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Fishing nets or safety nets. http://davemale.typepad.com/churchunplugged/. 2007 Tear Fund survey of 7000 adults in contact or not with church. “ this majority (66%) presents a major challenge to churches. Most of them are unreceptive and closed to attending church; churchgoing is
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Fishing nets or safety nets
2007 Tear Fund survey of 7000 adults in contact or not with church
“ this majority (66%) presents a major challenge to churches. Most of them are unreceptive and closed to attending church; churchgoing is simply not on their agenda.”
“ this research helps us to understand that the further people are from church, (in terms of churchgoing) the less likely they are to attend in the future. Mission opportunities are very different when to step over the church threshold is an unknown experience…..”
1 Public worship probably isn’t the best starting point
Prayer and Support Loving Service Forming Community Evangelism and Disciple- Making Evolving Public Worship Listening and Following God’s call Connection
“ The foundation of being Christian is being community centred around Jesus. Public worship is the consequence of this reality, not its creator.” George Lings
2 Modification of the existing is not enough
Judea Samaria Ends of the Earth Half the picture Jerusalem
The ends of the earth Samaria The eccentric effects… Judea The centre and the Acts story shift Samaria is not a return ticket story moves from a focus on Peter to Paul the Church goes west church is done differently among Gentiles
3 Mission shapes the church
“The day of the churched culture is over. The day of the mission field has come.” Kennon L Callahan Effective Church Leadership
‘The reality is that mainstream culture no longer brings people to the church door. We can no longer assume that we can automatically reproduce ourselves, because the pool of people who regard church as relevant or important is decreasing with every generation’ Mission shaped church report p11
“ it is not the church of God which has a mission but the God of mission who has a church.” Tim Dearborn
“ we understood mission one way and organised life to accomplish it. We have awakened to find out the mission moved on us. To keep focusing on mission, we have to turn the furniture around and face a different direction. We may even have to move into another room.” Loren Mead. The Once and Future Church
‘Mission is often described as if it were a planned extension of an old building. But it fact it has usually been more like an unexpected explosion.’ John V Taylor
4 This might change US
‘Are there structures and patterns which let that basic event of encounter happen again and again? Because if not , the church has become something very different from where it started; it’s become a community which says once there was an encounter with Jesus and we like to remember that. We have to ask much more radically , how do we structure a community in which it goes on being possible ,even likely ,that people will meet Jesus and in meeting Jesus will want more people to meet Jesus.’
Dying to live “ I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12; 23-6
TOGETHER TO GOD’S FUTURE • ‘…do not try to call them back to where they were, and do not try to call them to where you are, beautiful as that place may seem to you. You must have the courage to go with them to a place that neither you nor they have been before.’ • Vincent Donovan
5 Welcome the three eccentrics
The 3 eccentrics • Who are the Philips? • A Dangerous Deacon? • Allow space for the unknowns • Discover Cornelius • who evangelizes who • Pray for Pauls • Eccentrics will do it differently
6 The challenge of discipleship
“If not part of a mutually discipling community the culture will disciple you.” Graham Cray
What kind of people are we called to be? What kind of community is capable of raising people like that?
Simple in its nature • Relational in its emphasis • Transformational in its outcomes
7 The Pattern of Jesus Life
Incarnation- a world to enter • Cross- a world to counter • Resurrection- a world to anticipate