Page 6 - PC Issue 14 Summer 2020

6 SUMMER 2020
PRESBYTERIAN
Connection
LEADERSHIP
presbyterian.ca
Bring What You Have and Ask for What You Need
By the Rev. Deb Stanbury, Director, ARISE Ministry in Toronto, Ont.
Wednesday, March 11, ended with ARISE Ministry hosting a dinner for youth from the group home that we are in par tnership with. We offered tacos around the table and then moved into the living room, where one of our staff members shared her story. The youth opened up too, about their pasts and what had led them to be at the group home. There was community and connection in the warm glow of the living room as hear t opened to hear t. There was such a feeling of hope. This is what ARISE is about—these empowering connections that create and trans- form community.
Five days later, everything changed.
We cancelled our onsite programs and suspended planned meals around our table. Supermarket shelves were bare, and good luck trying to find any cleaning supplies! It was dizzying try- ing to keep up with the rapidly chang- ing realities. It still feels dizzying.
Our focus at ARISE Ministry is to build community and connection with those who have been marginal- ized by experiences of sexual exploi- tation. We empower individuals who have experienced isolation from their community, family and, sometimes, even themselves. In reaching out to our community at the beginning of the time of physical distancing, to those whose natural inclination in times of crisis is to isolate, I found the terms being used in the media entirely problematic. Our commu-
Artwork by the Rev. Deb Stanbury, ARISE Director, titled, “Heart Open to Hearts.”
nity members needed to know that though we needed to be physically distant, we could still be connected. They did not need to isolate in the emotional ways they had become so accustomed to.
Our case management team stepped up to the challenges before us. Text messages were sent and phone calls were made to check in on our community members. Our peer support worker informed us of people we should reach out to. A 10-week curriculum we had cre- ated called, “Narratives, Gremlins, and Self-Care,” became exactly what was needed for this time. We printed and mailed workbooks to commu- nity members. Our case managers have been using these workbooks for phone calls, which have given partic- ipants useful self-care exercises and activities for a time when self-care has become so critical.
Our par ticipants reached back, grateful for the connection. We contin- ue to hear stories of neighbours help- ing neighbours. People who have very little, bringing what they can to sup-
por t one another, one thirsty traveller telling another where to find water.
A couple of weeks into this time of physical distancing, I tuned into a Sunday evening Facebook concert that David LaMotte was hosting. In between songs, he gave some advice for this time of crisis: “Bring what you have and ask for what you need.” In the weeks since, I have been reflect- ing on that wisdom, thinking about how it applies to ARISE both in terms of what we bring to the community members we support, and the finan- cial concerns and uncertainties that this time has presented for us.
Increasingly, I have been reflecting on this advice to bring what I have and ask for what I need as an outlook and approach to God in prayer. It seems so obvious; we talk about it on Steward- ship Sundays and offer our prayers of dedication. This is where prayer turns to action and we live it.
Bring to God, and to the hurting world God so loves, what you have, and courageously and vulnerably trust enough to ask for what you need. That is how we get through dif-
ficult things. That is what connection and community truly means.
God who seeks, Who searches, Who finds, Who loves.
We thank you that you find us where we are.
You meet us in the lost places, The lonely places,
The isolated places, The distant places,
The abandoned places, The forgotten places, The confused places, The scared places. You find us,
Love us,
And refuse to let us go. Regardless of how small,
Or lost and lonely,
Or isolated and distant,
Or abandoned and forgotten, Or confused and scared
We feel,
We matter to you,
And we thank you.
Amen.
St. Andrew’s Hall, Vancouver
A NEW DEAN FOR ST. ANDREW’S HALL
Due to the Covid-19 cancellation of General Assembly and following the direction of the General Assembly Executive, the Board of St. Andrew’s Hall will bring a formal recommendation to the General Assembly when it next meets in 2021.
Rev. DR. Ross A. LockhARt
The Board of St. Andrew’s Hall is pleased to announce that the Rev. Dr. Ross A. Lockhart will be the next Dean, as of July 1st, 2020.
Dr. Lockhart is currently an Associate Professor (with tenure) at St. Andrew’s Hall serving as Director of Presbyterian Formation at The Vancouver School of Theology, as well as founding Director of The
Centre for Missional Leadership. Dr. Lockhart is a gifted and experienced pastor, preacher, administrator, scholar and teacher. Ross Lockhart is an Ordained Minister of Word and Sacraments in The Presbyterian Church in Canada, with congregational ministry experience coast-to-coast in Canada, over the last twenty years.
“We are thrilled at the appointment of Dr. Lockhart to the position of Dean at St Andrew’s Hall. Ross is an outstanding, innovative and cheerful colleague and teacher. He is much loved by students and faculty at VST. His deep commitment
to the gospel, to the world God loves and to congregational ministry is exemplary and inspiring.”
Rev. Dr. Richard Topping,
Principal of VST
www.standrews.edu
Social cohesion and social distancing
Continued from page 5
Building community can be one- to-one connection or it can be com- munal support. Some health care workers have started wearing smil- ing pictures of themselves to reaf- firm personal connection with their patients, who might otherwise see only a mask. Churches are offering online worship services and virtual coffee hours for community connec- tion. Family and social networks are hosting virtual dinner parties, book studies and crafting circles. Stran-
gers are offering to pick up grocer- ies and necessities for neighbours in quarantine or who are otherwise homebound. These are good news stories of building meaningful con- nection. They are also ways to pro- mote social inclusion, and we can all find ways to creatively imitate them.
Physical distancing will take a toll on everyone, but especially on vul- nerable communities. As we strive to remain connected, we must do so in ways that put vulnerable people
at the centre of prayers, policies and actions. God is always calling the church to seek justice in the world (Living Faith, 8.4.1). Pandemic does not mute, but rather amplifies the call for people, communities, insti- tutions and governments to build an inclusive and cohesive society by changing customs and practices that oppress and enslave, protecting human rights and dignity and seek- ing those paths in which God’s peo- ple and creation may flourish.