Crossing Over Conference - Robert Schreiter

The Crossing Over Conference began with a banquet on Friday evening. It was held at the Zollverein Coal Mine Museum in Bochum. The banquet was held in a beautiful room atop the museum which featured an outside balcony that gave us a view of the Ruhr Valley. In its heyday the museum produced something like 40,000 tons of coal a day. Now only one of the six mines is still open and producing. Germany moved from coal to nuclear power and now to windfarms. I only saw one coal plant in my stay in Germany.

The evening has hosted by Dr. Halbrecht and featured a wonderful jazz ensemble of students who regaled everyone with a rendition of the song Chicago for their American guests. Speeches were interspersed with music, reunions, and shared memories of trips to Germany and America.

The highlight of the evening was a talk given by Dr. Robert Shcreiter, C.PP.S. He was newly back from the Sudan where 70 religious orders are working for solidarity in that country. As he addressed the group his was clearly a global perspective, one which he is gifted in bringing to the church. He set the tone for this cross-country encounter as he talked about the church being 'shaped in the crucible of history.'

He asked 'How do we maintain Catholicity in today's world?' and offered four possibilities.

1. Hospitality: How do we offer hospitality in terms that our guest understands and not just what the host has to offer? The American understanding is somewhat time-bound whereas elsewhere it means a relationship has been initiated. When we offer hospitality, we often do so by way of offering a story about ourselves. What is the story that we tell? One of hope and energy or one of decline and resignation?


2. Belonging: The sense of belonging is critical to human health. It is one of the findings of the Emerging Models Project and I was pleased to see it listed here. Schreiter asks, how do we create a safe zone in our parishes for those newly arrived? How do we offer people meaning and an entrance into the paschal mystery?


3. Celebrating: The centrality of well celebrated Eucharist in the life of the parish was named as a necessary source of resilience as we encounter our lives.


4. Mission: Schreiter reminds us that mission is not so much about what we do as it is about God's work in the world. It is not what we do but who we are. Again, this was one of the significant findings af the EMP - we must be about both communion and mission.

Schreiter finished by saying that we cannot continue to think of church as a 'little flock.' We are not a sect, but rather the mystical body. Our understanding has shifted to being the real body that involves all - lay and ordained - in the ministry and mission of the church.

Watch for Schreiter's talk in Origins.