The CiB Synthesis

I’d like to tell you about the notebooks you’re likely to see floating around Church in Bethesda these days. They aren’t secret manuals or a way to see who’s really “in” with our church family. They’re simply an attempt to “synthesize” (bring together) the various streams of our shared life in an accessible, practical way.

I’ve used half-page notebooks in several ministry situations, though I’ve only used them the way we are at CiB in a youth ministry setting before now. That means our current use is definitely experimental and exploratory.

The notebooks are available to anyone who wants one… especially since we ask that you provide us with $5 to cover the cost of producing them. So, we definitely don’t see this as an “insider thing.” And of course, having just said that we collect money to cover the cost of the notebooks, we would never deny anyone a copy because of a lack of fundage. The payment is not strictly controlled and is collected anonymously in the back of the Sanctuary at the offering plate.

We have four sections in our notebook’s current form:

1) Our Prayers, 2) Our Words, 3) Our Muses, & 4) Our Shared Life.

Our Prayers. This is a section for capturing our prayer lives, both communal and private.

Our Words. This section holds together message/class/study notes.

Our Muses. This section contains exercises and practices for the imagination.

Our Shared Life. This section is for holding our church family’s directory of personal info, calendars, music and other practical things that help us share life through the seasons and movements of being a congregation.

We’re also finding distinct ways to use the notebooks in different groups within the church family. The teens have a section in their notebooks designed for the devotions and notes that are specific to them. The younger students have a full-size notebook (called Mi-Book) with different sections for their activities and information!

How each individual will use their notebook is personal and varied. There’s a place to keep your notebook at the church building (bookshelf at the back of the Sanctuary), or you can carry yours home to keep with you. You can redecorate your notebook. Someone at CiB has already completely scrap-booked her copy. Another person is compiling a “digital” Synthesis by pulling the pdf’s off the website and keeping them in a folder on a flash drive.

This is a simply a tool, specifically just a “design model,” that I hope will help me as a pastor to do my job and that will help you access those streams of shared life we’ve already mentioned. Boycotting the notebook on whatever grounds will never incur a penalty at CiB. The notebooks will always be a means, never an end. The day they cease to help us in growing in our relationships together and with God, and cease helping us with becoming more fully engaged followers of Christ and good neighbors in our communities, I’ll lead the way in throwing them in the recycling bin!

Peace, Todd

This explanation is available as a downloadable pdf file right here!

An explanation of the CiB Synthesis Notebooks...