Interview Series with Bishop Todd Hunter
(Led by Fr. Kevin Miller)
PART 3 OF 5:
Q: You’ve said that our diocese (C4SO) is “a movement rather than an institution.” What do you mean by that?
Bishop Todd Hunter:
Movements and institutions have very different impulses and hoped-for outcomes. Over time, institutions become disconnected from the vision and values that gave them birth. At that point all that is left is to preserve the institution itself. In modern life this can happen very fast—in some cases, it takes only a decade, certainly not generations, as was the case before information and humans moved as fast as we now do.
Movements, on the other hand, are inspired by passionate, childlike faith. If institutions are risk-averse (we don’t do that; we’ve never done it that way before; we don’t have the money; etc), movements celebrate risk and change for the sake of following the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Movements tend to be focused on the present and on preparing for the future. Institutions tend to focus on defining and defending the past. Movements can be quick when needed; institutions move slowly. Movements have a laser focus on vision and a sharp awareness of being called into being for a clear purpose—a cause that animates them. Institutions suffer from mission-drift.
Movements have an imagination soaked in the narrative of Scripture and the purpose of God for humanity that emerges from that story. In order to live into that story, movements, trusting the Spirit and (typically) young, creative leadership, readily adapt to their times and places and the crying needs of their mission field. Institutions are usually too self-protective to engage in such things. Movements tend to inspire and deploy lay leadership. Institutions are often guilty of a clericalism that stifles the gifts of lay people.
My goal in all this “movement talk” is simply to plant and cultivate church communities which are embassies of the kingdom of God and which develop followers of Jesus who are Spirit-enabled ambassadors of the kingdom sent into the world for the sake of others. Respecting Anglican norms, I intend to create in C4SO an overall corporate culture, and the corresponding practices, that make kingdom, Spirit, formation, and mission ultimate. Religious institutionalism is a far second place for me.
I want to establish beachheads of Jesus’ person, word, and power in the midst of a grim and often hostile humanity. I want to create a family of churches who evermore perfectly live into God’s intention for the church by increasingly being a community of clergy and churches who find their core meaning as ambassadors and embassies or outposts of the rule and reign of God. I want to foment the journey inward and the journey outward (to quote Elizabeth O’Connor); the come-ness of followership and transformation and the sent-ness of mission.
Photo Credit: c4so.org