Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Croft, S. (2002) Transforming Communities: Re-imagining the Church for the 21st Century. DLT
Croft, S. (2002) Transforming Communities: Re-imagining the Church for the 21st Century. DLT
The Great Commission at the end of Matthew's Gospel is certainly something which every church needs to take seriously, as 1 shall argue below. However, to define and order the whole purpose and life of the church around this commission alone will lead to distortions in the Christian community which will not be life-giving to those who may be part of it. Nor, curiously, will this kind of church develop disciples of the type intended by Jesus in Matthew 28. It may be useful to draw an analogy with marriage. One of the highest purposes of Christian marriage is to provide a context for the birth and nurture of children.23 Yet to make the birth and nurture of children the only purpose and mission of a Christian marriage is to distort the marriage relationship which has at its heart the mutual companionship, love, trust and growing unity of a man and a woman. Unless attention is paid to that growing relationship of husband and wife, the marriage is unlikely to provide an effective means for the nurture of children. In the same way, one of the highest callings of the church is to make disciples - yet if the making of disciples is made to be the chief and only purpose of the life of a community it will not be a healthy place in which to nurture new Christians. pp59
However, a potential weakness of both approaches seems to me to be the lack of a common and coherent understanding of what the church is and is called to be undergirding the audit. At one level, Natural Church Development at least could be read as promoting a list of qualities which make churches attractive to their members, pleasant and fulfilling to belong to, and which are therefore likely to grow in an increasingly mobile and consumer-driven society. This is a church in which 1 can have my needs met (including my need to participate in its leadership and find fulfilment through exercising my gifts in ministry). But is it a church which is likely to serve the needs of the poor; to take an unpopular stand on social issues; to invest significant amounts of time in areas of the community where there may be little immediate return? Where is the concern for the kingdom of God? Where is the concern for Christian unity and collaboration with other congregations? Where is the call to sacrifice and suffering for the sake of the gospel? Where is the failure which was as much a mark of the early Church as its success? Pp62
Robert Warren Missionary Congregations
The phrase –the kingdom of God - itself is a kind of shorthand coined by Jesus to sum up the way God intends things to be in human society and the way they will be one day. There is a great deal of teaching in the Old Testament about the kingship or reign of God and the conditions that prevail where God reigns. Much of the vision of the future in the prophets concerns the time when God's order and rule will prevail. At its best, and as Jesus uses the term, the vision is as wide as creation and extends through the whole of time. God's concern is not for one group of people within society whether the Israelites, the Jews or the Christians, but for the ordering of the life of the whole world. Hence a concern for the kingdom of God means a concern for justice to prevail; a concern for the poor; a concern for the structures of society; a concern for ethical business practice and investment; a concern for the care of the elderly, the sick and the mentally ill; for prisoners, refugees and asylum seekers; for those forgotten by our wider society; and for the environment. Pp89
Cell Church is mainly Protestant and Pentecostal in origin although some Roman Catholic congregations have deployed its insights. The theological background is undoubtedly that of conservative evangelical theology, largely emanating from the seminaries and research institutes of the United States. Not surprisingly therefore, the concept of mission in the Cell Church movement and in individual cells focuses upon making disciples and upon church growth. There is an emphasis on equipping every member of the church to fulfil the Great Commission. Pp100
The word sed in the NT for ‘church’ os ekklesia, which simply means ‘called out’ pp 109
Giles, K (1995) What on Earth is the church? A biblical and theological enquiry.spck
Whenever the church reduces its way of relating to the world simply to the task of making disciples, something hugely important is lost. We are left with the picture of the church as the Ark of Salvation: all we are called to do is draw people into it to safety from the destruction around them, In this picture, 'the world' is no longer a manifestation of the wisdom and love of the good creator but a hostile environment from which we ourselves must escape, within which we must keep ourselves safe and from which we will eventually be taken into heaven. However, when the church focuses upon proclaiming the kingdom of God in all its aspects except that of calling people into a new relationship with Christ, again the message is woefully incomplete. To know the length and breadth and height and depth of the love of Christ is the fulfilment of what it means to be human. The Christian gospel is, as Paul writes, the power of God for the salvation, transformation and healing of all those who believe. Without the faithful proclamation of the gospel and the making of disciples, the new community of the church cannot be renewed in every generation. Evangelism is only part, but an essential part, of the wider task of God's mission in which the church is called to share. Pp 139
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The Great Commission at the end of Matthew's Gospel is certainly something which every church needs to take seriously, as 1 shall argue below. However, to define and order the whole purpose and life of the church around this commission alone will lead to distortions in the Christian community which will not be life-giving to those who may be part of it. Nor, curiously, will this kind of church develop disciples of the type intended by Jesus in Matthew 28. It may be useful to draw an analogy with marriage. One of the highest purposes of Christian marriage is to provide a context for the birth and nurture of children.23 Yet to make the birth and nurture of children the only purpose and mission of a Christian marriage is to distort the marriage relationship which has at its heart the mutual companionship, love, trust and growing unity of a man and a woman. Unless attention is paid to that growing relationship of husband and wife, the marriage is unlikely to provide an effective means for the nurture of children. In the same way, one of the highest callings of the church is to make disciples - yet if the making of disciples is made to be the chief and only purpose of the life of a community it will not be a healthy place in which to nurture new Christians. pp59
However, a potential weakness of both approaches seems to me to be the lack of a common and coherent understanding of what the church is and is called to be undergirding the audit. At one level, Natural Church Development at least could be read as promoting a list of qualities which make churches attractive to their members, pleasant and fulfilling to belong to, and which are therefore likely to grow in an increasingly mobile and consumer-driven society. This is a church in which 1 can have my needs met (including my need to participate in its leadership and find fulfilment through exercising my gifts in ministry). But is it a church which is likely to serve the needs of the poor; to take an unpopular stand on social issues; to invest significant amounts of time in areas of the community where there may be little immediate return? Where is the concern for the kingdom of God? Where is the concern for Christian unity and collaboration with other congregations? Where is the call to sacrifice and suffering for the sake of the gospel? Where is the failure which was as much a mark of the early Church as its success? Pp62
Robert Warren Missionary Congregations
The phrase –the kingdom of God - itself is a kind of shorthand coined by Jesus to sum up the way God intends things to be in human society and the way they will be one day. There is a great deal of teaching in the Old Testament about the kingship or reign of God and the conditions that prevail where God reigns. Much of the vision of the future in the prophets concerns the time when God's order and rule will prevail. At its best, and as Jesus uses the term, the vision is as wide as creation and extends through the whole of time. God's concern is not for one group of people within society whether the Israelites, the Jews or the Christians, but for the ordering of the life of the whole world. Hence a concern for the kingdom of God means a concern for justice to prevail; a concern for the poor; a concern for the structures of society; a concern for ethical business practice and investment; a concern for the care of the elderly, the sick and the mentally ill; for prisoners, refugees and asylum seekers; for those forgotten by our wider society; and for the environment. Pp89
Cell Church is mainly Protestant and Pentecostal in origin although some Roman Catholic congregations have deployed its insights. The theological background is undoubtedly that of conservative evangelical theology, largely emanating from the seminaries and research institutes of the United States. Not surprisingly therefore, the concept of mission in the Cell Church movement and in individual cells focuses upon making disciples and upon church growth. There is an emphasis on equipping every member of the church to fulfil the Great Commission. Pp100
The word sed in the NT for ‘church’ os ekklesia, which simply means ‘called out’ pp 109
Giles, K (1995) What on Earth is the church? A biblical and theological enquiry.spck
Whenever the church reduces its way of relating to the world simply to the task of making disciples, something hugely important is lost. We are left with the picture of the church as the Ark of Salvation: all we are called to do is draw people into it to safety from the destruction around them, In this picture, 'the world' is no longer a manifestation of the wisdom and love of the good creator but a hostile environment from which we ourselves must escape, within which we must keep ourselves safe and from which we will eventually be taken into heaven. However, when the church focuses upon proclaiming the kingdom of God in all its aspects except that of calling people into a new relationship with Christ, again the message is woefully incomplete. To know the length and breadth and height and depth of the love of Christ is the fulfilment of what it means to be human. The Christian gospel is, as Paul writes, the power of God for the salvation, transformation and healing of all those who believe. Without the faithful proclamation of the gospel and the making of disciples, the new community of the church cannot be renewed in every generation. Evangelism is only part, but an essential part, of the wider task of God's mission in which the church is called to share. Pp 139
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