missional discipleship

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I cant make it to LICC where there is conversation on discipleship coming up. But Jason asked for few of my thoughts on the subject particlaurly around the shortfall between missional youth work and church i.e. Missional youth work hits a dead end if there isn’t a trully mission shaped community to feed young people into.

My main thought was that actually this is to avoid the real issue that a genuinely missional work would always seek to grow that community from the community it is serving. Whilst to an extent we are in an in between time (as christendom dies) the language of discipleship (into a mission shaped community) or even the notion that this is part of the answer reinforces a dualist divide that should not be present. If we do embrace a kingdom missional theology then we are already that community the moment we meet those young people. The way most seem to the use the word Discipleship reinforces this kind of dualism, as it usually refers to some sort of post decision idea. However if we are not about bounded sets and Christ centred (see Dave Andrews) and decision is more a willingness to journey together then the community can be formed and shaped together and then discipleship is far more reciprocal and I would argue real. I guess a key question in this would be; what are we (myself and the yp) being discipled towards? The old paradigm would put of primary the importance of orthodoxy where the missional community would be orthopraxis. In our experiences with the yp we see evidence of the fruit of the spirit and orthopraxis but none would call themselves Christians.

BCYM community week

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I have just got back from a few days with the students where we explored the theme “community is a natural by product of people heading in the same direction” (Rohr) we incorporated silence throughout the week and build the length of time of silence up over the few days. It was real privilege to be with the students and particularly to give out the JNC certificates to the third years. There was a real sense of a growing missional community centred on serving young people, children and families. It was simply great just to be around these people – Thanks if any of you are reading this.

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embodying or objectifying the story

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Further to the previous post I have been thinking about how we live within the story we find ourselves in (embody that story) rather than to keep stepping outside (objectify the story) which returns us to the old dualistic thinking and need of reconciliation. A few thougts that have emerged so far are about how it links with the idea of tacking and james point about feeling rather than thinking. There is also something around choice. i have been reading the shack Up Periscope divx

????? ???????? ?a?? and when Mack first encounters the trinity and trys to get his head around it there are a couple of interesting thoughts/illustrations. A bird is built to fly but if it chooses to limit itself to walking it still pocesses the ability to fly and is no less a bird. This is discussed in relation to Jesus being man and G-d. A few days ago I used the phrase swimming in the ether of god, as how we could operate in this more embodied way, it is about recognising and choosing to accept that we have moved beyond the sacred/secular divide and embraced the reality of kingdom being now and not yet, and to see this and be this as our startpoint. Perhaps it is about us choosing not to accept the limitations of our humanity but instead to live in a new way of being that is connected (even though at times it may seem at a distance) to God and her redemptive and redeeming creation and swim in that ether. ? ????????? ????? ???????? ????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ????????? ?????

Shalom Greenbelt

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Just back from the Shalom conference and Greenbelt. Two places where I hung out with like minded people and was able to wonder out loud about thoughts and ideas around mission and god without people stucking in a loud mouthful of air like a builder does when you ask how much it is going to cost?

Didn’t really hear that much new at GB but through chatting with friend got some good conversations going that began to stretch the old gray cells. In particular how many of the arguments made are based on the same old dualist assumptions and around reconciling this rather than starting from a more unified worldview and the impact this has on who and how we are.

Theological reflection

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I have been prepping some lectures on theological reflection and one of the keys is in slowing down the process to ensure we dont allow the preconceived ideas or traditions (our conditioning) to over ride the process. Thinking about a model to help students work on journals I have come up with this so far.the-reflection-processUp Periscope download

The gospel in less than ten words or a single picture

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TSK has a couple of posts on The Jesus Freaks and a post linking to here the gospel in less than 10 words. I was interested in the reponses that didnt use christian jargon which got me thinking about the gospel as a dynamic process that we are involved, so my 10 words would be “journeying together to rediscover, ourselves, the world and one another”. Then as visual thinker I couldnt get a TSK picture out of my head as a visual expression of my thoughts.

the gospel in a picture

the gospel in a picture

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