I have been discussing with a student, issues around Mission and Inclusion. On further reflection the issues for inclusion when we have a Kingdom based approach are vast. Impacting practice and theology around church, language and choice(see last post), mission etc. It can be hard to remember when at the coalface of trying to get involved with God in building the kingdom, that it is already here. This dual paradigm, and living as an in-between people has all sorts of issues. For a long time I have been trying to grapple with the issues of inclusion and kingdom, and it is still so easy to forget the God given image that young people maintain in their DNA. How far this may be a key to working in this kingdom which is now and not yet. I am wondering if we might borrow from education theory which has two basic approaches; banking knowledge or drawing out learning. Much of our history of mission sees banking as the way, inputting the gospel story (or evangelical theological takes on it) and then seeing young people respond. How much can we draw out the image of God within? Some traditional evangelical language talks about people having “a God shaped hole in their life”. Maybe we can turn this on its head, and see young people as having a small God shaped light already in their life and our role is to encourage that to shine into the rest of their life. A helpful metaphor???
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yes, that is indeed a helpful metaphor. for me at any rate.
it kind of carries on from the idea of us all being made in the image of God, that we all ahving something of God in us right from our very creation.
well blogged- you beat me to it!
Part of DNA? yeah I think I could agree with that. All creatures of the planet adapt to change in the environment depending upon new challenges. Humanity is also manipulated by the given environment and we interact by what is happening around us. I believe society today provides a challenging environment for God to reveal himself through us but when he does it is a vast reaction and message to the rest of humnaity. To conclude I thinkit is more to do with drawing out learning as opposed to banking knowledge.
Nikki who sparked off my thinking on this is blogging her definition of mission at http://www.thinkingthejourney.blogspot.com/
Hi. This is definately a useful metaphor. I’ve started detached work at my placement and i have been struggling with how to bring God to the young people without turning into a street evangelist. This way of thinking seems far more useful. Reminds me of the thought that God is way ahead of us in this work. Good ponderings to be had.
Piet
Does mission necessarily have to be intentionally about ‘God’ as we know him/her though? Surely even the secular agencies working with justice, equality and inclusion goals are inadvertantly extending the Kingdom of God?
I need to think about this Nikki. Wondering about the power of communion with God, and whilst secular agencies may be inadvertantly I would not want to loose the relational connectivity/ communion with God and need to remain true to the revelation of God I have which is has relationship at its core so think this may add an extra dimension to the process particularly when intentional. If that makes any sense?
yeah- that makes sense- I wouldn’t want to inadvertantly bring about the kingdom of God- guess that comes down to the intentionallity word again!
And yeah- if relationship is at the core of the revelation of God, then that makes lots of sense re using relationship to draw out the image of God within people.