Transcript Defining Mission Pioneering Melbourne July 2015 http://davemale.typepad.com/churchunplugged A fresh expression is a form of church for our changing culture established primarily for the benefit of people who.

Defining
Mission
Pioneering
Melbourne July 2015
http://davemale.typepad.com/churchunplugged
A fresh expression
is a form of church for our changing culture
established primarily for the
benefit of people who are
not yet members of any church.
It will come into being through principles of listening, service,
incarnational mission and making disciples.
It will have the potential to become a mature expression of
church shaped by the gospel and the
enduring marks of the church
and for its cultural context.
A fresh expression is a church plant or a new
congregation. It is not a new way to reach people
and add them to an existing congregation. It is not
an old outreach with a new name. (rebrand) Nor is
it a half way house, which people belong to for a
while, on their way into Christian faith, before
crossing over to ‘proper church.’
This is proper church.’
Graham Cray. An Introduction to fresh expressions
The Mixed Economy
both-and
continue to grow and develop
the church as it is
establish fresh expressions
of church
Unity and Diversity
‘ Diversity is part of God’s gracious purpose but
separation and mutual recognition is not.’
‘ There must be new ‘forms’ of church, outside the walls
of the existing church and distinct from the
community from which it came. Separation there
must be- for the sake of mission but equally separation
cannot be the last word for the gospel is about Gods
purpose to unite all things in Christ.’
Ecumenical Review 29
This is not
new but fresh
A missional
re-engagement
with society
“ this majority (66%) presents a major
challenge to churches. Most of them are
unreceptive and closed
to attending church; churchgoing is
simply not on their agenda.”
Churchgoing in the UK.
A research report from Tearfund. April 2007
Playing Away
A re-imagination
of what church is
(and could become)
This is about ……….
‘the birth and growth of Christian communities
that serve people mainly outside the church,
belong to their culture, make discipleship a priority
and form a new church among the people they serve.’
M. Moynagh, Church for Every Context, introduction p x.
1. Context
‘ I have become all things to all people,
so that I might by any means save some.
I do it all for the sake of the gospel,
so that I may share in its blessings.’
1 Corinthians 9;16f
‘ The Theology of the West, was itself a limited,
contextual product of a particular set of experiences.’
Every time and every culture has to reflect
on faith on its own terms.
The Christian faith needs to engage a context
authentically as a missiological imperative.’
Prophetic Dialogue.
Stephen Bevans & Roger Schroeder
Shaped by the constants of the faith
and the context of the mission.
How is faith experienced and
embodied now?
•Incarnation- a world to enter
•Cross- a world to counter
•Resurrection- a world to anticipate
‘ It is important to remember that
what counted as an appropriate
response to God in one generation
and culture will be very different in
another.’
Abbot Stuart Burns, Mucknell Abbey
‘not leaving the tradition
but driving to it’s heart’
Gerald Arbuckle, Refounding the Church
M
I
S
S
I
O
n
“The day of the churched culture
is over. The day of the mission
field has come.”
Kennon L Callahan
Effective Church Leadership
‘ the church is missionary by it’s very
nature…….
the church does not have a mission
but the mission has a church.’
Prophetic Dialogue.
Bevans and Scroeder
"The church is not the sender but the one
sent. Its mission (its "being sent") is not
secondary to its being; the church exists in
being sent and in building up itself for the
sake of its mission.“
David Bosch, Transforming Mission.
Church as a place where
certain things take place
to
a body of people sent on a mission
‘ Either
we are defined by mission , or we reduce the
scope of the gospel and the mandate of the church.’ p6
“ we understood mission one
way and organised life to
accomplish it. We have
awakened to find out the
mission moved on us. To
keep focusing on mission, we
have to turn the furniture
around and face a different
direction. We may even have
to move into another room.”
Loren Mead. The Once and Future Church
‘Mission is often described as if it were
a planned extension of an old building.
But it fact it has usually been more like
an unexpected explosion.’
John V Taylor
Disciple Making
‘Our theoretical knowledge based discipleship
is like a beautiful shirt which has shrunk in
the wash: created to turn us into giants, it has
become something which fits only midgets.
We have reduced discipleship from a life
changing journey marked by irruptions of the
Divine into something so limited and vague that
we can no longer define it.’
Alison Morgan
Following Jesus , p52.
“ If not part of a mutually
discipling community the
culture will disciple you.”
Graham Cray
What kind of people are we called to be?
What kind of community is capable of
raising people like that?
•Volunteers or disciples?
•Students or apprentices?
•Individuals or community?
Church
Not
Mission stations
“ the theological doctrine of the church
cannot be simply expressed in abstract terms
about the churches timeless nature. It will
have to provide points of departure for
reforming the church, for giving it a more
authentic form. Faithfulness and the fresh
start are not antitheses in
the history of the Spirit.”
Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit
“ And so from the start , where Jesus is,
there is the church, the church is the
assembly of those who are finding their
relationships, their lives transformed
by the presence of Jesus.”
Church as four sets of relationships.
up
of
out
in
Moynagh, Church for Every Context p 106.
This is about
• Context
• Mission
• Disciple making
• church!