Images from Culture & Identity 2024

The Culture & Identity learning circle ran from Oct 24-30. Students from various parts of Canada are gathered in Winnipeg to explore the nature of culture, how culture influences identity, how our multiple identities inform each other, and how to navigate intercultural spaces in a good way. CCS Program Staff members Alcris Limongi, Janet Ross, Scott Douglas, and Marcie Gibson are facilitating exercises and discussions designed to take students into deeper reflection on their own cultural identities and ways to make authentic connections across cultural and identity differences. Our chaplain in this circle is Bill Millar who is offering pastoral support to students as well as wisdom from his experience with and passion for intercultural ministry.

On the first day of the circle, Bill and Janet swam around the room like fish, because culture is the water we breathe and move through and is so ubiquitous that we can sometimes forget “What is water??”

On the second day, Alcris had students reflecting on the identity markers that define them and when they first became aware of their ethnicity, gender, orientation, class, ability, and spirituality. Janet asked what is the culture of the Bible, and what cultural lenses do we apply to biblical interpretation.

On Saturday we explored communication and culture, noting the ways that different cultural expectations about time, directness or indirectness, context, status, politeness, and even the purpose of communication can affect our ability to relate to each other. We looked at what monsters have to teach us about what our culture fears and who/what it “others”, and created our own “diaconal monsters”.

A conversation with CCS Principal Marcie Gibson invited us to think about whether the Church (congregationally or denominationally) has a culture. A student-led session in the afternoon gently guided us into uncomfortable conversations about cultural appropriation.

On our second last day, we engaged in some interfaith experiences. Interfaith peace activist Izzeddin Hawamda joined us in the morning for conversation and stories about how being Muslim and Palestine infuses his identity. A trip to the Manitoba Buddhist Temple was an opportunity to learn about the role the temple has played in Winnipeg’s Japanese community and beyond. In the afternoon we visited Shaarey Zedek synagogue, and Cantor Leslie Emery shared her love and excitement about Torah.

As students integrated all these experiences and conversations, they also considered how they impact their own ministry identity. For each of them, this process didn’t end when the circle ended. The ongoing discernment of who they are as ministers and how that related to the culture(s) they swim in will continue.