The Rev. Chip Stokes leads a workshop on creating rituals that connect milestones of daily life with church life. Get out of the “God box” and work on ways to help members “be church away from the church’s buildings,” guest speaker Chip Stokes urged the 150 people who gathered for the diocese’s annual spring learning event on March 6 at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston.

Faith forms through personal relationships, often in our own homes, and so the church becomes “a partnership between the ministry of the congregation and the ministry of the home,” Stokes said. 

Stokes is the rector of St. Paul’s Church in Delray Beach, Fla.  He based his morning talk on several “epiphanies” from his career in Christian education ministry as well as principles developed by Vibrant Faith Ministries.

The Rev. Leslie Sterling coaches a small group in discerning how their individual gifts for ministry match up with need in the world. “Claiming discipleship” is a lifelong process that requires a lifetime of practice and the help of “the church gathered in the local congregation and the domestic church, the home or household, no matter what the configuration of the home or household might be,” he said.

Connie Parrish and a partner work on mission goals during a workshop on “Finding Your Congregational Values.” “If we’re going to be about forming children and youth in the faith, we have to be just as strong and intentional about our formation for adults,” he said.

Small group conversations and workshop sessions later in the day were popular and focused on things like crafting mission goals, connecting the rituals and milestones of daily life with church life and teaching through preaching.

“Use today to go deeper into your baptismal covenant,” Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE said in his closing remarks.  “Use today to go out and spread to your parish and beyond its doors the message of God’s love through Jesus Christ.”

--Tracy J. Sukraw