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January 2001
Dear Friends,
I do think of you, and often, despite epistolary evidence to
the contrary. I am (1) working very hard as usual and (2) rather
addicted to e-mail. Marieke says that since my stroke and sight
loss in 1997 I haven’t let up in the hours I work, though
I get less done. My visual impairment, however, has had a marvelously
positive impact on the church. As I do less, responsibilities
are more readily being picked up all across the church, which
has even more the feel of a team than it used to. On Sunday morning
I look at the "News for the Pews" on the back of the
bulletin to see what is going on. I read our monthly newsletter
with an avid freshness when it comes out, as I have no longer
been anxious about exercising editorial control. My post-stroke
philosophy is that the buck no longer ends "here"; it
ends with whoever has taken on any particular responsibility,
and that has created a better atmosphere for everybody. So if
those of you who read this are having difficulty delegating responsibilities,
my advice to you is simple: have a stroke or a heart attack or
something. You will be amazed at the high quality of leadership
that emerges around you.
One of the factors in moving this atmosphere of shared responsibility
along is the 1998 restructuring that followed our 1997 mission
audit. Our programme planning groups fit the congregation’s
needs a lot better now, and this time around each group has co-convenors,
one of whom is a serving elder and one not, so everybody has more
support. And the groups are doing some wonderful work. The Worship
and the Arts group, for instance, produced a stunning Millennium
Banner drawing on a multitude of talents in the church. It’s
on our Web site, if you want to see it. The Worship group asked
me to provide training and resources on prayer, which I did, drawing
in large part on my 1998 sabbatical research. After a series of
articles and workshops on prayer, we now have a team of people
who take turns leading the "prayers of the people" on
Sunday morning. And the group designed an international focus
for this last Advent season. The first Sunday of Advent focused
on the Caribbean and Latin America, for instance. The Junior Church
made tortillas for communion, while the choir sang Latin American
music. Marjorie Lewis-Cooper preached. Marjorie, from Jamaica,
has been serving as Racial Justice Coordinator for the United
Reformed Church in recent years.
We also did Sundays on the Indian subcontinent, Africa, and Scandinavia.
I know it seems a strange mix, but it worked. In preparation for
the African service we had members in a course on African drumming,
which I attended with great, great enthusiasm. We are also learning
new liturgical music from the Palestinian Christian community.
The Open Church group, coordinating with Worship and the Arts,
has been running a Saturday service at 5 p.m., responding to requests
from young families who could not, because of work, make it to
the 10:30 a.m. Sunday service. This service is very relaxed, in-the-round,
intergenerational and participatory, thoughtful as well as prayerful.
We have communion every week. The Open Church group’s main
project is producing a mini-newsletter, which they drop in 3,000
neighbourhood homes once a month. It is designed to be interactive,
and it has been very successful—in generating feedback, that
is, not so much in adding numbers to our fellowship. I heard in
a workshop recently that Britain is probably the most difficult
mission field in the world. So we don’t realistically expect
our pews to be filling up beyond capacity. What this little newsletter
does is help people who will never come to church be part of the
community of people who think more deeply and care more broadly
in a Christian framework. After a survey on "end of life
concerns," for instance, we began a series of "coffee
evenings" in homes, meeting with facilitators like counselors,
nurses, or hospital chaplains to discuss things like bereavement,
assisted suicide, talking to children about death, etc. And last
March, in response to one of these newsletters, a group of people
gathered for whom the experience of church has been largely negative,
some of whom no longer consider themselves Christian. We started
with reading Marcus Borg’s Meeting Jesus Again for the First
Time. Their enthusiasm for new ways to talk about their faith
has been marvelous. But they remain embittered about the church.
They have developed a custom of sharing bread and wine at the
end of their meetings, but with no liturgical language.
Another new group is a sketching group, about a dozen people
who spend a day watercoloring together once a month. It counts
as part of my work! I have been doing much more just for myself
in recent months. With this and the drumming course, I am also
having a Latin tutorial every morning from eight to nine, and
I’ve been doing some research and writing. I’ve just
had a big article bristling with obscure footnotes accepted for
publication in an academic journal. It feels good to take time
for myself. Strokes can teach you how to live.
The family is doing well. Just before Christmas Tina got a raise
and Mike got another job with a new company, with more opportunity
for advancement. James is living about half an hour away, and
working, and Rachel, 16, is still at home, in school, studying
Othello with great enthusiasm. Marieke is still managing the bookstore
at Newman College, spreading cheer and singing alto in the choir.
It’s all going OK. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers.
A special thanks to Corralee and the crowd at Rogers Park Presbyterian
Church for those regular messages of encouragement. Let us know
how you are doing.
Shalom,
Tom and Marieke Arthur
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 80
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