DanSheffield

ecclesiological shifts - Murray

Almost a decade ago, I read Stuart Murray's Church Planting: Laying Foundations. Finally, someone with a theological reflection on pragmatic, church growth-style methods and metrics -- who also had significant 'hands-on' planting experience -- a reflective practitioner. A few years later he wrote Church After Christendom, speaking out of his experience in Britain (not the USA). He offers several markers for viewing our present ministry context:

• the church has moved from the center to the margin
• Christians now represent a minority opinion
• Christians are no longer 'settlers' shaping the heart of society, but sojourners, aliens, pilgrims who are no longer 'at home'
• In the past Christians had special status (ie tax-free properties, etc), now we are just one community among many in a plural society
• Christians no longer have power or control, we can only exercise influence through witnessing to our story and its implications
• We are no longer maintaining a supposedly Christian status quo, we are on mission within a contested environment
• Institutional approaches to church life must be renewed again to function as movement

 

Clergy killers and toxic congregations?

A number of my colleagues have been commenting on an article in the Huffington Post about the very real concern of toxic congregations and how they deal with their pastors in times of stress and uncertainty, causing great hurt and leaving 'the ministry.' For the most part the conversation takes place within a Christendom worldview where clergy and laity are seen as players on two different teams -- labour/management; symphony/conductor, whatever. And a worldview that focuses on the place of clergy as caregivers for congregations who pay their salaries -- the professionalized setting we find ourselves in at the moment.

A number of years ago (30) Richard Lovelace wrote:

It is still true that the model of congregational life in the minds of most clergy and laity is one in which the minister is the dominant pastoral superstar who specializes in the spiritual concerns of the Christian community, while laity are spectators, critics, and recipients of pastoral care, free to go about their own business because the pastor is taking care of the business of the kingdom.

One wonders if toxicity develops in a stagnant environment, the insular world of congregations focused on their own needs as spiritual consumers and pastors seeking to provide that care? What if there was no division between clergy and laity -- if we were all "the people of God?" What if healthy Christian community didn't require paid professionals to meet job description expectations? What if we were all living as kingdom people serving one another and our neighbours? What if Spirit-gifted followers of Jesus led us, as together we sought the direction of the Spirit in living out God's purposes for our families and our neighbourhoods?

What if we really were in a massive upheaval of all we understand 'church' to be?

becoming Christians differently

Great article at CT by Canadian Gordon T Smith, The New Conversion, on the move away from revivalistic definitions of "conversion" that also fueled a 'church growth' emphasis on reportable numbers -- success markers. Here's a sample:

Significantly, conversion was viewed as something distinct from "disciple-making." The making of disciples was thought to be subsequent to conversions. Thus evangelicals would speak of "making converts into disciples"; evangelism and disciple-making were distinguished, and typically the approach to evangelism was distinct from the approach to spiritual formation.

On each of these points, evangelicals are moving toward a thorough reenvisioning of the nature of conversion and redemption. Increasingly, there is appreciation that conversion is a complex experience by which a person is initiated into a common life with the people of God who together seek the in-breaking of the kingdom, both in this life and in the world to come. This experience is mediated by the church and thus necessarily includes baptism as a rite of initiation. The power or energy of this experience is one of immediate encounter with the risen Christ—rather than principles or laws—and this experience is choreographed by the Spirit rather than evangelistic techniques. Evangelicals are reappropriating the heritage of the Reformation with its emphasis on the means of grace, and thereby affirming the priority of the Spirit's work in religious experience.

 this article is part of Smith's essay in The Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology on "Conversion and Redemption."

David Fitch on 'why & how' of founding new Christian communities

David Fitch interviewed briefly by Martin Robinson

 

quoted in Faith Today

In newest issue of the Canadian magazine, Faith Today, I was quoted in an article by Debra Fieguth entitled, "Beyond Our Cultural Comfort Zones." The main quote from me is: "The future of the church in Canada is not more people like me...the future is going to look less and less like me. If we don't engage with this issue, then we are doing a disservice to ourselves." ('ourselves' - by which I meant 'the church') There are a couple other bites, as well.

There is a good feature on Cornerstone Christian Community Church pastored by Andrew Lau, as church that is working hard at being intentionally intercultural.

 

Randall at Wesley Studies Symposium

Tyndale Seminary is going to be hosting the Wesley Studies Symposium March 13, 2012, where I will be presenting a paper on my research project from a couple years ago -- Herbert E Randall, Holiness Movement Church missionary to Egypt. My article on Randall was published last year in the Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. 

"Rev. Herbert Edward Randall (1865-1938) served as the founding missionary of the Holiness Movement Church in Egypt (1899-1906), participated in the early stages of the Pentecostal movement in Canada (1907-1911) and then returned to Egypt as a Pentecostal missionary (1912-1938)."

"...Randall went on to play an instrumental role in the 'baptism in the Spirit' of Aimee Kennedy at Ingersoll, ON in 1907 [later Aimee Semple McPherson, flamboyant founder of the International Foursquare Church] and served as a ministry colleage alongside the founders of Canadian Pentecostalism [in particular R E McAlister]..."

churches helping new Canadians settle

Great story about my friend Joseph Seidu and Crestview Park Free Methodist Church in Winnipeg; featured in Winnipeg Free Press.

evangelical growth attributable to immigration

At the recent annual meeting of the Evangelical Missiological Society in Edmonton, Feb 24, 2012, sociology prof, Dr Joel Thiessen from Ambrose University College in Calgary presented a paper entitled: "Christianity in Multicultural Canada." He had a lot of very useful data to share. One little piece he shared was this:

Among Canadian evangelicals, over 17% are foreign-born and nearly 71% of those immigrants came to Canada since 1971 (Bramadat and Seljak 2008: 440). In fact, evangelical numerical growth is not attributable to conversion as much as it is to immigration, particularly among the Chinese community in Toronto and Vancouver (Guenther 2008). This has led to a vibrant subculture of Chinese evangelicals in Chinese-specific congregations and multicultural congregations, as well as theological training aimed at Chinese evangelicals. Taken together, some may suggest that Christianity in Canada is reaping the rewards of its foreign mission movement during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. As Bramadat and Seljak (2008: 5) remind us, “To meet a first- or second-generation Canadian of African descent who is in fact a third-, fourth-, or twenty-fifth-generation Christian, reminds us of the global reach of Christianity.”

 

culture and the missional church course/tools

Jared Siebert and I co-teach a 3-day course on Culture and the Missional Church -- examining the place of "culture" in understanding our local churches, as well as the neighbourhoods in which they function. Jared has a video clip hear of Nancy Luross, from Lakeview Church in Saskatoon, who took the course with us a couple weeks ago.

 

Frank Viola on what's central to the church's life and mission

Frank Viola is a thoughtful, reflective practitioner. Here are some recent thots from his blog.

The big sweeping epic of God’s timeless purpose is centered on a bride, a house, a body, and a family. These four elements make up the grand narrative of the Bible. The mission of God—the Missio Dei—is wrapped up with each of them.

God’s mission demands more than a theological head-nod of agreement. It demands practical expression. The Lord wants a people who embody the bride, the house, the body, and the family in every city on this planet.

In this post and the next, we will briefly explore the practical question of what it looks like when a local fellowship of believers fulfills what God is after and His eternal purpose moves from eternity to here.

He goes on to flesh out what he means by connecting

• Communion and the bride
• Corporate display and the house
• Community life and the body
• Commission and the family of God in every city

Read the rest of his post here.