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About this blog
Brian Frick is the Associate for Camp and Conferences Ministries with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He has been involved in camp and conference ministry since high school. For the past ten years, Brian has served as program director of Johnsonburg Center in New Jersey, Westminster Woods in California, and Heartland Center in Missouri.
Camp and conference ministry compliments and partners with other ministry aspects of our church to foster faith development and reflection. As our communities and our church changes, our ministries need to grow and adapt with creative and emergent programming and leadership to meet new realities.
These blogs entries, though varied, are intended to spur thought and conversation around the opportunities and challenges before us.
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Accepting Changes (For a Time Such as This -Part 2)
Now that we have lived with and identified the changes that we see and feel currently, how are we accepting them? Throughout history, those who are reactionary, who try to reclaim the “calm and normal” of the past, have been eclipsed by changes out of their control. Those who have accepted and adapted, have been the vanguards of a new future. The Catholic Church struggled against the reformation. The Black Panthers and the KKK struggled against non-violent racial justice change, the British struggled against the end of colonialism, and so much more.
Are we seeing the “conservatives” struggling to regain the laisse fare “normal” of the past? Are the “progressive/liberals” struggling to maintain the progressive, New Deal, and Great Society “normal” of our past? Is our future different than both of these? Where will this shake out and how do we lead from the center?
Brian McLaren, a current leader in the emergent church movement recently said “institutions exist to protect the last movement.” If they don’t incorporate the advances of the new movement, institutions will be replaced by new institutions in line with the “gains” of the new movement.
Will our Church be left behind or become a catalyst for the emerging movement? What parts of these changes are here to stay and a reality for you and the ministry you are called to? What do you accept? What do you struggle to accept? What do you resist?
How can we accept change? What changes are here to stay? How do we know this? What does accepting it mean? How are we paralyzed when we fail to accept permanent changes in reality?
Are you even ready to move towards acceptance or are you still gathering information and finding your way?
- Posted at 12:53 p.m.
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