Episcopal Village, a grass-roots community organization, offers training and practical resources to help parishes and dioceses become, among other things, missionaries in their own backyards, said Ward, abbess and vicar of Church of the Apostles, an Episcopal and Lutheran “contextual” mission congregation.
Herself a church planter, Ward said the event aims to draw on local experience and expertise to assist congregations in connecting and reconnecting with their locale. It will be held at St. David of Wales Church in Portland and hosted by the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon. A similar event is planned for Sept. 24-25 in Baltimore, said Ward, EpV director.
Among other things, the agency teaches both clergy and laity to do “neighborhood field reconnaissance” as a way of syncing the church with the community’s rhythm of life. “A lot of churches aren’t really connected to those in their own zip codes,” she explained.
Also key is the question of how the church might speak to whatever its context is, whether homelessness, prostitution, or even the isolation wrought by modern technology.