Recently I was chewing thru what it looks like to be a missionary in suburbia – why its difficult – why progress is slow and why this is often ‘hard soil’ for the gospel. That’s not me being negative – I just think its the truth.

How do we make connections that allow for the gospel to be communicated in a genuine way?

As I was journalling this stuff it occured to me that effective relationship centred mission in suburbia requires several facets that to some degree ‘build on each other’ if we are to see people make a connection with both us and Christ. Very few things in life are completely linear and these ideas aren’t either, but here are my raw thoughts for your sampling and comment.

Building Block 1. Proximity – Not rocket science I realise. Its pretty obvious that its harder to develop significant relationships with people you aren’t physically close to. Our approach has been to move into a suburb with a group of families and focus intently on one specific area as a geographical region. We have been inspired by the incarnation and Eugene Petersen translates it beautifully in The Message John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood.”

We find ourselves asking if the word became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood then what would that mean? How would Jesus live in our community?

Occasionally in my more lustful moments, I have contemplated moving to a house that is closer to the beach with great ocean views etc, but even to move one suburb away would affect our mindset and the sense of community we have been seeking to develop locally in the fairly discrete Brighton estate. To live in Quinns Rock is not to live in Brighton (although they are neighbouring suburbs) and we have quite intentionally set our sights on a significant involvement in this local area.

I would suggest we are simply less able to develop significant relationships with those who live a greater distance from us, so in my mind proximity is a ‘first base’ factor. If this one isn’t in place then the rest (while not impossible) will get harder.

Just as a note we also see the workplace, family, friendships and all of life as significant from a kingdom perspective, but we moved to Brighton to become involved in this community specifically, hence that is the dominant object in our field of vision.

Building Block 2. Regularity – remember I am writing about relational mission here and significant relationships require significant time invested in them. If we are to get to know people then we will need to be in each others lives with a high degree of regularity.

What do I mean by that?…

Good question… I would suggest that weekly (ideally) face to face contact ought to be a minimum if we are to see relationships go beyond the fluff.

“Wow!… Who does that?!” I hear you say.

Fair question, especially for blokes in the burbs. Mums seem to be able to pull this off more easily with playgroups, coffee mornings etc, but for the 9-5 ers (or probably more accurately 7.30-6 ers) its a big ask. Once relationships are well established we can decrease the regularity and all is ok, but certainly in the early days regular contact is important if we are to gather enough momentum for a significant friendship to develop.

I have a couple of friends (not part of our Upstream

download no man s land

community) who I connect with weekly, but that is because we have a Friday night cards evening that brings us all together, or because we roast coffee/share common interests. I doubt we would catch up as often if there was no specific ‘purpose’. Life just gets too busy and tiring and its easy not to make time. I also see a fair bit of the blokes in the street, but that is simply because we live nearby and we engage in street banter.

I believe if we are to see community develop in the burbs it will be largely because we have chosen to make time to be with others, both in a planned and spontaneous way. If we don’t make/create the time then we will live with an ongoing sense of frustration that our community isn’t really ‘what a community should be’. (The marketing tagline for Brighton!)

Let’s be honest though. To see someone regularly is a big ask and this is the point at where relationships come unstuck for most of us unless we are very intentional about nurturing them.

One of Scot McKnight’s critique’s of the Emerging Church scene is that it is weak on evangelism. (See the quote below. Its long but worth reading.)

This is deeply ironic because much of what sparked the EC movement was a concern for the missional impetus of the church! However I would tend to agree with Scot that there is a real potential for evangelism to be lost in the more ‘process’ and ‘journey’ oriented approach to mission. It concerns me and disturbs me that we may end up losing the evangelistic impulse as we seek to be ‘missional’. Crazy…

There is much that is good about the EC approach to mission, but by and large the ability to call people to commitment is not up there as one of our notable strengths. I believe this needs some work and ultimately it may be the achilles heel – the difference between a movement that truly reshapes the landscape and just another bunch of people who had some good ideas but couldn’t make them fly.

As for me and my house – we are deeply and unashamedly committed to evangelism – the kind that loves people, serves them, prays for them, hangs out with them… and yes… tells them about Jesus and invites them to follow him.

My biggest struggle all along this road has been the fact that I can’t do the work of the HS in people’s hearts. I can do all of the above and people may still not choose to follow Jesus.

BUT let’s not stop speaking of Jesus and calling people to follow him. When we do that we might as well pack up the couches & red wine and go home…

I reckon its as serious as that.

In vs. Out

Now a third, very controversial element. Many in the emerging movement are post-evangelical because they are inherently skeptical about the “in vs. out” mentality of the evangelical movement. Let’s get the foil for the emergents on the table: evangelicals render judgment on who is and who isn’t a Christian. Catholics know who is Catholic, and Orthodox know who

summoning everyone to follow Jesus Christ and to discover the redemptive work of God in Christ through the Spirit of God. wallace gromit in the curse of the were rabbit online

If you were interested in what was said in the conversation between Geoff Westlake, myself and Don Carson regarding the emerging church then head over to our new Forge website where I have uploaded the whole 2 hours of interaction.

Yesterday we held our Forge Postcard event ‘Runs on the Board’.

One of the questions we are often asked as pioneers is ‘where are the runs on the board in experimental mission?’ Sometimes its asked with a good spirit and other times with a fair degree of cyncism. Either way we felt it was time to address the question head on so we set aside a couple of hours and held an open forum on the issue.

The format was fairly simple. Three of us – Geoff Westlake (Community Dev approach to mission), Stuart Wesley (Re-missionalising) and myself all had 15 minutes to present how we saw ‘the runs’ followed by 15 minutes of question and answer with an extended time of open question time / discussion at the end for 30 minutes.

We had around 40 people front up to be part of the forum and I think we could say it went very well.

We have made an MP3 of it, but I’m reluctant to put a link to it on here for everyone to access. Some of what was said needs to be understood in its context and there are some references to local communities. So we want to be careful how we use it. If you reckon you would find it helpful to listen to then drop me an email and I’ll figure out how to make it happen.

Otherwise you are welcome to look at my powerpoint notes here demon hunter movie .

I have often said that I am a theologian in the same sense that I am a missionary – a ‘backyard’ one who can pull stuff together – sometimes slowly – and not always with ease of an expert or with the polished finish. I am also not well travelled and so my reflection on the state of the EC in different countries is limited to what I read on blogs and what I hear from people who do visit eg. my friend Al Hirsch.

For those who are reading this and reflecting on what we need to hear I refer you to these various sources.

Andrew Jones began the ball rolling download snakes on a plane dvdrip way back in 2004 with a series of posts.

And then handballed it to Scot McKnight who did a fairly close analysis / review of Carson’s book. I have linked to the first in his series of posts, but there are 8 in all, so read them all if you are wanting to see one academic engage with another.

Andrew is one of the most respected leaders in the EC arena and has his finger on the pulse of what is happening around the world while Scot has approached the whole emerging church scene as an academic who is keen to give room for growth and experimentation, while calling people not to wander from the core tenets of the faith.

I’ll write more in due course – right now I have a nasty head cold that is making me feel groggy – but you could do worse than to go back and read all the stuff these guys have written. Another excellent piece of work was also produced by David Mills who was present at Carson’s lecture series.

Someone asked me if I still see myself as part of the emerging church, given Carson’s critique and his statement that ‘we may not actually be considered emerging in other parts of the world’. My response is to say ‘Yes I am.’ Not because I subscribe to all that he critiques, but largely because I am not about to allow him to define me out.

While I do have problems with such a fuzzy term as ’emerging church’, I am willing to accept that my own position sits somewhere under that umbrella and I am not about to opt out. That would feel kinda lame…

What about Cowboy Church?

Yeeha!

Ok here’s a question for the missionary church planters of this world…

What do you miss about where you have come from five people you meet in heaven the divx download ?

What was there about church as you used to do it that you would like to inject into this current expression?

For me, its a greater diversity of ages, especially the presence of some old people – the 70 + types. We have no one over 49 in our community and I sense we are the poorer for it. I have been praying for several months now for an older couple/s to come and join us because I feel we are missing their wisdom and experience as well as the (often) very unselfish nature that is common to that generation.

It struck me again as I spent the morning preaching at Como Baptist and bumped into a bunch of older people.

They see the world differently. They are often quaint, sometimes dottery and occasionally even a pain in the butt, but I feel my life is poorer because I don’t have as many old people in it at the moment. As well as what they give to me, they also force me to enter their world and grow me in the process.

I miss the old people and would love a few up here!