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The Bishop's Journal
Summer 1999
BEHOLD, I AM DOING A NEW THING · Isaiah 43:19
In the two years prior to its Seventh Biennial Convention in June 1998, the Eastern Synod participated a Leadership Review process that was designed to engage a broad cross-section of our leadership in conversations concerning our common life and ministry. This review process was initiated by Bishop Huras and the Synod Council of that time, in recognition of the fact that our synod was moving into a time of transition that would, by definition, provide new opportunities for understanding and defining our collective mission. In doing so, our leaders exhibited a generous foresight and magnanimity which benefits us all greatly in the work of providing leadership to our church today.
Our present Eastern Synod Council has embraced this opportunity to creatively reflect on the work we do together as a synodical community with enthusiasm and zeal. In May of this year, the council gathered in retreat at Edgewood Camp and Conference Centre, along with invited representatives from the Evangelical Lutheran Women, Waterloo Lutheran Seminary and the National Church Council of the ELCIC. The weekend consisted of times for worship, Bible study, learning, conversation and fellowship. We talked about the life of our synod. We expressed our hopes and dreams, while at the same acknowledging our limitations and frailties.
The previous November
we had identified four areas for creative reflection:
1. structural renewal
2. budgeting and resource allocation
3. the role and function of conventions, and
4. supporting congregations in ministry.
Over the course of our retreat, reflection groups explored and brainstormed, reflected and wrestled, ultimately creating a solid base of material for our council to work with in the coming year as we prepare for the Eighth Biennial Convention in July 2000. It was a wonderful weekend; a time of renewal!
I am often asked why it is that things have to change within the church. My simple answer is to remind people that all living things are also changing things. If the church were not changing it would not be alive! One of my favourite Scripture passages is found in Isaiah 43, verse 19. "Behold I am doing a new thing says the Lord; even now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?" Our God is a creator God who is always doing some new thing! We're like most of the highways I drive on these days; always under construction!
That doesn't always make for an easy or comfortable ride. But that's what it means to be engaged in a relationship with a living God. The fact is that we can't have a relationship with a living God without having that relationship bring about change within us, whether as individuals, or together, corporately, as a Church. Luther wrote, "This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness; not health but healing; not being but becoming; not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it. The process is not yet finished, but it is going on. This is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified."
Fidelity to our Christian origins demands originality in each age of the Church's life. Christian people are called to be forever on the lookout, trying to identify the new thing that God is doing, and then going about the work of discovering how it is that we can be a part of helping that new thing come to life. There is no fidelity to our Lutheran heritage without fidelity to a continuing reformation today in our lives and in our churches. Ecclesia reformata, sed semper reformanda.
The Church reformed, but always in the process of being reformed. This was the rallying cry of the reformation; a cry reminding us that the Church should forever and continually be about the work of reforming itself.
I welcome the spirit of reformation in the life of our church. I welcome it in the life of our Synod Council and I pray for its presence in the life of our congregations and of its individual members. Behold I am doing a new thing says the Lord; even now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?
The Rev. Michael J. Pryse,
Bishop
