Dear Catherine House,
I want to thank you all for responding to our last series of messages regarding the life of our house. What we will do is carry on with supporting each other through prayer, e-mail, and the blog.
Additional, but not required ways of nurturing our life as a Dominican family is the telephone, in face meetings, and computer enabled meetings, etc.
I want to thank especially Brothers George, Carl, and Rick who did research and are working on ways to expand our use of communication, not only for our Order, but for the sake of preaching the Gospel.
Each of us has a calling to be an evangelist – esp as a Dominican, but we also have a calling as Dominicans to spread the word about our community.
Please respond with any plans or ways in the past you have spread the word about the Order.
http://saintcatherinehouse.blogspot.com/
For example, I had a OP booth at the Diocese of North Dakota convention earlier this month.
Brother Kevin OP
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10 comments:
Br Michael of St Louis said...
I have shared my Dominican charism with our bishop and canon to the ordinary, as well as several parish priests. Response was luke warm at best. The best responses I have had, however, have been when I shared info about the Order with the EfM group that I mentor.
It is unusual but this year at convention, there will be no booths (frankly, that was the part I enjoyed the most). Anyway, word of mouth seems the most likely way for me. Has anyone made any "business" card or laminated folders for use as handouts? I saw some templates earlier as a print out but havn't seen anything distribution ready. This sort of visiting and answering questions, then leaving a piece of hard copy for someone to have to look at again would be something I could easily do in my present circumstance. I hope we get lots of ideas and input on this one. Bro Phil
I have often shared the order and my road to it with my EFM group, my reunion group, and a variety of others within the parish. It has been well received,
Outside the parish, in the predominantly protestant," contemporary worship" world that makes up the rest of my social interaction, I find a great deal of ....well, almost disbelief. And misunderstanding. and disinterest. and then usually some polite nodding of the head, followed by a "really?" and than an awkward pause, and than a change in subjects.
The order is usually mentioned as part of my personal story when I talk to people, and as a means to talk about the Gospel , and as a way to explain the good that Christ can do within us.
Talking about the order is easy in my parish as many people each week it seems want to ask me about what I am wearing. There is a newsletter coming out later this week with an interview in it I gave, specifically at the request of my priest to explain what I have done. She has been nothing but supportive.
I would like to do something at our convention next month, not sure what. Too late to have a booth but I plan on spending some time working a couple of others, any suggestions? Br Michael B - are you planning on going?
I try to spread the Order in two ways.
First, I wear the habit. People go by appearances. Most people in my parish know why I dress the way I do.
Second, I look at my three EFM sections as a recruiting ground for the Order. Most people in the Episcopal Church with an intellectual charism end up in EFM.
Br. Rick says:
The question presupposes that intentionally growing the order is a desirable thing, and, assuming that is true, I think there are other issues that need untangling. Why is growth desirable? Is our goal in attracting others to the order to be fishers of men, or is to help others find a place, as so many of us have, that resonates with one's already developed spirituality and to nurture and grow that spirituality, or is to bring others to authentic faith in Christ and to encourage to bring along still others in their faith walk, or is it simply to recruit more evangelists so that we can be more effective at proclaiming the Gospel, or is it something else entirely? How does growing the order fit in with our vocations of praising, blessing, and preaching the Word of God?
I think how we answer these questions may have an impact on what strategies we use to grow the order. For example, if we have a perceived need for more Dominicans because we feel called as an order to do more evangelizing, and we could use more evangelists to fulfill that call, then we perhaps will sense that we should do more pounding of the streets and active recruiting. If on the other hand we believe the primary reason members should come to us is to nurture their own individual spirituality and relationship with the Lord and to be more effective preachers and teachers of the Word, then our strategy might entail making ourselves visible in various ways and letting those who find us appealing find their way to us.
I don't mean to set up a false dichotomy here, our purposes and our strategies could involve both threads. I think it is important, though, that when we say we are called as an order to spread the word about our community, that we also discuss-- spread the word for what purpose?
And a secondary question would be, how big do we want to be? Is there any limit?
With that long preface, I can say that I have viewed growth of the order as primarily involving finding people or helping people find us so that they can grow in their spirituality by practicing our rule of life and by teaching and preaching. I therefore spread the word about the order simply by being clear with those in the classes I lead that teaching is an important part of my Dominican vocation. I blog a fair amount, and sign my name with an OP at the end, which has also generated a few inquiries.
If we perceive there is a need for the order to grow more rapidly than it has been, I think the best strategy would be to start renting booths at Diocesan conventions, the TEC convention, GAFCON meetings, Common Cause meetings, and any place else where Anglicans gather who are at least somewhat serious about their faith.
Apart from the question of whether we have the human resources and financial resources to do much of that, I would be interested in talking about whether we would even want to do that if we could.
I have another idea, but this comment is getting longish, so I will save it for later.
My understanding from reading the early Dominican documents it that the Order was founded for the work of evangelism and discipleship - there certainly is a need for this in the Anglican World and beyond today.
I've struggled to be honest with a sense that we have become an Order merely to support each other in our Christian life, but that is not why St. Dominic founded an Order of Preachers.
So what are we doing?
I can only speak for myself, but since I am in formation I am still deeply engaged in finding out what my Dominican self is as well as how I would then fit into the larger mission. It is not that I am trying to pass over the real question, but at this point I am trying to gauge what I do based on what I know and feel prompted to do.
The support is essential to me at this point, and I am sure will be going forward. But if I understand your point Br Kevin, at some point I am going to need to cut the cord and venture out into the world. Maybe you or someone will even need to push me out of the nest.
What I have found to date is that the laity in my parish as well as my priests are very supportive. The bishop seemed so last week when we talked and the dean of our school for ministry is also supportive. I now need to leverage that into doing my calling.
I guess that is what I am doing, I am sure it falls short but I will continue to try anyway.
Br Carl
Sr. Jackie said:
I carry flyers that I have printed in my purse and in my dancebag. I always think people understand better if they can read something, at least I do. I have given many away already. I also believe in word of mouth.
Br. Rick says,
I agree with what you say, Br. Kevin, and you pose an excellent question.
Another way to think about this: do we recruit so that we can evangelize, or do we recruit by evangelizing?
I would say that Br. Carl's duty to the order, as a novice, is primarily spiritual development as a Dominican. Otherwise, why have postulancy and a novitiate? Why not let anyone who wants to come in and life profess whenever he or she cares to do so? No. We have a formation process, and the novitiate is part of that. This does not mean that novices should not preach and teach. They should. And they should stretch themselves in this area, too. Get out of their comfort zones. But nevertheless we have somewhat different expectations of them. I would say that what Br. Carl is doing is entirely appropriate to his phase of Dominican life.
For the life-professed among us, I posit that we need to be claiming our vocation and lifting up and upholding one another in praising, blessing, and proclaiming the Word of God. If we are truly called by God to this order, then we are called by God to the Order's traditional vocation.
I believe that if we can fulfill our call as preachers and teachers, then God will draw some to us who are attracted first to our preaching and teaching and perhaps later to our rule of life. But I also believe that we more or less discover that we are Dominican rather than become Dominican. The formation process entails more of scraping off than adding things on.
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