Category Archives: Mission

Choice and faith

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When we are working with people to look at issues, it seems to be increasingly important for people to maintain a sense of control over decisions made and this is the basis of all good one to one work. Yet when we talk about choosing to become a Christian we use language such as giving over you life to God. This can lead to people seeing faith as something that will have the effect of changing them reguardless of what they think or their part in the process and thus for some becomes a stumbling block.
Do we need to think more about our language in contemporary society and encourage people to see that the choice is theirs and resides with them. They have the choice to change and God will take their loaves and fishes and do with it as S/He will, but that following God and the changes that result are always dependent on our choosing to bring forward the loaves and fishes each day.

Great!

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Been doing quite a bit of networking and traveling recently. Keep hearing great stories and meeting people doing creative things with concepts of church, youth work, detached stuff all sorts. Many of the people who I met have never heard of fresh expressions, emerging church etc, or read any of the books, some people may have come across bits and pieces but the great thing is that they are proactive and responding in ways that are not just following what they have heard others doing but following God into new missionary activity.

Slope and Control

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With regards to Richard’s piece on ‘slope‘ and the comments about it:

I was thinking about the time I spend with the youth of our local church. Am I:
1. Running a group with the agenda of communicating Christ to them
OR
2. Running a group with the sole agenda of enabling them to be a group and have their own agenda’s, and just being Christ to them.

Certainly the pressure is on me (from tradition) to do (1) and sure I hope that I do communicate Christ to them, but is that my agenda?

Hmmm, is there a condition that I attach to attendance that they must allow me to control a certain amount of the time we spend together? If so, do they come in spite of that? If so, is that a positive thing?

Would it be better to relinquish any attempt to control and just to be there on their terms?

Whilst I’m tending toward the idea of a lack of control I’m not sure that this is a lack of slope. Surely if I practise ‘being Christ to people’ then I am always a slope, always a way in?

But this is slope without hidden agenda, without control, without events – just me being the new me.

Hmmm…

Can Words bring change?

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Words and definition of words shape our meaning and response, and the outworking can corrupt the meaning of words. I am throwing out a challenge for us to rethink how we use certain words to be more authentic to their orginal meaning and stop misusuing them. I am thrinking particularly of the christian words that have been corrupted, so tomorrow I am going to meet with the CHURCH, where we may do some singing, but this will not be a time of WORSHIP any more than eating lunch later that day will be. I wonder if enough of us took more care with our language how quickly peoples perception of these two misinterprited concepts would be reclaimed or redeemed?

Structures and Kingdom

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Two contrasting recent experiences. Both working with structured organisations, but one willing to use the structure for accountability that does not get in the way of building kingdom and one where the structure got in the way of kingdom and then using the structure as defense. I can live with structures and like accountability and even understand the need for some but find it hard when people cant see beyond the structure to the opportunity. Then I find myself on the precarious on the edge of being judgemental of people whose hands are probably quite tied. The freedom of the kingdom is a spacious place, but the different approaches remind me of the now and not yet.

Missio Dei Bosch info

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Some of the stuff we will be looking at through the session is basic missio dei stuff:-

Mission is not a program of the church but rather an attribute of God. Mission comes first from the heart of God and we are caught up in it rather than initiating it.

Mission is primarily the work of God and we participate with God in what He is doing.

Missio Dei sees our mission as stemming from the Triune God: The Father sends the Son, The Father and the Son send the Spirit, The Father and Son and the Spirit send the church.

As the Father sent me, so I send you. (Jesus)

Therefore one of the things that Bosch highlights is the role of church in the process Bosch would say “Mission denotes the total task God has set before the church.. To love, to serve, to preach, to teach, to heal, to liberate the worldâ€? Continue reading →

Missio Dei Bosch and tacking

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Been doing some prep for a lecture on mission. I always liked Bosch transforming mission and found it very shaping but somewhat heavy going. However in prepping for the lecture I have been using Nussbaums reader which is excellent and have found it helped having Nussbaum highlight particular quotes. I can’t help wondering where Bosch’s work on church and mission would have eventually taken him if he had been able to continue his work. If you are unfamiliar with his stuff or found it to hard work I would thoroughly recommend Nussbaums Reader.

Where is the Centre?

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Thinking more about effect of post Christendom church and mission, I think finding the new centre of our culture will be important. As the meta narrative (overarching story or worldview) has been lost the question is what has replaced it. Currently I think it has been replaced by interactions with popular culture and so in true post modern style there is no single centre but a centre that is formed by a collage of people interacting through popular culture. So the idea of Sunday papers as a metaphor for church fits well.

I was discussing this with some guys on the train back from London. They don’t know each other but often travel together as they get on and off at the same station, often their conversation centres around what is the news or papers that day. More on this another day but my battery is about to die.

Ideas on where the centre of culture is now, greatly received

“…as if I were a Christian!”

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One of my student said the other day while we were eating lunch. “I’m so tired to live as if I were a christian – and not as a christian!” The phrase struck me. It was really good. We were talking about all the strategies, methods and stuff we are facing. (I’m lecturer at a theological school – www.salt-sv.se) Sometimes these strategies and stuff is hindering us from living as Christians. The focus in all the strategies is how to evangelize or do mission. But seldom what the content of the mission should be. But the truth is that the strategies are a theology! There are no value free strategies. The question is – are they true to Christ or not? Growth has most often become the most important thing. But our task is not to sell coke as coca cola co. should sell coke – we have to incarnate the gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe is efficiency not a value taken from the gospel but from another story…

The christian life is sometimes getting so technical – we should do the right things to become successful instead of being a good person (understood in a christian way of course). The thing is that I think that the content and the strategies should be the same thing – DO-BE-DO – we should do what we are. And then reflect if we did what we should be… As an example – Jesus set demonized people free as an concrete example of the freedom of the Kingdom. He had done that, I’m sure, even if had not been successful because it was the content of the kingdom. He did reflect who he was.

I think we have to think through if all the methods, strategies, Mega Church techniques are a faithful way of living the Gospel in our specific context.

The emerging church as missionaries to the mainstream church

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TSK posted a link

The Saint psp

a good and well worked challenge to the hearers.

The experimentation and practice of the emerging church is cool and will go so far, but in terms of influencing mainstream church, if we are serious about reformation then we may need to adopt missionary principles in reverse.

Take communication for example, The question of how we communicate to established church is as important as what we communicate. In the same way as choosing the language we use within our culture at times we need to choose the language of the church. If that means preaching in a style that they be familiar with and changing the medium as you speak (bringing them with you) so be it.

The anarchist in me doesn’t like it, the pragmatist approves, but holding two together is one of the most important pieces of advice I was taught at college “learn the rules of the game and learn how to break the rules without people realising you’re doing so”.

All of which brings me back to the need for an authentic theologically grounded redefinition of church. So we need people to step up and start working this stuff through in a way that will be heard.