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