GG's PROBES

My BlogRoll

2006-06-13T09:24:00.000+10:00

My Feeds - 5/04/2006

Strategy

Future Brief
?ic @TomorrowToday.biz
Adventure of Strategy
David Maister's Passion, People and Principles
Edge Perspectives with John Hagel
Future Tense
IFTF's Future Now
Leading Questions
Peter Sheahan’s Research Blog
Strategic Thinking and Planning Blog
Strategize
strategy+business - All Updates
Thinking Managers

Business

800-CEO-READ Excerpts
A Day in the Life of a Persuasion Architect
bBlog: The sales, marketing and business weblog
XPLANE
beyond bullets
Bona tempora volvantur--by Guy Kawasaki
Engineer2Entrepreneur
Eric Mack On-Line
innovation.net
ktoddstorch @ business thoughts
Management Blog
Right Reality (David Batstone)
The Business Innovation Insider

Marketing

A little bit of Mark...
Brand Autopsy
BrandShift
Generations in Conversation
MIT Advertising Lab: future of advertising and advertising technology
The Hidden Persuader
This Blog Sits at the
What's Your Brand Mantra?

Faith/Life

ANewKindofConversation.com
(e)mergent Voyageurs
.: the journey :.
{neurotribe.net}
AKMA’s Random Thoughts
ALLELON Featured Articles Content
and
Backyard Missionary
BetaChurch
Christ-commons_&_
digitalorthodoxy blog
Dying Church
e~mergent kiwi
Eclectic Itchings
emergent-us
emergesque
emerging church research
Emerging Evangelism
emergingBlurb
Established and Emerging
e-vangelism.com
fluidfaith
gerrymander
It Takes A Church...
jason clark
Jesus Creed
kairos : kisses
LivingRoom >> A space for Life
Monday Morning Insight Weblog
NextReformation
nextwave News
No Guarantees
odyssey
One for the road...
Open Loops
orthoparadox_&_
OurDailyBlog
Outside The Box Ministry
planet telex
Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog
Resonate Soapbox
Sam Metcalf's Blog » Under The Iceberg
Spiritual Conversations
Spiritual Formation Blog
Steve Addison's blog » World Changers
Stories For The Journey
Strengthened By Grace
Subversive Influence
TallSkinnyKiwi
The Blind Beggar
the great giveaway
the junction Online - Recent Posts
the pagittBlog
the vine
TheBolgBlog
Theoblogy
Theological Thought
This is Jordon Cooper's weblog
toddhiestand
VanguardChurch (the blog)
Wes Roberts
Wittenberg Gate

Others

achievable ends
brucedjohnson.net
Church Marketing Sucks
Communication Nation
Ellen's Knowledge blog
IdeaFlow
McGee's Musings
Presentation Zen
Springwise: Promising new business ideas for entrepreneurial minds
Visual Being
xBlog: The visual thinking weblog | XPLANE

Personal Development

43 Folders
800-CEO-READ Blog
achievable leadership
Ian's Messy Desk
Jason Womack
Lifehacker
Marshall Goldsmith's Blog
never eat alone blog
Slacker Manager
Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog
The Practice of Leadership
To-Done
What's the next action
Working Smart

The Daily Psalm

Geo-centric Church | Network Church

2006-03-28T08:13:00.000+11:00

Following on from my post last September...

One of the other aspects of definition that keeps my mind bubbling over is the use of the word 'community'. But does the Bible really advocate the tying of people to the local community (small c) or keeping them linked to the whole Community of Faith (Big C). Personally I say the latter.

If so, then can the local community function without a geographical centre - ie, what about a network community? Why is that not valid (and each time I've raised it at various forums I have been firmly "put in my place" by "those who know"!!!

Shalom

Test of Performancing

2006-03-16T16:54:00.000+11:00

This is a test post using Performancing in FireFox

This is a quote
??How do you get out of a quote????

This is more text

Yes ... it works AOK

Extracting Brands from Languishing Ideas

2005-12-29T08:28:00.000+11:00

Leading Questions: Extracting Brands from Languishing Ideas

Grant McCracken who writes the This Blog Sits at the blog has offered an intriguing thought about how to find ideas in organizations.

Let's be honest. The corporation has many great ideas that it never manages to harvest. These are notions sitting in reports from consultants, buried in internal committee work, neglected on the lab bench, ideas taken up and then let slip.

The culprits are clear enough. Some ideas are murdered in committee. Some are destroyed by the roller derby punishments of politics. Some drop between stools as personnel come and go. And some merely get lost in the very considerable shuffle of corporate life.

The corporation is now so good at mobilizing to address the present opportunity that it sometimes has a hard time keeping an eye on the alternative ones. What doesn't get operationalized straight away tends to disappear from view.

This is so true.

For full post go here

Blogging to come after Christmas

2005-12-21T13:42:00.000+11:00

This is just a note to wish you all a Blessed Christmas and a great 2006. I will start blogging at this site in January.

Gordon

The Net is anarchy: keep it that way

2005-10-24T18:10:00.000+10:00

Just came across this in The Age ... I would HATE to see the Internet controlled by the UN or any other government or inter-government organization.

What about you?

--------------
The Net is anarchy: keep it that way
By Chris Berg
THE AGE :: October 24, 2005

The internet, long seen as a neutral realm free of government interference, is now hot political property. Not surprisingly, therefore, both the European Union and the United Nations are now trying to grab control of the internet. This has major consequences for business and for individuals.

Since 1998, a non-profit organisation named ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has been responsible for managing and coordinating the internet's domain names. ICANN ensures that what is typed in the address bar matches the site trying to be accessed. Such an organisation is necessary to ensure the stability and growth of the internet.

At the moment, the internet is an ungoverned, unregulated, anarchic medium — merely a mutual agreement between computer users all around the world to connect to each other in a certain way. Given this blank slate, business and innovation has thrived online. Business to business commerce has exploded over the past few years. In Australia, 31 per cent of businesses reported placing orders over the internet in 2004. This will grow as business uptake of broadband intensifies.

Until now, ICANN's role has been merely to facilitate and smooth this explosion of internet activity.

The European Union, as well as a motley collection of less-than-democratic nations such as Iran, Cuba and China, are forcefully trying to replace ICANN with an as-yet-unspecified UN department. Such a proposal will be under consideration at the United Nations Working Group on Internet Governance meeting next month in Tunis.

Arguing that the internet is a global resource, the European Union insists that the private sector must share its responsibility of overseeing it with the UN.

By ceding this power over to governments, every aspect of the anarchic freedom that the internet represents is under threat. The UN wants to use the internet's structure to pursue specific goals — to close the "digital divide" and to "harness the potential of information" for the world's impoverished.

But the inequalities the UN claims it wants to overcome stem not from the internet itself, but from government policy. Syria has even advocated taxing domain names to subsidise an international universal service right.

No matter how hard the new UN body will try to reverse the "digital divide" by reallocating domain names and shifting the location of servers, the only way that internet uptake can be increased internationally is through action within the countries themselves.

That is, the same way any technological advance has filtered down to the poorer countries. By building stable institutions, maximising economic freedom, and ensuring prosperity, which creates consumer demand. No amount of political action by the UN can replace this process.

The defining characteristic of the internet is not intelligence or its capacity to fulfil specific aims, but its simplicity. It is a "dumb" medium, which is only structurally suited to transmitting data from one computer to another. It can't conduct public policy.

Businesses and individuals have come to rely on the internet to carry out their personal and commercial interactions. UN control threatens this.

What this new bureaucracy would clearly be able to do is restrict and censor websites and addresses, as well as place heavy regulatory burdens on their authentication, maintenance and pricing structure. This is a prospect no doubt relished by European social democrats who would like to extend their national content and industry policies across national borders.

Consider the countries most actively pushing for the UN takeover. Leading the charge is Iran, with Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba and Venezuela hot on its heels. None of these nations is known for their promotion of political, economic or social freedoms. Iran bans more than 10,000 websites on charges of immorality, and jails journalists and bloggers who disagree with the ruling elite. The "Great Firewall of China" has a similar effect.

Should the internet be under the control of a network of regulators hammering out compromises about what is and isn't proper online activity? Member states in the UN run the gamut from the totalitarian to the democratic. Any attempt to assert control will result in an approach contrary to the liberal democratic ideals that dominate online activity.

The internet needs the technicians of ICANN, not the policy committees of the UN.

Chris Berg is the director of the media and telecommunications unit at the Institute of Public Affairs.

A NEw Way of Being Church

2005-09-05T14:53:00.000+10:00

Came across an interesting article today at http://www.simplechurch.co.uk/nwobc1.htm. It talks about the formation of a chouse church in Bath (UK). I've compiled all the pages into a single PDF at A New Way of Being Church - Alexander Campbell.pdf

One question that keeps coming to me is why do we always seem to have to have a physical place as the locus of 'church' - house church/ pub church / etc. Surely the glue of church is (or at least should be) relationships not location.

2005-09-01T17:25:00.000+10:00

'Mission Shaped Church' report online

Mission Shaped Church Report

It seems as if the Church of England has decided to release the entire “Mission Shaped Church” report as a pdf file…

They’ve pdf’ed all 189 pages of the report, so if you havent purchased the book but are interested in giving it a read you can now own an electronic copy…

Society in Britain has changed dramatically in the last 30 years, especially in terms of our understanding of community and how we relate to one another. One of the responses of the Church has been to plant new churches and create ‘fresh expressions’ of church; churches that relate to our changing context. This detailed, practical and well-researched book:

Each chapter has a set of questions and challenges to help local parish churches engage with the issues.

With a foreword by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, Mission-Shaped Church is a crucial tool for all who care about God’s mission today.

Download the Mission Shaped Church Report (pdf)
Props to the Prodigan Kiwi(s) & Planet Telex for the news.

Well worth reading IMHO!

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2005-09-01T12:09:00.000+10:00

Thinking about "church"

I've been thinking a lot about 'church' recently. It began in earnest when talking with Alan Hirsch the other week, and we both expressed dissatisfaction with the word 'church' and all its current connotations.

Looking back into my 'Dictionary of NT Theology' and other resources, I find that the word used in the NT that is usually translated 'church' is 'ekklesia'. Literally this means the 'called out ones' (ek = out of, and kaleo = called) and is also translated as 'assembly' and 'congregation'. Note that it does not equate to an institution, but a group of people. Some people stop there, and see the church as being called to come out of the world as if it were the equivante of the 'remnant' in Israel's exilic history.

As I read more, I discovered again that the 'ekklesia' was used back in the 5thC BC to refer initially to the calling out of the army to assemble, and then as an assembly of competent full citizens of a city. This 'assembly' is known to have met routinely about 30-40 times a year in Athens in the 5th Cent. as well the occasional extra-ordinary 'ekklesia'. The topics discussed at these meetings generally concerned local policy. Every citizen had the right to speak and be heard, and to raise matters for discussion.

In summary, years before the OT was translated into Greek and well before the birth of Christ, 'ekkelsia' was clearly used of a political assembly of full citizens, rooted in the constitution of the democracy, at which political and judicial decisions were made. Only occasionally were other words used for this political assembly of the people - eg: 'halia', 'agora'. Only three records have been found where it is used in a religious connotation - referring to the business meeting of a cultic guild - otherwise it is used exclusively of a citizens assembly. A number of other greek words were usually used of a religious assembly - 'thiasos', 'eranos', 'koinon', etc.

Another important Greek work to bear in mind in this examination is 'synagoge' - derived from synago = to bring together. This word was used extensively of cultic assemblies of various sorts.

In the OT the Septuagint (LXX) uses 'ekklesia' some 100 times (of which 22 are in the Apocrypha). It represents the Hebrew word QHL and is usually translated 'assembly' or 'congregation'. However there are other passages where QHL is rendered by the Gk 'synogoge', 'ochlos' (crowd) or 'plethos' (multitude). At the same time 'synagoge' occurs 225 times for the Hebrew 'eDH' - a word which is given a different meaning only 3 times in the OT.

'QHL' means a summons to a meeting or the actual act of assembling for a meeting. The meeting is not neccessarily religious - it is used in the OT of the mustering of the army, and to refer to nations other than Israel. 'QHL' can refer to the call-up for military service, a meeting for judicial or political consultation, or an assembly for worship. The specifically religious uses are usually denoted by the noun that is added to the adjective - eg Duet 23:2 "No one born of a forbidden marriage nor any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD" (NIV).

'Ekklesia' in the LXX for 'QHL' indicates the assembly of the people, a judicial assemblt, or the political body (eg the returned Exiles in Ezra & Nehemiah). The few exceptions all refer to the peple as God's assembly, answering His call. "Synagoge', apart for some uses as assembly or place of assembly, was the word of choice for the religiously defined community of God.

It appears that the early church carefully avoided the use of the word 'synagoge' of itself due to its use as a technical term for a Jewish assembly or the place of a Jewish assembly.

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A New Kind of Christian Gathering?

2005-08-31T17:03:00.000+10:00

Interesting comment nicely expressed that I fully agree with...
"congregational activities are not central to the church. Some are essential (they need to happen)… but even these are not central (not the focus). We believe that congregational activities happen in order to equip and encourage the church (the people) to live their discipleship every hour of every day. It is in all of life that the church exists and lives and does ministry."

2005-08-15T09:26:00.000+10:00

Strategic Thinking & Planning - A Team Sport

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Strategic Thinking and Planning: A Team Sport

In her book The Nimble Collaboration, author Karen Ray identifies a number of emerging best practices. One of them is” modify partner agencies’ mission statements”. She describes the practice: “Chapter 1 (in The Nimble Collaboration) spoke of the collaboration’s mission statement as a placeholder, making room for each partner agency’s mission statement. But at the large end of the collaboration scale, partner agencies are turning this practice on its head: they are changing their individual mission statements to reflect the mission of the collaboration. Such changes show the depth of the partner agencies’ commitment to the goal of collaboration. They also ensure that the work of the collaboration is continued beyond the tenure of the agency representative, and even beyond the membership of the organization in the collaboration, because the agency itself has changed. For example, a variety of organizations in Ramsey County, Minnesota have decided that violence is a key barrier to their goals. Domestic abuse shelters, teen clubs, and law enforcement agencies have all added a phrase to their individual mission and philosophy statements that emphasizes their commitment to reduce violence as part of their mission."

This practice reflects an exciting trend: numbers of organizations engaging in joint strategic planning efforts. Sometimes the planning focuses on a common issue, for example, developing a collaborative strategic plan to reducing teen pragnancy in Milwaukee. Other times, the common denominator may be geographic proximity of a number of organizations that begin to plan a coordinated regional response to a range of interrelated issues. By the way, The Nimble Collaboration, another fine publication from the Amherst Wilder Foundation, can be purchased at www.wilder.org.

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2005-06-22T16:46:00.000+10:00

Test using Qumana

this is a test using Qumana Blog editor

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Great Tool for Web Page Tracing

2005-05-24T15:03:00.000+10:00

Have you ever wanted to search back over pages that you know you visited a month or more back, but just can't find them? You may have bookmarked them, but you can't remember the title or URL. It's not worth spending weeks tracing thru the history logs.

I found the tool I want. I use Firefox as my WebBrowser of choice, and have discovered a great little plug-in called "Slogger". It allows you to either save an HTML image of ever page you visit, or of every page you select by a click of a single tool-bar button.

Put this together with Google Desktop Search, or, as I do, with X1, and you can search all the text in all the saved pages very, very easily. Much easier and quicker than the work-arounds I've been using like "Save Page as" etc.

Each page is saved in a file that is date and time stamped in the file name - I prefix this with the domain name: so the file name looks like C://..../domain.name.com-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSSSSS (to the hundreth of a second - no way you'll get duplicate file names.

You can store the files in daily, monthly or annual folders depending on your preference.

Thoroughly recommended.

W-O-M & Evangelism

2005-05-05T09:12:00.000+10:00

Evelyn Rodriguez has stimulated my thinking in the last couple of days. She (together with otheres others) has been blogging about a controversy surounding the use of organized 'buzz agents' (BzzAgents) by Creative Commons. One of the key issues is the matter of integrity when using word of mouth as a marketing technique. Quoting A Gwai Lo blog, she points out that

"people just don’t talk the same way in commercials as they do in real life. Advertisers have figured this out, too, and now they’re trying to manufacture word-of-mouth..."

The whole issue raised in my mind the matter of how we do evangelism in our churches. So much of what we do is Program Evangelism, where as what we need is Passion & Practice Evangelism*. Program Evangelism -- learning keywords, key phrases and key concepts to use in specific situations -- smacks of PR, rather than the integrity that we are called to demonstrate as Christians.

*By this I mean that any word-of-mouth must come from a deep passion for the Kingdom, and be backed up with the real integral practice of the Kingdom. If either of these is missing, our evangelism is just words, and will be perceived as 'fake'.

Apologies for the break

2005-05-04T09:21:00.000+10:00

My apologies for being "off-air" for a while. What with my daughter's wedding, a church camp, and then my son & his wife leaving for a year o'seas, its been a heavy few weeks.

But I'm still around to tell the tale, and to take up my keyboard and dictation microphone again. (I using Dragon Naturally Speaking again - I find I talk better than just type!)

Been on Holiday :-)

2005-03-21T16:00:00.000+11:00

Just had a refreshing week down at Blairgowrie on the Mornington peninsula. Unfortunaly the weather was not the best until the last moring as we began to pack to come home - ain't that the way! But still, t'was good to get away.

During that time I finished reading "The Birth of The Chaordic Age" by Dee Hock and hope to blog some thoughts sometime soon. Also got half-way thru "A Generous Orthodoxy" by Brian McLaren - great read if any of you haven't read it already.

More later - seems to be a ton of email etc to catch up on.

Community Guy

2005-03-04T12:41:00.000+11:00

Just came across this posting on community via Jennifer Rice at Corante (Brandshift) Both Jake and Jennifer (and those who have added comments make some very good points about community that we could well do to heed.

This is Jake's original post in full:

What is community?
Posted by: Jake - Feb 28, 2005

What is "community"? As a community development professional, this is a question that comes up often. I often have conversations with colleagues, industry friends, and other business people about what this means.

People often think that blogs, forums, wikis, and other tools are community. In actuality, those tools are just that - tools. They can help you to build community, but they aren't actually "community". When we talk community, we're simply talking about an interaction, a connection. Blogs or forums are a way to initiate and sustain that interaction.

Several years back, I was on a team at work that helped to define the community development/support strategy for the company. We needed to develop a clear, agreed upon definition of what "community" meant, at least to us. I did a ton of research to find what others in the industry and around the Web were using a definition. By far the closest thing we can to a real definition was Derek Powzak's version from his incredible book Design for Community (which if you haven't read, you should ... today!). We tweak, poked, prode, pulled, and shaped all this new found knowledge, as well as our own brainstorming into the definition below.

What do you think?

---

A community is a group of people who form relationships over time by interacting regularly around shared experiences, which are of interest to all of them for varying individual reasons.

Group
A group can be 2 or more people. Most, if not all, communities will change and evolve as they are subject to growth or reduction. During these processes, they may destabilize, or turn into a very different type of community. As such, the number of people involved can make a huge difference for the character of the community and the kinds of relationships and interactions that form.

Relationships

Relationships in this context can vary greatly depending on the community. They can be very deep, long-term relationships, or much looser relationships. Basically, some bond has to form between members of the group described above. And like any relationship, as the group evolves (and grows and shrinks) this relationship will continue to change.

This word "relationship" is key to any discussion of community.

Over time

Relationships can form over time either forward or backwards. You can form relationships in a community because of prospective reasons (I want to get involved with these people) or retrospective reasons (I have a long-standing connection to these people).

Interacting

The most common forms of interaction in a community involve some form of communication or expression, such as showcasing LEGO creations, dropping an email to say hi, or working together on organizing an offline event. Additionally, interaction doesn't necessarily include the entire community all the time.

These interactions lead to the forming of relationship bonds, described above. They can be formed using any number of tools, including email, IM, phone, snail mail, in person meetings, blogs, WIKIs, etc. Sometimes these interactions happen for the entire community to participate in, such as a discussion board thread in a web community. But very often, these “full community” interactions are driving smaller group, more personal interactions.

Regularly

Community must come together in some form on a ongoing basis. Regularly doesn't assume that this interaction is on a set schedule, but rather that there is or will be interaction at some point in the future and/or has been at some point in the past. It's nearly impossible to form a relationship, after all, if you never see or talk to the other person/people.

Object

What makes community more than a simple group of people is that they are drawn together around some object. This object can be physical, virtual, theoretical, or philosophical; a political ideal, a celebrity, a musical genre, a hobby, a type of car, a neighborhood, a sport.

Individual (reasons)

While community members are drawn together around a single object, they are drawn there for a variety of very personal reasons. We may both love LEGO bricks, but I may love it because I love to build, while you love it because you're a collector of old LEGO sets. Some reasons are emotional; others are more abstract or intellectual. Some have to do more with relationships that form in a community, others with the object of interest.

Each member of the community group has their own reason – or more likely reasons – for joining and being part of a particular community.

FXFC - 3 - Expositing the Dream (iv) Preaching/Teaching

2005-02-24T12:57:00.000+11:00

There is no word in NT Greek that simply means to preach as we practice that today. The sermon in its current form came out of the Reformation, not out of the Bible.

There are numerous Greek words in Scripture that are translated as 'preach*" in various translations, but all are also translated by other words in other parts of scripture in various versions.

Kerugma = to proclaim
Evangelizo = to bring/show/tell good news
Kerusso = to declare as a herald
Parakleo = to exhort/implore/encourage

None of these words of themselves imply nor require a preacher in a pulpit (or on a stage) speaking for 20/30/40 minutes to a silent listening audience.
The focus in the NT is on the subject of proclamation rather than the mode of proclamation – “preach the good news” / “preach Christ” / etc.

Actually Jesus does not command his disciples to 'preach', rather he commands us to disciple, baptise and teach (Matt.28:19,20).

Is preaching the best way to feed the hunger that is there for spiritual nourishment, for a message of hope, for a glimpse of the transcendent, for experiences that convey love and integrity, for spiritual understanding that has depth and rigour?

Preaching in the NT was primarily an evangelistic proclamation - for non-believers, not teaching for believers. These two roles need to be divided out again and the best formats for each used according to the local circumstances (audience / culture / tradition / etc).

The sermons of Peter and Paul were addressed to non-believers. They were using the media format of the time – speaking out in the town square – the equivalent of an article in the newspaper or on the web today. This proclamation was done amidst the hurly burly of the ‘world’ not in the sacred silence of a sanctuary.
__________________

The McSermon lite - an easily prepared one-size-fits-all message that can be relatively easily prepared and presented to a wide range of people who's spiritual nutritional needs are not specifically taken into contention. Guaranteed to be consumed within 20 minutes or less. Has enough sustenance in some cases to prevent total withering and death, and enough 'fat' to cause bloating of the pewsitters in others. Comes complete with a fizzy drink and fries on the side (praise music and other 'worship' elements).
__________________

Research over the past 50 years has shown that the best method of teaching is not the lecture, but rather the more intimate interactive seminar format. Schools not only differentiate students by their basic level of comprehension, but they also seek to keep class sizes to less than 25 – they know that larger groups than this are less inducive to good learning, and that you cannot successfully teach in one group people who are at vastly different stages of the understanding of the subject/issue. Yet in churches across that land we ‘preach’ to congregations (some numbering in the thousands) whose pew-sitters are at widely differing stages in their spiritual journey.

We need to get back to the Jesus model where he spent most of his time for three years with a small group of (12) disciples, modelling life for them and mentoring them in the truth.

Apologies for non-blogging

2005-02-24T12:52:00.000+11:00

Well, it's good to know that there are one or two people who read this site - and who are concerned enough to ask why I haven't blogged this last ten days. Simple answer - been working on other things - like a training programme on "leadership" for our church, materials for our Strategy TaskForce, and a short presentation to our Leadership Retreat for tomorrow night. But the next episode will be up very, very shortly.

In Him

G

signposts.org.au :: liquid reflections

2005-02-17T13:09:00.000+11:00

http://www.signposts.org.au/index.php/archives/2005/02/16/liquid-reflections/

Liquid Day @ NCCC - final note :-)

2005-02-11T11:51:00.000+11:00

"From what you have said though, it appears that if I'd stayed for the evening I'd probably have come away with a different impression."

Having now spoken to the others of my group who did stay for the evening - yes, I did miss something good. As Darren has said, the format was different. My 3 friends all said the best part of the day was the first half hour and the last two and half hours. I'm sorry I missed it.

Gordon

Liquid Day @ NCCC - response to Darren

2005-02-10T13:45:00.000+11:00

Thanks, Darren, for your comment to my posting. I'm glad to hear that the evening was quite different, and am sorry that I didn't 'get that message'.

I do not want to be critical of the day or suggest that it totally fell short - except that what I experienced fell short of my personal expectations. And perhaps my colleague had his expectations shaped by my expectations when I suggested to him that he attend. Others with other expectations would no doubt have had quite a different reaction. Perhaps it was all too 'liquid' for me! :-) and perhaps I blogged too soon after the event without enough reflection.

And I really do appreciate the difficulties the organizers found themselves in when registrations fell short of the required base number.

You noted:

"However we were very intentional today about not wanting to it to be a talking head event but rather a learning together/networking and sharing journeys type time."

I think this is a very valid intent - and I liked how Phil said that the speakers were not the experts, but that the expertise was in the attendees. However I have seen numerous occassions where such forums have fallen flat - the 'success' depends so heavily on the actual people who are present and the inter-relational dynamics amongst them. For me it didn't work as well as it could have or as well as I would have liked it to have.

From what you have said though, it appears that if I'd stayed for the evening I'd probably have come away with a different impression.

In Him

FXFC - 3 - Expositing the Dream - (iii) Worship

2005-02-10T13:26:00.000+11:00

WORSHIP

Biblically ‘worship’ is not the right word for what happens on Sunday morning in our church buildings. Biblical Worship is 24/7, not one hour a week (or even one hour a day if you have a daily time of Biblical reading, prayer and reflection). Biblical Worship is whole of life worship.

I am concerned that many congregations feel that altering or modifying their corporate worship format will make them culturally relevant in a biblical way. We seem to have forgotten the prophet’s advise that what God requires is not sacrifices and ceremonies but a life of compassion, justice and mercy.

I am concerned that many of those writing for and about the emergent church still seem to see the ‘Sunday’ Worship Service (even if held on a Wednesday) as the central pillar of how to be church. While they espouse the need to be missional and to change away from a focus on trying to ‘get people to church’, they still seem to focus on alt.worship as a key element. And this alt.worship is ‘what we do on Sunday’ rather than how we live our life.

I believe scripture teaches that there are three facets to Godly worship - Private Worship; All of Life Worship; and Communal Worship

The Priority of Communal Worship?

Most churches today have ‘corporate (communal) worship’ (what we do in the church building on Sunday) as the primary activity of the local church. A quick look at their ministries, budgets, staffing, etc readily supports this statement. Consequently they are tied to an attractional mode of outreach – trying to get people to come to the Corporate Worship event or to some introductory program (such as 40 Days of Purpose or Alpha) to lead them into this corporate event.

The resultant model of church is overlapping circles representing Worship | Community | Mission

However many people, myself included, consider this inappropriate. The pattern should rather be: Community >> Mission, all within the larger circle of Worship.

Thus George Lings of the Church Army (UK), in his presentation on the CofE’s “Mission-Shaped Church” report, writes: “We face a change of instinct about how church forms and what is most characteristic about it. I would summarise that as a shift from the priority of worship to the priority of community” (italics mine). It is obvious in the context that he uses the word ‘worship’ here for ‘what happens in church on Sunday’, rather that a whole of life attitude that is 24/7.

But ‘the hour on Sunday’ is of no value without the other 167 hours of the week. Rather than an emphasis on ‘communal’ worship, I believe we should give a much greater focus to the other two facets of worship – Private worship (which I hope to touch on more under Spiritual Formation) and ‘All of Life’ Worship which is a 24/7 attitude of mind with resultant impact on action.

All of Life Worship is not just All of OUR Life Worship! It is not just a focus on what we do in out ‘three score years and ten’, but on how we impact our society in that life.

(See also Teaching/Preaching)

Liquid @ NCCC

2005-02-09T20:26:00.000+11:00

Just returned home after the Liquid Day at NCCC - must say I was dissappointed.

The first session had input by three people, - Stephen Said (neurotribe.net) , Leighton Tebay (the heretic.com) and Marke Syares (Forge) give a short 3 point intro each on Justice, Spirituality and Culture respectively. The points they made were very good, but unfortunately they were not given the opportunity to open them up (less than 10 minutes for an intro and three points!).

Stephen: JUSTICE
1. The False seperation of Private & Social Transformation
2. From Protest to alternatives
- many people know and can articulate) what they are against, but few know (or can articulate) what they are for.
3. True Vocational Options
- the potential role of transformational businesses ( a matter I want to discuss further with Stephen)

Leighton: SPIRITUALITY
1. From Event to Engagement
- participation is more important than presentation
2. From Formula to Formation
- not a 5 minute marriage courtship, but a slow development of a long term relationship
3. Embrasing the Mystery
- not everything is knowable, nor should we try to explain everything.

Mark: CULTURE
1. Acknowledge (and name) Implicit Religion
- Religion of 'Hyper-reality' - marketers' use of peace / Family / Community/ etc - but its failing is that it cannot deliver heaven on earth
2. Liquidity
- Society is fluid, not just changing cultures, but people move jobs, change communities, move to different countries
3. D.I.Y - in Renovation / making home movies / file-sharing / etc
- they will not need permission to DIY 'church'.

After a bit of discussion almost all taken up on the theme of individualism, we then broke into 5 groups to share thoughts and ideas on specific topics that the whole group had nominated during Afternoon tea.

This is where I feel things fell in a hole. There were no prepared moderators and thus our group, instead of fine-tuning the question, opened it up so widely you could have discussed it for months before you began to achieve anything. This was not just my view. I encourage four members of our Church Strategy team to attend, and the one (who attended a different group) whom I asked how things went after the second session said in a charitable voice: "I'd only give that an average, Gordon".

The plan for the evening was for more of the afternoon, so I came home.

What would I have done differnetly? I have let the three initial speakers each have ten minutes to expound each of their three points, and then had the discussion groups further enquire into and disuss the issues and questions that had been raised. The initial input was too short and thus didn't have the depth it needed.

Of course, This is one person's opinion, and I may have had the wrong end of the stick before I attended, but... I did meet Stephen Said and Leighton Tebay and a couple of others which was good.

A response to Garth ref: open and transparent community vis-a-vis intimacy

2005-02-07T14:37:00.000+11:00

Hi Garth

"Community does not necessarily mean intimacy or friendship" - Dave Andrews

Dave is always good for a thought provoking discussion. And I think he's right. To be a community of faith means we must not in any way look like, act like, or think like a closed community. By 'openness and transparency' I mean we must avoid hidden agendas, non-accepting language and actions, etc - a community the reveals the integrity of Christ himself. Now that's a HUGE ask - but I believe it is a *must* ask.

How can I be in a real open and transparent relationship with someone unless they can be themselves, especially when that means holding to things that are different to what we might hold to? How can they see the Hope embodied in the Kingdom unless our lives, individual and communal, are not open and transparent?

Unfortunately most 'church' communities are unnecessarily closed to some degree or other. Small groups tend to be even more closed, relying either on spiritual intimacy or friendship to be a boundary that contains them.

Note that Dave does not say 'cannot mean ...' nor 'should not mean ...' but 'does not necessarily mean...". While intimacy and friendship should not be boundaries to our communities, the open hand of friendship is a welcome door to those considering testing the waters of a given community.

I think we also need to realize that today Community comes before Belief, Bible or Worship in most people's experience. I found George Hunter's "The Celtic Way of Evangelism" and parts of Rick Richardson's "Evangelism Outside the Box" particularly stimulating in this arena (altho I have some major 'arguements' with Richardson's thesis in the latter part of his book).

I think a side consequence of this mode of thought is the way we evengelicals have 'used' 'friendships' as a fulcrum for evangelism. "Make friends and bring them to church!" But is that real friendship if it is 'friendship with an intent'? But that should be another theme for another time!!!

Community & Connection

2005-02-07T13:15:00.000+11:00

Kyle, (Reflections of Christ) gives a great example of how connected we can be through mediated interactions:

"I met Jen Lemen today. I've been lurking around her blog for years (it seems like at least). Great author, wonderful thinker. She was kind enough to participate in an e-interview I did with AKMA in a directed reading last semester - and she had some incredible thoughts.

"Meeting Jen was awesome. I feel as if I know her, at least a little, from everything I've read and from our emails back and forth. So the handshakes and face-to-face was wonderful. (She sounds and looks a little like our very good friend Aunt Patty in Colorado Springs - smile)

"But on the way out of the luncheon, she was at the door offering a blessing. She took my hand, and offered a very priestly blessing over me, my journey and God's work in my life. I was surprised at how deeply touched and moved I was. There was an intimacy present I hadn't expect."

BTW - My apologies to Kyle for adding an 'i' into his name (and thus giving him a sex change!).

Responding to Kyle

2005-02-04T09:18:00.000+11:00

Thanks for your comment, Kyle

While I agree that un-mediated interactions enable better 'community' than mediated ones, I suppose what I was trying to counter is a perspective that community can *only* be done in face-to-face and person-to-person contact. And some conservative christians go as far as to say mediated community is contrary to scripture. As I said in an earlier post, I believe our society (at least in Oz) is focussing less on geographical neighbourhood than on network neighbourhood and we have to take that on board seriously.

I have come across few 'churches' who are. In my last job I spent 50% of my time away from home travelling the world. For those 6 years I only recall extremely rare occassions that anyone from our 'church' contacted me just to ask how I was doing, and to 'fellowship' with me. I would suggest that, for instance, for any church active within a community that involves middle to senior executives this kind of interaction is a must.

Of course it also means we should be utilizing the technology more effectively for community interaction. I see a real potential here for blogs, but for SMS, for better websites, etc.

FXFC - 3 – Expositing the Dream… (ii)

2005-02-03T16:20:00.000+11:00

COMMUNITY

As a general rule, being a Christ-follower requires living in relationships with others – both fellow Christ-followers and non-Christ-followers. A true Christ-follower has to seek to make an impact on the world in which they live – this is the fundamental basis of Christ’s Great Commission – and this cannot be done in isolation from that world. Yes, there have been aesthetics and hermits who have lived devout lives which have impacted the world, but they are the exception rather than the rule. And a true Christ-follower needs the support and encouragement of other like-minded pilgrims as each faces the trials and challenges of living a Christ-like life in a Christ-less world.

As Jim Peterson in “Lifestyle Evangelism” points out: “Look through the Epistles and observe how much of the content has to do with Christians relating to one another. We are told to be devoted to one another, to serve one another, to bear with one another in love, to forgive each other …” and climaxes with John’s words “… we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”

But does the Bible mandate face-to-face community as the absolutely normative way of being community? I don’t believe so. While Paul was on his missionary journeys he still felt and acted as if he were very much part of the community in the various places where he had planted faith communities.

This begs the question as to what forms community. I would suggest four elements:

Commonality of focus and purpose - accountability
Commitment / Interdependence - trust
Care – safe and compassionate
Communication & Contact – openness & transparency

In the First Century world this was normally achieved in a small geographical area. Distances (small by today’s standards) were vast to the people of that era. But despite this a sense of community could still be maintained regardless of the distances. Paul’s letters make it obvious that he still felt himself to be part of the community of the churches that he had established in Asia Minor despite his geographical dis-location from them. Today’s communication and transportation technologies make even trans-global communities a reality. As the “Missional Church Report” points out, geographical territory is no longer a key base of commonality.

I would suggest that, as has been shown in the way technology has impacted the sense of community amongst scattered missionaries in places like Japan or North Thailand (to name two areas that I am particularly conversant with), new forms of communication and transportation technology have made network community feasible as a viable alternative (not replacement) to face-to-face community. And even in places where face-to-face community is readily feasible, the new technologies supplement face-to-face to build a network into a more cohesive and yet more elastic community than was previous possible.

Nest: WORSHIP

FXFC - 3 – Expositing the Dream… (i)

2005-02-03T16:13:00.000+11:00

The word ‘church’ poses an immediate problem. Do we mean the building on the corner or the universal body of Christ. Do we mean the people who meet in a specific location (usually) on a Sunday morning, or the institution with its management tree, administrative functions and business meetings, or do we mean the denominational super-structure.

What is CHURCH?

[See “The Emerging Church” by Dan Kimball – pp91ff – from which I have made these notes.]

1. Nowhere in the NT does it say they “went to church”. We can’t go to church because we (the gathered missional community of faith) are the church

2. The meaning of the word: In the NT the Gk word for church is ‘ekklesia’ which means ‘assembly’ and was used in a somewhat political sense to refer to meetings that had a specific purpose. It was used of non-religious gatherings (Acts 19:32, 41) as well as gatherings of the followers of Jesus as they met in people’s homes (Rom.16:5; 1 Cor.16:19). The church was ‘gathered’ (Acts 14:27), but people never met at church.

The term is used in the singular to describe several churches in a region (Acts 9:31) but also to describe a church which is comprised of believers everywhere on earth. We are part of a universal and a local church.

3. Missionality of Church. In Matt.28:19 Jesus instructs his followers to “Go and make disciples…” In Acts 1:8 his final point to his disciples was “… you shall be my witnesses …”. “It appears that He regarded evangelism as the very reason for their being” (Millard Erikson). (see later comments)

4. Church unintentionally redefined. (see: The Missional Church edited by Darrell Guder) ‘The reformers, in their effort to raise the authority of the Bible and ensure sound doctrine, defined the marks of the true church: a place where the gospel is rightly preached, the sacraments rightly administered, and church discipline exercised. However, over time these marks narrowed the definition of church itself as a “place where” idea instead of a “people who are” reality.’ Church became defined as “a place where certain things happen”.’

5. Church as a Vendor of Services

In our desire to attract people to our churches, have we subtly taught that church is where you come to learn about how God can fix your problems? Where you come to have others feed your children about God for you? Where you come for your weekly feeding in the Word of God? Where you come to experience high quality worship music?

6. Consumer Christians

“We’re looking for a church that meets our needs!” The phenomenon of church shopping has shaped the contemporary church.

We have moved from being a community that goes out into the world to holistically help the lost and the broken to an institution that tries to get people to come to it so that their specific needs (psychological, material, relational and/or spiritual needs) can be met.

Our church needs to be re-birthed from the inside out – to redefine itself in its inner core as the “community of faith” – a network of people who have put themselves under the Lordship of Christ and who are moving out and reaching out on mission for the Kingdom.

The Bible does not mandate the ‘form’ of the church but does define the membership of the ‘Church’. It mandates the purpose of Church and church – to be a community that is the catalyst bringing the Kingdom of God to the world in transforming power: transforming people and transforming society and bringing them under the rule of the King of Kings.

While not mandating any specific form, Scripture does clearly points to two key characteristics of Church – Community and Worship, and has things to say about some other aspects of being church. I intend looking at these two concepts next.

FXFC - 2 - I have a dream…

2005-02-03T16:05:00.000+11:00

These are some 'Theses' (to use Luther's word) that I believe have merit and that shape the paradigm of my dream for local expressions of faith communities (aka 'church'). Over coming blogs I will exegete something of what I mean by some of the concepts they contain. Both now and as I elaborate, your comments are most welcome. G.

I have a dream...

§ Of a church that really is a faith community (FC) – focused on being a community of followers of Jesus (and thus with only a secondary focus on buildings, programs, etc, and then only those that serve the primary focii), so immersed in its world that the 24/7 worship of its members influences and in time transforms the world, bring it under the Kingdom of God.

§ Of an FC that follows the path of the ‘men of Issachar’ who “understood the times and knew what Israel ought to do” (1 Chron.12:32).

§ Of an FC that is willing to take extreme risks in following the discerned Will of God.

§ Of an FC whose members spend time each w’end intercoursing with ‘neighbours’ both near and far by whatever means is appropriate (the w’end being the time when most of our society is free of the daily constraints of the working week timetable).

§ Of an FC whose members meet weekly in sub-groups to learn about the faith and its practical application in daily life, and to support others in that sub-group in their application of discovered truths.

§ Of an FC whose members encourage and support each other through the use of SMS, email and phone links, etc.

§ Of an FC that engages in a regular open communal worship event that reflects the awe, majesty and mystery of our God.

§ Of an FC that recognises that the 24/7 Life worship of each member is nourished and energised by both Private and Communal Worship, and acts on this.

§ Of an FC that recognises that the best way to disciple is by dialoguing and mentoring younger disciples with more mature disciples.

§ Of an FC that realises that the best way to teach is though interactive dialogue and acts accordingly.

§ Of an FC that sees its members as trying to be Christ incarnate to those whose lives are touched in their normal daily activities.

§ Of an FC that understands and applies the importance of the Kairos moments in individual lives.

§ Of an FC that makes available to it members appropriate tools and resources for use in bringing people under the fringes of the FC so that they can experience in one way or other the ministry of God’s people. Such items would include a FC card with a tag message and contact details, including the web URL, as well as informational cards for the FC’s specific service ministries.

§ Of an FC which has a significant web-presence including blogs (especially by its leading members).

§ Of an FC whose leading members are encouragers, teachers and enablers.

§ Of an FC that co-ordinates events (seminars, rallies, parties, etc) that inform, challenge and celebrate matters and events of interest to the society in which they are embedded.

§ Of a FC that out-sources its administration to a professional admin centre that serves a number of faith communities with administrative excellence. This FC has no paid ‘ad-ministry’ staff, but may well have paid staff in some of its specific centres of service (eg social service centre, coffee shop, gallery, medical centre, legal centre, etc.)

There are any number of ways these principles can be put into practice, but I suggest that they require a significant sift in mind-set for most current ‘church’ members.

Thanks for your welcome

2005-02-03T16:01:00.000+11:00

Thanks to those who have welcomed me into the Blogosphere - I look forward to interaction over time. And I will try to keep most of my posts down in size. :-)

FXFC - 1 - Emergent Culture

2005-02-01T13:50:00.000+11:00

1 - The Emergent Cultural

Many people have written thousands of words on the cultural changes that have effected our western society in the last 25 years. Again, it may be semantics, but I am uncomfortably talking of floods, tidal waves or tsunamis of change – especially in the light of Boxing Day 2004. These imply sudden, sweeping - and usually devastating – changes. However what we have experienced has been insidious incremental change (although at a relatively rapid rate when looked at in the history of social change). We have been more like the frog in the kettle (to use George Barna’s book title) sitting on a gas flame set at ‘high’.

Another word often used in this examination is “post-“. Again, it may be just a quibble, but I would prefer to look ahead more rather than look back so much.

My other concern with much that has been written about cultural change is the overwhelming focus that has been put on the philosophical change (post-modernism) without a balancing examination of the other major changes concurrently emerging. I firmly believe that, while the philosophical change is very important, it has only had the impact because of its synergy with the other changes. Each have supported and strengthened the other.

Commentators have classed these changes in many ways – each seems to have their own list – so here is mine (using 4 of Gerard Kelly’ 5 posts).

Emergent New Technologies – that have torn apart the two hundred year old mechanical machine age and overwhelmed it with new information processing and digital technology. This has had dramatic impact on not just the work-place and the entertainment industry, but even the very way we communicate.

An emergent new underlying Philosophy - that is bursting out of the foundational framework of modernism which shaped our society for over 400 years. The sureness of the Enlightenment and of humanity’s potential to know and control all is being displaced by a philosophy of ambiguity, diversity and uncertainty. “My Truth” is just as valid as “Your Truth”. Power and authority are mistrusted – authentic experience is what counts.
This new philosophy has led to a new morality where anything goes, ethical is what you can get away with.

An emerging Globalized Economy – where many corporations have an international economic impact that swamps that of most nation states, and where market economics take precedent over national interests. The old order of political empires has given way to the empires of McWorld. (A challenging film & book on this topic is “The Corporation”).

Emerging Spiritual Diversity – that has shifted from an ‘established’ religion to a plurality of individualised, experiential faith expressions. Popular spirituality has shifted from orthodoxy to self-fulfilment.

The rapid transition of change itself. Trends of the sort that took many years to seep through society now permeate it in a time-span measured by months. While businesses were advised to develop 5-10 year plans they now develop 1-2 year plans – anything longer than that will be overtaken by changes of one kind or another.

As a result of these changes the cultural landscape has dramatically altered.

From Homogenous to Fragmented

A quick look at the ABS Statistics tells us that the Australia of the ‘Oughties’ is vastly different from that of the ‘Fifties’ or even the ‘Seventies’. Our society is both more multi-ethnic and increasingly polarized economically between the haves and have-nots. The stereotypical white classless Aussie battler no longer exists. New trends in immigration, higher levels of long-term unemployment (and casual part-time work), increased mobility, changes to family life patterns, later-life child-bearing, and the rise of the single parent household, all mark a new social and cultural landscape.

From Literate to Visi-Aural

The rise firstly of TV , more lately of the Internet, and now the prevelance of mobile video-phones have led to a swing away from a society that is focused on ‘words’ to one that is focused on sounds and sights. This is not new – in many ways it is a return to the culture prior to the Renaissance – the world of the Middle Ages was replete with visi-aural communication: mystery plays, stained glass windows, heraldic devices and signs of all sorts, etc. In an unpublished paper I have argued that throughout history there has been a number of cycles from visi-aural to literate to visi-aural and back again.

From Neighbours to Networks

The dominance of territory to confer identifying relationships is being replaced by networks. Who we know is more significant than where we live. Our geographical neighbours are quite likely to be complete strangers to us – rather we choose how and with whom to connect. Friends, work colleagues, fellow hobbyists are our new key connects. Home is often only a place to retreat into and to sleep at – more people are regularly living out and eating out.

From Production to Consumption

In the middle of the 20th Century, the majority of people were seen as ‘workers’ – now they are seen as ‘consumers’. Marketing, amongst other forces, has brought about an increased emphasis on the individual, prioritising personal choice and the attainment of pleasure as an inalienable right. Advertisers and producers ensure that this supposed right is never quite attained; producing relentless advertising to ensure the demand is insatiable. (Australian Retailers are expecting Christmas 2004 to net them over AU$34 billion – an average spend of over $1750 for every man, woman and child in the land!)

From Christendom to the Fringe

Christian culture and values are no longer normative. The number of Aussies claiming to be ‘Christian’ has dropped dramatically in the last 50 years as the new individuality meant that it was more than just OK to call oneself a non-Christian. This had two determining causes – one was a deep historical antagonism in the Aussie psyche to anything that was linked with authoritarian control, the other a new multi-cultural tolerance that challenged the very ‘truth’ foundation of Christianity.

The basic underlying culture regarding religion in Australia differs from the UK or the US. In the UK there has been a long tradition of the church’s role (together with the pub!) as the centre of neighbourhood community. In the US the early settlers were seekers of freedom to observe their faith in ways they saw as appropriate, and religion has always been close to the heart of the national culture. Australia, however, was founded as a penal colony and as such had an inbred distrust of anything that was connected with authority and that included the church.

Christianity’s claim to be the truth is perceived as being ludicrous. In multi-ethnic Australia the ‘fear’ of upsetting those of non-Christian ethnic backgrounds has mean the neutering of major Christian festivities for fear of appearing ‘non-politically correct’ or, even worse, subject to a racial vilification law-suit. Thus the Melbourne City Council did not promote a ‘Christmas Celebration’ but a ‘Celebrate Melbourne’ theme leading up to Dec 25th 2004.

Some Implications for Faith Communities:

§ The fragmentation of society requires a new emphasis on the Gospel of Reconciliation. The Kingdom message is not just that we can have a newly reconciled relationship with God, but that we can have a relationship of communal love with all people, regardless of their ethnicity, status, etc., - all are people loved by God, and our faith community must reflect anew Paul’s challenge of ‘neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, … but all one in Christ Jesus.

§ The changed communications modality requires a shift from our current emphasis on the literate word. Rather we should seek to more effectively utilize visual and aural images that conjure up emotive metaphors for spiritual truth. Experiencing something is more important to most people today that the knowledge of that same thing. Change attention span also challenges us to reconsider the way we communicate – where didactic messages are used they should be short and pithy; dialogue is the preferred way to transmit knowledge.

§ The networking of social relationships means that geographical place is of much less importance than previously. People will happily drive 20-30 minutes or more to get to an event that matters to them. (We used to drive Peter to Altona and even Geelong for his hockey games!)

§ The consumptive society has both positive and negative implications. Negative ones include the focus on meeting individuals felt needs, resulting in a church that becomes a ‘service vendor’ rather than a community. It also results in believers going ‘church shopping’ rather than seeking God’s will regarding the faith community they should commit to. On the positive side, most people are open to new ideas and new experiences in a way they previously weren’t, as long as they do not feel pressured by slick salesmanship but are rather drawn in by early experienceers in their peer group.

§ Christianity on the Fringe means that we have to work to earn trust and respect from members of society. It means that demonstration of the faith in action (24/7 incarnation) is much more important than proclamation. We have to immerse ourselves in the society we want to transform, demonstrating in daily life the ‘benefits’ of kingdom living and then be ready to ‘give the reason for our hope’.

FXFC - Intro

2005-02-01T13:45:00.000+11:00

A FRESH EXPRESSION FOR A FAITH COMMUNITY
An Immersive Church for an Emergent Culture

By Way of Introduction

My name is Gordon Gray, and for the last thirty years or more I have been involved in helping Churches and Christian Non-Profits think through ways of being more effective in reaching out to the wider world. I studied theology at Ridley College, an Anglican Theological College here in Melbourne, Australia. Currently I worship at Murrumbeena Baptist Church (MBC) in SE Melbourne. Over the years I have been involved in ‘christian marketing’ activities, assisted in Church Plants, run alternative worship services, and visited churches in many parts of the world. Recently I have immersed myself in books and blogs concerning the ‘Emerging’ or ‘Missional’ Church.

Please note that all I say here is the expression of one person’s particular viewpoint – albeit heavily fed by writers within and without the various expressions of the Christian Faith.

Please also take on board that I am not attempting a prescription for the Church at large – rather I am exploring ‘a’ fresh expression to living out the Christian faith. I value the term that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has been quoted as using in this regard -- “a mixed economy” – that there are many ways of being Church, new and old – there is no one way. One impetus for writing this at this time is that I am facilitating a Strategy TaskForce for MBC – seeking a direction for our church as we move towards 2020.

Another foundational perspective is that I am looking at things from a Western point of view (with a definite Aussie twist) and that I fully understand that things are very different in various parts of the world – vastly different in many parts of Africa and Asia – but also that there are significant differences between Australia, Canada, NZ, UK and US.

The overall shape of this series of ‘Probes’ will (I think) follow the following framework:

The Cultural Shifts
I have a Dream…
Exegeting the Dream
A Possible direction to finding an appropriate Fresh Expressions

I have subtitled this document “An Immersive Church for an Emergent Culture”. In this I am intentionally using words in a different way than the latest norm. “Emergent” is used extensively to describe the latest incarnation of church (see “A Generous Orthodoxy” by Brian McLaren, pp.275-7, for the origins of the use of this word in this way). However I often feel that the emergent church is focussed on where it has come from, rather than what it is there to do. Thus the use of the word 'emergent' = coming to the surface / coming into prominence / being discovered (see “The Emerging Church” by Dan Kimball p13). I feel this is not the most appropriate term for the new faith expression, but that it is an appropriate term for the changed culture in which we have to operate (more of that later).

Another word often used to describe the latest incarnation of church is “Missional”. This has the advantage of having an outward focus, but also carries with it overtones of ‘promotion’ and ‘hard-sell’ and fails to convey anything of the relational aspect that I feel is so important.

Consequently I would prefer to use the word "immersive" for the church - focussing on being in the world but not of it. At times it will be so immersed it may not even be seen, but it will still be there below the surface as a clear identify and catalyst for change.

I hope this concept will become clearer as you read through this document. Please note that it is very much a ‘work in progress’ to be discussed – it is not a formal proposal.

Gordon