THE RELATIONSHIP OF PARISHES/CONGREGATIONS AND INTENTIONAL COVENANT FELLOWSHIPS

THE RELATIONSHIP OF PARISHES/CONGREGATIONS AND INTENTIONAL COVENANT FELLOWSHIPS[i]

At what points do parish churches and Intentional Covenant Fellowships intersect and diverge?

I believe that each can play a vital role.

Attempts to organize small communities have often failed in the past because they were seen to be competitors or replacements to the parish church. If a Intentional Covenant Community is viewed as a total alternative to a parish church as the normative experience of church for people then they are, de facto, mutually exclusive. People cannot be expected to put their energies into competitive structures.

While the Intentional Covenant Community can and should be the basic unit of the overall structure of the church, the parish church does indeed have an important role to play. The parish church, because of it sheer size and the resources at its disposal, can do some things that the Intentional Covenant Community cannot do. In fact, there are some things that the parish church is better suited for than the Intentional Covenant Community. The success and vitality of both the parish church and the Intentional Covenant Community depend upon the degree to which roles for each can be defined that are mutual and draw on the strengths of each organization.

There are four areas of functioning that are appropriate to both the Intentional Covenant Community and to the parish church, each contributing something unique to the function because of the uniqueness of the organization. These four areas are:

1. TRADITIONING

2. CONVERSION

3. LEADERSHIP

4. CELEBRATION

The Role of the Parish Church in the Process of Traditioning

The basic dynamic of the process of traditioning is that of TELLING STORIES.

As a church we have a memory to preserve, nurture and proclaim (proclaim here means both to hand on to succeeding generations of our own members, and to challenge the society in which we exist - to evangelize).

It is the cosmic memory of God and God's interaction with humankind. That memory is conveyed in the stories of the great acts of God in human history. For Christians the memory is embodied in the story of the birth, life, death/resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Within that story is the goal toward which we, as Christians, strive - the Reign of God. It is the function of the church, then, to proclaim the Reign of God and the new life which God offers to all through Jesus Christ.

Within the context of the church's role in that storytelling process is the duty to preserve the integrity of the memory. It must not allow its message to become diluted nor its meaning to become distorted. It is the church's role to constantly probe the depth of meaning in that memory and in the stories that convey it , knowing that its full depth can never be completely plumbed. It must use all of the resources at its disposal to both proclaim and to discover ever deeper understanding of the stories that proclaim the memory.

In order to do this, the church must never become convinced that it has the fullness of truth regarding the memory. It must encourage dialogue and a free exchange of ideas among its best and brightest in order to achieve new levels of understanding. It must encourage a healthy climate of inquiry, trusting that inquiry to the care of the Holy Spirit and believing that, in the words of John Stewart Mill, "if people are exposed to both truth and falsehood, they will choose truth."

Contained within the stories that the church bears is the Christian world view . It is the function of the church to preserve and hand on the vision of reality which makes Christians "Christian".

That vision is best captured in the approach to and understanding of the mystery of life as being basically friendly. At the very heart of things, I believe that intuitively Christians believe more in "Original Blessing" than "Original Sin". They take God's word that creation is good, and that human beings are "very good". Life is, therefore, to be cherished and embraced in all its forms.

Out of that vision of reality and sense of being embraced by the mystery of life, flows the belief that God is around every corner, just waiting to be encountered. Believing that God can and does use everything under the sun as a means of encountering humankind, we have become a people with a sensual spirituality. We joyously douse our babies with water, assault our noses with incense, fill our "sacred spaces" with all manner of icons, put dirt on each other's foreheads, and, most importantly, gather to break bread and share a common cup of wine in the belief that in all those things God is present to us.

Within the context of this story, the church also holds sacred and preserves the stories of the lives of its heroes - those whose personal stories have points that intersect and overlap the cosmic story in the most dramatic fashion.

The church must take care, however, in the manner in which these heroic stories are preserved. As theologian Matthew Fox reminds us, "we cannot put the saints on a pedestal and worship them and expect them to have any real meaning for us. We must, instead, remember that they are buried in the ground - they are buried in the ground so that we can stand on their shoulders." And in standing on the shoulders of the saints we are able to not only be supported, but we are able to view our lives from a different perspective.

The church, in its role as storyteller, affects the individual Christian in an immediate way at the level of the parish church.

Through the pastoral leadership of the parish church these two great stories are told and given a forum for articulation.

The Role of the Parish Church in the Process of Conversion

The goal of Christian storytelling is CONVERSION. The church has a mission to evangelize - to proclaim the cosmic story in such a way as to bring about transformation. The church, therefore, can be seen as a "Change Agent".

In order for the church to be effective as an agent for change in the world three things are necessary:

1. To know The Memory and to have been transformed by it;

2. To be with, or a part of those whom it seeks to transform;

3. Be credible through its own witness.

Using Jesus as the model of change agent let us analyze the three criteria above.

To Know the Memory and to have been transformed by it. There can be no doubt as to the depth of knowledge that Jesus had about the Story of God - the manner in which God loves, cares for, and acts on behalf of people. His entire earthly ministry was devoted to proclaiming the Reign of God and helping people to see where their own personal, individual lives intersected with and fit into the framework of the cosmic memory.

Jesus was so attuned to the memory of God that he told the story of it from the perspective of a member of the family, as though it were a family story. He spoke in terms of having a relationship to God as a son has a relationship to his father. At the end he prayed that those who believed in him would likewise experience that kind of a relationship with God (John 17:15-26).

One of the problems of the contemporary institutional church is that it seems to have forgotten the story. Instead of trying to preserve, nurture and proclaim the memory, it has tried to DEFINE it. Attempts to define the memory of God place limits on that memory. It does not serve to invigorate the memory, it makes it impotent. Soon the memory loses its power to inspire and convert. Once the story loses its power, it tends to not be told any longer. In its place comes the Law. But "the law does nothing but point out what is sinful" (Romans 3:20b).

If the church is to be successful as a vehicle for the transformation of society it must recapture the story once again and reclaim its "evangelical spirit" to proclaim that story.

The heart of evangelizing is storytelling. The effective evangelist is the one who is aware of and can recognize the presence and action of God in their lives and be transformed by it . The model for this kind of evangelist is Mary, whose trip to her cousin Elizabeth to tell of God's initiative in her life is the prototype of Christian evangelization. For this reason, perhaps the Magnificat should become the official evangelical prayer for the church.

The parish church could be instrumental in helping people to recognize the ways in which God is present in the mundane, humdrum of their lives.

To Be With, or a Part of Those Whom it Seeks to Transform. Once again Jesus provides us with the model.

We often think of Jesus as the "First Christian" and forget the fact that his mission was first to the people of Israel and that he was born, lived, and died as a Jew.

He was not powerful, had no status, was not a person of any position, and never even attended a seminary. He was born in a cave! And he made his living as a carpenter. He shared totally in the lot of his people. He was one of them, not one set apart. He was the antithesis of the presumed holy men and religious authorities of his time, the Pharisees - whose name means "one set apart".

At times in the past the church has suffered from "pharisaism". It has not seen itself as part of the world in which it lives and not connected to the people whom it presumes to serve.

The church does not exist in a vacuum and its concerns can not be different from the concerns of every human being. It rather poetically said that what affects every person in the world affects the church as well. The church needs to recognize that only God is timeless - the church is an historically entity, it is rooted in time and space

Here again the parish church can be instrumental. Parishes were originally devised to be the centers of the local community. It was their job to "have their finger on the pulse" of the neighborhoods that made up the community. They were part and parcel of the community - what happened in the neighborhoods affected the parish church and visa versa. Because of its position the parish church was able to rally the people and bring them together to organize and bring about change in a way that no single person could. The parish church was the institution that brought people together and helped them to channel their energies in the way that brought about the most effective transformation of their world.

The parish church could function in that way once again. If it views itself not as the community, but rather a "gathering of communities", with the Intentional Covenant Community being the basic unit of church, it will then be able to be the organizing force which brings together the energies and experiences of the individual Intentional Covenant Fellowships to transform the larger society in ways in which no single Intentional Covenant Community could.

The Parish Church's Role in Leadership

The church leads first of all by example. There are four dynamics of authentic Gospel leadership that the church could instill in its leaders through its own example.

First, leadership begins with DISCIPLESHIP. The leader is first a follower.

While this may seem to be a contradiction in terms it really makes a great deal of sense. Jesus was a follower - he followed the will of God. He didn't want to be God, he just wanted to follow God. "He did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at...but was obedient even unto death..." (Philippians 2:1ff).

The primary issue involved here is trust. For Jesus the ultimate test of his trust - of his willingness to be a follower of God is Gethsemane. It is at that moment that he totally surrenders himself to the will of God. He acknowledges that he would like to have it some other way, but he trusts and believes that in following the will of God something better will result.

It is this trust that enables a leader to lead, for the Gospel calls us out of the familiar course of life and into uncharted waters. That is the meaning of discipleship. The image is that of Peter, who as a faithful disciple, steps out of the boat and onto the water at Christ's command. The leader as disciple is someone who "helps others out of the boat".

The second dynamic is that authentic Gospel leadership is rooted in COMPASSION.

With compassion we begin to see the Gospel's unique contribution to the concept of leadership.

In order to conceptualize the idea Matthew Fox created two contrasting images: "Climbing Jacob's Ladder" and "Dancing Sara's Circle" where the latter would be cooperation and the former its opposite - competition.

The competitive leader is concerned with "ladder climbing". His or her orientation is up/down and he or she sees the universe in those terms. A person is either up or down; God is up, people are down; good is up, bad is down; success is up, failure is down. The structures are hierarchical. The energies are devoted to climbing. The dynamics are independent and competitive since only one person can be on a particular rung of the ladder at a time. There is no way to be concerned for the welfare of others since it takes both hands to climb effectively - there is no reaching out, only reaching up. For that reason love of neighbor is separate from love of God, since God is on the top and that is where a person must strive for.

Sara's Circle, on the other hand, is by design "embracing". A circle can only be made by reaching out to another and holding them. It is ultimately egalitarian since everyone "dances" on the same level - there is no "one upsmanship" involved. It is inviting of others since the more people who are involved the larger the circle can become and the more fun the dance is. Instead of the straight up, linear orientation, we find a curved, circle-like structure - more like the earth. The circle is warm and sensual and its goal is to share ecstasies. The circle is interdependent, and love of neighbor is love of God.

Thirdly, leadership involves the use of POWER.

There are bogus kinds of power, however, and the use of them can only be destructive of others in the long run.

Jesus used what power he had to set free, not to oppress or bind up.

Authentic Gospel leadership always exercises power to set others free. The creed of the Gospel leader is Isaiah 61:1-3:

"The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me;

He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the

lowly,

to heal the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives

and release to the prisoners,

To announce a year of favor from the Lord

and a day of vindication by our God,

to comfort all who mourn;

To place on those who mourn in Zion

a diadem instead of ashes,

To give them oil of gladness in place of mourning,

a glorious mantle instead of a listless spirit.

They will be called oaks of justice,

planted by the Lord to show his glory."

Finally, authentic gospel leadership involves DISCERNMENT. What the gospel leader seeks to discern is God's presence and action in the world and the path toward the fulfillment of the Reign of God.

A most poignant image is that of Solomon:

"In Gideon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, 'Ask something of me and I will give it to you.' Solomon answered, 'You have shown great favor to your servant, my father David, because he behaved faithfully toward you, with justice and an upright heart; and you have continued this great favor toward him, even today, seating a son of his on his throne. O Lord, my God, you have made me, your servant, king to succeed my father David; but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act. I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong. For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?'"

1 Kings 3:5-9

Solomon was considered wise, not only because he prayed for the ability to discern and thus justly and correctly govern the people, but also because he knew that it was God's work he was doing, not his own and that the power he had came from God. Solomon was a faithful servant. The discerning leader sees himself as a servant of others, not a power over others.

The role of the parish church in the function of leadership is two fold. First by example, the manner in which it exercises leadership. Secondly, the parish church is the appropriate training ground for leadership. The parish church has both the resources and the expertise to train leaders for Intentional Covenant Fellowships. If it is faithful in exercising leadership in a manner consistent with the Gospel it will produce leaders who do the same.

The Role of the Parish Church in the Function of Celebration

Humans are an innately celebratory. Some even say that we are compulsive about it. Every event, even the most seemingly trivial, has at some time or other in our history been the cause for celebration.

It is in our celebrations that we attempt to be most truly ourselves.

It is also through our celebrations that we express that which defies human expression - the great themes of life: birth, death, resurrection, forgiveness, reconciliation, grace, intimacy with God, hope and joy.

Some Christians live by what we call the "sacramental principle" - the belief that any thing and every thing can be used as a means to encounter God.

Certain events in the life cycle we have chosen to Sacramentalize (with a capital "S"). Of these special Sacramental events, several of them are most appropriately celebrated in the context of the parish church - the parish as the "gathering of communities".

Baptism is most appropriately celebrated in the parish church since it marks the entrance into the universal church of a new member. It needs to have all of the communities of faith gathered around as a sign of new and continuing life in the church.

Commissioning for Ministry (called "Holy Orders" in some traditions) is also an appropriate celebration for the parish church. It gives credibility to the one being commissioned, shows that the larger community recognizes the minister, and assures the Intentional Covenant Fellowships which the minister may at some time serve that proper training has been provided.

Matrimony is also best done in the context of the parish church. The couple is making a public statement and commitment to one another and to the larger community and also asking for support in their life together which can only come from those with whom the couple associate.

There may also be some form of a reconciliation celebration that is appropriate for the parish church since we are aware that sin has dynamic social consequences.

Funeral liturgies are most appropriately done in the context of the parish church community gathering. This is a recognition of both the fact that any one person's life touches more people than they ordinarily come in contact with, and the truth of John Donne's statement that the death of each person diminishes each person to a certain degree. At the same time, the Intentional Covenant Community might be the most appropriate place to observe the Wake.

The parish church can also be the forum for the celebration of certain events in the life of the larger community and certain universal feasts of the church as a means of helping the Intentional Covenant Fellowships maintain a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves.

This last point is an important one. One of the biggest struggles that any Intentional Covenant Community faces is its sense of belonging to the larger Christian community. The parish church can play a crucial role in this regard.

Perhaps the most appropriate celebration for the parish church, however, is the Easter Vigil. The Easter Vigil is the major feast of the Christian community. It is an expression and celebration of all we hope and believe in. Its celebration communally can provide a source of inspiration that will carry the Intentional Covenant Fellowships through the entire year.

The Easter Vigil is also the time which new members are initiated into the Christian community.

You can see deeply woven into these four functions, the characteristics of koinonia, diakonia, kerygma, and leitourgia.

These four functions have parallels in the Intentional Covenant Community.

The Role of the Intentional Covenant Community in the Process of Traditioning

To be a Christian is to be a storyteller.

Henri Nouwen suggests that many people experience life as a series of capricious events over which we have no control. This attitude seems to be inconsistent with being a Christian. Christians are not meant to be victims.

For Christians the underlying cosmic story - the one that under girds all other stories - is embodied in the life, death/resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the great story which we are entrusted to bear to the world.

The telling of this story is only credible, however, if we own it through the recognition of the subtle and multitudinous ways in which our lives are daily touched by God.

The coming to such awareness is a part of the process of conversion.

The Greek word in the New Testament for conversion is metanoia. One of the meanings of metanoia is, "to recognize what was always there, but which you didn't see before". This visual metaphor is carried through in numerous scripture stories (i.e. Paul's temporary blindness after his conversion; the blind man at the pool of Bethsaida, etc.).

This recognition is largely attitudinal - a matter of perception.

Many people do not believe in miracles. There is a kind of attitude toward life that greets the rising sun each morning with, "Geez, its light again. I have to go to work...or get the kids off to school...or whatever". Life to such people is a continuing set of tasks to perform or responsibilities to assume. The are victims. The are cursed.

There is another kind of attitude which greets the morning sun with, "Praise the Lord! It has happened again. There is no reason why the sun should continue to rise day after day, and yet it does." For such people life is a mystery and each new day holds new things to be discovered. They are blessed.

"See, I set before you today life and death,

blessing and curse,

choose, therefore, life..."

Deut 30:19

Both people witness the same event and yet they respond in radically different ways. One sees the hand of God in the working of the universe, the other sees just another day of drudgery in which they will be at the whim of fate. One sees life as a gift from God, the other sees life like a prison sentence. One person's life is a mystery to be explored, the other's a problem to be solved.

The difference is the stories which provide the framework for giving meaning to life and the memory from which they come.

Our own stories are stories of death and resurrection - stories of having moved from bondage to deliverance. These stories, when shared, become sources of hope and encouragement for others. How many hopeless alcoholics have been given courage and hope through Bill Wilson's (the founder of AA) story?

The Intentional Covenant Community is the perfect forum for the sharing of those stories. It provides the intimacy and the atmosphere of trust needed to be vulnerable with one another - the only stance in which we can share our stories. In the Intentional Covenant Community our personal stories intersect with the personal stories of others and the bonds between people are strengthened as the community of faith is built up.

It is in this forum that faith can be experienced, in the sharing of our stories, for "Christian faith emerges when deep within us we become aware that our own story and the Gospel story are one and the same".[ii]

The Role of the Intentional Covenant Community in the Process of Conversion

This follows on the first.

If in the hearing of other's stories I can begin to make connections between their story and my own, then I can begin to see the hand of God active in my life as well. This is the process of metanoia - recognizing what was always there, but which I didn't see before".

God is always there. We just don't always see God. That is why it is so crucial that when we do recognize God's action in our lives we tell others about it.

Mary's visit to Elizabeth may have been a source of inspiration to Elizabeth. It may have aided her conversion process and allowed her to more freely and clearly recognize God's action in her own life. Certainly Mary's witness has provided the encouragement for many people since.

It must be recognized that this is risky business, however. I don't remember the last time someone came up to me and said, "do you know what God is doing in my life?" I am not sure how I would react. That is why the Intentional Covenant Community can be so instrumental in providing a forum for the telling of our stories and thus be a vehicle for individual transformation.

The Role of the Intentional Covenant Community in the Function of Leadership

Leadership is defined as, "the ability to influence others". This usually means influencing others through the exercise of power. The exercise of power has already been discussed.

The kind of leadership required for the Intentional Covenant Community is of a different type.

It is the ability to influence others to be sure, but it is equally the ability to be influenced by others as well. It is, therefore, a relational kind of leadership in which the leader is open to others in a bond of equality.

The leader does not exercise power over those who he or she leads, but stands with them, ready to serve.

"Jesus called the together and said, 'You know how among the Gentiles those who

seem to exercise authority lord it over them; their great ones make their importance

felt. It cannot be like that with you. Anyone among you who aspires to greatness

must serve the rest; whoever wants to rank first among you must serve the needs of

all. The Son of Man has not come to be serve but to serve...'".

Mark 10:42-45

The leader of the Intentional Covenant Community is one who is called to serve. They are called "Servant Leaders".

The dynamics of leadership for the Intentional Covenant Community are different from those of the parish church and the images that they suggest are different as well.

The Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader is first a STORYTELLER.

The Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader is cut in the mold of the rabbi. I have a fantasy of how the Book of Genesis came to be written. While in exile in Babylon someone approached a wise and knowing rabbi and asked, "how did we get here and why do we live the way we do?" In typical rabbinical fashion the rabbi turned and began to answer, "Well, its like this 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...'"

First he or she is deeply in touch with his or her own personal story. He or she recognizes the presence of grace and the activity God in their life and knows how to share that story with others in the most efficacious way.

Secondly, the Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader is deeply aware of the God story. For Christians this means the story of God as incarnated in Jesus Christ and the dream of God which is contained in the stories of God's ultimate reign.

The scriptural image of the Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader as storyteller is Jesus as a teller of parables.

The Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader is secondly a BRIDGE BUILDER.

Knowing his or her own personal story and the larger God story, the Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader attunes him/herself to the stories that are unfolded by the other members of the Intentional Covenant Community. The Servant Leader then helps them to make connections between their story and the God story - to begin to see their story and the Gospel story as the same.

The scriptural image is that of Jesus at the raising of Lazarus. Jesus becomes the bridge between life and death for Lazarus.

The Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader is thirdly a PATHFINDER.

Too often the person in a position of leadership views themself as an architect. The Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader, however, does not presume to know how something is to look to such a degree that he or she can make a blueprint.

It is, rather, the task of the Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader to find a trail and then make a map of how to get there. What will be found at journey's end is not nearly as important as the trip itself. For the trip to be a good one good maps are needed.

The scriptural image is that of Jesus' own journey to Jerusalem. Much of the Gospel narrative is devoted to describing the trip. Only a small portion of it contains a description of what was found on arrival.

The Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader is fourthly an ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR.

The orchestra conductor does not play any instrument as well as the virtuoso. The conductor does, however, know how to blend the various instruments in such as way as to make the best music.

In the same manner the Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader has the ability to recognize and call forth the unique gifts that each person brings to the community and can mix them together to make "good music".

The scripture image is that of Jesus and the way in which he used the gifts of Philip and Andrew in the Feeding of the Five Thousand.

The Intentional Covenant Community Servant Leader is, finally, an ARTIST.

He or she is a symbol maker. He or she helps to interpret and reinterpret as he or she leads the Intentional Covenant Community in articulating the mystery of life in sign and symbol.

The scripture image is that of Jesus at the Last Supper.

The Role of the Intentional Covenant Community in Celebration

Since the Intentional Covenant Community is the forum for the sharing of people's life stories, it is there, too, that the lives told of in those stories should be celebrated.

The sacramental system of the church does not sacramentalize all of the important moments in life. There are critical passages in a person's life that need to have both blessing and help in recognizing the action of God in the event that are not part of the officially recognized sacraments of the Church.

Such times are: separation and/or divorce, retirement, change of career or residence, children leaving home.

These are all important moments in a person's life - indeed they are "sacramental moments" in as much as they can be periods of breakdown or breakthrough to new life and new awareness. They are death and resurrection stories to be sure.

These are the "sacramental moments" which are appropriate to the Intentional Covenant Community.

There are other "sacramental moments", however, that are also proper to the Intentional Covenant Community. These are moments that have been elevated to another level in the church's sacramental system.

Healing from illness is one.

For most of us our illnesses are private things, especially our emotional illnesses. Most of us do not show our surgery scars to the press, as President Johnson once did. And since our illnesses are private, usually shared only by those closest to us, the celebration of their departure from us does not seem appropriate for the large forum of the parish church. It seems, for reasons of sensitivity, to leave them in the forum of the Intentional Covenant Community.

Reconciliation is an area that has an aspect that is appropriate to the parish church, as I have already alluded to, but also an aspect that is more appropriate to the house church. I believe that more reconciliation has taken place over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table than will ever take place in the confessional of any church. Our failings most often directly affect our relationship with another person. It is within the forum of the Intentional Covenant Community that reconciliation with that other person can best be fostered. The Intentional Covenant Community contains the people that know me best and can be both challenging and nurturing at the same time, in a way that cannot happen in a parish church. I have seen this work in Al-Anon groups when people are doing Fifth and Ninth steps.

Finally, there is the breaking of the bread.

The Intentional Covenant Community is the proper forum to gather and share a meal. There are, however, some obstacles to fully entering into a sacred meal. The first obstacle has to do with our cultural experience of meals.

The Sacredness of Meals

Close your eyes for a moment and create in your mind's eye an image of the last significant celebration that took place in your home - a birthday, an anniversary, graduation, Thanksgiving, Christmas - whatever it was. Just relive that event in your imagination for a moment. What were some of the major elements? What were some of the things most planned for and given the greatest care?

The focal point for almost all of our celebrations is the MEAL. Throughout all of human history, the meal has played a major role in celebration. Think of your own experience. Whenever a celebration is planned, for whatever purpose, the meal is at the center of the planning. When a person in business wants to wrap up a big business deal, where does he or she take the client? To lunch or dinner. When a couple is dating, having a meal together is a significant and special activity. Care is taken to find the best place, the right setting, the best food. A great deal of the time that families spend together is in the context of sharing a meal. Eating is a necessary part of our existence. It seems only natural then that the meal has become the root of our ritual.

Two major components make up the MEAL - sharing and celebration. Sharing takes place whenever and wherever people gather. In the context of the meal, however, the sharing becomes more meaningful. First, we are sharing that which is necessary to sustain life - namely food. Secondly, we are sharing of ourselves and of that which come from ourselves - our experiences. For example, think of the kinds of conversations that go on at a person's birthday party. Someone, usually mother or an aunt or a grandparent, says, "I remember you when...", and then goes on to relate some incident that has taken place in the past. This is sharing in a very deep way - it is a sharing of something that has been lived through. It could almost be called a RE-SHARING. Now, if you are the one that's being talking about, you probably want to say something like, "Oh, don't bring that up...", but this is a very significant type of sharing - especially in a family. This is the way that family TRADITIONS, family MYTHS are handed down. This is the way in which the family MEMORIES are preserved, nurtured, and proclaimed. So the act of remembering becomes very important in the preservation of a family history. Now think of your typical supper-time conversation, or sharing, at home. Someone in the family may be interviewing for a job. Someone else may be trying out for a school team, or perhaps the entire family is thinking about moving into a new home. You are sharing your HOPE for the future. This is another important aspect of sharing. This is very commonly the type of sharing that business people do over dinner, or that you do with your friends over lunch - HOPE for the future. There is another aspect of sharing that takes place, in varying degrees, during all of these meals - the sharing of JOY. We share with each other the JOY of what is happening in our lives, our JOY at just being alive, and especially the JOY of each other's company. This is the kind of intimate sharing that takes place within the framework of a MEAL - sharing foot, sharing dreams and visions, sharing memories, sharing traditions and sharing joy.

What about celebration? The mere fact that a meal has become the focal point or center of our gatherings says a great deal about the celebratory character of a meal. We have chosen the meal to be the center or our celebration because meal and celebration are almost synonymous. If to eat means to sustain life, then living also means to celebrate life, and to give thanks to the giver of life.

In light of all this it should come as no surprise that the Jews chose the meal as the focal point of their ritual celebrations of the festivals.

We often have a difficult time entering fully into our ritual meals because we have lost so much of the sense of sacredness in our everyday meals.

These four areas of functioning define the ways in which both the parish church and the Intentional Covenant Community are formed, structured and are a part of carrying out the church's dual evangelical and pastoral mission. They run along separate, but parallel tracks, at times intersecting and at times overlapping. Each remains distinct, however, and has its own vital role to play in fulfilling the church's mission. This, then, forms the basis for re-imaging the church.