I blogged the other day that it is almost always the case that you canot be authentically Christian unless you are part of a Christian community. Why? The reason, I think, is that the gospel demands engagement in relationship. It has an individual element to it, but it is essentially a social religion. (read the rest here…)

from: maggie dawn

from Paul Mayers

I had a great time being on the panel which was thrown this question yesterday. Not least as it gave me a chance to listen to a diverse number of thoughts, both from my fellow panellists and from the people who were taking part in the seminar. So many differing views expressed for me to learn from, reminding me again that this is not an academic issue of reaching a correct definition but a living reality which we get to wrestle with together.

For me I find myself often pulling towards the sort of church that I would like – so ‘what is church?’ becomes ‘what would be ideal church?’ – it becomes about my preferences and experiences.

For example church should have a lot more worship [meaning singing] or a lot less singing and a lot more experiential forms of worship [involving touch/sight/reflection/quiet etc]. Or maybe it’s forgetting about church as a cultural irrelevance and just getting on living life in the community, following Jesus out there or having more church to try and make it a pre-eminent institution in our culture again.

I find it very hard to avoid falling into the trap of ‘if only we had [my] ideal form of church’ then everyone would flock to it’ [well everyone like me - God why did you have to make me so unique???].

The best thing i can do is take a reality check – remind myself that whilst I think church is God’s idea, part of God’s ongoing mission to gather us as his people, in his image as his bride – there is no ideal/perfect church. Church is, to quote Dickens, ‘the best of times and the worst of times.’ Not least cos it contains people called by God who are at the same time the best/worst, we have moments of amazing love and kindness and almost in the same breath we use and abuse each other. The miracle of church for me is not that we’re a bunch of blissed out people, arms linked, swaying in perfect unity whilst singing Kumbya in amazing acapella harmony – rather it’s that a bunch of such different people could stay in the same room for any length of time without cheerfully strangling each other.

This on-going miracle, which i’ll call the person of the Holy Spirit, allows us to have all sorts of different churches for all sorts of different people. It allows us to gather and learn to speak to each other not in the cultural language of right/wrong, in/out,correct/incorrect forms/modes of christianity but in the transcendental lived love language of the Kingdom of God: generosity, service, mutual submission and actively choosing to be for each other. Maybe that is what the process of becoming a disciple is about being good (fruit?) rather than just being right? In other words, for me, church is about a journey that begins to cost me, not something that meets my experiential preferences, whether that’s location, building, forms/styles, choices or even the people.

As I am starting to grasp this, I am realising that being church does not have to be about wading into the world around me and trying to get people to come back into my attractive christian culture – although it can be. It can also be about starting to do church, that is like yeast, so mixed in with flour of our culture that it is impossible to separate it out again and yet allows the kingdom of God to expand through us and change us. Church as the bakery of God anyone?

• The report describes in detail the changes in society. It describes twelve different kinds of fresh expressions of church. It challenges the whole church to turn outwards in mission because of God’s call to be mission-shaped.
• The report encourages the churches to shift resources towards encouraging fresh expressions of church alongside the parish system. It makes a number of recommendations to enable this to happen.
• The report was unanimously welcomed and commended by the General Synod in February, 2004 (the General Synod is the Church of England’s parliament). 14,000 copies of the report have been sold. It is now being widely studied across the churches and overseas.

This report can be bought or ordered at any Christian bookshop and is a foundational read as we look to mission. However, the fresh expressions website has a pdf copy you can download for free. Click here for The Mission Shaped Church.

I really enjoyed getting to know many of you and hearing your stories of how you are attempting to communicate the gospel to a changing world. I’m sure you would agree Kerry’s presentations were stimulating, thought provoking and inspiring. Hopefully, though this blogsite, we can carry on relationship building, conversing, sharing stories and encouraging one another as we travel through uncharted waters. Do e-mail me your stories, thoughts and reflections and return regularly for further posts.

Already I have put up an individual post for each of the sessions. Kerry’s powerpoint presentations can be downloaded from the relevant sessions. Do take time and comment on these posts so we can continue the conversation. To comment click on the ‘comments‘ link at the top of the post. Also in the side bars I have put a range of internet and blogsites related to fresh expressions and the emerging church. I hope you find this useful.

Finally, feel free to comment here on your continuing reflections, thoughts and questions about what we discussed at fresh rhythms. It was really encouraging for me (and I hope also for you!) to see so many of us engaged in such interesting discussions.

Yours, Simon

With specially invited guests we will be openly discussing key questions for the Church as we seek to express and live out the gospel to a changing culture. What is the message of Jesus? What is the gospel? What is church? What does it mean to mission and share the message of Jesus with those in a post-Christian society? What does it mean to be a new kind of Christian? This session will involve open and active discussion so be prepared to get your hands dirty!

Comment

This was a really interesting engaging session.  Our special guests included…

Kerry Thorpe – Fresh Expressions Missioner for Canterbury Diocese; founder Harvest New Anglican cell church

Paul Mayers – Runs “One for the Road” Blog and contributes to “Deep Church” and “Jason Clark“.  Has links with Emergent UK.

Oliver Harrision – Vicar St John’s Grove Green, an ecumenical church in Maidstone.

Diana Greenfield – Night Club Chaplain (Church Army)

Paul Franklin – Runs a Youth Congregation “Y”

In this session we openly discussed and reflected on these questions; What is Church? (incl. What does it mean to belong to church and do church? etc), What is mission?

 A fresh expression of church is intended as a community or congregation which is already (or has the potential to grow into) a church in its own right….”

Since New Testament times Christians have been called to see the gospel embedded in different cultures in appropriate ways. What does it mean to be church in our changing culture? How do we mission and spread the gospel in a post-Christian culture? What does Christianity look like in a postmodern culture? Across the country people have been setting up ‘fresh expressions’ of churches exploring these questions. This session will explore stories and case studies of people involved in this mission.

You can download Kerry’s powerpoint for this session here

McClaren suggests that what many Christians need is a sponsor – someone who will help them make the transition or immigrate to a postmodern worldview. But why should they bother?

The responsibility of all Christians is to enable those around them to encounter the Kingdom of God. It is true that many people in todays world are spiritually aware but don’t have a context for their spirituality. They may even have tried Church but it didn’t ‘scratch where they were itching’.

The challenge for Christians in the postmodern world is not just to go out and tell people about Jesus and bring them back to Church. The challenge is to immigrate into the culture and work with others to find ways of expressing the Kingdom of God that make sense.

I would like to consider myself a sponsor – someone who is ready and willing to help Christians who heart is to see God’s Kingdom come.