A CELEBRATION OF IMAGINATION
FIRST CLASS ADVENTURE Andrea Campanale was part of the first CMS Pioneer Mission Leadership Training course cohort. Since then she’s taught on the course, helped set up pioneer learning hubs around the country and created an alumni network. But, as she tells Naomi Rose Steinberg, in pioneering you never really get comfortable. And that’s a good thing.
Naomi: What was it like to be part of the first class of pioneer course students in 2010? Andrea: It was brilliant being there at the start and helping shape the course as well as learn. I’d been working among spiritual seekers for five years – and it had been really tough because my passion was for a group that was viewed with suspicion by some in the Church. I kept having to convince people I wasn’t going off the rails, that I was trying to do what God was asking of me. I got to CMS and they understood that I genuinely wanted the Church to be there for people exploring alternative spiritualities. Once I realised I was in a safe
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place, it dawned on me how hard it had been working in isolation. Being part of the course helped me heal. Aside from your experience with spiritual seekers, what do you think you brought to this learning community? Since I’d worked in PR, I became a natural advocate for the course and its aim to call the Church to the edges. And early on I’d become aware of discussions in the wider world around shame and vulnerability. I’d seen the connection between that and working in mission. So we explored Brene Brown’s material on having the courage to be vulnerable.
THE C A LL – W I NTE R 2 0 2 1
Because to be creative is to be vulnerable, there’s a certain fragility in pioneering. And while it’s good to acknowledge and embrace vulnerability, it’s also important to exercise discernment and build resilience so you don’t fall apart when people question what you’re doing. The pioneer course seems to have gone from strength to strength, but from the inside, has it felt fragile? With pioneering, when you start out you think there’s going to come a point where you feel secure in what you’re doing because it’s grown successful enough that you can almost coast. But the longer
