New Moves in Mission

Yesterday arvo Alternate[Or] met for the first time in 2009. We are changing the way we are doing things a little this year.

Last year we met on Thursday afternoons in an office in Bunbury. This was ok, and meant that we were easily accessible to some of the younger crew we are involved with, but it also meant that, for those of us with families (which was just Lyss and I for most of the year) we couldn't all meet together regularly at the same time and with the kids.

This year we have a new family, with kids (yeah!) joining us and so we are moving things around a bit. We will now be meeting alternate Sunday afternoons in team members homes. The format is going to be similar to our Thursday arvo gatherings, but we are also going to share some tucker and incorporate communion into this.

Social Sunday's will continue every second Sunday as a purely endeavour and as a means of introducing people to our community and offering support and engagement in healthy aspects of community for those on we are invloved with, the youth and some of the families that are now starting to join us for our fortnightly BBQs.

"Action" continues to be an important part of our community and we will kick off the year in this regard on Australia Day. We have volunteered to help out Binningup Beach Christian Fellowship (where I am currently employed in a pastoral role) cook and dish out the Aussie Day breakfast for the town. Should be fun with anywhere between 150 and 250 people expected to attend!

The mentoring I've been doing for the past 18 months or so will also continue, although a number of the young blokes I have been involved with have found their feet and are working and doing ok at the moment. This will change the way this side of things operates, with less of the street work and probably more time spent socially. Although there are still a couple of guys needing ongoing support and advocacy with court cases coming up, and with alcohol and drug issues, trying to get straight and find work.

So that, I think, has most of our bases, as a Community Development/Urban Mission project covered. Here's to what should be an interesting and, hopefully, fruitful year!

Christians live no differently to non-Christians

Rick Meigs has posted another challenging gem.

His claim, based on the research of the Barna Institute, is that;

Simple observation confirmed by numerous studies have found that how American Christians live and their basic beliefs about life are no different than those of the non-Christians.

He says the majority of American Christians operate out of the credo - "live your life, share your faith", but contends the missional imperative is to "live your faith, share your life".

I think the Australian church is in pretty much the same place.

You can read the whole thing HERE.

How do our expectations affect community?

Nathan commented on my post on the Jesus All About Life campaign and some of his comments got me thinking.

What does it take to create genuine community? All the things that come to mind are really the same things I am looking for in community. In line with this I have tried really hard to make the things that I value about community the things reflected in our attempt at community building; belonging; acceptance; love; respect for diversity; willingness to serve one another.

Ultimately though, one thing I know, is that I ultimately find my identity in Jesus Christ and therefore my sense of belonging, acceptance, love etc. also rests in him. Because of this I can (imperfectly) be accepting of others failings and shortcomings. I can give others a second, and third, and fourth (and so on) chance. I can participate in reconciliation, can advocate and mediate and to the best of my ability, be there for others when they need me.

But - unfortunately - even when I am involved in all these things, to the very best of my ability, I am going to fall short. I cannot be in all places at once. I can not be everything to everyone in the way needed to make a perfect example of genuine community a reality.

I will let people down. I will not love unconditionally all the time. There will be times when I am too tired, or too busy or too involved with other things to be there for the people who need me. I have a family which comes first meaning others will miss out on my time because of the time I need to spend with them. I have limited finances (even more limited now that my work with Mission Australia has finished) so I won't be able to endlessly help out with other peoples finances or buy lunch or a coffee for everyone that drops by to see me. You might get me on a bad day and I might snap at you. I might use the wrong words when trying to deal with an issue that crops up and I might offend you.

And if those people that drift in and out of our community, are not led to a relationship with Christ, and do not ultimately find their belonging and acceptance in him, then they and others will be continually let down by me.

This, I think, is why so many others attempts at community building either fail, or fail to be more. We expect a lot of the individuals that comprise the community. And when they let us down it's natural to think the ethos behind the community has failed. I've lost count of the people who have told me they have given up on God because of bad experiences with the church.

Perhaps if we can do a better job helping people find their identity in Christ, rather than in a denomination or congregation or particular style of worship, or in our models of leadership, we will find a community that is closer to that represented by our ultimate example of community - the Holy Trinity - and that more closely resembles the kingdom Jesus so regularly taught about while he was here on earth. A community that is able to recognise the limitations of its human members but nonetheless able to thrive because it is squarely built upon the way of Christ and finds its identity in him.

Can TV Advertising Entice Non-Believers into Church?

I want to be really careful how I write this as I am aware it could possibly illicit an emotional response, but, given my experiences over the past couple of weeks I really feel I have to say something.

I received a letter in the mail yesterday from an organisation calling itself "Jesus all about life" (JAAL for short). It wasn't the first time I had received something from them. I have been the recipient of unsolicited emails from them for a few months now.

JAAL are running a sophisticate, national church marketing program with the goal of engaging the "unchurched" community in church run activities. The crux of the campaign is a series of television advertisements which will be broadcast in W.A. throughout the month of October.

Churches can register to participate in JAAL for $100. Registration ensures any prospective seekers responding to the TV advertising will be directed to the JAAL participating church closest to them, and also includes a JAAL pack participants pack which has a DVD evangelism course and ideas for running "special" JAAL events.

Now the whole thing is pretty standard, attractional/evangelical church fair. It's based around the "build it and they will come" philosophy of church growth. Nothing new or terribly thrilling in all of that.

Some of the adverts (you can view them on the JAAL website) are ok in their content and all are professionally produced. And, according to the information on the site, it seems the JAAL crew have put a fair bit of time and effort into researching Australian's attitude towards the church and Christianity. So, while the JAAL project is obviously a genuine, well intended effort at raising the profile of Jesus Christ in the general community and getting new people into the church, I predict the real results are going to fall way short of the expected outcomes. In this sense it looks and sounds like so many other recent attempts at faith marketing that, when critically assessed, have all fallen flat - the recent push by Churches of Christ to get an intelligent design video to every secondary school student in Australia, Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven" campaign and Nicky Gumbel's Alpha, to name a few.

What really grabbed me about JAAL, and perhaps what is ultimately the difference between this campaign and most of the others, is the overall cost of the campaign. Until receiving yesterday's letter I hadn't given much thought to how the JAAL team were going to get their adverts onto the box. I guess I assumed they would be aired for free like the (cringe-worthy) Christian Television Association announcements of the 80s and 90s - used as fillers in the early hours of the morning and during kids after-school programming. But that's not the case at all. JAAL is a prime-time, hit 'em in the face, campaign. And as such, the JAAL team are requiring a minimum financial commitment just shy of the $500,000 dollar mark (that's half a million dollars if you are having trouble counting all those zeros!).

When I read this my attitude towards the project changed from mild amusement to irritated frustration. I find it incredible that after 15 years (at least) of failed church marketing programs and projects, the JAAL crew can justify raising and spending this kind of money on something that, given the track record of all the others before it, is unlikely to produce anything that even remotely resembles value for money. Especially at a time when the community services sector is chronically underfunded and underserviced.

This is particularly irritating to me at this time because the successful youth drug and alcohol program I have been managing for the last 3 and a half years has just shut down due to lack of funding. And mine isn't the only one.

It makes me wonder how much could be achieved for the kingdom if the same amount of time and effort put into this project were put into encouraging the church to participate in and provide funding for community based programs that actually transform live - and have track records to prove it! Half a mil would have kept Kick Start (my program) running for another 3 or 4 years. Yet the track record of the church when it comes to these kinds of things is abismal. They simply aren't interested.

I wonder if, when the hoohaa fades away and the dust settles and churches begin to take down and pack away their "Jesus All About Life" banners and coffee mugs if anything really will change? Or will it simply be a matter of time until another genuine group of well meaning Christians come along with another expensive way of "guaranteeing" bums on church seats?

What do you think?

Action

We're not just learning the rules, we're palying the game too!

I've been thinking a bit about tradition lately. One of the things that marks contemporary church (as in the Sunday service) is the traditions that are adheared to by the different faith communities.

Some of these are going to be fine, some are going to be completely irrelevant and others are going to be neither.

While I've been accused of being "anti-tradition", I am actually anything of the sort. What I do like to question is the place and purpose of the traditions we hold to, ensuring they are

1) understood by those practicing them,

2) meaningful and,

3) practical (in a sense that their meaningfulness is applicable in the daily spiritual and practical lives of those practicing the tradition).

One of the new traditions we have instigated in Alternate[Or] is a tradition of action. What this means to us is that we won't just be a faith community who meets together on a certain day of the week, we will also be a faith community which is active in real and practical ways in the broader community.

For the first time this weekend we are going to be putting our new tradition to the test. We're heading out as a group, hopefully with a few others as well, to help raise awareness of the plight of the West African child cocoa slaves.

With only a week until Easter we thought it would be good to hit the local supermarkets and use the World Vision, Don't Trade Lives campaign against chocolate slavery as a way of informing local chocolate consumers of what is really going on.

Hopefully this "tradition" will also become a part of our overall committment to discipleship. I see it as a great way to bond with new members and seekers (we have a few of those who will hopefully be joining us on Saturday) and of actively modelling our committment to Jesus through changing the face of the community, and planet - even if only in small ways.

If you are in the Bunbury area and would like to join us, we are meeting at 9am outside Coles in the Centrepoint Shopping Centre, Bunbury. Bring a clipboard and a pen, and lookout for a bunch (it could be a small bunch) of other people with similar!

I'll post a report on Saturday afternoon and let you know how it went.

Discipleship in a Post-Literate Culture - Synchroblog

One of the most critical challenges facing Western Christianity today, particularly within evangelical/pentecostal circles, is the growing irrelevance of modernist (primarily acedemic) approaches to discipleship.

In a lot of ways the Missional Church is at the coalface when it comes to these issues - its willingness to critique, experiment and adjust are important attributes in facing the problem of making and growing disciples in a world where the absolutes of the church's former modernist approaches to Bible study and discipleship are fast losing relevance. Particularly when it comes to taking the gospel beyond the safe streets of the middleclasses.

So the critical question is, "how do you see discipleship taking place in the increasingly visceral world of the 21st century?"

What approaches have you used? How successful have they been or are we still so much in a state of flux that it's really not possible to say? How can we help each other as pioneers (within or without established churches) in coming to terms with and moving beyond the confines of our modernist past in the area of discipleship?

If you would like to join in this synchroblog please drop me a line or a comment and I will make sure to link back to you.

Here's something from Michael Frost to whet your appetite (Preaching in a Post-Literate Age):

---

• The Bible is not a textbook (contrary to much evangelical dogma). It is an account of God's self-disclosure, the drama of a developing relationship between God and humankind;

• Biblical truth is often best discovered and applied in Christian community in a spirit of mutuality;

• Christ's truth cannot be fully grasped by mere cognitive processes. It must be discovered spiritually, experientially, emotionally, as well as cognitively;

• People cannot be compartmentalised. They must be viewed holistically in relationship with one another;

• God's starting point with us is our present need. In Scripture, we see God moving from life to truth, as his people discover more and more about him depending upon their life circumstances.

---

Another resolution

Seems I'm still making New Years resolutions!

I am going through an amazing period of personal growth at the moment. It seems like God keeps on bringing my unhealthy attitudes and ways of operating to light.

The latest is something I've been generally aware of for quite a long time (in fact a very long time) but it came into clear focus the other day.

Alyssa and I were talking about a book my mum gave us. It's called "Freedom from the grip of fear" (I'm not recommending it - I haven't read it yet and don't know that I will). I expressed my disdane - mum is always giving us these "self help" kind of books - and said that there really wasn't anything much I feared - except perhaps sharks while I'm surfing, but even then not enough to keep me out of the water!

Alyssa said she thought I feared rejection.

We talked about this for a while and I came to the conclusion that it wasn't so much that I feared rejection, but that in most situations I expect rejection.

• I enter into many situations expecting that my actions will not be valued.
  
• I enter into relationships expecting not to be liked or accepted and so am reluctant to expose too much of the "real me" to others.
• I often need reassurance from those close to me that I'm "doing ok".
  

Recently I've had a couple of opportunities to work on the "realtionships" side of things. I have been in situations where in the past, I would have taken other people's actions as personal rejection and probably avoided the people concerned from that point on. Instead I've ignored my internal turmoil and made myself continue to engage with the others involved. In each case my "expectations" were unfounded.

Even if they hadn't been, I think going through the motions of trying to restore relationship (reconcilliation) would have been beneficial - at least on a personal level.

I don't know that I will ever find this easy - my background is one of loads of damaged trust and betrayal (I'm sure lots of people can relate to this), but I can see this is definitely an area in which I need to persevere and, hopefully, continue to grow.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Cor. 5:17-19

Discipleship without the Bible - Pt 1

One the biggest challanges and changes in MO I have experienced over the last few years has been the role of the Bible (or more specifically Bible reading) in the discipleship process.

Much of my life is taken up working with young people and, if you haven't worked it out yet, these guys have been born and bred on multi-media entertainment. From sharing movies, sounds and pictures on their mobiles to the latest video games consoles and the internet. They live and breath in a fast-paced, ever changing visceral world. But, unfortunately, books don't seem to have much of a place in this world and hence, the Bible isn't something that many of them are going to be interested in picking up.

This presents a whole range of challenges for those of us whose faith originates in the traditional, evangelical church. After all, the Bible is the word of God, and if we aren't drinking from the source we really aren't drinking at all.

So how can we effectively disciple a generation (or at least a significant segment of a generation) who just isn't into reading?

Dependant on Sundays

• How have you dealt with the over dependance on the Sunday morning service in your context?

• What alternatives have you used with success (and how)?

• How do you move people away from Sunday morning attendance as the guage of "true" committment?
  
  
• When did the day of rest become the day of toil?
  

As I head off to the weekly Sunday morning meeting, I'm confronted again with the overdependance or overimportance put on the Sunday morning "church" service by some people. Don't get me wrong, I think a weekly meeting and time of corporate prayer and worship is important, but why is the Sunday morning service seen as the compulsory, be-all and end-all in Christian gatherings?

I attend at least 3 meetings a week where the major components of the Sunday service are included (with perhaps the exception of communion), yet whenever I, deliberately, throw out the possibility of not attending on an odd Sunday morning, I receive phone calls, comments and the occaisional "remember, we're told not to forsake the fellowship of the saints" comment thrown in for good measure. Come on! I meet and fellowship with Christians all week. I often am working 7 days a week and find that a Sunday spent at home, with a sleepin Sunday morning and a day spent with my family is incredibly beneficial.

The Lost Evangelist

Last year I befriended a 17 year old who was heading off the rails. We'll call him JT (not his real name or initials). On the outside JT was a tough guy who liked the fact that people were scared of him. He was the kid that the other kid's mums said they couldn't hang around.

He was getting into drugs and booze and crime. But underneath the tough image was a guy with a heart of gold.

One day I asked JT if he wanted to find out more about Jesus, he said he did and so we arranged to meet over pizza on a Friday evening. At 7.30 on the dot JT arrived and brought two mates with him. We talked about Jesus and watched a video. JT said he would be back again the next week. And he was, this time with 4 others.

This was the start of our youth ministry. 5 unchurched kids meeting in a community hall over a slap-up dinner and juice to learn about Jesus.

That was nearly 2 years ago. 4 of those kids have since decided they want to follow Jesus. 3 new kids have since joined in and 2 of them have made the same decision. It's up and down and plain hard going at times. They don't have the support of Christian families and, to the chargrin of some, don't come to church on Sundays, but we meet and do our own "church" on a Wednesday night and they keep coming back.

JT moved away but we stay in touch. He hasn't admitted to following Jesus yet but he still rings me to ask me to pray for stuff that's going on in his life. He no longer does drugs or crime, but he's still a tough guy and he will always be the guy who started our youth meetings and our "lost" evangelist.

Growing Christ Centred Youth - 4

The search for answers to "Growing Christ Centred Youth", question 2 has proven a bit of a stumbling block.

2) How do we get youth that are churched or do profess a commitment to Christ to look beyond their own (perception of their own) needs?

I'm going to throw out some possibilities of my own but I have to be honest - I really don't have an easy answer to this question.

One of the biggest problems we face as a culture is the predominance of high impact, highly stimulating entertainment. Our modern youth have grown up with Play Stations, big screen TV and rampant consumerism. They may be "Gen Y" but they are also "Gen I" - they are used to getting what they want, when they want it.

The teenage years are a time of self-centredness as young people struggle to form a sense of self identity and of their place in the wide-world, however culture seems to be amplifying this normal developmental stage and creating monsters along the way.

Outside the church I face the end results of this undirected amplification process on a daily basis. Kids destroying their lives with drugs and alcohol. These kids have a completely unrealistic perception of life - they think they can leave school at 14, smoke pot daily, and still end up with a $60,000-a-year job. They seem genuinely surprised when employers or work-experience providers don't want them back because they have only attended 2 days of work out of a whole week.

As is so often the case - the problems facing culture are often replicated within the church. We really don't do a great job of being "in the world but not of it". I think parenting has a part to play in the solution in general - but I won't go down that line now.

It is my opinion that the only possible solution to the difficulty of engaging young people in a way of life that puts the needs of others first is, again, relationship. It is through regular interaction with adults who genuinely care about them and can model a Christ centred, servant-life, that young people will, eventually, begin to reflect the same attitudes in their lives.

So the answer to question 2, looks something like this:

We can encourage young people to look beyond their own needs by loving them, modeling a Christ-centred life of service to others, by teaching them about Jesus Christ and his way of living and by allowing the Holy Spirit to work in them as they mature, as humans, and as followers of Jesus.

Now I don't think this is going to be easy, and it may be that the fruit will take a while to become evident, but I can't think of a better way of doing it!

Emerging Church Defined - by Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight has this week published his presentation to the Westminster Theological Seminary Student Association Forum on the Emerging Church. It is an interesting read and can be downloaded in full (.pdf) right HERE. (Right click and select "save target as" for fewer browser-related complications!).

There is an interesting discussion on a key point of McKnights presentation over at Backyard Missionary that's also worth looking at - it centres on evangelism and a perceived lack of focus in this area within Emerging circles.

Growing Christ Centred Youth - 3

Well we have settled on a general answer for Question 1. So now it's time to take a crack at question 2. I haven't had any suggestions yet so please feel free to dive in and get some discussion happening/suggestions flowing. These are important issues!

2) How do we get youth that are churched or do profess a commitment to Christ to look beyond their own (perception of their own)needs?

In the original post I mentioned something I was sensing within EC theology - particularly in publications such as The Exodus Papers. It is consumerism - and I am generalising here and happy to be corrected - In reading the Exodus Papers I saw an attitude that I see every day in many of the young people (and even into the 30-something age group) I work with.

Let me sum it up this way - "if it isn't doing it for me then I will just take my bat and ball and go somewhere else that will". I.e. they will ditch their current church/organisation/job/family etc. to look for a church/organisation/job/family etc. that will give them what they want rather than sticking around and at least trying to make a difference.

In thinking a little harder about this I guess this may not be an EC problem so much as it is a cultural problem - Western culture is a consumer driven culture, but maybe the EC is encouraging it or helping justify it in some ways?

Anyway - start posting answers so we can keep growing the "Growing Christ Centred Youth" list!