Making Space
How do the traditions of the Church form faith?
The traditions of the church create a space for the interaction
between people and God to occur. Through traditions in our liturgy such as
prayer, praise, and celebration of the Eucharist, we consecrate ordinary things
and places and allow them to become instruments of the holy for us to
encounter. Formation incorporates these traditions to create, curate, and name
the sacred both inside and outside of the church building.
My approach to forming faith through the traditions of the
church is shaped by what Mai-Anh Le Tran calls the “Boundless Table” – a theology
of radical inclusiveness where the Eucharist becomes a subserve act of naming
the sacred in the midst of the practices of everyday life.[1]
This act also ensures that our boundaries remain porous so that we do not
create artificial separation between the sacred and the secular, or the inside
and the outside of the church.
In the Episcopal Church, the Baptismal Covenant forms the basis
for our identity and calling as ministers of the gospel to all people. This means
that the work of formation is not just the responsibility of the professionals
(the clergy) but is part of the work of all members of the community, both for
themselves and for reaching out into their worlds. My goal as a formation
leader is to help equip people for the work of going out into the world to walk
alongside others, as Jesus did in his ministry. Again, the concept of giving
permission is critically important to this process. As formation leaders, we
can model and give blessing to new forms of spiritual practice that meet people
where they are in the context of their everyday lives.
[1]
Mai-Anh Le Tran, Reset the Heart:
Unlearning Violence, Relearning Hope (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2017), 98–101.