South Central Region Fall Gathering

By Aldon Hynes

 

At every parish in the region there are probably at least a couple people thinking, “I wish we could do this.”  They might have mentioned their idea to the priest struggling to keep the church doors open.  They may have been invited by their priest to serve on the vestry as it struggles with how to balance the parish budget in a time of decreasing attendance.  They may have been invited to be a representative to their Deanery, or a delegate to convention at sat at other longer meetings.  Yet still they hold onto their ideas that just never seem to happen.

At every coffee shop and bar in the region there are probably at least a couple people who used to attend church, who had a dream about something their church could have been doing that never happened.

 

I’ve had a dream like that.  What if we could gather people from around the region to share their ideas, to find others with similar ideas, and give everyone a chance to plan actions around these ideas? Last month, to a limited extent, I saw this idea happen.

 

The South Central Region had an “unconference”.  We gathered and set the stage and ground rules for the unconference.  We put our ideas up on a wall saying what time and in which room we wanted to gather to share ideas around specific topics.  Then each one of us looked at what was on the wall and headed off to meet people who had similar ideas as our own.

Some of the topics from the SC unconference

 

I got together with some people interested in spreading the word about what is going on in our churches via social media.  I try to share what is going on both at the church I regularly attend, as well as at other churches.  I try to connect with people involved at other churches, and I’m hoping others will do the same. 

 

I got together with people interested in raising awareness that there is much more to racism in America than simply whether someone is or isn’t a racist.  Racism also includes systemic aspects that have affected all Americans for over four centuries.  We talked about things we can do to help people become more aware of how broadly racism affects us all.

Others got together to talk about feeding ministries.  They talked about their ministries, visiting other ministries, and starting new ministries. Still others talked about how parishes could share work together to share resources, simply to be more efficient, but also to build up the body of Christ.

I’ve been pretty busy, and I did not share the word about this wonderful event as widely as I would have liked.  There were people that should have been there that didn’t know or couldn’t make it.  I hope we will do this again, and more people will be able to attend.  I hope that as some of the ideas from our unconference come to fruition, more people will find ways, like unconferences, to share their ideas.

 

One of the ideas I’ve always had for the churches I’ve been involved in, has been to have an unconference.  This idea has happened.  Perhaps it can happen again, and more people sitting in churches with unrealized ideas can find opportunities to help their ideas happen instead of ending up in coffee shops wondering whatever happened to Christianity in America.