On Sunday night I spoke again at a friend’s church and shared some of the Brighton story – what we’re about, what we ‘do’, yada yada yada…

While speaking I spotted a couple in the crowd who I thought I knew – so after the service I went up and said g’day. It turned out we didn’t know each other and had never met before. They had enjoyed the night and engaged with what I was saying about connecting with neighbours because they were actually physical next door neighbours – not a ‘couple’ as I had thought.

‘Oh so you’re both Christians and neighbours’ I said, making an assumption…

‘I’m a Christian’ she said, ‘but he’s not’

He nodded – this was a true statement – like saying he was wearing jeans – but here he was at church… listening to a bloke speak about connecting missionally with neighbours. Just a tad ironic I felt – especially given that I had just been telling them that most Aussies don’t come to church any more (which is of course still true).

I had to ask him how he felt sitting there listening to a talk about evangelism – given his current faith status. For some reason he loved it, wanted to come back next week and hear more… Weird!

There is no question God is at work in this guy’s life – and he brought him to a local church.

‘How did you find being in church?’ I asked. I am always interested in an ‘outsider’s’ perspective.

‘It was great – I couldn’t sing though – so I just sat thru that bit – but the rest was good’.

Which brings me to the point finally!…

If its not part of his life to sing ‘pre-faith’ should we expect him to do it ‘post-faith’. Is singing an essential biblical requirement for worship or is it a cultural expression that can be taken or left depending on context?…

There is a LOT of singing in the Bible – music has been called the ‘language of culture’ – but must rundown the dvd churches sing?

Some have said ‘once you know Jesus you can’t help but sing’. Maybe that’s true. Maybe we should expect new believers to pull in and become like us in this way?…

Do you think?…

Or have we become so attached to our singing that we just can’t conceive of worship taking any other form?

It is a genuine question because I think there is something powerful and engaging about a group of people singing, but should we see it as normative?

As a team we are working to develop a biblical and functional leadership structure.

We have split into three teams to explore the NT teachings on this subject. One group is looking at the Gospels, on the Acts and Romans and the other the rest.

We are looking at these questions as we read:

1. What do you see the qualities of or qualifications for leadership in the NT to be?

2. Who are the key leaders in the books you read and what do they actually do?

3. What different leadership structures do you observe in the Christian communities/groups you read about? What conclusions can you draw about leadership/church structure from the NT?

4. What seems to be the non-negotiables of biblical leadership? By that I mean some things are specifically situational, like Jesus choice to lead with 12 apostles, but some things are permanent and must appear in all church communities everywhere. What would you sense are those core elements?

I am convinced that the long term effectiveness of our missional communities is directly linked to the quality of the leadership.

That’s a big call, but I’d say its the single most critical element in shaping and developing a healthy team. Hence I believe if we can get a good handle on it at this point we will begin to steer in the right direction.

One of the questions I believe we face as a team is the shaping of identity and what that means for people joining us.

One the one hand we want to be an ‘everybody welcome’ type of deal where people can from anywhere in terms of their proximity to God and feel like they belong. But on the other hand we don’t want to dilute the essential DNA that shapes our missional identity.

If there were a spectrum I reckon ‘missional order’ might sit at one end, with very high requirements for joining and an almost ‘exclusive’ air about them while some of our churches tend to sit at the other, where we are happy if people just show up on Sunday.

I realise the vast majority do not sit in these extremes. Missional orders want people to join and churches want people to develop into mature disciples.

The question I am tussling with at the moment is ‘how do we shape up who we are?’

I sense a missional order in the style of UNOH hazard of hearts a dvd download is not what God has called us to – but neither do we want to be a ‘whatever happens’ kind of community where there are very low or no expectations…

My gung ho side leans towards shaping a missional order because I don’t like passengers and people who don’t pull their weight. But can we expect a new ‘convert’ to be as much of a disciple as a long termer? (In some ways yes – in others no!)

I believe this is where we need to exercise some wise leadership and be open to getting it wrong as we move forwards here.

Sometimes I enjoy not having a map and just cutting a swathe thru the bush, but other times I’d like a bit of guidance to avoid the inevitable dead ends and u turns that occur.

I would be interested in how you perceive our group to be functioning as you read this blog.

If on a scale of 1-10, 1 were a high requirement missional order and 10 a no requirement ‘please come’ church what would we seem definitely maybe free to be???? (I say seem because I am aware that this does not give a true picture)

Today we had our first Easter Sunday celebration in the local park.

There were 2 families from our team as well as 6 families from the local area. With kids it meant there were around 35 of us in all. A big question was how to keep the integrity and significance of the Easter story when the majority of the group are not Jesus followers in the same sense as we are.

I am not one for imposing religious observance on anyone – we have seen the disastrous results of trying to make people conform to religious practices that their heart is not in. Yet… I sense the ‘kingdom is near’ to some of my neighbours and friends and we wanted to observe the significance of the Easter occasion.

We had a great brunch, had fun with easter eggs and had a pretty energetic soccer match then we created a simple reflective process for people to participate in. For those who are interested here’s what we did.

– I introduced ‘the cross’ by holding up a small cross and asking people what words they associated with it.
– I explained the significance of the cross – of Friday being forgiveness – of Sunday being hope
– We opened a bottle of red and broke a loaf of bread and as we did, spoke of the imagery of bloodshed and a broken body.
– People were invited to participate in communion if they wanted to.
– The cross was then placed in a nearby garden area with this image on it
and people were encouraged to take the bread and wine and then go there to reflect for a few minutes.
– Most people chose to do this
– There were many interesting conversations that emerged from this experience
– We left the cross & image in the park so that others might discover it today.

The hardest part for me was shifting the conversation from the social and fun to something more focused. I know it was expected, but I still needed a few deep breaths to do it.

Why?

These people have become my friends – good friends and people I really want to share life with. I don’t want to be seen as another religious guy trying to impose stuff on them.

It would be great if we could share the journey of faith together and in one sense we are already doing that – but I want to do things as Peter spoke of ‘with gentleness and respect’

Over the last few days I have been aware of what I will call ‘residual christendom’, some residue of our Christian heritage showing up in the lives of our friends.

It showed today when the cafe owner questioned why I would eat bacon and eggs on Easter friday… ummm… because I like bacon and eggs… It showed when one of my friends didn’t know what to take to a barbecue – red meat (his much preferred option) or fish…

It showed when friends decided that they would have their child christened even though neither have any faith convictions…

My question relate to whether this works for us or against us as missionaries.

Should we be happy that there is some remnant of christian memory at work in people’s lives or is it actually to our detriment because it is a residue that has lost its significance and now is almost in the realm of superstition?

Residual Christendom shows up in lots of places, with people wanting their kids to grow up with good morals – hence Sunday school – people setting up nativity scenes at Christmas – the list goes on.

I’m interested in the question – should we seeing this as a foundation to build on or should we look to ‘put a broom thru’ and completely start over?…

Looks like our first Easter service will have 4 Christians present and around 15 ‘still looking’

Mot of our team have had to bale on being around at Easter time so its now just down to two families. We have invited our whole street plus friends along (maybe 20 people!).

Wonder what it will feel like?…dead like me download divx colour me kubrick a true ish story

I might as well start smoking.

All the people I hang around now and the places I go seem to be full of cigarette smoke. A few weeks back a party across the road in a garage saw 7 people smoking and two of us not. What was the point?!

Today at the pub I got chatting with a guy who chain smokes. I might as well be smoking them with him! It was a great conversation – he was involved with the Ananda Marga sect and then the Bahai faith.

I asked ‘why?’

‘Well – I guess I was just pretty lost’

Sometimes people know when their lives are up the creek – when they need to reach out to a higher power.

For the last three weeks after school each Friday afternoon I have been visiting our local tavern .

There are a couple of reasons for this.

1. I am keen to meet some of the people who will never ever wander into any church anywhere unless they are drunk and lost. The crew who hang out at this place are very rough and ready… It feels like the Bronx. We would be very unlikely to cross paths in other parts of life.

2. I am also keen to explore Jesus command to serve the poor and needy and I am aware that this could be an opening into that playing field. Most of those in my own suburb are doing ok financially but next to us are a couple of suburbs where people are really struggling. I sense some of them hang out here.

3. It is also a place to learn how to be a cross cultural missionary. This is a place where I really don’t know the routine and am learning as I go. I reckon its healthy for me to do this – it reminds me how much of a cultural gap there is even in Australia at times between the different social clusters.

I intentionally go alone – when you go with friends its too easy just to hang out with those people and never actually meet anyone else. I do feel a little anxious some days, as I don’t know the ropes, and worry that I will look like a dork, but so far I have met people each time I have been there and had some really interesting conversations.

On Friday I actually thought I was going to go a whole day without speaking to anyone…. I had been there an hour, sitting on my own sipping a beer before I was able to spark a conversation. I find that when I’m not talking with someone I am praying for those around me, so it doesn’t feel like wasted time.

My belief is that if I can hang out there regularly and actually make contact with some people then maybe I will be able to be ‘one of them’. There seems to be a regular crew who know each other and I am guessing it will take a while to be accepted as a regular.

While I much prefer the café scene my observation is that in cafés people don’t interact much outside of their table – that is the etiquette of cafés – whereas at the pub the conversation seems much more open. There is talk across the bar and amongst a range of people.

As a person who grew up as a dyed in the wool evangelical and as an avoider of pubs I am a total foreigner to this scene so I am enjoying the challenge and learning a heap every week.booty call divx online

In my previous church one of the projects I initiated and really enjoyed was a ‘Philosophy Cafe’.

It was an attempt to create a public space where life’s big issues could be batted around without anyone pushing an agenda. It was quite sucessful in the hills suburbs with a core of 15 people regularly participating. The local cafe owner gave us space in a fairly exclusive cafe for free once a month on a Sunday night and a small group of us chose topics and facilitated discussion.

As much as I loved the debate and the interaction, the purpose was never to actually win arguments and convert people to my way of thinking – it was to meet people share our thoughts and hopefully catalyse some friendships that could develop outside of the meeting setting and more specifically in and around the cafe.

If I’m honest that didn’t really happen.

Why? Probably because I was too busy with all that a large church required to keep it afloat. My church said that I was free to ‘do evangelism’ and they really did intend for me to be free to spend large slabs of time with people in the community – but… someone still has to preach, someone still has to equip leaders and meet with them, someone still has to attend X number of meetings etc etc.

The all consuming nature of the ‘beast’ meant that good intentions towards evangelism often got lost in a plethora of things that were urgent and measurable.

This is one of the great freedoms of my new role. I am still required to think and lead, but there is much less of a beast (at this stage to maintain.

And you know what?

My time in the community has risen dramatically, and I am a happier person for it.

That said the nature of this community does not lend itself to a Philosophy Cafe – and i would be foolish to try and make it work here – it just wouldn’t fit the vibe of the place. A more indigenous gathering would be a ‘home brew club’!

Thanks for the thoughts on the previous post – it is a question I discussed today with our breakfast group.

We meet each month to read and discuss a chapter of Al Hirsch’s book – ‘Shaping of Things to Come’. There was no great answer forthcoming from the group, but I have a theory gestating.

Someone once said ‘the opposite of love is not hate – its indifference’.

Perhaps the opposite of incarnational is not attractional – maybe it is formulaic?

I say that because maybe somewhere there is a culture where an attractional church would be the most effective way to make disciples – in that context it would be incarnational… true?

So perhaps what we need to guard against is ever constructing a nice neat formula for mission and church that doesn’t allow us to be incarnational. If we were to ban all attractional churches then we might shoot ourelves in the foot at some point…

Anyway that’s what I think today.