Outreach

VMRG Outreach and Dialog Facilitation Subcommittee

The Outreach and Dialog Facilitation Subcommittee represents a VMRG commitment to serving the current and future needs of individuals, groups and parishes in the diocese as they do the work of creating a healthy, balanced and reconciling Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande. While Outreach is a critical step in promoting and providing a VMRG that is accessible to all diocesan members, Dialog Facilitation will be one of the primary sustaining forces for continued healing, growth, learning and inclusiveness in our diocese and parishes.

Foundational Information

There is no shortage of issues that are part of our personal, parish and diocesan lives together: a discernment and election process for a bishop coadjutor; affiliation with the Anglican Network; long-standing diocesan issues of exclusion and damaged relationships with diocesan leadership; issues of national, social, religious and political import in a presidential election year. These will provide just some of the fuel for either rich, respectful, inclusive discussions, or polarizing, defensive disagreement leading to further damaged relationships, exclusion, anger and hurt. In the end, we have choices in the outcomes that can be learned and exercised in concert with the Christian tenets we believe and are called to model to each other and the rest of the world.

As a corporate ombudsman and mediator, I see the incredibly positive power of civil disagreement and creative conflict every day. This power is unleashed by mutual respect for diverse views and experiences, mutual appreciation for needs, interests and values different from our own, the heartening impact of acknowledgment and apology, and above all, a recognition that both our humanity and Christianity make us more alike than different in all of our interpersonal and parish relationships and interactions.

I have a view of this subcommittee’s work that is based on three statements. First: Conflict is not only unavoidable but desirable in human institutions. Second: How we engage in conflict is either constructive or destructive and is a matter of choice. Third: I believe we’ve been called to a Christian life that requires our willingness to learn and hold high the principles of civil, unprejudiced discourse and disagreement, as well as, self- and other-awareness. Without them the content of that discourse will not be heard or be responded to only in defensive/offensive ways. Put another way, our “truth”, however “right we think it, will be hollow or fall on deaf ears if how we speak is uncivil, angry or condemning. Active listening, acknowledging, and understanding without judgment seem easily sacrificed in discussions of polarizing issues, especially religious doctrinal issues. Civil conflict and disagreement are the life blood of a growing, learning and loving faith community. The drive to create harmony for its own sake in such communities stagnates both individual and corporate spiritual growth.

It is the work of this subcommittee that is aimed at enriching the lives and interactions of all who ask for our assistance or engage in increasing their wisdom and practical knowledge of the complexities and gifts that creative, civil conflict can offer people and parishes in this diocese and, indeed, in their personal lives.

For the moment we have proposed two distinct yet connected sets of subcommittee goals… one set relating to Outreach, the other to Dialog Facilitation.

Outreach Goals:
• Expand and propagate VMRG ideas, strategies and activities throughout the diocese.
• Assist groups, parishes or deaneries in creating local or regional Via Media Steering Committees and chapters that can be more responsive to and more inclusive of diocesan members in those locales.
• Maintain active and encouraging connections between created chapters and the VMRG Central Steering Committee (CSC).
• Offer this page on the VMRG web site, when appropriate, to support regional chapters by publicizing their outreach and meeting activities.
• Provide personal assistance and involvement from the VMRG CSC when it can be helpful.

Dialog Facilitation Goals:
• Provide VMRG CSC members to facilitate public meetings within the diocese.
• Provide training that develops small group leaders within parishes and deaneries.
• Describe, support and reinforce Christian “servant” leadership attitudes and skills that can move polarized conflict into creative, civil disagreement and expand the options for practical, mutually respectful resolution.
• Engage creative and experienced diocesan members in contributing time and energy to facilitating VMRG discussion meetings, build trainings, workshops, and create learning aids.

Since this subcommittee has just recently been formed, I invite those who have ideas, time and energy to contribute to and enhance its goals and activities to contact me: