Latest / Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community / From Programs to Presence | With Erinn Oxford

Transcript

From Programs to Presence | With Erinn Oxford · Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community

0:02
They were very quietly, sneakily
0:06
taking up this offering for me and
0:10
my family. And I got pulled into the center of the
0:13
room at a church service and handed this
0:17
ziplock bag with it was around $78
0:21
or something like that in change, which was mostly
0:24
panhandled. And it felt so
0:27
precious that, you know, I was struggled to
0:31
even note. And yet they were sitting there saying,
0:35
we know you have everything you need. And so we really want you to all
0:39
be able to go out for dinner once you know that the
0:42
surgery has been successful and you better tell us what you
0:46
ate. It was amazing. What if
0:50
faith was never meant to be contained in programs? And what
0:53
if we've mistaken structure for substance?
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Maybe the call isn't to do more, but to be more
1:01
present. This is Journey with Care,
1:04
a podcast by Care Impact where curious Canadians find
1:08
inspiration to love others well through real life life stories and honest
1:11
conversations.
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I'll never forget this one walk I took with my son through our neighborhood.
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It turned into something right out of the Twilight Zone. You see,
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there's this one house we always walk past. It's
1:27
immaculate all the time. The lawn is perfectly
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trimmed. The driveway spotless. Everything
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just so perfect. And this one lady that
1:39
lives there makes sure of that. There's one day where I saw her
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using a leaf blower to get those last leaves off her tree in the
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fall so that they couldn't fall on their own and that they would be taken
1:49
care of. But on this particular day, as we were
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walking by, we saw this woman sweeping her grass.
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That's right. She was sweeping her grass. And if that wasn't weird
2:01
enough, we continued to walk. Her next door neighbor
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was mowing his driveway. Not the lawn, the
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driveway. I felt like I was in the matrix. It was
2:12
bizarre and hilarious. But it also stuck
2:16
with me because it made me think, how often do we try to control or
2:20
clean what doesn't actually need fixing? How much energy
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do we spend trying to keep things looking pristine
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when life, real life, is anything but tidy?
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Sometimes we need to get out of our spaces, out of our weird comfort
2:35
zones, and get into what's real. And
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that's why today's conversation matters so much. We're talking about what
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it means to live faithfully and fully in messy places where
2:47
pain, poverty, and presence intersect. Our
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guest, Erin Oxford, has been doing this for years as an executive director
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and pastor at the Dale Ministries in Downtown Toronto. She's
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not interested in sweeping the grass or putting on appearances. She's
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committed to being with people right where they are, putting
3:05
presence over programs. This episode is a real invitation to
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rethink what it means to be the church in the middle of the street,
3:13
not just inside our walls. So let's get right into it.
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Wendy, I'm gonna hand it over to you. Erin, it is so good to have
3:21
you here in studio. Welcome to the podcast.
3:25
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here, Wendy. Oh, I'm so
3:28
excited to introduce, you know so many people across Canada,
3:32
but, to introduce more people to you and the story that
3:36
you live out. And and I'm I'm looking forward to unpacking a little
3:40
bit more about faith in action, moving
3:43
beyond programs into radical presence. But
3:47
before we go into your your story, I'd love to
3:50
just open up with a a fun icebreaker, if you will. So
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I'm gonna ask you, Erin, if community were a piece of furniture, what
3:58
would it be and why? Oh,
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I think I would say that community
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is like a couch, a place that
4:09
people gather around and on
4:13
that generally, it's easy to make room for more
4:17
people. And, you know, the hope, I think, is that it would
4:21
be a place of comfort and
4:24
safety, that good conversations can happen
4:28
while you're sitting on it. So there's an intimacy, I think, to a
4:32
couch Yeah. That is like community. I like that. And and
4:36
that really actually represents you well in
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when I got to know you. I felt like we were two long
4:43
lost friends sitting on a couch catching up, and we had community.
4:47
So a couch is a perfect example. Erin, let's dive
4:50
in a little bit to your story of presence over
4:54
programs. Can you share a moment when you realized that
4:58
presence mattered more than the programs you delivered?
5:03
Yes. Well, I think that when I consider
5:06
the earliest days of what was to
5:10
become the Dale, We were in
5:14
very serious crisis financially, and
5:19
what was ironic at that time was that we had this
5:22
flourishing community. And so
5:26
in that moment, we knew that things needed to change, that we
5:30
weren't gonna have a building anymore, that programming,
5:34
for example, was going to look very different or might not
5:38
even exist. But that what was most important
5:42
was that we would be able to gather together
5:46
in community. And so it really became
5:50
about presence, about presence in the neighborhood, about
5:53
presence to people, and not about
5:57
the things that we can program into our day,
6:01
and it was incredible. Yeah. So what
6:05
you're telling me is quite counterintuitive to the
6:09
way that ministries often go into
6:13
more buildings, more bigger buildings, more programs,
6:17
more containers, and you essentially got rid of a lot
6:20
of containers. You you didn't lose your essence and your presence in in
6:24
the community. But tell me a little bit from a leadership
6:28
perspective. Did you get any pushback on that, or or what
6:31
led you to make some of those radical steps
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to move away from building ownership and,
6:39
more of the containers, if you will? Yeah. I knew that we needed to
6:43
really strip things down. And the
6:46
decision to do that was, again, motivated sort of you know,
6:50
the reality is that it was motivated out of crisis. The reality
6:54
was that we couldn't afford the building that we
6:58
actually didn't own, but leased at the time.
7:01
So the two options that seemed were either
7:05
close completely, like, just this can no
7:09
longer exist. We can't do it anymore. Or
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reimagine how we were going
7:16
to be a ministry or a church. And so
7:20
the plan became that we were going to extinguish
7:24
a lot of things, including expense. And
7:28
for us, that was very wrapped up in our building. And I knew,
7:31
though, at the time that we had this community who was
7:35
very familiar with what it means to be transient.
7:39
Many people at the Dale, you know, understand what it is
7:42
to not have a home and
7:46
that we could learn a great deal
7:50
directly from the community. That while I have
7:54
journeyed with people my entire adult life
7:58
who have experienced homelessness, I've never been homeless myself.
8:03
And so this was an opportunity for me
8:06
to shift my posture. That is beautiful.
8:10
Rather than seeing homelessness and transiency as
8:14
a a problem to fix, you leaned in and said, what
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makes our people, our community so resilient, and is
8:22
there something we can learn? Because you could also take the the flip side
8:26
of things and say, you know what? We can't afford to help
8:29
community. Our budgets are stripped thin
8:33
and almost make a building a nonnegotiable
8:36
as this is the church. But you
8:40
put that on the chopping block for the sake of being present in the community,
8:44
and I think that is a testament to the
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work that you're doing. Can you tell me a little bit of a day in
8:51
the life of being part of the Dale community?
8:55
If I were part of this community, what would I experience?
8:59
Well, the Dale, we like to say that we're nomads with a
9:02
schedule. And so one of the things that helps
9:06
that work is that the schedule piece of that. So you
9:10
never have to wonder really where you will find us on a
9:14
particular day because it will be the same place on that
9:18
particular day. And our weekly
9:21
schedule includes, you know, on a Sunday, we do gather
9:25
for worship, and we're setting apart that time for that
9:29
purpose. It's very come as you are.
9:32
On Monday, we have a drop in where people
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can gather and play games and chat
9:40
and have a cup of coffee or tea or hot chocolate,
9:44
and then we eat a meal together. And everything we
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do at the Dale, people are invited into full participation of it. And
9:52
so it's not just something that I or our staff team
9:55
are doing for others, but we're trying to do it together. And so, you know,
9:59
a drop in, for example, there's help from our core
10:03
community to set up the room, to clean up after
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those kinds of things. So you'd be invited into those kinds of
10:11
jobs. And, we have a breakfast
10:15
together. We have social time in yet another
10:19
building. We are outside in the
10:22
same parkette beside a health center every Wednesday
10:27
where we have an outdoor drop in. We do art
10:30
together on another day, and, you know, there's
10:34
a lot of walking alongside one another in the
10:38
ways that each of us might need. So if somebody needs help
10:42
to get to an appointment or if somebody needs assistance
10:45
with cleaning up their place to avoid eviction,
10:50
you know, whatever it is, we will try
10:53
to do. We know we can't do everything.
10:57
No. You can't. But at the same time and we're not saying here I'm not
11:01
hearing you say that presence
11:04
overrides any programs or schedules or structure.
11:08
There's intentionality in your planning. However, your
11:12
presence manages what you say yes to,
11:16
what you can say yes to, and it's very
11:20
relationally driven, which I think is a is something that we can
11:24
can learn from. Did you feel, like, as, personally, as
11:27
a leader navigating this with your community, did you
11:31
feel that tension of, like, losing control in
11:35
some sense of what the Dales should look like and
11:38
really shared ownership of that? I imagine there would be some
11:43
tension involved of leading but also walking alongside.
11:47
Yeah. I feel like that's always that's a tension,
11:51
right, or a polarity that I'm trying to negotiate
11:55
all the time. Like, how do I offer a sense
11:59
of leadership, if you will, while also
12:02
being a servant to to the community? How do
12:06
I listen to the feedback really well
12:10
of the community? Like and I sought that out at the beginning. I really
12:13
wanted to know what people could imagine for
12:17
this place and knowing that not
12:21
every idea was gonna be able to work.
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Yeah. I feel like I'm always doing a bit of that dance, but I
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think what matters generally is holding the same
12:32
posture and knowing that I
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you know, this is also a community for me, and I am
12:40
very cared for here too. So that,
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again, it's not just us, them, stuff.
12:48
It's it really is us together. Tell me
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more about that, of how you feel cared for in
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this way. Well, you know, my
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life it I mean, I guess for all of us, we
13:02
have different traumas and
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crises that we experience. You know, along the
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way, I've I've found myself being a
13:13
caregiver for some of the closest people to me
13:17
in my life. My mother lived in hospital for
13:20
thirteen years before her death, and I was
13:24
caring for her all along. And my
13:27
husband has multiple sclerosis, and
13:31
that impacts him and us and the way
13:35
that we're moving through the world. You know, I've also
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chosen to be present in in some very
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difficult things. Experienced a lot of grief. And
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I think this community, the Dale community,
13:50
has invited me again and again and again to be
13:54
willing to share vulnerably about the things that I struggle
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with, and they don't respond with anything
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trite because they know too what it
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is to struggle. And so I've been poured into that way.
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You know, one story I sometimes tell because it was so impactful
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was that I had told the community that
14:17
Dion, my husband, was going to risk
14:20
doing a surgery that was this potential
14:24
cure for the disease that he has. And it was
14:27
very expensive, and it wasn't gonna happen in Canada because it
14:31
wasn't even allowed. And we didn't know how we were gonna do it.
14:35
We put out this call to friends and family to see if
14:38
anybody would be willing to help us. And it was
14:42
overwhelming because we had everything that we needed Mhmm.
14:46
In, like, twenty four hours. And but my
14:50
community at the Dale was upset that
14:53
because it had happened so quickly, they hadn't yet been able to
14:57
participate in helping. And so I didn't
15:00
know that for a few weeks or however
15:04
long, they were very quietly,
15:08
sneakily taking up this offering
15:11
for me and my family. And I got pulled
15:15
into the center of the room at a church service and
15:19
handed this ziplock bag with, I can't
15:23
remember the exact number, but it was around $78 or something like
15:27
that in change, which was mostly panhandled.
15:31
And it felt so precious that Wow.
15:35
You know, I was struggled to even note that I
15:38
should use it. It was exactly the widow's mite. And yet
15:42
they were sitting there saying, we know you have everything you need and so
15:46
we really want you to all be able to go out for dinner
15:50
once you know that the surgery has been successful, and you
15:54
better tell us what you ate. So they were also offering me this
15:57
accountability, to use their
16:01
gift. It was amazing. Wow.
16:06
That is amazing. And it's a two way thing,
16:10
though, to enter into the humanity and the vulnerability
16:14
of each other, to be able to receive and also to
16:17
to share vulnerably where you have need and to open up in that way.
16:21
And I think that is a good challenge for so many of
16:25
us who are in ministry, who do care for others that
16:28
we need to have things together. But in fact, in our
16:32
own vulnerability, in our own story, people enter
16:35
in. Now you're a big proponent of story. In fact, I
16:39
would love our audience to understand more these story days that you have
16:43
brought together. It's getting bigger and bigger every year. I keep following one of these
16:47
years. I will be in Toronto for it. I can't wait for it. You come
16:50
here to Winnipeg. But tell me a little bit more the power of
16:53
story and why we do it, not just to sensationalize the story,
16:57
but to enter into the lives of others. And you you wave
17:01
that flag, but tell me more. I think that story is
17:04
one of the most powerful things that we can share
17:09
with one another. Everybody has one, and I think
17:12
that there's something that humanizes us when we're able to
17:16
share stories. And, you know, I have a friend who has
17:19
said, you know, it's also one of the most decolonized
17:24
things that you can do, because it
17:28
invites everybody together to be
17:31
listener and sharer. You know, a number of years
17:35
ago was prompted to wonder if
17:38
there was a way to gather people who
17:42
especially had a heart to address issues
17:46
around poverty and injustice
17:49
motivated by faith. And, you know,
17:53
there were a lot of things out there, conferences and so
17:57
on, that were available if you wanted that
18:00
kind of thing. And I I was interested
18:04
in discovering if there was something alternative that
18:07
maybe wasn't as readily available.
18:11
And story night was the first
18:15
attempt at this. And so Mhmm. We gathered, and
18:19
we shared stories of lament
18:22
and hope. And I think that night
18:26
and the subsequent story events that have turned into days,
18:30
story days, there really is something
18:33
special about sitting in what I would describe as the
18:37
messy middle of a lot of things. I think everyone
18:40
in the room at some point doesn't share the
18:44
experience of the storyteller, and there might be some
18:47
discomfort that comes out of that. Right? If it's not
18:51
familiar to you, you don't know. You don't understand.
18:55
And but what we're choosing to do is, what
18:59
we're trying to choose to do is to be able to communicate across
19:03
difference. And somehow story enables that more
19:06
to happen, especially in our increasingly polarized
19:10
world where, you know, every year
19:14
always were forced to choose a side and and even push
19:18
away the other in doing so. But what's lost
19:22
then is the hope for communication
19:26
and maybe learning. Yeah. Because if we don't stop to listen to
19:30
people's story and we are focused on
19:34
making programs and doing things out of Christian,
19:38
maybe good intentions, and maybe it's repeated and so
19:42
it's uncontested. Of course, we're gonna do this program, but we haven't
19:46
stopped to listen. That really informs how we show
19:49
up, isn't it? And how we how we show up, what we
19:53
do more than just doing things
19:56
that don't necessarily connect with people's story. I I love that. And
20:00
and it is a unifier for people that would otherwise not
20:04
sit in a room together, would otherwise not connect over a
20:08
program. But as people, we all have a story.
20:12
That's right. We all do. And it is so
20:15
compelling, right, to sit there and hear somebody
20:19
share out of their own experience and
20:23
from wherever they've come from. And I think it it
20:27
actually serves to pull us together. It reminds us
20:31
of our common humanity, which is something I'm talking about the Dale
20:35
at the Dale all the time, that we're more alike
20:38
than we are different. Obviously, there's differences in the way that
20:42
we look and where we grow up and all of those
20:46
things, but we also are the same.
20:50
And it's no doubt in that posture why you galvanize
20:54
such a broad range and group of people, known
20:57
as the Dale community. What I also can't help but
21:01
notice on your social media, and and we stay connected
21:05
online more than in person. However, there's a lot
21:08
of grief entering into people's story as well,
21:13
particularly people with vulnerabilities. And there's
21:16
a lot of grief and lament and things that are messier
21:20
that people might say, you know what? My heart just can't handle
21:24
it. Tell me what that is like walking through,
21:28
the difficult areas, the messy middle, like you've
21:32
referred to ongoing. It's not just a day of
21:36
lament. It's every day. What's that like?
21:40
Oh, well, sometimes it can be overwhelming.
21:43
And I would also say that it is so
21:47
deeply good. And, you know, I
21:50
I think it was CS Lewis who talked about the fact that
21:54
when you know grief, you're also then able to know joy.
21:59
Like that, you know Yes. That one births the
22:02
other and vice versa or that when
22:06
you've known love, when you've had deep relationship with
22:10
people, that is going to open up
22:13
deep grief when they're when those people are no longer
22:17
there, but that you wouldn't want to give up that love.
22:21
Like, that you know, your grief is a sign of that somehow.
22:25
And, you know, in a community like the Dale, we have a lot
22:29
of opportunity to to live
22:32
into all of that. And I have
22:36
noticed in a community that is very familiar with
22:39
loss that there's also a very large capacity
22:43
to be grateful for the simplest of things.
22:47
And so that's been really true of it too,
22:52
and I'm grateful for that. I think I often
22:55
say that I I do believe the beatitudes
22:59
are true as hard as they are.
23:03
I haven't always understood what it even means. Like, what does it mean to be
23:06
blessed when you're grieving or, you
23:09
know, living in poverty? But what
23:13
I've discovered is that that blessing is
23:17
is in many ways about those things being held as
23:20
sacred by god, that the root of the word blessing
23:24
is that to make sacred. And so that
23:28
that does make sense to me. And so we get to walk in
23:32
these sacred places on holy
23:36
ground. Yeah. I know. That's that's really wise words right
23:39
there. And not everybody is gonna find
23:43
themselves in Downtown Toronto Mhmm.
23:47
In the community that you find yourself. That is a special calling
23:51
or a calling that you have been placed. God has has brought you
23:54
into that community. Talk to me as a
23:58
person who attends a church that is wanting to navigate
24:02
this, wanting to take steps closer into
24:06
community. Maybe they're not called to to sell their building or get rid of
24:09
their building. Maybe they are. Maybe they're they're called to to
24:13
shift their their thinking so they can be more radically
24:17
present with those in the community. What steps would you
24:21
suggest that we take? I would say that I'm not anti
24:25
building. I think a lot of people think that
24:28
maybe because of my experience of not having one that
24:32
I don't appreciate what they mean, but I actually really
24:35
do. The Dale relies on the buildings of others.
24:39
What I would say, though, is I would maybe challenge people to
24:43
get out of the building more. And so what would it
24:47
look like if you were to
24:50
practice presence in your neighborhood by regularly
24:54
walking through it, getting to know the people, whoever they
24:58
are, that are, you know, maybe sitting or
25:02
hanging out in the same spots all of the time.
25:05
And that could be a wide variety of people. Right? Like,
25:09
people not necessarily who are connected to the
25:13
street exclusively. People are out and about in the neighborhood. And
25:16
so get to know your neighborhood even more if that's something that
25:20
you don't know yet, and maybe
25:24
explore ways to do things where you're
25:28
going to people rather than expecting people to come to you.
25:32
And I think that can be a good challenge for
25:36
people. And if you're wondering about how
25:39
to connect maybe more deeply with people
25:43
in the who are living very much in the margins,
25:47
I think there are some simple steps toward
25:51
really humanizing people that you
25:54
might experience some fear of.
25:58
And so, you know, if you see somebody sitting
26:02
or panhandling or obviously in distress,
26:06
making eye contact, saying hello, do
26:09
those early steps of of relationship building.
26:13
I find that so many of the
26:17
folks at the Dale wear their challenges very close to the surface
26:21
in a way that they can't hide them even if they they might very
26:25
much want to, actually, but can't because they're
26:29
on display. Like, I too am challenged. I
26:33
just might have the capacity to push down those things and manage
26:36
them and decide when I'm gonna share those things with
26:40
people. But even just knowing that, approaching
26:44
people knowing that might open up conversation
26:48
in a different kind of way. I think those are some things. Sure. No.
26:52
That's very helpful. And so it's really not so much what
26:56
you're telling me is not so much a formula of what you do,
26:59
but maybe in a posture, maybe take the load off our our
27:03
backs and be more in a posture of curiosity and
27:07
leaning in and listening. Maybe the answers and the connection points and
27:11
the the shape that we are present in the community
27:15
is interactive. It it's a a mutually it's cocreated
27:19
in community as we become more in proximity to the
27:22
people. They are part of the solution we need to
27:26
find, and what does it mean to be present as a church?
27:30
Absolutely. It's easy for anybody, but
27:34
including the church, to presume that we know what people
27:38
need. Mhmm. And we don't always
27:41
know, or we could have it wrong. Right. And so to be out there
27:45
connecting with people relationally, that's where you're gonna find out
27:49
what somebody else needs. You're gonna become maybe aware more
27:53
aware of your own needs, and and then you can be
27:56
working it out together. I keep coming back to it, but it's
28:00
always so relevant in these kind of conversations about Matthew 25.
28:04
It it's not so much us bringing Jesus out into the community, but
28:08
often getting out of the building brings us into proximity of where
28:12
Jesus is in the prisons, on the street, giving them, like, a cup
28:16
of water. And and that's where we
28:19
are revealed the presence of Christ and and what
28:23
church where two or three are gathered, what it actually looks like,
28:27
beyond what I've allowed myself to imagine. It it
28:30
colors outside the lines, but I think that's it's a beautiful
28:34
invitation that God has given us, all of us, in all our communities.
28:38
We don't have to be waiting for only those if, oh, if I'm in the
28:41
inner city or I'm this part of the city, or this part of the province,
28:45
then I should look like that. It's something suburban
28:49
churches, rural churches can put into practice as well. It's a
28:53
posture. It is a posture. Yeah. Relationship.
28:57
I mean, I think we're built for relationship. I think we're built for
29:00
community. We need it. I I do believe in a
29:04
triune god who lives in community. And so
29:07
to recognize that we need that, we need
29:11
each other, we're all gonna have different needs at different
29:15
times, we all have different gifts. And that's what's so beautiful
29:19
about community, is that it can be this wonderful tapestry.
29:26
Question, before we wrap things up about
29:31
faith and the notion to need to feel
29:35
productive. I don't know about you, but I like to when I put my
29:38
my heart into something, I wanna see it go somewhere, and I don't think I'm
29:42
alone in our North American mindset. But do you have advice for
29:46
somebody who might be wrestling whether their faith is making a difference, like,
29:50
whether presence matters if it's just, like, sitting around a table.
29:54
But then what? How do you wrestle that out, and and can you help
29:57
me? Oh, well, I can try to help. I'm not sure.
30:01
That's that's a really good question. Yeah. I
30:04
think I understand that, like, wanting
30:08
to be productive, wanting to see
30:11
results, even to use that language. I think
30:15
I have felt very challenged in my own
30:19
life to notice that, you know, it's easy
30:22
to feel like we have to be doing and accomplishing in order to
30:26
have value. I've had a number of experiences
30:30
where I thought that I stood to lose a lot of things
30:34
or experience a deep level of failure.
30:38
And that in those moments, I had to say, well, who am
30:41
I? Like, if all of those things happen, who am
30:45
I? And realizing
30:49
along with the still small voice of god that
30:53
I don't need to do anything, that I'm simply beloved
30:58
because I am a child of God. What
31:02
God calls us to do, what the creator has called us to
31:06
do is to love him
31:09
and love our neighbors. And that
31:13
those are the two greatest things that we can be doing.
31:17
Yeah. So love and
31:20
relationship, all of those things move sometimes
31:24
slowly and take time. And, you
31:27
know, sometimes they're gonna be grand gestures, and sometimes they're gonna
31:31
be tiny little things along the way. I
31:35
think I've noticed that a lot of the little things
31:39
along the way really do add up to
31:43
something much bigger than maybe I even realize.
31:46
And I I think I just I feel challenged to
31:50
be not just about doing, but about being.
31:54
And that it's sort of ironic, I suppose, but as I
31:59
rest in just being, I feel better equipped
32:03
to live fully into who I am, which will
32:06
include, you know, some things happening along the way, of course.
32:10
So knowing your value, which is not an easy
32:13
thing to do. I'm not saying that I find that easy, but I know that
32:17
I have to keep going back to that again and again. Well, there's
32:21
so much more we could talk about, and hopefully, we can do that sometime
32:24
soon. But is there one last challenge you can put out to all
32:28
our listeners that we can put into practice being present
32:31
over programs, that we could put take to heart?
32:36
I think I I would just want to leave people with the
32:40
encouragement to know that when you are
32:44
actively being present that you are doing something
32:47
deeply important. And that presence
32:51
births relationship and love.
32:55
It helps you to understand your
32:59
neighborhood, the people around you, and even yourself more.
33:03
And so presence is not nothing. It's actually
33:06
a lot of something. Well, there you have
33:10
it. Give yourself permission to be present with
33:14
others this week, and we just thank you so much,
33:17
Erin, for coming on to the podcast. And I'm just wondering if you would
33:21
stick around with us. We like to end our episodes with a little
33:25
fun game of Care
33:28
lingo. Alright, Wendy. So this is the time of the
33:31
show, obviously. If if listeners are new to the show, this is where
33:35
we introduce a word or phrase that is kind of in the care impact,
33:39
caring space, social services spaces.
33:42
Like, words that when people hear them, sometimes they're
33:46
church phrases, words that when people hear them are phrases that people
33:50
might not know what it means if if they heard it for the first time
33:52
and, you know, kind of that weird language that we wanna give some, we wanna
33:56
give some definition to. So I'm gonna give some wrong definitions,
34:00
which I usually do, and today's word or phrase
34:04
is holy disruption. Now, when I saw this
34:07
word on the docket, I was immediately taken back to when I
34:11
was a kid. My dad used to love watching the nineteen
34:15
sixties Batman. I don't know if you know with Adam West,
34:18
but every episode, Robin always said holy
34:22
something, Batman. And this made me think,
34:26
this is probably something Robin would say, like, if he was going to church and
34:30
the wine was swapped out with, grape juice, and he's
34:33
like, holy disruption, Batman. Someone swapped the
34:37
communion grape juice with real wine, and then something crazy would happen.
34:41
So that's that's what came to mind when I thought about her holy disruption.
34:46
Erin, have you had an encounter with a real holy
34:50
disruption in your life that you can recall? A real
34:54
holy disruption. Or if someone swapped the grape
34:58
juice with the wine in in your case.
35:02
Well, I I want I'm not sure if I should tell this story or not,
35:06
but I will, I think, because at the Dale, we're always trying, you
35:09
know well, we live life kind of on
35:13
the edge all the time and things are messy
35:17
and so on. And we
35:20
didn't check the bread one day when we were
35:24
about to do communion. At the time, we were serving each
35:28
other. And I went to hand the
35:31
bread to a person, and they turned it over and they
35:35
said, Jesus is green today. Oh,
35:39
dear. So that
35:43
was a holy disruption. That was a holy disruption.
35:47
There was mold on the bread. So, you know, we
35:50
recovered and we figured it out. But in the moment, it was a
35:54
disruption. Absolutely. Well, in the case of it being green in Batman,
35:58
maybe it was something the Penguin brought or the Riddler, you
36:01
know? They're very green. That's right. Yeah. We could carry on
36:05
that. Something that they would do
36:09
to disrupt communion, those evildoers. Well, I'm pretty
36:13
sure if I would have said that when I was younger, then my mom would
36:16
have threatened me with a bar of soap. Like, don't don't cuss like that. It's
36:19
we would have come across as a a Christian cuss word maybe, but,
36:24
do you want the real definition? Yeah. What's the real definition? What's
36:27
a holy disruption? A holy disruption is a theologically loaded catchphrase
36:31
where God just lovingly just reroutes me and
36:35
erects my plans, rearranges my comfort zones, and kind of drags me
36:39
soul first into maybe something of justice or compassion or an
36:43
obedience. I know for Harold and myself, holy disruption
36:46
was plucking us out of the jobs we love, the ministry we loved, and said,
36:50
hey, we want you to, like, start Care Impact. And so I I'm
36:54
sure we can all relate to certain things that just kind of disrupted our plans,
36:58
but they definitely were God in in the midst even if we didn't understand it
37:01
all. And so Proverbs sixteen nine
37:05
says the heart of a person plans their way, but the Lord establishes their steps.
37:09
So there you go. Holy disruption. Holy disruption.
37:12
Thank you so much, Erin. I'd like to meet you in person, but maybe not
37:16
break bread with you, if that's okay. I like to win
37:20
a party. Yeah. I'll make I I will
37:24
bake you a loaf of bread. It'll be fresh and wonderful.
37:28
Beautiful. Alright. Until next time,
37:31
remember to always stay curious. Thank you
37:35
for joining us on Journey with Care. To get more information on weekly
37:39
episodes, upcoming opportunities, or to connect with our
37:42
community, visit journeywithcare.ca, or find Care Impact
37:46
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37:49
links and all the links related to this episode. Share your thoughts,
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leave us a message, and be part of a network of individuals journeying in
37:57
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38:00
meaningful impact.