The following thoughts, I have adapted a little from an interview of Baptist Pastor, Graham Old of Daventry, England - part of an emergingchurch. info blog. Another helpful blog about rediscovering mission and ministry in our own backyard is: backyardmissionary.com
Graham Old is seeking to build a home-group-based congregation seeking to creatively incarnate the good news of Jesus through groups specifically focusing on individual streets, apartment buildings, town house complexes.
His group has been helped by a small booklet by Stuart Murray-Williams and Anne Wilkinson-Hayes entitled, Hope From the Margins: new ways of being church. It reveals how they look at a number of different expressions of Church and ask themselves, What is the mission that God has called us to? What kind of church do we need to be to fulfil that mission? And What spiritual disciplines are needed to sustain that kind of church in that kind of mission?
Churches may fail to come up with any strategies for effective evangelism. The above questions are applicable for many. We don’t need a strategy as God had already come up with one: Church. What is needed is not a super-clever method for blitzing a town, but a way of being church that effectively embodies the gospel for the people living here. That would obviously be different according to the people we are trying to reach.
What if a church released small groups of disciples across its communities, with each group spending time and energy discovering what it means to embody the grace of God on their street, in their apartment or townhouse complex? Of, if in a rural context - then as best could be defined as the ‘home-area’ within their regional area.
This may involve sacrifice and 'dying' to what is comfortable - but that is what being the body of Christ is all about. It would give opportunity for people to move from spectators to servants. It's easy to preach the priesthood of all believers, but this would actually create an environment where it can become a reality.
This might also help people who have given up on church to decide to give it a second go. We have given up on people because we thought they rejected Jesus, when what they were actually rejecting was the monolithic and monotone way that Jesus was presented by the Church.
We (Baptists) used to be known as radicals, but - like so many cutting-edge movements of the past - we institutionalized and have become stagnant. Conservatism is great if you want to sustain external structures or guarantee the same results you've always been getting. What is needed today is people who are willing to risk it all - money, reputation, their very lives - to see the mission of God come to fulfilment.
The concept of incarnation captures so much: it includes the idea of being sent on a mission - of actually ‘being’ that mission - as well as sacrifice and service, being a means of grace, pointing to God and showing the way, flexibility and more.
Graham Old is seeking to build a home-group-based congregation seeking to creatively incarnate the good news of Jesus through groups specifically focusing on individual streets, apartment buildings, town house complexes.
His group has been helped by a small booklet by Stuart Murray-Williams and Anne Wilkinson-Hayes entitled, Hope From the Margins: new ways of being church. It reveals how they look at a number of different expressions of Church and ask themselves, What is the mission that God has called us to? What kind of church do we need to be to fulfil that mission? And What spiritual disciplines are needed to sustain that kind of church in that kind of mission?
Churches may fail to come up with any strategies for effective evangelism. The above questions are applicable for many. We don’t need a strategy as God had already come up with one: Church. What is needed is not a super-clever method for blitzing a town, but a way of being church that effectively embodies the gospel for the people living here. That would obviously be different according to the people we are trying to reach.
What if a church released small groups of disciples across its communities, with each group spending time and energy discovering what it means to embody the grace of God on their street, in their apartment or townhouse complex? Of, if in a rural context - then as best could be defined as the ‘home-area’ within their regional area.
This may involve sacrifice and 'dying' to what is comfortable - but that is what being the body of Christ is all about. It would give opportunity for people to move from spectators to servants. It's easy to preach the priesthood of all believers, but this would actually create an environment where it can become a reality.
This might also help people who have given up on church to decide to give it a second go. We have given up on people because we thought they rejected Jesus, when what they were actually rejecting was the monolithic and monotone way that Jesus was presented by the Church.
We (Baptists) used to be known as radicals, but - like so many cutting-edge movements of the past - we institutionalized and have become stagnant. Conservatism is great if you want to sustain external structures or guarantee the same results you've always been getting. What is needed today is people who are willing to risk it all - money, reputation, their very lives - to see the mission of God come to fulfilment.
The concept of incarnation captures so much: it includes the idea of being sent on a mission - of actually ‘being’ that mission - as well as sacrifice and service, being a means of grace, pointing to God and showing the way, flexibility and more.
