Archive for the ‘Community’ Category

Posted on January 3, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

That thing called ‘Church’

During 2007 I had interactions with numerous church pastors and planters, both in the flesh and on the web. Through these I’ve become convinced that I need to get my ecclesiology clear in my head over the course of 2008. So I’m going to concentrate my studies in this area. Here’s a list of some of the questions I want to have a look at (feel free to point me towards literature that deals with any of the questions below):

According to the New Testament what do you have to have, as absolute minimum, for a church to exist?

What is the relationship between the church and the Kingdom of God?

What is the relationship between the church and social concern (as opposed to the relationship between Christians and social concern)?

What is the relationship between the church (local) and culture?

Is the Knox-Robinson view of church too narrow?

What does over-realised eschatology look like in the church?

What does under-realised eschatology look like in the church?

How do the above two questions relate to the plausibility of the homogeneous unit principle?

What do those same two questions have to say about the depth of gospel community a church should be attempting?

Are multi-site churches theologically viable?

I think these questions are crucial to not only ponder but begin to give solid biblical answers to if a new group of young leaders aim to plant and grow fresh expressions of church that reflect the pattern of the New Testament.

Posted on November 16, 2007 - by Anthony

Come here often? Prt 2

This is a follow up on some thoughts i have had after posting previously on visitors in our churches.  In those posts it was helpful to look at church services from the actual view point of the visitor, instead of trying to guess what they might think and feel about coming to church.  One theme of the two posts that i picked up on was the desire for the visitor not to embarrass themselves!  That really got me thinking because some of the horror stories coming out of the article about “hugging churches” made me cringe…a lot…a lot.  So in a sense it seems that for many, visiting a church means being unseen and yet also feeling welcomed.  For some of the journalists who had a good experience it boiled down to a sensitive Christian community that did not ignore them but made them feel welcome.  Easy, right?  Not quite, as i said before there is no formula because we are dealing with people and as much as humans exhibit the characteristics of the legendary lemmings, we cannot predict how people will react when they come into our meetings.

 Yet, i think we need to start with what i mentioned earlier, sensitivity to the visitor. This is key as i think for many churches we may have fallen into the trap that we are not expectant of the visitor, particularly the sceptical visitor.  Maybe we have stopped asking friends, maybe we have stopped listening to the world’s questions, or maybe we see services as times for Christians and should in no way should cater for the visitor.  For the Christian? Yes, first and foremost it is a time for us as Jesus’ disciples to meet together, encourage one another, hear from God’s Word, prayer together and generally fellowship.  But, our scheduled meetings are not some mystical time where God’s people are meant to meet “behind closed doors” ignoring the outside world.  Paul says to the Corinthians that there will be outsiders in their midst (cf. Paul’s assumption of the presence of unbelievers in the congregation in 1 Cor 14) and so as a church who meets together we need to be sensitive to this fact. Here’s an example that i know got me every time when i first started going to church meetings.  For instance, the service leader may tell the congregation that later we will “hear the Word of God” from the “preacher” who will come up and explain the Bible.  Now, try and put yourself in the visitors shoes and imagine what they might think of language like that? This takes us back to a questions i had in the previous post; What then is the purpose of our meetings?

Paul has one goal for for the public gathering of believers: to build one another up.  As Christians do this in love, it becomes a massive witness to the outsider.  However, what ever we do in our meetings needs to be intelligible and helpful for the outsider in order for them to simply understand what is going on.  This seems pretty obvious…until you think through the various practices we have at our Church meetings that we understand, but for outsider is completely irrelevant. 

Which leads us to the question: how much should the outsider’s perspective shape the way we do our church services? (or do church as a whole?) Is it just an issue of the language we use? or does it go even further to mindsets?

Here’s my take for what it is worth: sensitivity means understanding that there will be outsiders in our midst.  The cultural and perspectival gap between the believers and non-believers will be massive, that gap needs to be lessened.  So yes, the outsider should have a definite say as to how we do our meetings in order to make it relevant, fresh and missional.  If it becomes a “locals” club for Christians with only their preferences then how are going to connect with the unbeliever?

Lets try and be sensitive to the outsider and purposeful in bringing them in!

Posted on November 1, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

The Quest for Authenticity

Its no secret that I’m often quite fed up with many contemporary expressions of the church. My big issue is authenticity or lack thereof. I want authenticity, I want to be involved in living breathing communities committed to the Gospel in a fresh but authentic manner.

I want to meet with Christians who ‘let it all hang out’ so to speak. I want to meet Christians who understand that they are rebellious sinners, who understand the broken nature of this world – but that also live with the tension of being instruments of proclamation and blessing. I want to meet Christians who want a real Jesus, not a soft sissy who loves everyone so much that he’s lost his moral compass and can’t judge sin for what it really is. At the same time I want to meet Christians who realize that Jesus isn’t just handing out ‘get out of hell free’ tickets but is actively teaching what it means to love and live like residents of the New Creation. I want to meet Christians who struggle to die to self everyday and acknowledge it. I want to meet Christians who know what God’s will is for this planet and don’t run around all day long chasing ‘peaces and fleeces’. I want to meet Christians who take what God has said in scripture both seriously and with humility and don’t use it as a power tool to make their own selfish and megalomaniac alterations on society. I want to meet Christians who love outside of church and home group meeting times. I want to meet Christians who think past guitars and drums when I mention the word ‘worship’. I want to meet Christians who fail but are big enough to run back to the Cross of Jesus and beg for real mercy. I want to meet Christians who know that if they don’t have Jesus then they have nothing – and this is worth fighting tooth and nail for.
I want to meet these people and live with them. I want to see others be transformed and become these people. I want to see myself transformed and become ‘these people’.

Posted on October 24, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

Why I DON’T Want to be Involved in Church Planting

(Following on from my last church planting post – this a list of reasons as to why I’m absolutely terrified about getting into church planting…)

I’m terrified that my work ethic is pathetic and that church planting requires people who work to the max.

I’m terrified that my life will on be on display to an entire body of Christians – I don’t want to let them down.

I’m terrified of the responsibility of having to teach the Bible with the deepest integrity every single week.

I’m terrified of displaying authentic orthopraxy.

I’m terrified of loving people, especially those who tick me off.

I’m terrified of all the massive social concerns our country faces.

I’m terrified of working with other Christians who don’t agree with me.

I’m terrified of trying to balance out a humble orthodoxy.

I’m terrified of the possible limits to which my body, mind and emotions will be stretched.

I’m terrified of building my own empire.

Posted on September 29, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

Total Church Arrives…

I finally got my grubby little paws on a copy of Steve Timmis and Tim Chester’s book Total Church. I know I’m a bit behind the times here but in South Africa the books don’t always get to our stores quite as quickly.

Now the really big problem that I have is to find the time to get into this exciting book. Hopefully there’ll be some blog posts sharing a bit of what I’m enjoying from the book along the way. Stay tuned…

Posted on September 26, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

Love for God IS Love for People

In Mark 12 Jesus is confronted by a teacher of the law who had evidently been sitting in and around the conversations that we’re going on between Jesus and the other religious authorities that day. He’d noticed how Jesus had skillfully avoided their theological traps and turned numerous questions around so that the other religious authorities scrambling desperately for answers. This teacher was impressed and so wanting to see what Jesus was really about at his core he asked, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’

Jesus answers by quoting the ‘Shema’ from Deuteronomy 6 and outlines what he’s about by basically saying, ‘God alone is God, therefore love him with everything you have.’ What is striking is that he doesn’t leave it there, instead he adds another commandment, ‘love people as you love yourself’. The teacher only asked him for one but he gave two – why? Surely it must be because loving God is intricately wrapped up with loving people in this world. Whilst loving people is not all there is to loving God it is so closely connected that Jesus connects the two. Very simply, we cannot love God and not love people.

On Saturday I sat at a lunch table at a homeless shelter with a young guy from the Cape Flats, a Zimbabwean refugee and an elder Xhosa man far displaced from his home desperately looking for work. They were all very different from me, and to be honest conversation was hard and awkward, but Jesus says I have to love them, becuase I claim to love God. May we pray that God would give us the love for all his people that his Son so evidently displayed when he walked this earth.

Posted on September 20, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

Gospel Conviction: What We’ve Missed #5

Links to Part I, II, III, & IV

The average member of an average western evangelical church (MRC) needs a mindset change in order to overcome the compartmentalization that we’ve already talked about in Part IV. That mindset revolves around the idea of envisioning oneself as a missionary in the surrounding culture. This concept has been the cornerstone concept of what it means to be ‘missional’ all along. The question is: What motivates us to adopt such a mindset.

Some might feel we need to adopt this mindset after looking around at the evangelical church and noting how its failed to engage culture effectively with the gospel – especially cultures that have postmodern tendencies. However whilst this failure should spur us on to improve the situation it cannot be our basis. We are not simply ‘re-actionaries’, we are first and foremost ‘actionaries’.

Some of us might be adopting this mindset because its ‘cool’ to be missional in the new trendy church climate – sipping wine, wearing Crocs and discussing new church forms in low-key small groups meetings (okay maybe skip the Crocs part if you live outside of Gauteng). This is completely inadequate and we need to check ourselves on this one.

What drives us and motivates us to adopt a missionary mindset is first and foremost a deep conviction of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God is at work reconciling an alienated people to himself. That has to be our basis for motivation in becoming missional. We are not missional because the generation before us wasn’t, we are missional because God is reconciling people to himself in Jesus. Now this might sound like a simple point that doesn’t really shatter the ground you’re standing on. Yet I think that whether or not we will actually adopt a missional approach to ministry and life hinges on whether or not we have deep convictions about the gospel.

Being involved in the whole missional conversation has temptations of its own, we get caught up with the fads and ‘cool-speak’ of being missional and lose then basis of why we’re being missional in the first place. If all we’re ever doing is blogging about this, attending conferences, reading books, drinking coffee and meeting in trendy small groups then we’ve bought into ‘being missional’ without the basis of the gospel.

What is your basis for ‘being missional’?

Posted on September 18, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

The Kingdom in the Church

When it comes to loving and caring for people the majority of the texts in the New Testament seem to be primarily concerned that God’s people be concerned with each other. Whilst many of Jesus’ statements can be taken more generally, there is precious little in the epistles regarding love and concern for those outside of God’s people, outside of the church. This is a bit of an intriguing phenomenon that begs further study. Here however is a starting thought which you’re welcome to agree with, disagree with or expand upon:

God’s kingdom is about the rule of Christ, that rule will only be consummated completely when Christ returns, is declared to be lord of all and every knee, willingly or unwillingly bows in submission to him. At the moment though Christ rules by his Spirit which is to say he rules by his church, the one place on this earth, where his Spirit dwells. His church then are to display the kingdom of God to a watching world who have rejected God’s dominion.

So when Christians love and care for one another with selflessness they display the kingdom to the outside. Hence the writers of the epistles are at pains to call Christians to love and care in community. Whatever the Christian’s call to social action, doing justice and showing love and mercy, it must begin with the church – that much is absolutely clear I think.

Posted on September 12, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

Don’t Forget Entailments: What We’ve Missed #3

The missional church places a high premium on the entailments of the gospel – things such as living in community, social concern, doing justice etc. I think its still important that we make a distinction between ‘the gospel’ and its entailments (and you can see why here) but at the same time that doesn’t mean we ignore the entailments.

Does this undermine the proclamation of the gospel? No, it shouldn’t. I think a lot of people think in terms of percentages of church effort. So you might say the church aims to do 60% gospel proclamation and spend 40% of its efforts on the entailments – this way the entailments get some sort of recognition but the church rightly keeps gospel proclamation as the main thing. Now whilst the concept of keeping gospel proclamation the main thing is an admirable concept I think the outworking into percentages is flawed. As I see it a faithful reading of scripture would have us place 100% effort into gospel proclamation and 100% effort into the entailments and not pick and choose like we tend to do, often ignoring the entailments. If you take the proclamation away you’ll either get legalism or a social gospel. On the other hand if you take the effort away from the entailments you end up with a powerless and beggarly gospel.

I do want to argue for an order however. I’m convinced that the only thing that will keep us persevering with the entailments (and let’s be honest – its hard work) is a right understanding of the gospel. We will never faithfully answer the call of things like social concern and doing justice if our hearts are not completely gripped by the love of Christ displayed to us in the gospel. Without it our works turn into a legalistic system of religion. Where many of us have forgotten or neglected the entailments the missional church provides us with an opportunity to put the balance right in this area – let us lift high the gospel and all of its entailments with zeal and dedication.

Posted on August 22, 2007 - by Stephen Murray

Goodmanson on Transforming Cities

This a post by Drew Goodmanson on how he and his church, in partnership with others, are seeking to transform San Diego with the Gospel of Christ. What astounds me is the sheer comprehensiveness of their ministries – take a look. Could we pull off something like this in South Africa?