Going Deeper in the Practice of Social Justice 

The members of St. Matthew's Discipleship Task Force (Chair Dan Johnson, Sarah Larsen, Joel Donna, Terese Lewis, Dwight Zscheile, Lisa Wiens Heinsohn, Jenny Bach, and Marcia Roepke) conducted twelve focus groups with members of St. Matthew's this past spring and summer. The focus groups represented the rich diversity that is St. Matthew's: world Anglicans, parents of children and teens, members of the book group, empty-nesters, young adults, etc. The Discipleship Task Force was asked to listen prayerfully to the people of St. Matthew's and to learn more about how the church can come alongside and support community members as they seek to become followers of the way of Jesus in daily life. What would they like to learn more about? What sorts of gatherings, classes, topics, and formats would be helpful to them as they seek to participate more deeply in God's life? What does an expansive, Anglican vision of the Christian faith look like? The themes that emerged in those focus groups will be presented at our annual parish meeting next Sunday, January 27, from 9 am to 10:15 am in the parish hall.

 

One of the emerging themes was the desire for gatherings to discuss specific spiritual practices. People interested in incorporating a specific spiritual practice into their lives would like to gather to learn more about the practice, understand it in the context of their faith, and then "just do it." They would then regroup one or multiple times to reflect on the practice, how things went, and how God worked through the practice to bring internal and external change.

 

Parishioners Pat Haga (left) and Maclore Christensen with girls from St. Barnabas Apartments for recently homeless youth at last year's gift-making party

Repeatedly, practices named as important to members of our faith community include social justice and service, prayer, contemplative practices, and theological reflection. An exciting opportunity to befriend homeless young adults in Minneapolis has emerged. It would combine a ministry of listening to and with them -- on their turf -- with later prayer, contemplative practices, and theological reflection with each other, to learn from the experiences. Please read more below, pray about this ministry, and let Lisa Wiens Heinsohn, the ministry's designated leader, know if you are interested in learning more or participating. She can be reached at lmwiens1969@mac.com or 651-246-8547.

 

Lisa Wiens Heinsohn

YouthLink:  

Grounding Social Justice as an  

Action-Reflection Spiritual Practice

St. Barnabas is part of a broader organization in Minneapolis called YouthLink, which serves homeless young people in a variety of ways. One way they do this is through the "Opportunity Center" in Minneapolis, which provides a food shelf, meals, laundry, computers, educational tutors, job assistance, medical and legal aid, a childcare area, and clothing, among other things. One of the few things the Opportunity Center does not have is spiritual care for their youths -- at least, not yet.

Recently Blair Pogue, Lisa Wiens Heinsohn, Vicki McKenna, Bruce Nerland, and Mike Christenson went to explore the possibility of beginning to build relationships between these youths and St. Matthews members, through the practice of spiritual direction. "Spiritual direction" is actually a bit of a misnomer -- it is really the practice of deeply listening to another human being, to oneself, and to God simultaneously, for the sake of healing. It is not the practice of giving advice or "direction." Lisa Wiens Heinsohn, who is a postulant to become an Episcopal priest and who is the Campus Ministry Director at St. Matthews, is also a trained spiritual director. YouthLink staff welcomed the idea that we might provide "spiritual care" through building relationships and deeply listening to these young people.

By building deep two-way relationships, this ministry would enable us to explore the possibility of seeing ourselves as learners, friends and followers of the way of Jesus. We imagine that these youths might teach us more about spirituality than we might ever have discovered on our own. We are exploring what might happen if, instead of waiting for our neighbors to enter our building, we went to their neighborhoods instead. We would like to cultivate a practice where a committed group of people regularly listen to these youths, and then have time to pray, wonder, and reflect with one another afterward. It's a simple action-reflection model: as simply as inhale follows exhale, we hope to practice our Christianity with action, and then allow God to refresh us through reflecting, praying, and learning from these experiences, as a community.

To begin this experiment, Lisa Wiens Heinsohn is going to be trained as a  regular volunteer at YouthLink, and will spend time cultivating relationships with young adults as part of normal interaction at the Opportunity Center. Lisa's passion for ministry is about healing. She had some gritty life experiences as a young adult, when she left the Christian church, and has spent the years since exploring healing in many forms. Deeply nourished by Anglican spirituality and practice, Lisa is moved to begin to "pay it forward" by listening to these young people who are experiencing tremendous loss, challenge and trauma, and to begin to create a ministry to them based on their actual expressed needs, not a preconceived program. Lisa will coordinate the ministry between St. Matthew's and YouthLink under Blair's supervision.

Though it might be tempting to see homeless young people as very different from "us," an experience at YouthLink has already proved otherwise. In YouthLink's basement is an art room, one wall of which is a giant chalkboard where youths have written the sentence "Before I die I want to ......." Some of the things they wrote were as follows: "Before I die I want to be a good dad .... See my daughter succeed ... change the world ... go to Europe ... speak for the unspoken .... Be successful .... Learn to tap dance ...forgive my dad ... to live life, not just to exist." May we have the courage and openheartedness to come alongside these youths, and to experience them as equals and mentors, as peers and teachers-as, for us, the face of Christ. In doing so, may we experience mutual healing, learning, and community, and the gift of experimenting with radical ways to learn about the way of Jesus.