Mission Shaped Church

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Mission Shaped Church
Change about Church behind
Presented by The Sheffield Centre Church Armys
Research Unit
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The gathered church of Christendom
Inherited view Church is Parson Parish Place P
eople who congregate to Praise
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Context has shaped Church

• Where did they meet in early Rome?
• What took off after Constantine?
• Where do Christians meet in China today?
• Match the pictures

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Whats your scene?

• Kinds of people what are they looking for ?
• English speaking Retireds
• Ditto - Young families
• Mixed marriage families
• France the happy life?

• Location options
• Borrow a RC church
• Or a Prot. Hall
• Use a home
• NOT public buildings
• What about a café

• Another slant
• Émigré Disciples
• Christendom Attenders
• Non Christian explorers
• Church leavers

One size fits all ?
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Congregationless Christians ?

• Its a fast growing trend
• Those turned off by the institution
• Jesus we do Church we dont

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Parts of Scripture suggests church is ..

• A scattered people Jas 1.1 1 Pet 1.1
• Resident Aliens, Exiles, Diaspora
• A special people 1 Pet 2 priests to the world
• not a building, facing inwards
• A self sufficient people
• Paul leaves them and trusts the Spirit
• A subversive people
• Caesar is not Lord, Jesus is, it is his Ecclesia.

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1 Some different pictures of the church

• Salt
• Yeast
• Its Values

• The city set on a hill
• The lamp on the stand
• Its Values

Gathered Visible Attracting
Location Presence Purpose
Dispersed Invisible Subverting
We are free to use all of them which suit best
after Christendom ?
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Within the Western Church in Exile
Expect church to be larger and smaller Cells,
Congregations, Celebrations and wider links
It helps us to embrace the diversity we need
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Down with congregational imperialism
Congregation is Church Church is Priest
Building and Worship
Cluster as Church
Congregate as Church
Cell as Church
Celebrate as Church
Because all levels are church
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2 The special people

• Priests to the world
• Out there, dispersed where people are
• In touch with them culturally
• In Go mode, before Come invitations
• Grow what is needed, when and where
• An Odyssey story.

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2 What about a moving church ?
Synagogue was invented by the Jews dispersed in
Exile. The Temples destruction was both a
judgment and a favour.. George Lings 2005
Church planting is instinctively happier with
the transient rather than the intransigent. Its
doctrine of the church is more to do with
Tabernacle than with the Temple. George Lings
1998
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The recently lost sheep ..
Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open
country and go after the lost sheep until he
finds it?
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3 Locally self sufficient

• Dispersed church is perhaps better
• It spreads Christians around
• It needs Christians who have learnt
• To break the dependency/control collusion
• To be the church in their context
• To feed themselves
• To seek God, with others nearby
• To grow their contacts
• To relate to the wider church
• China is a good example of growth

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4 Subverting

• Remember the yeast or the salt ?

• A little makes a lot of difference
• Could your little group cause a rise in your
  circle or community
• Could you and your friends make things around you
  more worth savouring

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Concentration Dispersal
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A good NT pattern
There are long and short cycles The short one
weekly? could be Gather to Scatter The longer
ones involve sending out whole groups Like from
Jerusalem, Antioch and Ephesus
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This might happen

• Accidental church ?

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Change is not new rather its original

• Consider the NT mission and Church
• From Jews only to Jews, Greeks and Romans
• The language changed
• From Synagogue to Ecclesia
• In models of Atonement
• From Temple to dispersed houses
• Circumcision was dropped
• So were many food laws
• Some resisted this the Judaisers

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Official changes for the clergy!

• For the laity to become more priestly it is
  therefore necessary for the clergy to become more
  episcopal
• ABM Occasional paper 18 p 8 from Derby Diocese

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Episcope a focus of
VALUES and guarding them VISION and seeing it is
done UNITY and Connectedness CARE of
leaders RECOGNISING gifts and callings

• Episcope

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But how can dispersed be healthy?

• Think about what is church
• Jesus gave us some dispersed models
• Church exists at lots of sizes and levels
• Growth in self-sufficiency sounds good
• Being more dispersed means more contacts
• What would be good yardsticks of being/ becoming
  church ?

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OHCA
Enduring Marks of the Church
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How are these criteria changing?
The church is One Holy Catholic Apostolic. But
suppose Oneness is no longer Roman uniformity
but modelled on the Trinity . Holiness is a
call to belong to God and becoming like him, but
mixed with fallen provisionality . Catholicity
is not just universality. But expression of
interconnectedness and interdependence
. Apostolic is not a fight over succession. But
a Missionary identity of being sent .
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Church for Resident Aliens

• The four journeys re-described
• UP
• Not attending services, but seeking God
• IN
• Not going to Church, but live out attractive
  community
• OUT
• Wanting others to know this life with God in
  Christ, through act and word
• OF
• Living an interdependence with the wider Church

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Church is alive thanks MRS NERG

• M Movement
• R Respiration
• S Sensitivity
• N Nutrition
• E Excretion
• R Reproduction
• G Growth

Which would you say the Church is good at ?
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Last Orders ? - not on your life !
Monastic life may seem utterly out of tune with
the spirit of our times, yet if we are entering
another Dark Age, it may be to the wisdom of such
a way the Church of today needs to turn
I sense that the renewal of both the Church and
Society will come through the re-emerging of
forms of Christian community that are homes of
generous hospitality, places of challenging
reconciliation and centres of attentiveness to
the living God. Brother Samuel SSF Mission and
Community BFBS 1998
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Questions

• How do you see church. where you are, living out
  being dispersed as well as gathered?
• What are the challenges in becoming more
  self-sufficient ?