Fresh Expressions Toronto (theological reflections)

Slide 1: FRESH EXPRESSIONS TORONTO 2

Slide 2: ANCHOR POINTS FOR A THEOLOGY OF MISSION  THE MISSION OF GOD  AFTER THE PATTERN OF CHRIST  THE COMMUNITY OF THE SPIRIT  DNA - 5 VALUES FOR MISSIONAL CHURCHES

Slide 3: THE MISSION OF GOD

Slide 4: MISSION STARTS WITH GOD  'Mission has its origin in God. God is a missionary God, a God who crosses frontiers towards the world. In creation God was already the God of mission, with his Word and his Spirit as missionaries. God likewise sent his incarnate Son into the world.

Slide 5: GOD’S SELF EMPTYING  And he sent his Spirit at Pentecost. Mission is God giving up himself, his becoming (hu)man, his laying aside of his divine prerogatives and taking our humanity, his moving into the world, in his Son and Spirit.' David Bosch

Slide 6: MISSIO DEI  'It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfil in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church.' Jurgen Moltmann

Slide 7: THE PRIORITY OF MISSION  ‘The Church of God does not have a mission, but the God of mission has a Church.’ Tim Dearborn  'There is church because there is mission, not vice versa.' David Bosch

Slide 8: THE THEOLOGICAL TASK  ‘The primary task of the leader is to reconnect ecclesiology and missiology in order that the church be defined first and foremost by its God- given mission.’ Eddie Gibbs

Slide 9: AFTER THE PATTERN OF CHRIST

Slide 10: CHRIST SHAPED PRINCIPLES FOR THE CHURCH  INCARNATION - The world to enter  CROSS - The world to counter  RESURRECTION - The world to anticipate

Slide 11: INCARNATION - A World to Enter

Slide 12: 1 CORINTHIANS 9:19-23  19 I have made myself a slave to all so that I might win more of them.  20 To the Jews I became as a Jew,  21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law  22 I have become all things to all people  23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel

Slide 13: PAUL’S MISSIONARY METHODS  'As far as possible he (Paul) has deliberately identified himself with those whom he has sought to win for the gospel.' Morna Hooker  ‘I do it all for the sake of the gospel.’ 1 Cor. 9:23

Slide 14: PAUL’S MISSIONARY METHODS  ‘What Paul describes is the self- identification of Christ with men and women which, in turn, results in their sharing in what he is.’ Morna Hooker  ‘Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.’ 1 Cor. 11:1  A slave  Outside the Law

Slide 15: CROSS - A World to Counter

Slide 16: 1 CORINTHIANS 9:19-23  20 To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law.  21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law.

Slide 17: THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP  ‘The incarnation of divine love in a world of sin led inevitably to the cross.’ Miroslav Volf

Slide 18: IRRELEVANCE  '(A cross cultural missionary) has to find the path between two dangers.  On the one hand, he may simply fail to communicate. He uses the words of the language, but in such a way that he sounds like a foreigner: his message is heard as the babblings of a man who really has nothing to say.

Slide 19: SYNCRETISM  Or, on the other hand, he may so far succeed in talking the language of his hearers that he is accepted all too easily as a familiar character. ...  His message is simply absorbed into the existing world-view In the attempt to be "relevant" one may fall into syncretism, and in the effort to avoid syncretism one may become irrelevant.' Lesslie Newbigin

Slide 20: RESURRECTION - The world to anticipate

Slide 21: RESURRECTION - THE FUTURE IN ADVANCE  1Cor 15:20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.  22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.  58 Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.

Slide 22: CHURCH AS POINTER TO GOD’S FUTURE  Our greatest need is for a baptism of imagination about the form of the church  We have given too much attention to church as a passing on of the inheritance of the past and too little to church as an anticipation of God’s future.

Slide 23: THE COMMUNITY OF THE SPIRIT

Slide 24: A FORTASTE OF GOD’S FUTURE  ‘The Church does more than merely point to a reality beyond itself. By virtue of its participation in the life of God, it is not only a sign and instrument, but also a genuine foretaste of God’s Kingdom, called to show forth visibly, in the midst of history, God’s final purposes for humankind.’ Eucharistic Presidency

Slide 25: THE PILGRIM PEOPLE  ‘The Church is the pilgrim people of God. It is on the move - hastening to the ends of the earth to beseech all men to be reconciled to God, and hastening to the end of time to meet its Lord who will gather all into one.

Slide 26: THE PILGRIM PEOPLE  Therefore the nature of the Church is never to be defined in static terms, but only it terms of that to which it is going. It cannot be understood rightly except in a perspective which is at once missionary and eschatological.’ Lesslie Newbigin

Slide 27: LEADERSHIP

Slide 28: Watch this space!  ‘God continues to create new futures in the most inauspicious of places.’  ‘The biblical narratives are full of stories about places and people without hope who became centres of the Spirit’s creative, world changing, activity.’ Roxburgh + Romanuk

Slide 29: THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT  ‘If God’s Spirit is among the people of God wherever they are, then those are the places where it is possible to incarnate a missional life.’

Slide 30: LEADERSHIP  ‘Leadership is about cultivating an environment that innovates and releases the missional imagination present in a community of God’s people.’  ‘An environment in which the Spirit given presence of God’s future may emerge among the people of God.’

Slide 31: LEADERSHIP - Alan Roxburgh  ‘The pastor apostle is one who forms congregations into mission groups shaped by encounters with the gospel in the culture - structuring the congregation’s shape into forms that lead people outward into a missionary encounter.’  ‘But in this kind of congregation, the pastor will be able to lead only as she or he models the encounter with the culture.’

Slide 32: ‘The place of leadership is at the leading edge modelling engagement with the culture in the name of the gospel.’ Missional church Leaders

Slide 33: DNA - FIVE VALUES FOR MISSIONARY CHURCHES

Slide 34: GOD CENTRED  Worship the gift at its heart  God’s glory its chief inspiration  Prayer under girding all its activities  Discernment its key to sharing in God’s mission

Slide 35: INCARNATIONAL  Shaped in relation to its culture.  Responsive to the action of the Spirit in its community.

Slide 36: TRANSFORMATIONAL  Never self serving  Seeks first the Kingdom in its community  Exists for the transformation of its community

Slide 37: DISCIPLE MAKING  Calls people to faith  Develops life long whole life discipleship  Encourages gifts and develops leadership

Slide 38: RELATIONAL  Functions as a community  Characterised by welcome and hospitality  Changed by new members  Does not stand alone, seeks relationship with other Christian communities.

Slide 39: FRESH EXPRESSIONS TORONTO 2