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Christianity in Ethiopia: Ancient buildings, living congregations

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Last week’s blog featured the Church of St. George, part of the monolithic churches in Lalibela. Also of interest are the churches and monasteries on the islands and peninsula of Lake Tana, the largest lake in Ethiopia and source of the Blue Nile River. The churches, said to be built on “earlier religious sites,” date from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries and introduce “a new church architecture … based [on] the designs of regular round houses with conical thatched roofs.” Today’s banner photo is an example of this architecture. The interiors of these churches have three parts: an “outer ambulatory,” which pilgrims may enter; an “inner ambulatory” where worshipers gather, and “the inner sanctuary,” which only priests may enter.

As one enters the outer ambulatory, the exterior side of the inner ambulatory walls are covered with Ethiopian iconography of biblical stories and the lives of the saints. The diptych is easily recognizable as Jesus praying in Gethsemane (top) and carrying his cross to Golgotha (bottom panel). Characteristic of Ethiopian Orthodox art is the contrast between those who are part of the household of faith, shown with full, frontal view of their faces (Jesus, the sleeping Peter, James, and John) in contrast to those outside the faith, shown in profile, as the Roman soldier is depicted in the lower panel.

If our guide shared the story of these two saints with a snake in the basket, I do not recall the details; but I can say with confidence that both are followers of Jesus by their full-on frontal faces.

For the past 25 years of traveling to Christian pilgrimage sites as a liturgy geek, I have rarely missed an opportunity to hop into ancient baptismal font for a photo. What struck me as posed in this font from Lalibela was the realization that this font is still being used by an active Christian community. Though we may have theological differences, I share with those baptized her a faith in Christ Jesus, whose death and resurrection raises us to new life and bring us into the household of the Triune God.

Sources consulted:
https://www.nationalparks-worldwide.com/eaf/ethiopia/lake-tana/lake-tana.html
https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6580
Photos by Rhoda Schuler, June 2024

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Christianity in Ethiopia

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The long history of Christianity in Ethiopia begins with the account of Philip and the Ethiopia eunuch (Acts 8:26-40). Ethiopian Orthodox Christians claim to be one of the earliest nations to embrace Christianity when King Ezana, leader of the Kingdom of Aksum (located in the northern part of the modern state of Ethiopia), embraced the Christian faith in the fourth century. The church was strengthened by the arrival of “the nine saints” from Syria (frequently depicted in churches’ iconography) in the 5th century.

Today’s banner photo is a baptismal font from Bete Amanuel (House or Church of Immanuel), one of numerous monolithic churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia, named for King Lalibela (r. ca. 1181-1221). According to legend, after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, King Lalibela received a vision to build a “new Jerusalem,” and this complex of churches, carved out of mountains, was the work of the king with assistance of angels. While twenty-first-century Christians may approach this hagiography of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church with skepticism, one can say that King Lalibela’s decision to create these amazing structures indicts strong devotion to the Christian faith.

The most spectacular of the Lalibela churches is the Church of St. George, which, like the baptismal font, has a cruciform structure. Again, putting aside one’s skepticism about the story of their origins, the structures themselves communicate the core witness of the Christian faith—that Christ’s death on the cross has accomplished the salvation of the world, and a person is assured of that salvation by being joined to Christ’s death and resurrection in baptism (Romans 6).

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Sources used:
“Ethiopian Church” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edition
“Ethiopia” in Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity
“The Rock-hewn Churches of Lalibela,” https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/lali/hd_lali.htm
Photos by Rhoda Schuler, June 2024

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Travel Reflections: Cathedral at Reims, France

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Notre Dame de Reims Cathedral has a rich history of martyrs, bishops, and royals. As part of the Roman Empire, there is evidence of a Christian presence in Riems in the middle of the third century. The first church on the present site of the cathedral was built around 400 by St. Nicasius (Nicaise), a bishop who died by the hands of invaders (likely Huns, according to one source) when they plundered the city.[1] The statue of him on the north entrance of the church depicts him holding his head with its bishop mitre, indicating a tradition of beheading for his death (photo, right).

But more famous than Bishop Nicaise (French spelling) is Bishop Rémi or Remigius (c. 443 – 533), who is partially visible on the far right in today’s banner photo. In the center is Clovis (c. 466 – 511), King of the Franks, standing in the baptismal font. To the left of Clovis, holding his crown, is St. Coltilde (474 – 545), a Burgundian princess married to Clovis; she was a devout Catholic at a time when Arians were the majority. Clovis was not Christian, but when he appealed to his wife’s God in battle and won, he consented to be baptized (between 496 and 508), and “became the only Catholic sovereign in Christendom.”[2] Gregory of Tours wrote of the event (quoted in Butler’s Lives of the Saints):

Among clouds of incense … “like a new Constantine he moved forward to the water, to blot out the former leprosy, to wash away in this new stream the foul stains from old days.”

But it is Queen Clotilde (not Clovis) whose life can inspire us 1500 years later. Like many couples today, she was the devout partner whose faith was an instrument of the Spirit, drawing her beloved toward Christ and his redemptive work. In our research on the adult catechumenate, Kent and I have encountered similar stories (without the baggage of royalty), such as that of Gail and George. George was the devout one, and Gail, with little connection to and knowledge of Christianity, recognized early in their relationship that attending church was important to George, and so she started coming with him. When I interviewed them, they had been married about two years and were attending the adult catechumenal sessions together; Gail related that she had many questions and doubts. But when she had consented to the baptism of her own child and understood that meant raising the child as a Christian, she realized that she, too, had to be claimed by Christ in this initiation ritual, and so she, like Clovis, moved into “this new stream” of cleansing water.

[1] Butler’s Lives of the Saints,  St. Nicasius, 14 December.

[2] Butler’s Lives of the Saints,  St. Clodilda, 3 June.

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Photos of Riems cathedral by Rhoda Schuler, June 2024

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Travel Reflections: Mont Saint Michel

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Kent has passed the blogger’s baton to me (Rhoda) for the month of July. Having just returned from travels in Europe (where Christianity is waning) and Ethiopia (where Christianity is flourishing), I’ll be sharing some of my pilgrimage experiences, reflecting on baptism, Christian formation, and the presence of Christ in and through the church now and in the past.

The photo (left) is of the UNESCO site, the Abbey of Mont Saint Michel, an island gem off the coast in Normandy, France. The legend surrounding this magnificent site is recorded in a ninth-century document, Revelatio Ecclesiae Sancti Michaelis, which relates events purportedly from 708, when the archangel St. Michael (for biblical references, see Daniel, chapters 10 and 12; Jude 9; Revelation 12:2-12) appeared to Bishop Aubert of Avranches in a dream and instructed him to build a church honoring St. Michael. The chapel eventually built by the bishop (who was as slow as Peter in Acts 10 to catch on to a vision from heaven) was a replica of a cave shrine in Italy built on a spot where St. Michael was said to have appeared in 492. Thus, this remote and holy place was dedicated to St. Michael and quickly became a major pilgrimage site. In 966, a Benedictine presence replaced the group of priests (“canons”) who had managed the pilgrimage site for several centuries. Today the tourists and pilgrims tour the monastic complex built by the Benedictines from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries on this island rock. But I digress …

With the medieval pilgrims came economic opportunity. As the booklet published by Centre des Monuments Nationaux (purchased in the Abbey gift shop) says, the “flow of pilgrims thronging to the abbey prompted merchants to settle on the rock…. The mercantile atmosphere in the village should not put off the modern visitor: it has always been a part of place” (17). To serve the spiritual needs of the merchants and their families, a parish church was formed; the present building dates from the fifteenth century and is still functioning today. In this modest and ancient church is the baptismal font that heads this blog post. The estimated percentage of the French population that professes to be Christian today is about 50%, making it remarkable that the parish church in this tiny village is still a living and active Christian community. When we visited, there was no sign of when the font had been last used, but there were flyers announcing parish activities, fresh flowers adorning the main and side altars, and prayer requests written in a book. The monastic presence ended with the French Revolution, and from 1793 to 1863 the abbey complex was used as a prison. But the presence of devout Christians who gather regularly for worship has continued (perhaps uninterrupted) through seismic historic events—the Revolution and resulting separation of church and state, the World Wars of the twentieth century, the process of “secularization” and rising number of those with no religious affiliation of the last half century. The architectural masterpiece of the abbey complex is indeed breath-taking and glorious, but the constancy of the living, active Body of Christ in this modest, medieval church is more profound and inspiring.

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Photos by Rhoda Schuler



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Catechumenate Formation for Pastors and Deaconesses-to-Be: Immediacy of Baptism and Implementing the Catechumenate

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Throughout the course over the last two years two issues have surfaced repeatedly: immediacy of baptism and implementation of the catechumenate. Some brief observations on both of those issues. Certainly, the desire for immediacy of baptism with adult candidates reflects the priority of the gospel and the gifts that God gives in baptism. We want people to have those gifts. It also reflects that infant baptism—baptism soon after physical birth— currently is the primary paradigm through which we view the baptism of others, especially adults. But adult baptism is best seen through its own paradigm. When seen through the lens of incorporation into the entire story of God in Christ and into the body of Christ in a particular place, then the Word before baptism plays a central role in forming the disciple toward baptism as a pinnacle event in the adult disciple’s ongoing life. Baptism is an encounter with the crucified and living Christ. The adult should have cognizance of who Jesus is before they come to the waters of baptism. They should have some familiarity with the body of Christ into which they are being incorporated. The ministry of the Word—that is always connected to baptism—provides that formation. Waiting as part of a pattern of eschatological waiting is a formative practice. The adult disciple is formed by life in the Word so that they can fully apprehend—as an adult—what God is doing to them in their baptism.

Regarding implementation, three words: Just do it. You have to risk, just try something. It doesn’t mean you have to lay out in the first year an entire adult catechumenate. That boat probably would sink. But just try something and then you can build on that. In many of the parishes we have worked with that have started a catechumenate they take those small steps the first year. They incorporate a weekly meal into their current adult instruction. They use one of the Scripture study methods, such as the African study method, with their elders first and then begin to use it with the catechumens. They incorporate other modes of teaching into their catechesis such as small group reflection. They implement the use of sponsors for adults. It’s not all of these things, but one or two of these kinds of things in the first year to get the ball rolling. This begins to implant these patterns into the congregation’s consciousness and lays the foundation for them becoming the pattern of the congregation’s life.

Interesting that waiting and patience are part of both the adult baptismal experience and the implementation of the catechumenate. It is formation that reflects Paul’s words in Romans 8:24-25: “But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

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Awe-Inspiring: Feet Washed and Clothed in White

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In our last post on the 4th century mystagogical catecheses, Rhoda explored the enriching images grounded in Jesus’ own baptism: being anointed by the Spirit and chosen as God’s child. We were going to turn to the third part of the rites of initiation, the Eucharist, today. But I (Kent) can’t miss the opportunity to explore more of the multivalence of baptism. Two other post-baptismal rites depict the wonder of baptism into the name of the saving Triune God: the foot washing in the Ambrosian rite and the clothing in white. First, the unique foot washing.

The baptismal foot washing (distinct from the Maundy Thursday footwashing) was a peculiar custom of Milan (although Yarnold, p.30, does note that it was known elsewhere in the rites in Turin, Gaul, and parts of North Africa). Ambrose specifically states, “We are aware that the Roman Church does not follow this custom, although we take her as our prototype, and follow her rite in everything” (Yarnold, The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation, 122). Ambrose is holding his ground for distinctly regional and cultural ritual practices. One would expect Ambrose to interpret the foot washing in a similar way to the Maundy Thursday foot washing as “an injunction upon the neophyte to perform humble service to others in the spirit of our Lord’s words” (31). He doesn’t dismiss that understanding. But Ambrose interprets its significance primarily as sacramental (the early church had a broad view of what was sacramental in nature—conveying the mystery of participation in Christ’s salvation). Arguing against those who say the foot washing “should not be performed as a mystery . . . not for regeneration” (122), Ambrose says

The Lord answered . . . “He who has washed, does not need to wash again, except his feet only.” Why? Because in baptism all guilt is washed away. The guilt has disappeared; but Adam was tripped and thrown by the devil, so that the devil’s poison infected his feet; so you have your feet washed, in order to receive the special help of sanctification in the place where the serpent lay in ambush so that he cannot trip you up again (123).

While we might not resonate with the literalism of the devil’s poison infecting our feet, the foot washing as an ongoing symbol of sanctification, of walking in the gifts of the Spirit, is potent. The journey begins at baptism and what better way to have your feet shod than to have them washed by the Lord himself.

It is important not only to have your feet prepared, but to be clothed properly. Since the neophytes were baptized naked, they had to be clothed. All the rites of the mytagogues indicate that “these robes were a symbol of the life of the resurrection to which the new Christians had now passed, and of the innocence that should now distinguish them” (31). Using the words of Isaiah (61:10), Cyril of Jerusalem says,

Once you have stripped off the old garments and put on those which are spiritually white, you must be clad in white always . . . your spiritual dress must be truly white and shining . . . in the words of the blessed Isaiah, “Let my soul rejoice in the Lord: he has clothed me with the garment of salvation, and with the robe of gladness he has covered me” (89).

The white robe is the garment of the resurrection, of the eschatological feast. Chrysostom, in a sermon preached in the context of the mystagogy, says,

Now the neophytes carry Christ himself, not on their clothes, but dwelling in their souls with his Father, and the Holy Spirit has descended on them there. They are even more obliged, then, to prove themselves reliable, and show everyone by their scrupulous conduct and careful lives that they wear the imperial badge [of the Lord of all creation] (32).

It is, in Theodore of Mopsuestia’s words, “a dazzling garment of pure white. This is a sign of the world of shining splendor and the way of life to which you have already passed in symbol” (197-8).

               Through baptism, clothed in the radiance of the risen Lord. And shod for the journey to the kingdom with your feet cleanly washed. The baptized “shine as brightly as the rays of the sun” (163).

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Awe-Inspiring: Sharing in Jesus’ Jordan Experience

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The images are many but the reality is one. Three weeks ago in this series on the ancient mystagogy, Rhoda led us into the multivalence of the baptismal images. Baptism is both tomb and womb in the mystagogy of Ambrose and Theodore. It also adoption and cleansing and the pouring out of the Spirit (more on that in two weeks in relationship to post-baptismal anointing). A book that brings together all of the images on baptism that I would highly recommend is Maxwell Johnson’s Images of Baptism (originally published by LTP, now available independently on Amazon). But, is there a unifying reality among the images of baptism, something that expresses that baptism is one? I would contend that there is and it is something in Lutheran reflection that doesn’t have a primary place, but that does for the church fathers: The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.

As Yarnold (The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation, 27) notes, all four mystagogues “refer to Christ’s baptism … in explaining the symbolism of baptism and the way in which it confers grace.” Although, all four explore the import of Jesus’ baptism in different ways. Chrysostom (the text of which is not in Yarnold) “takes it to be a paradigm of Christian baptism: Just as Jesus was baptized by the Word (which led his body down into the Jordan), by the Father (who spoke from heaven), and by the Holy Spirit (who descended), so too we are baptized by the Trinity” (27). Chrysostom grounds the Trinitarian baptism of the Christian in the Trinity’s manifestation at Jesus’ baptism and thus in the life of the Trinity.

Both Cyril of Jerusalem and Ambrose highlight that “Christ’s entry into the Jordan gave the baptismal water its sanctifying power” (27). This understanding of the significance of Jesus’ baptism will be captured in the various water consecration prayers in the early and medieval church’s baptismal liturgy (Luther’s Flood Prayer is a translation of and develops out of one of these water consecration prayers). Cyril refers to Christ’s descent into the Jordan and the Holy Spirit’s anointing upon Jesus as the basis for the descent, emergence and anointing of the Christian in the pool of baptismal water. He says of Jesus’ action, “Christ bathed in the river Jordan, and having invested the water with the divine presence of his body, he emerged from them, and the Holy Spirit visited him in substantial form, like coming to rest on like” (81-82). Ambrose is even more explicit about the sanctifying power of Jesus and the Spirit when referring to the water consecration prayer in use in Milan [parentheses mine]:

You saw the water, but not all waters have a curative power: only that water has it which has the grace of Christ. There is a difference between the matter and the consecration, between the action and its effect. The action belongs to the water, its effect to the Holy Spirit. The water does not heal unless the Spirit descends and consecrates the water….Christ came down, the Holy Spirit came down. Why did Christ come down first, and the Holy Spirit afterwards, since the normal rite of baptism follows this order: first the water is consecrated [assumed action of the Spirit] and then the candidate for baptism comes into it [Christ’s descent]? For, when the bishops enters [the baptistery], he first performs the exorcism on the creature which is the water, and then utters invocation and prayer that the water may be sanctified and the eternal Trinity may dwell there. But Christ descended first, and the Spirit came after. Why was this [since the liturgical practice seems the opposite]? It was in order that the Lord Jesus might not appear to have need of this mystery of sanctification, but that he himself might sanctify, and that the Spirit might also sanctify (105-107).

Christ has no need of sanctified water, but we DO!

Theodore of Mopsuestia is the most explicit about the connection between Jesus’ baptism and our own:

Our Lord, then, was baptized by John, but not with John’s baptism….He was baptized with our baptism, and presented an anticipation of it….You were baptized with the same baptism that Christ our Lord received in his humanity. This is one reason you are baptized ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’, because the very events of Christ’s baptism foreshadowed your baptism in sign. When the Father said aloud from far off, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’, he was referring in fact to the grace of our adoption, which is the purpose of baptism (195-6).

The Father identifies Jesus as his beloved Son at his baptism. He does this so that same word might be spoken to and over us. By virtue of Jesus’ baptism, we in our baptisms are adopted by name by the Father as His own daughters and sons. All through the power of baptismal water sanctified by the Word in Jesus’ baptism.

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Christmas Greetings: Excerpt from Christmas Sermon, Leo the Great

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This excerpt from Leo the Great’s Christmas sermon (preached in 450) draws together biblical themes of baptism with the mystery of the Incarnation:

  • Christ’s birth, says Leo, is “the origin of” all Christians, the body of Christ
  • Just as we have been joined with Christ’s death and resurrection in baptism, so we are “born along with him in his Nativity”
  • Jesus is born to Mary, “the child of a human being” in order that we might “become children of God”

May these ancient words by Leo the Great draw our readers to contemplate the Incarnation and its meaning in daily life in new ways.

When the faithful meditate about divine things, dearly beloved, the Birth of our Lord and Savior from his Mother comes to mind every day and all the time….

But no day suggests to us more than today that this Nativity should be worshipped in heaven and on earth…. We recall not only to mind, but even—in a way—to sight, the conversation of Gabriel with the astonished Mary, the Conception by the Holy Spirit (as marvelous in being promised as it was in being actually granted), the Maker of the world brought forth from a virginal womb, and the one who established all natures made the Son of her whom he had created.

On this day, the Word of God appeared clothed in flesh, and, what could not even have been seen by human eyes before, “could” now “be touched with the hands.” …

… Today’s feast, nevertheless, renews for us the sacred beginnings of Jesus’ Birth from the Virgin Mary. As we worship the Birth of our Savior, we find ourselves celebrating our own origin as well. For the Conception of Christ is the origin of the Christian people, and the birthday of the Head is the birthday of the body.

All of the elect have their own special place, and the Church’s children are set off from one another by the passage of time. Yet all of us, the whole sum of believers who have sprung from the baptismal font, just as we have been crucified with Christ in his Passion, been raised with him in his Resurrection, and been set at the right hand of the Father in his Ascension, so too have we been born along with him in his Nativity.

Whenever believers in any part of the world undergo regeneration in Christ, they become transformed into “new human beings,” through a rebirth … It was precisely so that we might be able to become children of God that he was made the child of a human being. Had he not come down to us in this humility, none could come to him by any merits of their own.

Leo the Great: Sermons (translated by Jane Patricia Freeland, C.S.B.J., and Agnes Josephine Conway, S.S.J.)

Image: Leo the Great

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leo_the_Great_the_Pope_of_Rome.jpg

Title: Лев I Великий, папа Римский. Константинополь. 985 г. Миниатюра Минология Василия II. Ватиканская библиотека. Рим

Google translation of the Russian: Leo I the Great, Pope of Rome. Constantinople. [date:] 985. Miniature … of Basil II [Byzantine Emperor, r. 976-1025]. Vatican Library. Rome

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

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The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: Plumbing the Treasures

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At the end of his book Faith Shaping Ministry, on the basis of Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” Paul Hoffman writes, “Our treasure lies buried deep within the waters of baptism where Jesus himself unites us to a death like his and graciously raises us in a resurrection like his. This is not new. But it is a treasure—the most priceless treasure that one could ever imagine” (100). That has been the goal and raison d’etre of this course on faith formation and the catechumenate that I and my class have journeyed through the past eight weeks. That is really the heart of the catechumenate: plumbing the depths of the treasures of the church through the prism of baptism. As Hoffman says later, “The treasures for which we long are not far from us. They are not new or trendy. They lie deep within the gifts we’ve always had in the church. They are in our Scripture and our tradition” (101). Over the past eight weeks we have gone exploring the ritual, history, and faith formation and transformation of the catechumenate. Baptismal treasures recognized, held, and honored.

Yet, in this final two weeks of the course we have reached as deeply into the catechumenal treasures as we could, all for the sake of the future of adult faith formation. The goal has been that all of us might envision a road to the catechumenate within the congregations in which we live and move and have our being. The goal has been that we might plumb the depths of baptismal life through various aspects of the faith formation journey. And students have led the way in envisioning these gifts of the church. How does the catechumenate foster a holistic model of congregational life? What forms should preaching take to form Christian discipleship, preaching that flows from and feeds toward the catechumenate? How does the catechumenate shape a congregation to embrace hospitality as an identity marker? How does education in the congregation reflect not a consumer, attractional approach, but a formation of disciples approach? How does faith formation gift us with a baptismal vocation that subsumes all our other vocations within it? These are the treasures that our explorations and discussions have unearthed. As Hoffman concludes his final chapter, “The conviction is this: when we reach deep within the treasures of the ancient liturgies and texts of the Church, we find the transformation that Christ promises us in our baptism” (102). That’s where we have been as a class, that’s where we all should be—there, deep within the treasures. Plumbing their depths.

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Slow Walking: What Exactly IS the WAY?

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Continuing our series slow walking our way toward changing our adult faith formation practices, this week we focus on what exactly the WAY is. I will use descriptions throughout this post from Paul Hoffman’s Faith Forming Faith, the primary book anyone considering reforming their adult instruction should read before embarking on that journey. As Hoffman notes, “The WAY offers people an apprenticeship into faith in Christ, ” an apprenticeship model rather than an information download model. It engages an apprenticeship into the WAY of faith and life in Christ. This is why Phinney Ridge Lutheran in Seattle, Washington, where Hoffman was pastor for many years and developed the use of a catechumenate model for exploring the Christian faith and life, called their catechumenate the WAY. It is a process, or even better a journey, with and into the Word of God (especially through the lectionary), in relationship to everyday human life. For this reason, as Hoffman notes, this journey/way/process is both rich and messy. It is rich, because life is rich. But it is also messy, because life is messy. It is rich, because Scripture is rich.  But it is also messy, because Scripture is messy (7). Much like the story of Zacchaeus in Luke’s Gospel, the intersection of God’s grace and mercy with earthly riches and those who possess them, politics and human engagement with it, and life in human community where motivations and relationships are not sin-free, is a very rich and messy affair. This is no less true in our day and in our relationships with one another and the unbaptized than was the case in Zacchaeus’ day.

The WAY has stages (based on the ancient catechumenate) that structure a person’s journey through it: Inquiry, Catechumenate, Baptismal Preparation, and Baptismal Living (Mystagogy). These stages simply provide leaders a guide for the journey. But people move through it in uniquely singular ways. The priority here is to oversee and facilitate their journey on the WAY to the one who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And that happens by building Gospel and Christ-centered relationships between those inquiring about Christianity and the community of those who bear witness to the one who is the Way.

While the WAY is certainly focused on the transformation of the lives of those inquiring, it even more fundamentally seeks to transform the Christian community itself, in the WAY newcomers are planted at the center of congregational life and purpose. The established members of the congregation all turn their attention toward bringing these newcomers into the assembly and commit to do whatever it takes to provide a path for them to enter into Christ in the assembly. Planting newcomers at the center embeds the dying and rising pattern as the central way of understanding the shape of a congregation’s life. This process is about congregational transformation, not some program for welcoming new members. And this simply flows from our watershed baptismal event because from that day on the people of God in Christ are never not in formation until our baptism is completed in our death. We are constantly dying and rising, both as individuals and as congregations. Death and resurrection is the pattern of the WAY, and of congregational life. And the WAY enacts that transformation in congregational self-understanding and life. As Hoffman notes, “The WAY’s gift is first and foremost the assurance that baptism is incorporation into a community of Christ. This community continues to struggle, doubt, question, and discern how the ancient words of Scripture and the Spirit of the resurrected Jesus among us equip us for witness in the world” (14).

The WAY transforms both those inquiring about the Christian faith and the assembly that is tending to their inquiry because it flows from the baptismal spring. As Hoffman indicates in his second book, Faith Shaping Ministry,

“Offering baptism and affirmation of baptism to newcomers in our parish as an intentional practice has transformed most, if not all, aspects of our ministry. Like water running over rock, the grounding of our faith and life in the waters of baptism has slowly but irrevocably shaped who we are and how our parish life is organized. And, like water running over rock, the shifts in our community of faith were gradual, every now and then punctuated by a more substantial shift like the kind that comes when rocks are washed about the creek bed after heavy rain…But here’s the goal: that every activity of parish life flow out of and back to the font” (xv-xvi).

That is the WAY, everything and everyone flowing from and back to the baptismal waters.

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