On Saturday, August 20th, I attended the Chrysalis Restart meeting at First United Methodist Church in Richardson. My expectation was to learn about Chrysalis and what can make it work for our community again. I did learn about that and had a great table discussion with the table I sat with, eloquently named "Five Guys for God." As in a Chrysalis flight, each brainstorming table selected its own name. One of the mysteries for the ages is why one table, with nine participants, named themselves "The Table of Three." I thought the most creative was the table adjacent to ours, "The Table of Contents."

Although the meeting was ostensibly about Chrysalis, there was quite a bit of discussion both in the Board session Saturday morning and the all hands meeting Saturday afternoon about Emmaus in general, to include Kairos and Chrysalis. The three important "takeaways" from my standpoint related to sponsorship, direction and purpose, and commitment.  

One of the presenters, who leads Emmaus and Chrysalis for the Upper Room in Nashville, made the observation that in 23 years of active involvement in Emmaus he has only sponsored 9 people. When he explained that, it made perfect sense. In his mind, you don't sponsor someone, then send them off to a reunion group and hope they get involved. He believes in an active, totally involved relationship with your Pilgrim, which implies being selective, intentional and committed in sponsorship. It also implies lovingly declining to sponsor when you cannot be that.

A second insight was that successful Emmaus communities are focused on the Fourth Day, the total walk with Christ of the individual and collective members of the community, as opposed to being event-driven. What profit is there is we put on great Walks or Flights and the pilgrims do not progress in their faith and do not have a faith-based community to support them in their Fourth Day? We should ask are we walking the walk of faith and discipleship, not merely doing the talk. Each of us as individual members of the community, as accountability groups and as the Dallas Emmaus Community are called to piety, study and action.

The third important insight relates to accountability. Both of our presenters, the national and the regional directors, stated unequivocally that if you are not involved in an accountability group, you have no business serving on a conference room team or being in an Emmaus leadership position. Keep in mind they were using a broad definition of the phrase "accountability group" meaning a group reunion, a bible study or others forms that keep you accountable and involved in piety, study and action. Personally, the Cornerstone Disciples, the group reunion I have met with for the past 6 years, is one of the most important relationships in my life and I thank God daily for those brothers and their support.

To summarize, on that Saturday 80 or so members of the Dallas Emmaus Community came together to initiate the restart of Chrysalis and, as importantly, were given important food for thought to advance the community and to serve Him more effectively in our Fourth Day.

De Colores,

Chuck Rohre

Community Communications Chair

Walk #186

Table of Paul