While I was up north a few weeks back on holidays I was reflecting on the task of mission in suburbia – by that I mean helping people encounter Jesus, and hopefully choose to follow him and become part of a community of faith.

We were in One Arm Point an aboriginal community 300 km down a dirt track from Broome. It is beyond the backside of nowhere.

In an aboriginal culture ‘community’ is a high priority as it seems is true for many more ‘tribal’ cultures (I was also reading Christianity Rediscovered) and the result is that when people become Christians they often do so en masse or at least in families.

Down here in the city when people become Christians they do it individually.

The issue it poses for us is then one of forming community in a society that normally avoids community. In ‘tribal’ cultures they get this aspect of discipleship working easier because communalism is already in their DNA.

For us individualism rules the DNA so when a person comes to faith we then have a harder task of somehow integrating them into a community.

It started me thinking that maybe we ought to intentionally live more tribally in the suburbs. It’d take some getting used to, and it would be radically counter-cultural, but I reckon it might be a missing link in the mission equation.

While we allow people to follow Jesus individually and don’t insist on tribal connection we will always find it hard.

So, my question is, who is your tribe? Who are you connecting with outside of the church who would actually be in your ‘tribe?

Over the last few years we have been knitting into a tribe and finding it a whole new way of living. I don’t know what will come of it in a kingdom sense, but I do thin it makes more sense than the typical western way of life.

David Fitch always writes great stuff and here he gives some very useful advice.

John

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Over the last couple of years its has been great to get to know Glenn Townend the new (ish) leader of the movement. Glenn came to West Oz from Victoria with plans of planting churches and has actually made it happen!

Many people talk about it, plan for it but don’t actually do it. Glenn is also very open to diversity and variety recognising that we won’t connect with everyone using a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

It was refreshing and encouraging to meet with Glenn and Phil Brown today to discuss the partnership we (Forge WA) will be establishing with them. These guys are fantastic thinkers and actually get on with the job. I like it – almost made me want to become an SDA!

While we’re on SDA’s Peter Roennfeldt has a new blog up and running. Peter is right in the know on church planting and diverse expressions of church, so if you want to know what’s happening around the world drop in and check it out. The other Adventist blog that I have noticed recently is here and relates to the emerging missional church scene.

Here is the text of a talk given by Professor Scot Mcknight

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to a group of Westminster Presbyterians. (HT TSK)

In light of our recent discussions with Don Carson this is well worth reading. (He does critique Carson’s book in here)

I like Scot’s insights and balance in what he has to say.

On Friday as I was on the way home from Leederville on the train my phone rang and I finished up in a conversation with Gaz and Stu about how we should behave towards those we disagree with or believe to be in error in some way.

The question that often gets raised is ‘to what extent do we challenge and confront and to what extent do we ignore differences because we are all ‘on the same team’ and ‘unity’ is more important?

Its a tough issue, because there is no question the body of Christ is larger than many of us have ever imagined, yet at the same time there are some core truths that we ought to fight for.

Of course one of the immediate issues we need to deal with is our own assumption that we are the ones who are correct on any given issue… always tricky.

The older I get the fewer are the issues I will fight for. By the same token if I’m going to get in a scrap then I’ll be going in hard and there may well be blood on the floor as a result. I don’t fight much, but I do fight hard.

One of the generally recognised functions the ’emerging church’ has in the global arena is that of a prophetic voice – calling the church back to the main issues and challenging indulgence, excess and mistaken priorities.

(I interrupt this post for a caveat – there are many generalisations in this post – if that bugs you then stop reading or get over it :))

So the question that comes up is ‘how do you serve as a prophetic voice while also keeping relationship with those who you are sharing the journey with those who are brothers and sisters?’ And then perhaps even more critical is ‘when do you choose to make a call that will result in division? What is really worth fighting for?’

I like a much quoted Hirschism (although he probably snaffled it off somebody else) which says “that which you criticise you must first love” and also a Richard Rohrism, “the best critique of the bad is the practice of the better“.

I agree with Rohr, but I also see the need to sometimes say ‘enough is enough’. There are times when we allow pure heresy to co-exist alongside truth because it is easier. Perhaps the classic example is ‘prosperity doctrine’ in all its various guises. I’m happy to come out swinging on this one because it is the antithesis of the gospel and it needs regular kicks in the goolies.

But then there are other issues that really do require some critique but which seem to receive less attention. Do we ask the question often enough of why we have such huge dedicated worship buildings, why we spend so much on paid staff (who often serve us), why pastors are regularly put on a pedestal and treated as super-saints, why tithing is preached as though it were law, why ‘excellence’ glorifies God more than a bloody good try, why the primary KPI’s in churches are bums, bucks and buildings, why radical discipleship seems like optional discipleship, why… I could g on and you could form your own list.

Now before you get ancy about my list, I’m not really interested in debating the merits or de-merits of some of those things, but i am interested in debating how we know what we ought to go into bat on. What is worth a stoush and what is worth leaving alone?

The guys asked me whether my own choice to usually walk a more conciliatory line was because of funding from denominations – a fair question. And to be honest, while money makes our lives much easier and helps us do our ministry better if it ever came to a question of compromising or softening our message so we can eke a few more bucks out of established church leaders then I would pull up stumps and walk away.

We have been faced with that already. We have had threats of funding being withdrawn because we don’t tow the party line. The funding is essentially my salary, but as far as I concerned if we have to kiss somebody’s butt to get it then they can keep it. No issue. God has always provided us with $$$ and we certainly aren’t about to bow and scrape to get it.

My choice to (generally) take a conciliatory tack is less about unity per se and more about the fact that the world we live in has some realities that do constrain us. While ideals are wonderful and essential I am well aware that ‘we do need to meet somewhere‘ and that our meeting place can’t always be someone’s home, that someone needs to lead and often that person invests more time as a consequence and so it goes on.

Perhaps its when our realities take the place of our ideals that I get most toey – when we make church based decisions based on business principles rather than imagining how a family may function. Sadly I think this is the case for many churches in the western world and this does require a rocket.

I am still pondering this one as its a really important question.

Its too easy to put yourself out there as a ‘prophetic voice’ and only be prophetic about the things that annoy you! We all have blind spots and areas where we are plain ignorant, that we would not be prophetic about.

So any time we stand up to offer a critique of our brothers and sisters, it must be done with great humility and awareness of our own fallenness. Arrogant, opinionated people rarely get heard.

I have just added two new audio sessions to the forgewa website.

On Sunday we had Darryn Altclass the director of Forge Tas and leader of ThirdPlace Communities blow in for a short time and I managed to get him to do a brief 30 minute presentation on their work in the pubs and clubs of Hobart. Its only a short intro but if you’re interested in incarnational mission then Daz is well worth listening to. He describes their work in about 10 minutes and then fields questions. Go to the forgewa site to access the talk.

I have also added my own session on contextualisation and the challenges posed to us here in the suburbia. To me it always feels easier to think like a missionary in a different culture, but here at home its difficult to distinguish what is cultural and what is gospel. Its called ‘Beyond the Horizon – C1-C6 in Suburbia’. The last 10 minutes got chopped off because the recorder was full, but you’ll get the idea if you listen to the first part of it!

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Ok – here’s one for the armchair theologians to pontificate on…

I was chatting with a mate today who is a full time Christian worker. The conversation went like this:

Me: “So are you guys married yet?” (I knew his wedding was coming up divx squid and the whale the )

Dave: “Yeah – we are – two weeks now”

Me: “Great – you got married in the ‘bush’, is that right?”

Dave: “Yeah – down south – a great day”

Me: “Who married you?”

Dave: “A guy in our church – Brad”

Me: “Oh, ok. Is he a marriage celebrant? Or did someone else sign it off?”

Dave: “No. No one signed it off”

Me: “Oh…” (I begin to wonder about the implications of this…)

Me: “So what does that mean then?”

Dave: “Well we are married, but we haven’t done the paper work.”

We went on to talk some more and explored the question briefly. But this raises some interesting questions doesn’t it?

My friend believes that under ‘common law’ he and his wife are married. She came up later and was wearing a name with his surname on it. She had ‘taken’ his name. But when they bought air tickets recently she had to go under her maiden name because they are not officially recognised as a maried couple.

However if they co-habit for a year then our society deems them to be ‘married’.

My questions in all of this are quite simple:

When are a couple actually married?

Can ‘biblical’ marriage exist independent of ‘societal/legal marriage’? I.e. Can you be married in the eyes of God but not the state?

Now my friend will probably be reading this, so share your views with that in mind. As we spoke I asked him for permission to start a discussion on here and he agreed as he was interested in the views that others would have. (That doesn’t mean ‘hold back’, but it does sometimes shape how we respond if we know the person concerned is reading.)

I’ll offer my two bobs worth first up – at the risk of being rude… In my view he and his partner would be married in the original biblical meaning of the concept, but given that we are required to comply with state law I would suggest that they are not married legally here in West Oz until the paperwork is done.

I know they intend to do the paperwork, but more as a matter of convenience as they see themselves as fully married after their wedding ceremony.

This marriage question is a significant one for missionaries and church planters, because we will always be dealing with co-habiting couples and we need to know how to respond with both grace and truth.

So… what do you reckon?