The Sustainist

Drawing on Holy Currencies Week 26

Friends and Enemies

To continue our work on our currency of relationship, I invite you to explore your relationships with a best friend and an enemy.  Here are the exploratory questions from Drawing on Holy Currencies this week:

 Name your best friend:

• What is it about this person that makes him/her/them your best friend?
• What do you have in common?
• How are you different?
• In what ways has this person helped you be “well”?
• Write a thank you note and deliver it.
• Write a gracious invitation to invite this person for a gracious conversation with you.

Name some whom you consider as an enemy:

• What is it about this person that makes him/her/them your enemy?
• What do you have in common?
• How are you different?
• In what ways has this person been not helpful to your wellness?
• Write a letter to this person describing your experience and, if appropriate, include a gracious invitation to invite this person for a gracious conversation with you.

Important: If this person is physically and emotionally abusive, do not do this alone.  The invitation should include the presence of another trusted person who will support you.  The location of the meeting should be a public place. 

Also important: At the meeting, invite those present to agree to uphold the Respectful Communication Guidelines.  If there is no agreement, walk away. 

The “best friend” part of this week’s activity is easy.  These questions help me clarify why this person is my best friend.  She tells me the truth; she is always looking out for my wellness; she is a great person to explore new ideas with; she also gives sound advice.  She supports me unconditionally!

I must admit that the second part of this week’s activity is a little scary.  I am the avoiding type when it comes to dealing with someone who has “done me wrong.”  I found the question, “What do you have in common?” most interesting.  I discovered that this person and I actually have a lot in common, especially the ambitious part of our personalities.  And we are passionate about similar areas of ministry to the point of feeling territorial about it.  So, it is true that the part that we dislike about another is often the part that we dislike about ourselves. I am working on my letter to this person this week and it will take a lot of humility to do.

 Next week, we will explore Jesus’ command to love our enemy!

Don't forget to share your experiences on social media using #holycurrencies

Drawing on Holy Currencies Week 25

Friends with Common Interests

Last week, we invited you to pledge to strengthen relationships with persons inside and outside your church.  This week, you can begin to fulfil that pledge by getting to know someone in church and someone outside (in your workplace, school, neighborhood, etc.) with whom you think might have similar interests. 

I selected the similar interest of music for this activity.  I’ve worked with an amazing percussionist named Jason, who was the recording engineer and mixer for my last music album, Cycle of Blessings.  Because we only had 2 days to do the recording and I was in a sound-proof room singing most of the time, I didn’t get to know Jason very well.  So, I decided to first message him through Facebook after reading one of his posts about a project he did with his students.  We then made an appointment to FaceTime for over an hour.  I learned about his passion for teaching, his care for his students, and his new music projects.  As a result, he considered being the musical director for my new album of songs I had composed in the last 2 years.  Even though in the end, he was not able to commit to my music project due to other commitments, we became closer and he made recommendations of other musicians who might be able to help me.  Jason also has access to the same recording studio that we used for our last album and will be able to do the same for the new project.

For my internal relationship, I decided to contact one of the music ministers of the church where I volunteer.  Dan put together a multicultural band for one of the services and I appreciated the sound and authenticity of his musical arrangements.  I emailed him and set up a time to talk.  Again, I found out more about his approach to his arrangement of songs and his struggle working with musicians to produce the best quality recordings.  Dan is now committed to work on my new music project and I look forward to getting to know him even better as we work together in the coming months. 

I admit that I had a motive other than just getting to know these great musicians, which is to find a musical director for my new music project.  But then our motives are not always one-dimensional.  Even though I had in my mind to explore the possibility of gaining a partner in making music, my primary purpose was still to get to know them. Independent of whether I got a musical director out of these conversations, I knew I would gain a friend.   However, the currency of relationship can be exchanged for many other currencies.  In my case, these strengthened relationships led to more relationships, time and place, and leadership.

As for your drawing activity this week, I would recommend using the Gracious Invitation process to write a simple invitation for the person with similar interests to have coffee/tea, lunch, take a walk etc. When you meet with them, remember to use the techniques for listening and asking clarifying questions to build stronger relationships

 

Don’t forget to share your experiences using #holycurrencies on social media.

Drawing on Holy Currencies Week 24

Pledge Card for Relationship

“Churches are only poor when they are poor in relationships.”  This is a punchline I use often in my presentation in stewardship workshops. Sometimes we focus so much on money in our stewardship work that we forget the importance of relationships.  If we have strong and trusting relationships, we can speak the truth about our needs for resources to sustain our ministries, and people in our strengthened relationship network will likely be more generous in sharing their resources: money, time and talents.

Hopefully, by doing the last 4 weeks’ activities, you have gotten some good practice in building relationships.  Now, it is time to make a commitment by completing the pledge card for relationship.  List the people you want to get to know and to connect with on the first page of the week’s activities.

• List a few people in church you want to get to know better:
• List a few people outside your church (in the workplace, school, neighborhood, etc.) with whom you want to establish a relationship:
• List two people you know who might benefit from getting to know each other:

 

Color the pledge card and you will find the completion date that you need to fill in.

Find an Accountable Person for this pledge card. He/she/they can be the same AP you have been reporting to, or the AP of the last pledge card, but can be someone else. It would be fun to explain to a new AP what you are doing.

Make the pledge card unique and beautiful. Take a photo and send it to the person who oversees stewardship ministry in your community. If this person doesn’t know what the purpose of the pledge card is, you will have the opportunity to explain to him/her what you (and your group) are doing.

If you are doing this as a small group: Gather your group, share experiences of the last few weeks and work on the pledge cards together. Remember to practice presenting the Respectful Communication Guidelines and use Mutual Invitation.

Don’t forget to share your experiences on social media using #holycurrencies

Drawing on Holy Currencies Week 23

Social Wellness Network

Social wellness is about how your well-being is supported and nurtured through your relationships. So, naming the persons and groups that contribute to your wellness is an important step for you to discern your own sense of wellness or in some case un-wellness.

When I wrote down names and groups of people who contributed to my wellness, it affirmed what I already knew: my family: brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, etc. have been and will always be there for me.  The greatest gift they have given me was their unconditional acceptance of me. 

I also discovered a group of people with whom I have not kept up.  I recalled how this particular group was a major part of my social wellness when I first moved to the desert in 2001.  So, I have decided to refresh my relationships with them.

As for naming a person or group with whom I wanted to strengthen relationships and creating an opportunity to do so, I was honored to be invited to preach last Sunday at St. Paul in the Desert, Palm Springs.  During the sermon, I invited those presenf to make a commitment to connect with at least one other church member this week.  I thought this process of strengthening the internal relationship network would help the church especially in its current transition period.  To my surprise, many stayed after the church service, reached out to others and, in some cases, had fairly intense conversations.  Of course, I joined in some of the conversations and got to know more about individuals whom I have seen but not really met.

One of the purposes of this week’s activities is to help you become a better steward of your currency of relationships which always leads to increasing your own wellness.  Therefore, it is essential that you discern the strengths and weaknesses of your wellness relationship network and look for opportunities to further develop it.  Use the Gracious Invitation process to write a simple invitation for the group or persons whom you want to get to know better. The invitation can be for a lunch or dinner gathering, going to take a walk in the local garden, or visit a museum. When you meet with them, remember to use the techniques for listening and asking clarifying questions to build stronger relationships. 

And don’t forget to share your experiences using #holycurrencies on social media.