Category Archives: Church

Feeling uneasy

Posted on by
3

Finally moved house. Blogging has been on a low due to the various issues associated with moving, now we just have masses of decorating to do, not to mention the conservatory/office and extension we hope to to build. Anyway a few recent conversations have made me feel uneasy. A few years ago we conciously opted not to be part of established forms of church and to try different things, all of which was great and the process helped me in my understanding of church and mission, and is in many ways where I still am.

Changes meant moving and as such we started going to church, which at the time was a fairly mission shaped event happening at a local school, we went to build some relationships, get to know the area before moving and importantly as a way for the children to build relationships in an area where they are at schoolwise. (life is so complex) The church then regrouped with its parent in another setting and the more traditional approach and culture has swampped the little mission shaped event.

Now we have landed in the area I think the time to reevaluate is fast approaching. I guess we will see how the discussions with the misson group pan out but the people have been great to us and I am not of the mindset to jump ship, but struggling with the growing uneasiness and what questions I need to ask myself and the family regarding church. Maybe four days from moving it is the wrong time to ask any questions anyway! The trouble is if I dont do it soon the process of getting sucked into a way of being church that I can no longer authentically and wholeheartedly agree with will happen weather I like it or not. In the mean time seeing the process as part of the DO -BE – DO approach to church helps, so thanks to those of you who have helped promote the uneasy feelings by questioning my involvement.

Is the slope a myth?

Posted on by
3

Was chatting over lunch to a guy about the idea many churches have of a slope of activities that lead to faith and church attendance. The idea of contact work, leading to socials, to small groups, maybe alpha and then sunday worship alongside which faith and belonging develop.

I wonder where this comes from and if anyone has any research to suggest it works. Is it another case of having a shallow theology of church and looking for methods that fit this? Joe Myers questions many of these assumptions about belonging. However I wonder how much a deep ecclesiology that is more missio dei in focus and maintains that Christ came that we may have life in all fullness enables us to see the value of each activity in and of itself without needing to see that it fits into a slope and thereby placing a value judgement of one kind on another.

This links to the redefinition of churchidea. Recenty I have been looking at a community profile of the town we are moving to and have been asked to speak to a local church mission group. It would seem that from the profile and capacity within the church there is scope for a family event. A kind of dick and dom meet ant and dec in Noels house party, with quizzes, gameshow, food, live band etc but with a level of intentionality (see point 5) that is in line with a deep eccelsiology and not part of a slope idea. Yet this would be a huge culture shift for the church.

Missio Dei Bosch info

Posted on by
1

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 →

Constructive post modernism

Posted on by
Reply

Been working on an essay and came across something in Grenz and Franke Beyond foundationalism. They cited a difference between the early deconstructive approaches that post modern thinkers took (early Europeans) and a more recent more constructive approach, particularly Stiver who talks about postmodernism being:
A rejection of modernity
A paradigm shift
A sketch of the future

I like this approach of not just slating stuff but trying to be more constructive. Anyway it got me into an interesting discussion about this and the nature of truth in modernity. That started with me saying applying Stiver to a theological missional process might look like “this is my truth, tell me yours and lets go on a journey together to discover more”

Great insight from IH who threw in the old story of the monkey with his fist in the peanut jar but wont let go of the peanut to gain more. Perhaps we are so precious about our truth we can let go or break the jar. Could tie in well the need for revolutionary moves in thinking and paradigm shift in how we define churchPaycheck film

Maturity without Membership

Posted on by
2

In order to prepare for growth and outreach Chard Baptist are looking at Purpose Driven church, one of the principles of which is membership. This raises several issues for me. Membership in itself is not something I am fully confident about and whilst I understand many of the arguments, the approach to membership as we enter post Christendom seems all the more problematic.

How do you begin to grow towards maturity without membership? Murry in The church after Christendom offers a great critique of Matt 18 v 15-17

15″If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Whilst I accept the possible intended use of the language of tax collector/pagan to signify an outsider, it is interesting that this is only one of two times the bible actually places the word church on Jesus’ lips. I would want to explore the creative tension that verse 17 throws up as we begin to consider how Christ would have treated tax collectors or pagans. Murry points this out but I would want to push this issue towards a maturity without membership, that does admonish one another in a non dislocating way, and uses the process well to reaffirm core beliefs so the whole community matures, but does not exile people who disaggree.

Where is the Centre?

Posted on by
1

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

Communicating with/within the Church

Posted on by
2

We, the church, are the Bride of Christ. What I must remember is that the church is not my ‘bride’, it is not an extension of me.

When I interact with the church, I can interact with it in two ways:

  1. as individuals to whom I am accountable and am in relationship with.
  2. as an entity.

I suspect that I can only treat it as an entity when I bring prophecy to the church. Whilst I can bring my own ‘chat’ to individuals with whom I am in relationship, if I bring comments to the church surely there is much more of an onus on me to bring God’s word, to bring prophecy?

Most of our communication is within our tightly knit groups. Only some is ‘broadcast’. When we ‘broadcast’, both the purpose and responsibility is different. When we broadcast we are not seeking one to one discipleship, encouragement or accountability, we are surely bringing an edifying message of God to the church?

Anthropomorphising The Church

Posted on by
17

Whilst the Bible illustrates the church as the Bride of Christ, we must recognise the metaphor and not put too many ‘person’ characteristics on the church. The church is not a person, we are not hive!

I keep hearing about:

  • The will of God for a local church.
  • The specific mission of a local church.
  • The purpose of a local church.
  • etc.

Whilst I cannot knock these things absolutely, I do wonder if they illustrate our institutionalisation of the church. Hand in hand with institutionalisation come many characteristics that would normally only be applied to a person – the institute begins to have a character, a vision, a purpose, not enough time, not enough resources…

My concern is that we aren’t individualistic enough!!! OK – cringe in horror BUT:

  • We have to ‘work out our own salvation’.
  • Each of us has the Holy Spirit.
  • We are each a priest.
  • We each have to take our own responsibility to be obedient to God.
  • etc.

If we institutionalise the church and treat it as an autonomous entity then:

  • It is easy to ignore our personal responsibility.
  • We end up putting expectations on the church – which actually means putting the individuals under pressure, and because ultimately we don’t treat the entity that is church with the same loving care and attention that we would give an individual – we are insensitive to the entity that is church and therefore insensitive to the people in it.
  • We form structures to pass the ‘will of the church’ down through to the people who we expect to do the work. These structures enable distance to open up and can negate the need for intimate relationships.
  • etc.

So, let’s assume that there is a need to de-anthropomorphise the church, to deconstruct it’s structs and to de-metaphor our over literalism!

Isn’t individualism a crime?!

Sure, individualism that is self seeking is – sure it is. But what about taking our individual responsibilities seriously, not putting too much pressure on others, not making the excuse that something is ‘their’ responsibility.

We see throughout the New Testament plenty of teaching. This teaching is aimed at the individual, it is talking about our responsibility as individuals, our relationship as individuals with a God who loves each of us, as individuals. New Testament teaching isn’t full of stuff about how to control others, it’s about how to control oneself… and submit to others.

The individualism that we see envisioned in the Bible is a personal love. A love that we gain as individuals from God’s action on our individual hearts. Out of that love we sacrifice ourselves, as individuals, on the cross of love. Love for others. We are united as church, not by control, but by love, love for God and love for others.

Let’s stop palming off our individual responsibilities on the church, let’s stop trying to control each other through the structure that church has become. Let’s look to the fundamental property of church, that it is a network of individuals, concerned for each other and having varying depths of relationship with each other, ranging from the intimate to an awareness of our brothers and sisters around the globe, whom we have never met.

DO-BE-DO

Posted on by

In response to info on DO-BE-DO at the moment it is just shorthand as a way of putting into action this chaotic but intentional way of living within a redefined paradigm of church.

It is little more than a framework encouraging action (DO) – reflection (BE) – action (DO), so there is no long explanation, or place to look at it.

One element of DO-BE-DO stems from some of my observations that many of the emerging church groups seem to locate the church element, in the process of coming together to plan a service or event that may take place monthly or a few times a year. This can reinforce the old paradigm of church as an event at a particular time, and yet for many it is the community that evolves through the planning process that is key. People bring their ideas and concerns to the planning process and a theme develops then an event is put on; the community that evolves is a positive by-product. I would suggest that within DO-BE-DO the worship event should be just one of the things the group does, and if people can bring the whole of their interest to the group then the collapse between church and the whole of life may begin. For example I know that within Grace, Jonny (Baker) has an interest in ad busting (sorry to pick on you Jonny), could the group come together to explore this and undertake some adbusts together (maybe they have) as part of their activity? Within my redefinition (see manifesto), this kind of activity would be encompassed within church.

I would love to hear from any of the emerging groups, if any of this resonates with you, and if you have had shared experiences outside of the worship planning process where you have questioned if it was church.

A second element of DO-BE-DO would incorporate the kind of issue Rivertribemike faces and raised in the comments when TSK posted the manifesto.

This is primarily where the intentionality element comes in, being in a group that sees the whole of life as church and so carries this mindset into all they do. The group can either participate with Mike in the birthday celebrations and then help him reflect on how he can grow through the experiences, or by Mike bringing his experiences from the celebration to the group in order to reflect and grow. His comments already show that he was thinking about how God connects with his birthday and who knows how bringing others into the reflection process (either in advance of the day or after) may change him and others involved.

Any thoughts on where to next also appreciated?

10 Steps towards a redefinition of church

Posted on by
21

Thanks for the comments and feedback here and on other blogs on the past three posts around “Emerging church a manifestation of our sub cultural weakness”. I thought I would try and bullet point a few of the key issues and where we have got to so far incorporating the discussions we have had along the way.

A Manifesto Calling for a New Way of Being and Defining Church.

1. The first reformation gave the bible back to the people and we need to give church back to the people (not just christian people).

2. This will take a redefinition of church NOT just a change in style.

3. The churches sub cultural weakness is a leaning towards evolution over revolution, hence style over definition.

4. Theologically there are many examples of revolutionary steps or leaps in thinking, eg Peters vision, Jesus new covenant and so redefinition is plausible.

5. Any redefinition that is put forward needs to collapse the old ways of being that distinguish between church/worship/prayer and the whole of life, BUT hold the tension that whole of life may not be church. (which is where intentionality comes in)

6. The redefinition we are offering of Church in the post- Christendom west is a way of being and living that is a series of chaotic but intentional encounters with God, one another, and the world, founded on the holistic teaching of Christ, and encompassing the whole of life.

7. This encompasses the critical outcome of the imagery of church used in the bible, this being that all the bibles images of church include “attitude and course of action”.

8. This whole of life process is not about walls, rules or fences but about wells, mutuality and redemptive processes.

9. The theological processes and reflections offered so far are consistent with the biblical tradition and can be seen to offer an authentic and consistent redefinition of church.

10. DO-BE-DO, offers one practical way of putting this redefinition into action.