Mike Breen: State of the Evangelical Union
This is a very interesting article by Mike Breen of 3DM. Lots of food for thought. Does anyone want to start a conversation on some of his thoughts?
Here are a couple of quotes I will be chewing on:
“You get a missional movement by starting a discipling movement. For too long we’ve had the missional conversation in lieu of the discipling conversation.”
“If you do discipleship, it means you’ll be creating leaders. Creating leaders rather than managing volunteers will make you re-think your Leadership conversation. And releasing Leaders into the missional frontier to make disciples will make you re-think you Missional conversation.”
“One of the things we try to ask worship leaders is this: “If you didn’t have an instrument and couldn’t sing, would everyone still see you as a leader in your church?” The sad fact is this isn’t often the case. Many worship leaders are hired guns and without the talent of their instruments or vocals, they would be little use to the church.”
“There has been so much talk about Missional Communities and discipleship in the last year, but people forget one grounding reality from the scriptures: In the New Testament, discipleship and mission always find their flourishing in an extended family. But in the last 100 years, we’ve really lost the extended family and we’ve lost the oikos on mission. (Oikos being the Greek word used in the New Testament for “households” that refers to the extended families existing as households on mission for the first 300 years of the life of the church).”
“If you don’t have Family on Mission, discipleship, leadership and mission aren’t possible. Family on Mission is the context needed for the rest to flourish. And at the end of the day, I want to be part of a movement that puts missional discipleship back into the hands of every-day people. You get that by learning Family on Mission.”
I am a Misfit!
I shall confess…. I am a misfit.
I have never really fitted in with the church scene.
Don’t misunderstand me, this is not going to be one of those disgruntled with the church blogger type rants (at least I hope not).
I love the church!
When I read the Bible I find a picture of the church made in the image of our God. A church that reflects the character and the mission of our God. I read about a God who loves the unlovable; who shows grace to the undeserving, mercy to the merciless, who sends rain on the just and the unjust. I read the story of the King who used his power not to crush us or serve his own ambitions but to rescue us, to restore us and to give us new life and new birth into a living hope.
The church is not perfect but we are right now a foretaste of what God is at work doing. His Kingdom has now broken in and is at work saving and restoring a people, where the good and gracious reign of King Jesus can be seen. We are now a foretaste of God’s restored humanity. In the church we find a taste of what it means to be truly human… again.
In the Scriptures I find a picture of church far beyond my experience.
I find myself frustrated wishing it would be so much more. It could be so much more. It should be so much more.
Mostly I wish we were more radical in our love for lost people…
I am fully convinced that God does and can and will continue to use the contemporary/ traditional/mainstream (choose the most appropriate and least offensive description) church to preach the gospel, care for the broken, disciple believers, and reach the lost. I, for one, am a testimony to this.
Honestly I think that there are some great churches within easy driving (or walking) distance of where I live. They are reaching people and will continue to do so. But in all honesty, many of them are reaching the same kind of people. Even if they have a diversity of membership it is still largely a similar kind of diversity.
In a country as diverse as South Africa, and in a city as diverse as Cape Town we need to continually be thinking through our methodology and our church culture, asking ourselves – who are we reaching? And perhaps more significantly who are we not reaching?
The answer of course is not to be all things to all men in one structure. What we need are scattered communities of light willing to get into the nooks and crannies of our society, adopting the rhythms, and shape of their lives, meeting them on their terms and on their turf. Engaging them with the gospel of Jesus Christ, in word and in deed. And demonstrating through the shared life of the gospel community that it is good to live under the reign of King Jesus.
I suspect am a misfit because I did not grow up in a Christian family or breathing the unusual air of the pervasive Christian culture. I got saved in a culture of mission and I was discipled in a culture of mission. I admit I got lost in the whole church culture scene for a bit. But through some really tough circumstances I ended up out of the church culture for a bit. And I realised that I never want to go back…
Like I said I love the church and I love so many people who are part of the contemporary church scene. Some of them are doing some amazing thing and some of them are being used by God to do amazing things. But we have slowly (read kicking and screaming) made peace with the fact that God has called us to a different path. A path for misfits. I struggle to put words to it but somehow I have always gravitated to those on the fringes; the doubters, the strugglers, the broken, the sceptics.
For as long as I can remember I have always had a burden to reach those who are not being reached by others. I can clearly remember on Scripture Union camps asking for the “difficult” kids to be in my group and volunteering to be on duty to “baby-sit” the smokers because I knew it was most likely that most of these kids were not Christians. At one church I worked at as a youth pastor I remember another youth pastor telling me that my kids scared him a bit… I’m still not really sure what that was all about?
But something within me has always come alive when faced with those others deem too difficult, too broken, too lost. When I was a 19-year-old rookie camp leader, a man I greatly admired looked at me across the table one meal time and said, “John, God is going to use you to reach people the rest of us can only dream of reaching!”
Honestly, I never believed him. But as I look back over 15 plus years I can see unlooked-for echoes of those words throughout my life. I still don’t really know if I believe him but I now know I want it to be true.
And finally I think I am starting to be at peace with the unorthodox shape of our ministry. Finally I realise that sometimes it is a blessing to feel more alive outside with the smokers than inside singing with the saints. Sometimes God uses misfits too…
The Story
When we were in Loughborough last month with The Crowded House, we joined them for some bible storying.
I have read quite a bit about storying before and seen some storying done before but what I saw in Loughborough really sparked my imagination as something that we could do here in Woodstock.
It was really simple; hot chocolate, some cakes and other sweet stuff, a nice mix of mature Christians, some new believers (converted in part through their interaction with the The Story) and some non-Christians. The atmosphere was relaxed and easy-going and yet focussed on hearing the story, re-telling the story and reflecting on the story. Without any great monologue or rigid teaching structure from the leader we got the main idea, reflected on implication and thought about what this could mean for our lives (with a few sidetracks along the way). Jonny’s wicked sense of humour probably really helped the atmosphere and communication of the message.
In February next year we are inviting some friends, neighbours, long-time Christians and other assorted sorts along to our house on a Sunday evening for some food, and some story. We thought we might play with some video or other creative ideas to get everyone participating and engaged in The Story.
Here are some helpful resources here from Soma.
You can also check out the Orality Strategies website.
Some useful discussion on Orality from the Lausanne movement
John Bunyan’s Greatest Desire in Ministry
“My greatest desire in fulfilling my ministry, was, to get into the darkest places in the country, even amongst those people that were furtherest off of profession;… because I found my spirit did lean most after awakening and converting work, and that the Word that I carried did lead itself most that way.”
Discipleship Failure? Most Christians Know It’s Important But Rarely Share Their Faith
Ed Stetzer’s, Lifeway Group just released some new research on church goers and sharing their faith. I would imagine that statistically the results are probably fairly similar in Cape Town.
- 75% of churchgoers say they feel comfortable in their ability to effectively communicate the gospel
- 80% of churchgoers agree they have a personal responsibility to share their faith
- 39% of churchgoers they have shared their faith one or more times over the last six months.
- Nearly half (48%) of church attendees have not invited an unchurched person to attend a church service or some other program at their church in the past six months
BIG QUESTION: Given these statistics does it not raise the question that perhaps we are doing something wrong when it comes to church? If the aim is to make disciples, surely we need to question if our church structures are actually achieving our goal?
The Problem with Friendship Evangelism
A significant problem with “friendship evangelism” is that we can end up only reaching “people like us” or even just people we like. And as Jesus reminds us in Matthew 5:46, if you only love those who love you- everyone does that. Even the tax-collectors.
In addition to our existing relationships we need to cross social and cultural divides. We need to move out of the ghetto.
Almost by definition, friendship evangelism leaves the socially marginalised untouched. And yet these were precisely the people Jesus went out of his way to include.
In Luke 14 we observe God- the Master of the great eternal party- has thrown open his banquet to
“the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” (v21). Jesus urges us out of our ghetto in imitation of his gracious Father.
Jesus, himself left the splendour and security of heaven to live and die – among and for us. Us who are so radically different from him and undeserving of his love. And just as the Father has sent him so he now sends us (John 20:21).
(Based on the Porterbrook Network “Evangelism” module; Unit 3: Building Relationships)
Recent Comments