Transcript Mission Shaped Church

Change about Church behind …
Mission Shaped Church
Presented by
The Sheffield Centre
Church Army’s Research Unit
The gathered church of Christendom
Inherited view:
Church is …
Parson
Parish
Place
People who congregate to
Praise
Context has shaped Church
 Where did they meet in early Rome?
 What took off after Constantine?
 Where do Christians meet in China today?
Match the pictures
What’s your scene?
Kinds of people: what are they looking for ?
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English speaking Retireds
Ditto - Young families
Mixed marriage families
France – the happy life?
Location options
Borrow a RC church
 Or a Prot. Hall
 Use a home
 NOT public buildings
 What about a café

Another slant
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
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
Émigré Disciples
Christendom Attenders
Non Christian explorers
“Church” leavers
One size fits all ?
Congregationless Christians ?
 It’s a fast growing
trend
 Those turned off
by the institution
 Jesus we do –
“Church” we don’t
Parts of Scripture suggests church is ..
1. A scattered people – Jas 1.1 1 Pet 1.1
– Resident Aliens, Exiles, Diaspora
2. A special people – 1 Pet 2 – priests to the world
– not a building, facing inwards
3. A self sufficient people
– Paul leaves them and trusts the Spirit
4. A subversive people
– Caesar is not Lord, Jesus is, it is his Ecclesia.
1 Some different pictures of the church …
The city set on a hill
The lamp on the stand
Its Values
Gathered
Visible
Attracting
 Salt
 Yeast
Its Values
…Location…
…Presence…
…Purpose…
Dispersed
Invisible
Subverting
We are free to use all of them – which suit best after Christendom ?
Within the Western Church in Exile
Expect church to be larger and smaller
Cells, Congregations, Celebrations and wider links
Rejoice !
Church IS all these multi-layers
It helps us to embrace
the diversity we need
Down with congregational imperialism
Cluster
Congregation is Church
as
Cell Church
Congregate
Church is
as
as
Priest
Church
Church
Building
Celebrate
and
as
Worship
Church
Because all levels are church
2 The special people
 Priests to the world
–
–
–
–
Out there, dispersed where people are
In touch with them culturally
In Go mode, before Come invitations
Grow what is needed, when and where
 An Odyssey story….
2 What about a moving church ?
“Synagogue was invented by
the Jews dispersed in Exile.
The Temple’s destruction was
both a judgment and a favour”..
George Lings 2005
“Church planting is instinctively
happier with the transient rather
than the intransigent. It’s doctrine
of the church is more to do with
Tabernacle than with the Temple”.
George Lings 1998
The recently lost sheep ..
Does he not leave the
ninety-nine
in the open country
and go after the lost sheep
until he finds it?
3 Locally self sufficient
Dispersed church is perhaps better
 It spreads Christians around
 It needs Christians who have learnt
–
–
–
–
–
–
To
To
To
To
To
To
break the dependency/control collusion
be the church in their context
feed themselves
seek God, with others nearby
grow their contacts
relate to the wider church
 China is a good example of growth
4 Subverting
Remember the yeast – or the salt ?
 A little makes a lot of difference
 Could your little group cause “a
rise” in your circle or community
 Could you and your friends make
things around you more worth
“savouring”
Concentration & Dispersal
A good NT pattern
Concentration
Dispersal
There are long and short cycles
The short one [weekly?] could be Gather to Scatter
The longer ones involve sending out whole groups
Like from Jerusalem, Antioch and Ephesus
This might happen
 Accidental church ?
Change is not new – rather it’s original
Consider the NT mission and Church
From Jews only to Jews, Greeks and Romans
The language changed
From Synagogue to Ecclesia
In models of Atonement
From Temple to dispersed houses
Circumcision was dropped
So were many food laws
– Some resisted this – the Judaisers
Official changes for the clergy!
“For the laity to become more priestly it is
therefore necessary for the clergy to
become more episcopal”
ABM Occasional paper 18 p 8 : from Derby Diocese
Episcope: a focus of…
VALUES and
guarding them
VISION and seeing
it is done
UNITY and
Connectedness
CARE of leaders
RECOGNISING gifts
and callings
Episcope
But how can dispersed be healthy?
 Think about what is church
–
–
–
–
Jesus gave us some dispersed models
Church exists at lots of sizes and levels
Growth in self-sufficiency sounds good
Being more dispersed means more contacts
 What would be good yardsticks of being/
becoming church ?
Enduring Marks of
the Church
Holy
“UP”
Catholic “OF”
“OUT” Apostolic
“IN”
One
OHCA
How are these criteria changing?
The church is One Holy Catholic Apostolic. But suppose …
Oneness is no longer Roman uniformity but modelled on the
Trinity ….
Holiness is a call to belong to God and becoming like him,
but mixed with fallen provisionality ….
Catholicity is not just universality. But expression of
interconnectedness and interdependence ….
Apostolic is not a fight over succession. But a Missionary
identity of being sent ….
Church for Resident Aliens
The four journeys re-described
UP
–Not attending services, but seeking God
IN
–Not “going to Church”, but live out attractive
community
OUT
–Wanting others to know this life with God in Christ,
through act and word
OF
–Living an interdependence with the wider Church
Church is alive – thanks MRS NERG
M Movement
R Respiration
S Sensitivity
N
E
R
G
Nutrition
Excretion
Reproduction
Growth
“Which
would
you say
the
Church
is good
at ?”
Last Orders ?
- not on your life !
“Monastic life may seem utterly out of
tune with the spirit of our times, yet if we
are entering another Dark Age, it may be
to the wisdom of such a way the Church
of today needs to turn …
I sense that the renewal of both the Church and Society will
come through the re-emerging of forms of Christian
community that are homes of generous hospitality, places of
challenging reconciliation and centres of attentiveness to
the living God.”
Brother Samuel SSF: Mission and Community BFBS 1998
Questions
 How do you see church. where you are,
living out being dispersed as well as
gathered?
 What are the challenges in becoming more
self-sufficient ?