Sunday, December 19, 2010
a year apart = relational summer times
We’re having a great time catching up with friends and family. A year apart means pain and laughter, changes and sameness.
It’s so good to be home, among Kiwi accents, with people who know us, know our back story, share our sense of humour, have travelled some miles.
Posted by steve at 03:27 PM
)
So it causes me to ponder: –
How to enable people to feel at home when accent (even language) is foreign?
How to learn quickly parts at least of another’s back story?
How to pick up on someone else’s sense of humour?
This, always in respect of beloved Kiwis in Australia!
But it’s an issue whenever someone comes from elsewhere – even just around the corner into a church which has so much of its own language, and story and customs. How do we take seriously our responsibility to include them without demanding that they be like us, or assuming that they’ll understand us?
Comment by Graham Vawser — December 20, 2010 @ 5:16 pm
Graham
I really like your twist – how does every church include without demanding/assuming.
At Opawa, practically, this included
– running welcome evenings when we took time to explain our culture, how we worked
– constantly seeking to give explaination about why we did things
– always looking at our communication eg newsletter with outsider eyes
– making notices not assume people knew stuff/history
– always looking for spaces to let relationships develop
Being involved in Back to Church Sunday for us was really useful – we brainstormed things we could do better and over 2-3 months, quietly chipped away on them,
A friend, Olive Drane, once wrote about a family preparing to adopt, who took the time to prepare a book with pages from each person, describing their unique family characteristics, as a way of practising hospitality.
Steve
Comment by steve — December 21, 2010 @ 1:22 pm