Roland Allen writing in 1927

Forwarded to me.

Writing in 1927 he said….

The spontaneous expansion of the Church reduced to its element is a very simple thing. It asks for no elaborate organisation, no large finances, no great numbers of paid missionaries. In its beginning it may be the work of one man, and that a man neither learned in the things of this world, nor rich in the wealth of this world.

The organisation of a little church on the apostolic model is also extremely simple, and the most illiterate converts can use it, and the poorest are sufficiently wealthy to maintain it. Only as it grows and spreads through large provinces and countries do any complex questions arise, and they arise only as a church composed of many little churches is able to produce leaders prepared to handle them by experience learned in the smaller things. There is no need at the beginning to talk of preparing leaders to face great national issues. By the time the issues have become great and complex the leaders of the little churches of today will have learned their lesson, as they cannot possibly be taught it beforehand.

No one, then, who feels within himself the call of Christ to embark on such a path as this need say, I am too ignorant, I am too inexperienced, I have too little influence, or I have not sufficient resources. The first apostles of Christ were in the eyes of the world ‘unlearned and ignorant’ men: it was not until the Church had endured a persecution and had grown largely in numbers that Christ called a learned man to be His apostle. The missionaries who spread the Gospel and established the Church throughout the lands round the Mediterranean are not known to us as men of great learning or ability. Most of them are not known by name at all. Only when the Church had been established and had spread widely did Christ call the great doctors whose names are familiar to us by their writings or by their great powers of organisation and government.
What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which uniting a man to Christ, sets him on fire. Such a man can believe that others finding Christ will be set on fire also. Such a man can see there is no need of money to fill a continent with the knowledge of Christ. Such a man can see that all that is required to consolidate and establish that expansion is the simple application of the simple organisation of the Church. It is to men who know that faith, who see that vision, that I appeal. Let them judge what I have written.

Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, 150.

Mission of church in an emerging society

In his book “Mandate to Difference” Walter Brueggmann uses Isaiah 56 as a basis for thinking about the mission of the church in emerging society. I’d like to summarize the 5 points he makes about the text.

1. The EXILE as the true character and venue of our humanness is an alternative to the dominant imagination that we live in a centred, coherent, world in which we can establish security on our own terms. The claim of success and security, so powerful among us causes us not to notice the cast out and often not to acknowledge our own displacement or anxiety about coming displacement.
2. OPENNESS TO FOREIGNERS, that is, to welcome others who are not like us is a radical alternative to the ideology of conformity tht takes those not like ourselves to be dangerous and unacceptable deviants.
3. The MEMORY OF THE EXODUS that leads to neighbourly generosity is the primary work of a covenantal society. The memory in practice issues in a subordination of the economy to the social fabric with focal attention to the marginalised who are without social access, social power or social advocacy. The covenant is an assertion of interdependence and an institution of mutuality tht flies in the face of acquisitiveness tht regards everyone else as a competitor for the same commodity or as a threat to myself-securing.
4. The VISIBLE PRACTICE OF SABBATH REST that disengages from the pursuit of commodity is an insistent assertion about the nature of being human. The paue for receptivity of holy gifts that are inscrutably given is a break in the rigor of production and consumption.
5. The PRACTICE OF PRAYER that binds us in love to God and to neighbour beyond our small claim is the resolve to live life on terms other than our own. This is against conventional tribalism that teaches us to yield is to lose.

Keeping the Sabbath

Happy is the mortal who does this,
the one who holds it fast,
who keeps the sabbath, not profaning it,
and refrains from doing any evil. (Isaiah 56:2)

The reason that Sabbath is a radical discipline is that it is a regular, disciplined, highly visible withdrawal from the acquisitive society of production and consumption that is shaped by commodity. Work stoppage and rest are public statements that one's existence and eh existence of one's society are not defined by the pursuit of commodity but precisely by the intentional refusal of commodity.
(Walter Brueggmann Mandate to Difference p59)

Evangelistic attractional model - a query.

Was sent this from Alan Hirsch's blog by my USA friend.

The Christendom template tends to bolt down missional impulse by substituting it with an attractional one. So while the local church does genuinely do forms of evangelism and outreach, because it measures effectiveness through numerical growth, better programming, and increase of plant and resources, it requires the attractional impulse to support it. The exchange is subtle but profound and the net effect is to unwittingly block the outward bound movement that is built-in to the gospel. Instead of being sown to the wind, the seeds are put into ecclesial storehouses thus effectively extinguishing the purpose they were made for. And because of this, it quite simply can never hope to impact the broader culture as Jesus movements are able to. This is an attempt to try portray the evangelistic attractional mode….

A is for adaptive change

A is for adaptive change.
A survey of 200 university students noted that "When I graduate I will probably have a job that does not exist today" in a world in which "I did not create the problems but they are my problems." This is adaptive change, the awareness that the skills and habits and training of today are of little help in the world of tomorrow. Missional conversation wants to wrestle with this context of adaptive change.

St. Andrews Uniting Church

St. Andrews Uniting Church
Originally uploaded by bodulka

For a moment's reflection

Originally uploaded by fliegender

Easter is really "early" this year, 2008!

For those of you who want to know REALLY IMPORTANT stuff.

"Easter this year is on the second earliest possible date - 23 March.
Apparently it won't be this early again until 2160, and won't be on
the earliest date, 22 March, until 2285.”

"Attractional" model church.

I was spoken to by a member of a new church building located not too far from where I exercise my ministry. This person spoke of how that with their new building, its facilities, etc. they were hoping to "attract" (his words) new people to the church.

I think the problem with an attractional model is that it fundamentally contradicts the teachings of Jesus, especially that we can’t be his disciples unless we deny ourselves, pick up our crosses and follow him.

The attractional model is based on “come here and see all the stuff we can give you” and Jesus gets buried deep in all the "stuff" we reckon we've got . It may be well-intentioned (maybe) but it ends up as consumerism with a little Jesus sprinkled on top.

We’ve rightly shared that life with Jesus is life to the full but in countless ways we’ve sold the notion that you can live without first dying. It may not be catchy or appeal to felt needs, but an important part of the Church’s message is “you need to die… we can help.” But until WE die to self (individually and corporately), such a message rings hollow.

The church has too frequently preached Jesus’ “deny your self” message when what we’ve really meant is deny yourself as an individual, give to “the church”, then we can live selfishly as a group - the best Sunday morning show, the nicest coffee area, the biggest and best childen's area, etc. etc.

How did it come to this?!

You can see the problem throughout Christendom in the building of elaborate cathedrals, but I think the full blown attractional/consumeristic model is a fairly recent phenomenon. As I see it, maybe its just grown to the point that we can no longer avoid wrestling with it.

From "Articles on returning humanity to working life"

I was directed by an acquaintance to Joe Nocera’s article in New York Times Business section. The piece is entitled Put Buyers First? What a Concept. The following is part of a review by a writer on 'business leadership', etc. As you will appreciate by this brief "piece", and from reading the whole article, that what is being said is important not only for business, but also for our conduct with each other in other relationships as well. It's all about our 'character'.

The article is about customer service at Amazon.com and Wall Street’s reaction to it. Two brief extracts. The first is

Legg Mason’s legendary fund manager, Bill Miller, who has made a small fortune for his investors by betting big on Amazon, told me that “Wall Street is almost fanatically focused on margin expansion and contraction.”

But I couldn’t help wondering if maybe there wasn’t something else at play here, something Wall Street never seems to take very seriously. Maybe, just maybe, taking care of customers is something worth doing when you are trying to create a lasting company. Maybe, in fact, it’s the best way to build a real business — even if it comes at the expense of short-term results.

Here’s the second extract:

What Wall Street wanted from Amazon is what it always wants: short-term results. That is precisely what Dell tried to give investors when it scrimped on customer service and what eBay did when it heaped new costs on its most dedicated sellers. Eventually, these short-sighted decisions caught up with both companies.

The article has implications far beyond buying and selling. In just about every aspect of our lives — especially in the workplace — we are constantly faced with choosing between short-term gratification and long-term benefits that require patience to mature.

When you choose to create relationships that people value and trust, it may take a while for the returns to show up, but once they do, they nearly always grow strongly over the years. It’s a long-term bet on something that will last.

When you resort to “grab-and go” management, and manipulation for short-term benefits to yourself, the returns may also take a while to show themselves. And when they do — as they surely will one day — they tend to be swift, unexpected, and brutal. It’s a short-term bet on something that will likely evaporate as quickly as it arose and leave you wishing you’d never done it.

A further indulgence- two more pictures of Claudia

Content with Nana & having a not so happy Christmas Day.

Catching up!

Have got a bit behind, as they say, over the last couple of weeks. A lot to do with Christmas and all the worship, etc., commitments associated with that wonderful celebration, but, can I say it, beautifully distracted with a momentous happening! The birth of a grand-daughter Claudia Rose Guy on 22 December to our daughter Siobhan & son-in-law Scott. We've been, Gaynor & I, very busy Nana & Grandpa. As well we've been regularly going to Siobhan & Scott's 'new' home to help with renovations so that they can move in on 12 January. So, hopefully, I can begin to think & write a bit more but, at this moment Siobhan & Claudia are with us as Scott tries to make the house habitable after some workmen(?) failed to complete their tasks and thus put everything behind by weeks!
Anyway, here is a picture of Claudia Rose - at 7 hours of age!