Brandon moved his burgers to one half of the grill,  Alyssa found me a tub of margarine, and I was off to the races.  Brandon is one serious chef, and I wasn’t sure he really needed a sous-chef, but he graciously and patiently showed me the ropes, where to put the cooked onions where they could easily be reached, how to clean the grill…  the whole crew really knew what they were doing … and within an hour, close to a hundred people had been seated, ordered their hamburgers, just the way they liked them.  But more importantly, close to a hundred people had been paid attention to.
GO EAT, they call it.  … where anybody who wants to, can come, for free, and eat.  They do this once a month, and as this was the last one for the season, they ended with a group hug, swarming their beloved minister, the Rev. Cheryl  MacDonald.
Victoria came up with the idea two years ago, inspired by a GO project in Halifax.  Now Rebecca and Alyssa make it happen, with everyone pitching in, including the church secretary and janitor.   And everyone seems to be having fun doing it.

I am proud to belong to a church that has people like them in it, thinking outside the box, taking initiative, drawing the circle wide.  As the back of their t-shirts proclaimed,  ”they broke bread together and shared their food happily and freely. ”  Acts  2:46.     In Campbellton, that’s not just a verse from the Bible!

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Joan’s gentle, strong face turned toward the funeral director with a faint smile, as he asked her if the family would like to remain seated during the hymns.  “We’ll stand, please.  We  like to participate”.   I imagine the Rev. Donald Sutherland would have been very proud of his wife this afternoon.  Proud, but not surprised.  For it sounds like this is a family whose life motto could be “We like to participate”.  Like his daughter,  who regaled us all with stories of her family trips and her father’s dedication.  Like his grandson, who stood beside his mother for moral support.

It was my privilege today, on behalf of all of you throughout Maritime Conference, to express our gratitude for the Rev. Donald Sutherland’s life of service to the church, and to say thank-you to his wife, Joan, for her sacrifice and support and ministry as his partner.  The Rev. Catherine Stuart proudly wore the tartan stole Rev. Don gave her, as she led us in worship.  I picked up the Rev. Meggin King in Pugwash on my way through (thanks for lunch, Meggin), and she brought greetings and condolences from Truro Presbytery.

Salem United Church, River John, was standing room only, upstairs and down – cars parked up street and down.  There were kilts aplenty, and collars, and uniforms.  There was laughter, and tears, and reunions.  And tea.  As his daughter Mary-Beth remarked,  “Dad would have loved today!”  It sounded like he loved all 55 years of his ministry!

And I’m pretty sure he would have loved the send-off.  Just as we processed out to the hearse, the heavens opened and it pelted down rain, just for the four minutes it took for everyone to get in their cars.  Can’t you just hear Rev.Don laughing, to see the water dripping off the noses of the line of clergy and piper and pallbearers?

To quote from Catherine’s sermon:  “Well done, thou good and faithful servant!”

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I’m getting to be a big fan of conference calls, even if they start at 8:30 in the morning!

This morning it was with a small group of folks from across the conference, who are charged with the honour of planning the grand opening of the new Maritime Conference Centre, on September 29th.  I won’t steal their thunder and tell you what is being planned, but let me just say, there are some pretty funky ideas being floated.  And every pastoral charge will be an integral part of this event.  I will sure want to be there, and I’m thinking you will too.

Then it was on to another call with Mary-Beth Moriarity around the presentation of the proposals (which are up on the Conference Website  http://marconf.ca/27581-proposals-2012/

If you are lucky enough to be going to General Council this summer, you’ll get to use this proposal method a lot.  The way I understand it, the Proposals Committee present a proposal, get someone to speak to it, then we will either go into table groups to discuss, or from the floor, ask questions for clarification and understanding.  Then a motion is made, and we get to debate it in substance.

Oh, and something new I’d like us to try this year, that was used at the Annual Meeting of the Maine Conference of the UCC which I attended last June.   It’s a method of debating, which worked very well to allow different voices to be heard.

Once the motion was seconded, a total time of debate was established, then they were invited to speak to it, by ‘association’ (their equivalent of our presbytery).  Each Association was given 5 minutes at a time, and anybody from that Association could come to the mic and speak, then they rotated alphabetically through all of them.  No one could speak a second time until everyone else had a chance to speak.  I think they rotated through a couple of times.  If no one from an Association wanted to speak, they called for the next one.

… and a pretty significant step at that, 37 students graduating into the alumni of AST!  A full house at St. Matthews United Church in Halifax this morning bore witness to this rite of passage, this celebration of considerable accomplishments! Brian Stewart was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa).  The Rev. Bob Latimer was honoured with the AST Associate Award.  The Rev. Kevin Little received the Lieutenant Governor’s Faith in Action Award.

As the Rev. Matt Fillier said as he introduced the  Faith in Action Award, the ONE THING the church needs from her leaders right now is COURAGE.  Courage to not shrink back when the going gets tough.  Action is not an option.  It is a necessity.  And if the eagerness on the faces of these newly graduated church leaders is any indication, we are going to see action!

Congratulations, one and all!

And all this on a day that started with a breakfast meeting at Smitty’s, with the Annual Meeting Worship Planning Team, and their support staff (complete with tiny sparkling running shoes).  At 8 o’clock!  In the morning!  Not many folks love me enough to put up with me at an 8 am face to face meeting.  (although they might not again… I tend to say whatever I’m thinking at that time of the morning).

Then later watching the shining faces of those who will be ordained in a few weeks … an exciting time to be entering ministry! The time for thinking outside the box is past.  The box is pretty much gone!  We look to our pioneers to catch the wave of the future, and take us along for the ride of our life!

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As the Rev. Dr. Jody Clark, Academic Dean, commented to Kelly as we wended our way to the door, “It’s good to see us celebrating!”

And celebrate we did!  A room full of folks who are more used to pot-luck dinners and tea, all in our best bib and tucker, indulging in prime rib and Chocolate Velvet Tart, raising a toast to celebrate AST’s 40th Anniversary.

Although we were lucky enough to be sitting at the Maritime Conference Table, the rest of the 400 people in the Museum Hall at Pier 21 seemed to be enjoying themselves, almost as much we we were.  Actually, before we even went in to sit down, the event was an unqualified success, as the lobby was a standing-room-only testament to the benefits of ecumenical education.  40 year alumni, and ordinands on the eve of their convocation, board members and the Lieutenant Governor and the president of Newfoundland/Labrador Conference, the room was abuzz with squeals of impromptu reunions and  the laughter of welcome introductions.

Guest speaker, Brian Stewart of CBC fame, may have been talking about his life as a foreign correspondent, but there were knowing glances amongst those in pastoral ministry, as he described working in a context of chaos and change, where information is immediate, and truth hard to come by.  And yet his lifetime of observations has led him to conclude that never in history have so many people been working for the good of others than at the present time.

Made me thankful to be eating supper with 9 of them.

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Got a letter in the mail today.  Snail mail.  A form letter, actually, the kind we get dozens of in the course of a week.  But this one was different.  In the space after ‘Dear’, they written in  Rev Jane Johnson, Wise and able President of Conference.  I don’t think I’ve ever been called Wise and able before.  My eyes immediately skipped over the typed content to the space after   ‘Sincerely’,  where I see written, by a dozen different hands,  a dozen different names, some in beautiful penmanship, some who write like myself, so I had no idea who they were.  A dozen young people, personally asking me to come have dinner with their community on May 15th.

They had me at ‘Dear’.

I am so there!    I had to Googlemap Campbellton to find out how to get there, but I am there!

GO EAT:   A ministry of First United Church (Campbellton), Escuminac United Church and Restigouche Valley Church.  20 youth and young adults putting on a free community dinner once a month for two years, that absolutely anybody can come to.  No wonder it is such a successful community-building project!  I am so there!

I’ll save you a seat.

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I think everyone in the room felt privileged to be there… at Tatamagouche for a 24 hour process of building on one another’s dreams, of what one thing we would love to focus on, if we could do anything we wanted.  And naming the ‘noises’ in our lives and work that keep us from focussing on that ‘one thing’.  A cross-section from across Maritime Conference, geographically, theologically … yet repeatedly on the same wavelength around the way forward.  We are blessed to have a conference staff who in the midst of their full time daily responsibilities, take the time to take us up to our balcony and look at our horizon.

I missed the opening session, where we were invited to don our red shirts,  the colour most often associated with courage, and boldly go where … well, you get the idea. More than the candle and table clothes were red.  Courage was much in evidence in the conversations as they unfolded.

The future of Maritime Conference is a new frontier for us.  Being the body of Christ, together, we will find the courage to follow our vision over that horizon.

I LOVE RED!

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