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.