Blog Archives
Breakout, a book on church growth and leadership.
Breakout, by Mark Stibbe and Andrew Williams is the account of how a large charismatic evangelical church turned from being inward looking to outward looking. St. Andrew’s, Chorleywood (not a church I’ve ever visited) was by most accounts, successful, but they had reached saturation point with the ‘come to us’ method of evangelism. It was a consumer church. Congregants would come and enjoy the great worship and teaching, but, in general, were not plugged in to using their own gifts and creating their own ministries.
When a new vicar, Mark Stibbe, arrived and was closely followed by a new Associate Minister, Andrew Williams, the whole outlook of the church changed. Instead of meeting around one centralised worship event with anything up to 1000 people attending, they created Mid-Sized Communities (MSCs – later renamed Mission-Shaped Communities). These were groups of up to 50 people who met in a particular area or around a particular interest which could more easily serve the wider communities in which they were based. To quote an analogy which Stibbe and Williams use in the book, the church went from being an ocean liner, to being a group of smaller lifeboats, more easily able to change course and react to what is around.
There are better books to read which outline the theology and practicalities of smaller church groups which aim to reach the community. The fresh expressions literature has a lot of information and examples of new churches springing up in new contexts, and Total Church by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester (which I have talked about in depth before) covers all the necessary ingredients of reaching society with the gospel in contextually-appropriate ways without losing the clarity of the gospel message. There is also a book called Clusters, by Bob Hopkins and Mike Breen (which I haven’t read yet) which covers the same ground)
Breakout is still an interesting read as it tells the story of what can happen when one person with a clear vision communicates that vision clearly, gets people behind him, creates a clear strategy, listens to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and allows the spiritual gifts of the congregation to grow and be used. Although this example is in a charismatic church, there is no reason why churches of other persuasions cannot act on the call to spread the gospel in similar ways. The book does begin to meander and lose it’s way a little in the second half as the authors try to insert some theology into what is essentially a narrative, but it is still worth a read. You have to admire Mark Stibbe for his leadership and praise God for what he has done.
Getting past worship-shaped churches.
David Muir writes about churches that find mission difficult because is it seen as a (however important) peripheral activity to the main activity of the church. He proposes that the mission of the church should be the central thing around which the church is formed.
Our challenge today is to create churches where the primary reason people join is the particular focus of its mission. Such churches will find worship hard – as hard as the worship-shaped churches find mission. Worship will not be the emotional powerhouse that it is for worship-shaped churches. But it will also not need to be. ‘Gathering for mission’ is what will give a mission-shaped church energy, and will keep it on track as a mission-oriented church.
via Share the Guide | Worship-shaped churches? Get real and get over them! (by David Muir).
There are some churches where you can quite clearly see what they are formed around – their values of justice, or enabling people to engage with God, or sometimes a specific community. Many fresh expressions begin with such an aim. Existing churches where the primary activity is perceived to happen on a Sunday often have difficulty in persuading people to get involved in the peripheral activities of the church.
There is a church in Exeter (which I have not yet visited) called Exeter Network Church where the primary activity is the small groups. They are all based around a specific cause or interest such as engaging the community in games of football, encouraging those who work from home, simple things like poker groups open to all, and a group which is committed to living and working in a challenging part of Exeter. On many Sundays they have no main meeting at all, but the church members go out and interact with the community in a variety of ways. The mission is at the centre of what they do as a church so that it flows naturally out of their Christian life.
Mass Culture
When communion is discussed amongst our church member it is usual simply to question the mechanics of it – how do we get adults and children up to the rail and back to their seats in the easiest and most time efficient way.
Mass Culture is a collection of essays exploring the significance of the communion/eucharist/mass/Lord’s Supper (or whatever you like to call it) and how it relates to contemporary society. One you get past the rather naff cover, the book offers much for discussion. It is edited by Pete Ward from Kings College London with contributions from, among others, Anglican Bishops Steve Cottrell, Graham Cray, author and church leader Mike Riddell and CMS worker and fresh expression leader Jonny Baker. Despite being published ten years ago it is still incredibly relevant (probably becuase the church hasn’t changed the way it does communion much for many years.)
One of the most thought provoking themes of the book came in Mike Riddell’s chapter entitles “Bread and Wine, Beer and Pies”. He revisits the phrase, ‘the medium is the message’ coined by communication theorist Marshall McLuhan. Riddell cites the example of a church who spent money on a very professional glossy looking flyer to be delivered through the doors of houses in their parish (something many churches do). However, the medium used in this case is that which is usually used by junk mail. Consequently, no matter how life-affirming and important the gospel message on the flyer, it is most often received as junk mail.
Jesus left his disciples with a medium for re-telling the gospel story, and that medium is in the breaking of bread and wine. In it, we engage in an act of rememberance, symbolism, and gaining a sense of our place in that gospel story. Here too, however, we need to be careful in how we do this, lest we are communicating somethign through the medium which is not the gospel. For example, if shared in a ritualistic old church building in a very formal way, what are we saying about the God who lies behind the Mass? Similarly, if the shared too informally (beer and pies, for example) are we diminishing God’s character? Here, Riddell joins the choruses of the other contributors in encouraging us to think through how communion is celebrated and how it is received in the culture that the church operates in. He encourages us to be risky and big in our thinking. Often an oppurtunity to participate in God’s story through a well thought-through Lord’s Supper can be so much more appealing than simply listening to the gospel explained.
Church Growth: Inviting others
A thoughtful post asking us to examine every aspect of our church to see why it isn’t growing. Are people inviting friends? If not, why not? Is it inhospitable? Inaccesible? Incomprehnsible? Irrelevant?
Here’s a truism: people that have had a life-changing experience with God want others to find God in a life-changing way. This is surely true. It is also true that most people that sat in church pews last year never invited one single person to their church. So what is the disconnection?
Ken Costa on spiritual hunger.
A quote from Ken Costa in his book, God At Work.
There is a new intensity in the search of values and a meaningful way of life. The surge in spiritual hunger, particularly among young people, has increased, and the institutional church has largely found itself unable to provide the necessary food. So many people’s search continues with out guidance – ‘undirected’. With in the church, the ‘official guides’ are taken up in a distracting internal agenda of their own relating to the role of women, sexuality and other parochial agendas, debates that seem irrelevant to most. For many, therefore, this undirected search merely leads into the dead ends of contemporary fads.
There is a spiritualuty that people are seeking that goes beyond the mere materialist (in this sense modern scientific thinking of the 20th century has failed). Yet strangely, the church on the whole doesn’t seem equipped to meet them and help them along the way. The church simply guides those who happen to come to us. Movements like fresh expressions are gathering momentum – many of them are really engaging with the communities in which they are set in contemporary ways.
Dismissing the emergent church
St Benedict has written a good piece on some church’s (in particular one nameless pastor’s) reluctance to engage with the emergent church – the movement that is seeking to engage with those who have never been to church by recreating church in a way that is accessible and distinct from traditional religion.
The article is here: http://stbenedict.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/emergent/
Whilst it is certainly important to look at the theology of new movements, not all of which will be biblical, the underlying motive to engage in God’s mission in new and creative ways, in order to help those without faith and those who have never got on with Christianity as it has been traditionally practised is certainly a good one. Good theology should be the foundation to these though, not an optional extra.
Mission Shaped Questions (vi)
I’m onto the final chapter in the book Mission Shaped Questions, edited by Stephen Croft.
In this chapter Steven Croft asks the question – what is church? Are there any defining values or practices that are essential?
Picking out some basics from the early church, and from how Jesus dealt with his disciples, Croft brings out some (fairly obvious) points: Church is a community centred around Jesus. The disciples, like the church are called to Jesus to be sent out. At the heart of the early church activities are prayer, teaching, breaking bread together and fellowship. (Incidentally, the greek work for fellowship is koinonia which is often translated ‘communion’. There’s a great article about that by Father Stephen)
In any new expression of church, this can be summed up into having a ‘Up’ dimension, an ‘In’ dimension, an ‘Out’ dimension and an ‘Of’ dimension. These are the same as Mike Breen’s suggestions from his book The Passionate Church (the chapter on the triangle), except Breen doesn’t have the ‘Of’.
In a nutshell:
- Up – an aspect of journeying towards God in worship and discipleship
- In – relationships/fellowship/communion together which reflects the communion with God and God’s communion with himself in the Trinity.
- Out – mission focussed
- Of – this is the one Breen don’t have, but it reflects what that individual church belongs to, traditionally, denominationally, and as the worldwide church. I might also add that the church is ‘of’ the culture it is set in too
Croft also suggest that a fresh expression of church must work hard to show why it is/is not doing what it is doing.
A new community will need to go back to first principles and discover why and how that practice came about and why it remains a good and helpful common discipline. (p196)
Consequently, he sees this being a three way discussion between scripture, tradition and the new community. Again, I would suggest that the surrounding culture should enter the discussion too.
All in all, it seems is a great place to start, freeing the church of all those things that we often think of as church but which aren’t really essential.
It involves a letting go of the old and persistent paradigm that the real church is the assembly that meets on Sunday mornings fr the parish Eucharist in a stone building with wooden pews… (p195)
If the only things that are essential are scripture, prayer, fellowship, breaking break, all centred aroudn coming to and going out from Jesus, a fresh expression then has much leeway in determining new ways to be church and engage with those who have never set foot in a traditional church building. It is going back to first principles and starting from scratch with the added benefit of 2000 years of Christian experience and tradition.
Mission Shaped Questions (v)
I’m currently reading through parts of the book Mission Shaped Questions, edited by Stephen Croft.
Chapter 11 by Martin Warner. It is no secret that that society in Britain is becoming increasingly unchurched – that is, there are increasing numbers of people who have not had any significant contact with a church, except minimally at school. This means, he claims, that society has little understanding of the concept or experience of God. Where then should Christians start when attempting to communicate with those from outside the church?
Our starting point as Christians seeking to invite our contemporaries to explore the enterprise of prayer and spirituality is no longer the divine, but the human, that which, as Christians, we believe is made in the image of God. (p175)
As humanity is made in God’s image, there are aspect of himself in all of us. We must then seek to find what it is that gives is, as humans, authenticity in our humanity – experiences which counter societal individualism to present something ‘good’ and ‘true’.
He gives a couple of examples. Everyone sees the need for a holiday, otherwise they would burn out. Often people go somewhere relaxing or different – we need a rest. This, Warner claims, is a human experience of Sabbath – setting aside time to recharge and reconnect with ourselves and families in the midst of a busy world.
Another example is that of grief or trauma. Everyone recognises that a time for healing is required, and there is a need to ‘get over’ whatever it was. This healing is often done through talking. In almost every Christian body, community and talking is central. Community, fellowship and communion with God and others brings healing is small and large situations and points to the healing from God.
There was one great quote at the end of the chapter, when Warner had turned to talk about the sense of spirituality created by art, and the fact that we as people are attracted by beauty. Often artists attempt to communicate things that are not easily put into words and that point beyond themselves. Warner was opening an exhibition at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Right opposite St Paul’s across the river is the Tate Modern Art gallery which draws thousands of visitors every week. He was challenged by a reported who claimed that art galleries are the cathedrals of today.
It was an interesting point but not persuasive. We at St Paul’s are fascinated by the possibilities that the Millennium Bridge opens up between our two buildings. But what we also find interesting is the fact that galleries are filled with images all looking for a narrative; we have a narrative and are confident and content to allow images to illuminate and enrich it. (p183-4)
So – the thrust of that chapter was about identifying aspects of humanity that resonate with and authenticate our lives, to ask why they resonate, and to point to God. The possibilities for fresh expressions are endless.
Mission Shaped Questions (iii)
I’m currently reading through the book Mission Shaped Questions, edited by Stephen Croft.
In chapter 6, Graham Tomlin opens by asking the question, should the church transform culture. The usual quick answer is yes. Behind this answer lies work done by Richard Neibuhr – the idea that fiath should engage with a particular culture to transform and change it. However, one can’t help but say that and have in the back of your mind all the times when the church has had power over culture and has either wasted it or done terrible things.
In the opposite corner is a church that does not try to transform culture, but simply builds its own (based on work by Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder). My first reaction to this was that it was stupid. Hasn’t the church been doing that for too long and in the process become irrelevant? That is not what they meant.
Tomlin claims that the main aim of the culture of the church is to bear witness to the kingdom of Christ in the world:
“Church is intended to be a place where we can catch an echo, a glimpse of the kingdom of God, in which God really gets his way. Church, of course, is not the same as the kingdom, but it is to point to it, to embody it, to identify it, and the demonstrate it for anyone to see” (p69)
Out of church may (should?) come Christians who are able to influence culture positively (such as the Clapham sect who helped to end the slave trade), but the mission of the church is not that. It is to demonstrate and live out the kingdom.
So, when thinking of fresh expressions of church or new congregation plants that seek to engage with particular aspects of our fragmented culture, the task for a church is to find the values and practices that most effectively express the culture of the kingdom to the society we’re in. This calls us to be relevant as well as faithful; to express the culture of the church in accessible and appropriate ways.
Some of the values that Tomlin pulls out (from Eph 4:24-32) as important to the culture of the church are the ones that develop real relationship and community, such as truthfulness, generosity, compassion etc. The values to be avoided are those that promote ‘personal empires and conflict’. For example in a culture where consumerism is rife, a culture of generosity might be one of the virtues that a new church strives for. Where there is a lot of aggression and violence, church should promote and practice love for enemies, peacefulness etc.
Tomlin also promotes the use of disciplines to help these virtues and aspirations become a regular reality rather than an occasional good moment. He does give examples but stresses that the disciplines should be contextualised to the target culture, so to stand out and have a good effect.
This was an interesting chapter. In the course of setting up a fresh expressions it is all too easy to go in gung-ho for the target culture and forget some important parts of Christian living. The Church is called to have a mission to express a kingdom that is contrary in many ways to how this world works. A church which doesn’t do this (like MeChurch) can simply become no different to the surrounding culture. This will neither be attractive nor useful. Equally, however, a church must be serious about engaging with the world so to live out its ‘kingdom’ culture in a way that is understood and accessible to the people they are trying to reach.
