Category Archives: Mission

Implications of being Missional

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Our front garden has been a veg plot for several seasons now. If I spend time there I meet the neighours, and passers by. This is part of a deliberate choice, to provide opportunities to connect with those around me. The garden, our parties, sunday lunches are all have personal implications of being missional or seeking to live a missional life. I use the word missional over mission here in a simular to Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk do in their introduction to The missional leader – equiping your church to reach a changed world.

“God is about a big purpose in and for the whole of creation. The church has been called into life to be both the means of this mission and a foretaste of where God is is inviting all creation to go. Just as its Lord is a mission-shaped God, so the community of God’s people exists, not for themselves but for the sake of the work. Mission is therefore not a program or project some people in the Church do from time to time (as in “mission trip”, “mission budget” and so on); the church’s very nature is to be God’s missionary people. We use the word missional to mark this big difference. Mission is not about a project or a budget or a one-off event somewhere; its not even about a sending missionaries. A missional church is a community of God’s people who live into the imagination that they are, by their very nature, God’s missionary people living as a demonstration of what God plans to do in and for all of creation in Jesus Christ.”

As outer personal impliations these parties, gardens lunches etc are fine, on another level there are other personal implications – for tuffty, clive and smiler my children (12, 10 and 1 yrs old and not their real names) – They don’t get to go to sunday school or learn about about Christ in traditional ways, which at times I think is great and at times causes a mild panic. They get used to various people in the house, going away for random chaotic weekends with random chaotic young people, they put up with us stopping to chat to people in the street, and they get used to living on a lower income than we could have as a family. They find themselves in conversations around the nature of church that may be beyond their understanding. Whilst there are some real benefits – at times they could see it as a pretty raw deal.

When we use the word missional in this way it also has to have organisational implications on how we do church or how we run the organistion and structural implications on what is church. Firstly how do we maintain a missional impetus and dna in our organisational structures? What started me thinking about this was the number of agencies that call themselves mission agencies but don’t employ people who aren’t christians or who when running mssion trips only allow people people of a certain level of faith to go along. How do we as a missional group use the whole of who we are and what we do in a missional way. By using volunteers who have no faith aligence or of other faiths, we create opportunities to connect, to learn, to dialogue. I am not saying we shouldn’t be discerning about who we work alongside, or that we should hide our faith afflilations from those who may be ale help us but don’t share our worldview but that we should value others in a way the doesn’t exclude and ask ourselves serious questions about what it is to be mssional in our organisational structures and the way we do things. This leads in turn to structural issues. Structually how do we position ourselves to be missional? Can we work inside systems and processes and what are the implications of change coming from the edge. How can emerging churches that use the word missional to describe themselves maintain bounded set approaches.

I wonder how many agencies that define themselves as missional or mission centred could meet the definition of being missional when applied to their organisational or structural make up.

Questions to hold through Lent

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I have been into this idea of a question to hold for a few weeks now since I posted this The Brood rip Napoleon Dynamite download

Madea Goes to Jail buy

short reflection. Being unconvinced of the set time for God approach and an in-disciplined person when it comes to the blog I wondered what I could do through lent, that didn’t mean a daily reflection, but was more in line with connecting with God through the concepts of living your life as a life of worship, and praying constantly. So I hope to post some questions to hold as way to help me focus, and I wonder if anyone out there also wants to offer any questions to hold. No answers just questions!

A question to hold, for me is a pathway of prayer, it connects with images of prayer that are about silent connection rather than rambling words. They are questions that cannot be answered by intellect or study or theology but by the practice of holding and living, and discovery. My favourite question to hold and one that sustained me and help me survive our the years has been “what does it mean to be still and still moving?”

As we move from Ash Wednesday deeper into Lent, I have been exploring Luke and one commentator sees in Luke’s gospel the God who is in the connections we cant make. I love this concept particularly challenging is the idea that God is in the connection or process when we are often conditioned in seeing God in the person (which is also true) So my first question to hold is

Who is the God who makes the connections we cant make?

A desert reflection

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I recently read a book by Simon Parke called Desert Depths, which is the story of a vicar visiting a desert monastery. Each of the brothers/sisters has a name that they have come to own and this is the theme I want to use

First – A question to hold – by this I mean it is not a question that you should seek to answer by logic or theology but simply to hold, in your heart.

How do you approach mission – a desert or oasis?

As we pray today spend time reflecting on the names given to the residents of the monastery in the book

Peter the fool is the abbott, “seeks enlightenment above grace, expertise above mercy, wisdom above love,”
Dalip the empty – who cared, gave advice, and felt he was put on the planet to help others, yet in the desert came to realise it masked an inner emptiness, and though he got to know his soul and changed he didn’t change his name because “instincts remain” and “the desert likes accurate names”
Santos the flighty the hermit called so as he searched from one idea to another for enlightenment never realising the depths any.
Bernadette the chisel – in her there is “a critic a judge, who judges her and others, it drives her to do but never says to her ENOUGH”

Lets pray for one another and the journeys we face, our defaults and the surfaces of our lives that this week God may show us new depths.

Finally when you reflected on the names was your instinct to identify yourself with their names or the reasoning for their names? As you hold the question we first set How do you approach mission – a desert or oasis? Remember the “the desert likes accurate names”

Blessings

Spring Breakdown movies

Ambiguity, Communication, and practice

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ASBO Jesus put up a great image the other day and by the time I got to look there were over 100 comments. My comment was on the nature of ambiguity in communication, something that we severely miss in the church. Jesus rarely explained the parables, and left room for discussion and interpretation. Often when I leave a service I have been speaking at it takes me ages to get out the door, people want to know the answers to the questions I have raised, they want to know where I stand, what i really believe. This dialogue is really important, but people still want to pin things down. On the one hand this is part of human nature and natural, the difference comes from the level of relationship you have with those with whom you dialogue. People who have travelled with me can cope with the ambiguity and lack of answers as they understand the journey. My initial conclusion about this is because people want us communicate orthodoxy but people who have been on the journey can live with the ambiguity because they have seen something of the orthopraxis along the way.marriageTightrope movies

Targeted Christmas Marketing Encounters (of the mission kind)

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First Richard’s news if you missed it. Now…

A bunch of us were Christmas shopping last night after which bro-in-law told me that he had had his presents wrapped for free by people outside a church in the high street. I said I couldn’t bring myself to do that as it was cheating – I was a Christian already!
OK, I’m making a few assumptions which are really about myself and not about the people doing the wrapping:

  • I’m assuming that they are trying to reach out to people who don’t know about God’s love by wrapping the presents and
  • I’m assuming that they aren’t particularly intending to wrap everyone from their own church’s presents.
  • So therefore I’m thinking that they don’t want to wrap other church people’s presents.

The questions that now go through my head are:

  • Should mission activity be a simple extension of what we do for ourselves (the group), just extended out to others? (because otherwise we are saying we aren’t willing to do things for our closest friends what we are willing to do for others) or
  • Can mission be doing something that when ‘they’ become ‘us’ we won’t do for those people anymore?

I don’t know – I think that there is more to this than meets my eye.

Anyway, I’m going to give bro-in-law the benefit of the doubt: He is single and perhaps he was trying to meet some generous Christian females from our nearest big town!

creativity at the expense of mission

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I was discussing how missiology shold come from our christology and then give shape for our eccelesiology. We were discussing church on the edge and how do we maintain the mission dna in what we do and what arises. The conversation moved on to some of the initial conversations about part of the reason for establishing church on the edge was due to questions about the emerging churches approach to mission (or lack of it) and that missiological approaches to youth had a lot to learn about church from the EC and likewise EC about mission. (I am aware of the generalisations used in the last sentance). Anyway we wondered if, for many in the EC, the primary revelation/ focus on God was around creativity through the Trinity hence the lack of missionary impetus.Great Expectations movie full

Skate Safari

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Whose idea was it to do a skate safari? Well mine actually, but we needed to consolidate the group with a trip or something and I always want to add value to the youth work- create a memory, put a twist on it. So today at 10-30 we bundled into the minibus 11 skaters and three bikers with a support car.

The weather was great and getting lost on the way to the first park just give it that edgy feel that we were on more that just a trip. Arriving at Ilchester, they piled out after memorising the first rule of skate safari. “What’s the first rule of skate safari?� I asked as each person descended from the bus. “If I break my neck it’s not your fault� came back the reply.

After an hour of skating and pictures of Ryan’s first ‘dropping in’ and massive air on the bikes and boards, an ice cream van pulled up, and we chilled before getting ready to move onto Somerton. Two young people navigating in the front of the bus, whilst shouting to the back to score Ilchester – 7 came back the reply. After stopping for water on the way, we arrived at the park. It was literally glistening in the sun and had a concrete surface like marble, but boiling, with no shade from the midday sun. First rule of skate safari was reinforced and they raged through the park like an all consuming fire. It scored a 6.5 but they were wiped out by the heat of the day we headed for lunch in Glastonbury, the biggest park in the area. A great place to skate and ride with some great tricks being pulled, 7 foot drop ins, and rails to slide. A definite highlight and very credible 9 out of 10.

Onto Weston Super Mare, directed by the guys in the front and time for chat as we drove, so I asked “how does it feel when you skate and everything is going right?�
“It’s like you’re, you’re kind of, you’re one� he replied
“Is it spiritual?�
“Yeah, the adrenaline is going and it flows�
So we chatted about surfers feeling at one with the world and in the zone. The conversation meandered around the idea to do a skate church and experiences of doing church on the streets with young people. After a few strange looks they got the idea. I explained about the idea of dong a skate pilgrimage, which they were well up for. So we discussed the old Celtic saints and the crosses around Cornwall deciding that a nutty Celtic saint would be a good patron saint for skaters.

Arriving at Weston Super Mare, it was better in the pictures that in real life. Following on from the Safari idea it was decided that Ilchester, Somerton, and Glastonbury were the big three – Lion, Elephant and Rhino, but on any safari you were bound to see some more boring deer, or squirrels, however in the end Weston was labelled Giraffe as it looked good but didn’t actually do a lot. Ever one to try to encourage new experiences for the group I offered around olives stuffed with garlic I had brought, no takers even when I explained that were up for trying new tricks in new parks but not new food. So we got a few takers on the cherries instead. Weston only warranted a 3 and we headed to the final park of the day.

Down the motorway explaining to two different skaters the previous conversations and getting their views on skating and spirituality. Different answers, but coming from the process of learning a new trick and how it feels to perfect it. Arriving in Taunton and after skating their way through the local supermarket and picking up drinks as they rode through, heading towards the final park. Smaller boxes to try and perfect tricks, it was a whistle stop ending as we headed home after 8 and half hours, on the road, or in the parks suitably exhausted. Everyone had a burn or scratch to take away as a memento of the day, but everyone had remember the first rule of skate safari and no one broke their neck!

Witness for the Prosecution

Forgive us

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When we betray you, we betray ourselves.
Forgive us

Every time we allow another person to belittle us, patronise us and walk all over us, we betray you.

Every time we put ourselves down, think negative thoughts about ourselves and criticize ourselves, we betray you.

Every time we see injustice and deceit and lies and remain silent we betray you.

Everytime we scuttle past the street dwellers feeling embarrassed and avoid the big issue sellers because we are in a hurry, we betray you. When we give no eye contact to those who hold out their hands for money, when we de-humanise people, we betray you.

Whenever we side with the powerful over the powerless and the articulate over those with no words, we betray you .

Whenever we choose to remain silent in the midst of injustice, whenever we are passive when faced with destructive behaviour, whenever we close our eyes to the pain of the other – we betray you.

When we laugh at others misfortune and judge and criticise those who don’t come up to our standards – we betray you.

Everytime we vote for violence over peace and justice – we betray you.

Forgive us and help us to forgive ourselves
Help us let others go and let ourselves off the hook
Enable us to lose life and find that which is more precious.Clue ipod

Where’s the Humility in Faith?

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I was caused to reflect yesterday on the seeming lack of humility in the certainty a person of faith has that their faith is true which additionally might mean that they have to believe that the faith of others is misguided.

On first inspection this seems to demand a lack of humility – a belief in the correctness of one’s beliefs.

Anyway, I didn’t feel to comfortable with this so I thought about it some more.

It occurred to me that perhaps knowing the truth can only happen when you give up your own beliefs and accept truth from outside of oneself. So to have any faith at all it has to come because:

  • You recognised your foolishness and inability to work out what was truth
  • You were supplied with faith from someone/something outside of yourself

So by definition to have faith is to admit your foolishness. It demands a loss of pride.

We are given faith, it comes from God. We believe in the truth that he gives us and we do not accept any credit for the receipt of that faith – which has only arrived in us with humility.

In my mind we often go too far in what we believe is our faith: We start labelling our opinions as faith and start believing in our own wise pronouncements on matters of belief. When we start noticing that we have a vested interest in our position with regard to matters of belief then perhaps we might notice that there is something wrong, that we have allowed pride in our own opinions and our own wisdom to work its way back in to our lives – pushing our real, God given, faith to the sidelines.