Category Archives: Mission

Is emerging church painting over the cracks??

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Since Off the Beaten Track was published I have been having some interesting conversations around emerging church and redefining church. I am in the process of putting something together around the issue. I asked Jonny Baker for his thoughts about my thoughts of the need for a more radical rethinking of church and how this fits into what is currently going on. His reply was “There is no emerging church take on church… It is a range from trying to transition existing churches to a complete reimaginging of church. It’s a series of conversations people are having. If you don’t think it goes far enough you just join in the conversationâ€?

I guess my feeling coming from a missionary minded perspective is that a lot of the “reimagingingâ€? if far more about what is DONE in church (which a friend described as rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic) than a true reimagining of WHAT IS CHURCH. There is very little evidence of a wholesale paradigm shift rooted in theology that is “reimaginingâ€? what church is. Off the Beaten Track led to more of this reimagining and the metaphor – “church is both the city on hill and the journey to that cityâ€? So to get me in on the conversation and to get a broader view I have taken the first story from the book and posed a question.

A highly skilled draughtsman decided to try to turn his hand to portraits. After all he was able to reproduce technical drawings in minute detail, and he reasoned that if he applied the same skills to his painting, the likeness would be accurate and exact. He started with his family and sure enough the reproductions were exact, as good as a photograph and yet he and all who saw them knew there was something missing. On meeting a famous painter one day he explained the problem and was advised that he needed to start with the soul not the image. “What do I paint then� asked the draughtsman.

“Forget the rules and the reproduction, remember the past, embrace the present but realise and paint the future� replied the artist.

What do we need to paint in relation to church?
Is the emerging church just painting over the cracks?

Heresy understood

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I came across a quote by Soren Kierkegaard who said “life is lived forward but understood backward�. On one hand it could be just hindsight, but I like the intentionality of living your life forward, rather than just passing through. I have posted up the info about The FaSt Game which we developed over 5 years ago. At the time I was getting loads of stick for wanting to call it a form of church. It is interesting reading the reviews it got at the time and how there was nothing else like it around. In some ways they still isn’t, but to call it what it was designed to be is no longer heresy. Or have I just got thicker skin than all those years ago?
The Fast Game.doc

Meet them where they’re at

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I thought it was time for a story. So I have nicked an extract from a friend’s recent preach, it is great and for all you Donovan fans out there (Vincent not Jason) this one’s for you. a 19-year-old American called Bruce Olsen who went to live among the Motilone Indians in Colombia, South America in order to tell them about Jesus. It took him four years before he was accepted into the tribe and learned their language and all the time he wanted to try and explain what he knew about God. His initial attempts were met with indifference – the Motilone Indians listened politely but they saw God as an idea that Bruce had brought with him from America – part of Bruce’s culture. Their attitude was – that’s fine if it works for you but what’s it got to do with us. They couldn’t see how God was relevant to them. So Bruce began to look for ways to explain what he believed about God that would connect with their culture. He discovered that there was a Motilone legend about a man who had become an ant. This man had been sitting on a trail after a hunt and noticed some ants trying to build a home. He wanted to help them to build a good home so he started digging in the dirt. But because he was so big and so unknown the ants had been afraid and had run away. Then quite miraculously he had become an ant. He thought like an ant, looked like an ant and spoke the language of an ant. He lived with the ants and they came to trust him. He told them one day that he was not really an ant but a Motilone and he had once tried to help them improve their home but he had scared them. The ants said their equivalent of ‘no kidding? that was you?’ And they laughed at him because he didn’t look like the huge and fearful thing that had moved the dirt before. But at that moment he was turned back into a Motilone and began to move the dirt into the shape of a Motilone home. This time the ants recognised him and let him do his work because they knew he wouldn’t harm them.

I have tried to upload the Meet them where’re at powerpoint that I use for detached work training. If anyone has problems then let me know, as this is the first one I have done.
Meet them where theyre at.ppt

The Church of Mistakes

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It has been great to follow some discussion on Mission and alt worship on Steves blog at Smallritual (see new link posted)stirred by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. Their book “the shaping of things to come” has a lot of good stuff, but I find their view of church too narrow for the missional context we are in. (for an extract check out http://www.blahonline.net/features.php) I talk more about this in “Off the Beaten track” sorry about the shameless plug if you want to get a copy check out link to OFF THE BEATEN TRACK.

I love that Steve’s notion that alt worship is missional and about reconnecting church to people and he is honest in about the limitations of current stuff (often a bit too high brow culture for me anyway). In a chat with him at Greenbelt he was open about grace needing the time find their way in worship and now they are asking the questions about mission. However I cant help thinking this is church before mission and may hinder rather than help mission. I advocate Mission INFRONT of church, rather than mission outfrom church. Perhaps if we see church growing out of mission context we will answer some the issues Steve raises in the blog on fight club for introverts

I was pointed to a site the other day http://www.wearewhatwedo.org/ small actions to change the world. I wonder if we have disconnected church, mission, and action. Jonny Baker is asking on his blog What is mission? In Off the beaten track i talk about as church as BOTH the city on the hill AND the journey to the city on the hill. Questioning both concepts mission and church which are so fluid, dynamic, undefinable is great but maybe the answer can only come in the actions we do as we seek to define them. And actually the mistakes we will make along the way are probably more a part of the answer than the successes. So here’s to making mistakes.