Resonate

The second chapter in Gary Nelson’s recent book is titled,  “Crossing Over.” It’s an appropriate title and contains a certain poignancy: while every church and every leader wants to make this crossing, like Moses, some will not make it…

Gary begins by noting that Joshua’s experience of moving across the Jordon to the promised land serves as a framework for today’s church — we are invited out of the security of the familiar into the borderlands. For Gary the Hebrew word, ‘abar will define this experience. It is translated “crossover,” and this is the first time it appears in the Old Testament. It describes a decisive moment, perhaps a “kairos” time. The people of God will cut themselves off from what has been and move into the unknown world. Like the Latin word “limina” it describes a threshold — we can’t go back and we may not want to go ahead — and it conjures the anxiety that we experience in those moments that require us to intentionally leave our comfort zones behind. read more »

Borderland Churches
Author: Gary Nelson
Publisher: Chalice Press, 2008
166 Pages

In seven chapters and seven appendices Gary Nelson offers a Canadian take on what it means to live in the borderlands. Or, more precisely, he challenges us to embrace the borderlands where we live. These really are two different things, because like our American brothers to the south, we have largely failed to live in the communities where we dwell. The borderlands are a place where faith and unfaith intersect, and a place decidedly outside the comfort zone of Christendom structures.

Gary is the General Secretary for Canadian Baptist Ministries. He brings a wealth of experience to this task, and the book straddles an academic and practical line with ease. While Gary works at a theological task, his emphasis is on practice and to that end he stories this journey very well. Moreover, he is passionate about his purpose, and the stories he tells help us to envision a new kind of church and a new level of engagement in our communities in Canada.

The book is comprised of seven chapters, as follows:

1. Learning to Sing the Song
2. Crossing Over
3. Recovering our Roots
4. Landscapes and Tool Kits
5. Herding Cats
6. Missioning the Church
7. Mapping the Journey read more »

Michael Krahn has been blogging and posting extensive notes of the sessions he has attended, as well as referencing other bloggers who attended the Congress.

One of the more interesting discussions is on the whole question of a “social” gospel as opposed to regeneration as the heart of the issue. Mike quotes from Jonathan Dodson that “social action doesn’t create [the] new community:”

Although social action mission creates community, it doesn’t create new community. Regenerated, new creation is the unique work of God the Spirit (Tit. 2.11; Gal. 6:15) through faith in the Son (Tit. 3:6-7; 2 Cor. 5:17). If we convert people to community and social mission alone, and not to Christ, we offer a very incomplete gospel. Regeneration is both social (Matt. 19:28) and spiritual (Tit. 3:5). The Spirit, not social mission, makes men new.

This is both helpful, and incomplete…

It is helpful because it is important to know what we mean by regeneration, referencing the work of the Spirit in the heart of a believer. It is incomplete, because it tends to push us away from the frame of missio Dei – which is the movement toward shalom, a wholeness of God in action in the world, where there is no “spiritual” gospel as opposed to a “social” one. It is abundantly evident in the Old Testament that justice and economic issues are near the heart of the gospel. It is equally clear in Jesus defining statement of his ministry in Luke 4.

However, Jonathan is right that social mission alone does not produce shalom. It may create the conditions that make shalom possible, and it certainly makes shalom visible. But to say that it does not PRODUCE shalom does not mean that it has no value in this world. These last points are really important. The Gospel becomes visible in the new community, through signs of the kingdom, foretastes of the shalom that God will one day bring in fulness. The new community performs and proclaims the word in its shared life in the neighbourhood.

And this life and work for justice has real value — God genuinely loves and cares for this fallen world, and will love and care for the world in spite of its response. If nothing else, Matthew 25 should instruct us that God’s care for the poor has no conditions attached. God in Godself overflows with self-sacrificing love, pours himself out for this world knowing it might reject him. Ultimately we embody the love of God in our communities not because we know that love will transform the world, but because this is the nature of God. Ultimately mission appears as the self-unfolding of contemplation.

It struck me that there is nothing comparable to this Calgary gathering occurring in the United States. Seven hundred people from across the denominational spectrum and from rural, urban, and suburban settings across Canada coming together for a single missional agenda – to impact our country for Christ by seeding missional communities. And it is equally amazing that nearly half of this group have come to a Congress for the first time. Something is stirring in Canadian hearts — a work of the Spirit.

The Thursday morning session again featured Stuart Murray and Juliet Kilpin — really a great combination of reflecting, wondering, and putting forth theology and frameworks: a great blend of academics and on-the-ground but in-process experience. It leads me to hope that Urban Expressions might publish a book about what they are learning. read more »

This is the first in a series of reports written while attending Renov8. Hopefully others will post their thoughts, reflections, questions and frustrations also.

After a day in meetings with the Forge Canada National Team, and with the first plenary session on its way, we arrived at a restaurant not far from Center Street. We were to meet another group which included Stuart Murray and Juliet Kilpin of Urban Expressions UK.

As it turned out, the restaurant had lost our reservation, and we didn’t have a lot of time to spare. Hmm.. isn’t that a pub next door? We checked it out.. no line up and not crowded. Why not?

It’s surprising how consistently good the food is in pubs, and the portions seem generally larger. I ordered one of the best chicken club sandwiches I’ve ever had. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get BC Cider in Alberta, and I don’t like beer 

I sat at a table with Mike Frost, Glenn Smith and Anthony Brown. Mike was first up last night for the plenary last night and did a great job sharing his heart for the kingdom and God’s redeeming work in the world. At the pub I heard about his fondness for the beer produced by the micro-brewery in his home town of Sydney in New South Wales. read more »

A friend of many of us in Resonate is looking for submissions for a cookbook of recipes for and from missional communities.  Check out this post for more information.

Steve Taylor offers up his guide to the Missional Conversation in two parts.  Here are Part 1 and Part 2

Cultivate Missional Living [CML] is a six month training course for people who want to learn how to engage in mission in an urban community.

[CML] takes place in the Beasley neighbourhood in downtown Hamilton, Ontario – one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Canada – and is hosted by The Freeway.

[CML] is supported by Allelon, Resonate, and The Salvation Army.

For more information about [CML] or to receive an application form, please contact the [CML] director, Jordan Donald, by e-mail [jordan@frwy.ca] or by phone: 905-929-0890.

Jamie Arpin-Ricci and YWAM Winnipeg are launching The Dusty Cover Used Bookstore.

The Dusty Cover is a non-profit used bookstore started in October 2007 in Winnipeg’s historic West End neighborhood and is dedicated to serving and investing into our community. In addition to being a good source of used books at great prices, our comfortable lounge is an excellent place to enjoy a hot cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate, all fair trade products.

Check out the website for more information.

This comes from Pernell Goodyear

As we began to question whether or not the point of church really came down to adding more people, making more money, keeping people more and more busy with more and more programs, etc. we anticipated that if we weren’t going to continue to try and attract large numbers of people to our services, we could likely expect that we would look like miserable failures in many ways to many people as we instead looked to “the sending out” as a way of measuring whether or not we were a living Kingdom community.
In other words, rather than counting the number of people who come in to consume church programs, etc. we would celebrate people who left to follow to Jesus outside of the church walls. This shift meant several changes in the way we had always done things and the “results” we had always seen (some of which we would never have been able to anticipate ahead of time):

1. It meant that Sunday services could no longer be the main focus of our week. If attracting people to our top-notch services wasn’t the point, and living missionally was, then we should spend less time and focus on Sundays and actually encourage people to not come unless they needed to.
2. It meant that rather than creating and maintaining church programs, we should set out to intentionally and organically be-friend one another and our neighbours. We should seek hospitality and justice and deep community together as we respond to the call of Jesus in each one of us.
3. It meant that we would lose two thirds of the people who actually join us (we would lose many more “Christian tourists” who come to check things out, and many of the folks who want the church to be a “self-help” group). One third would leave disgruntled. One third would leave as Jesus called them on to new and exciting missional ventures (often they are some of our brightest and best folks). One third would stay and continue to learn to live out mission as a community.
4. It meant that we would lose money. Lots of money. Many of the people who leave are the best financial supporters.
5. It meant that our tribe would need to be very patient with us and that we would need to intentionally foster relationships with the “powers that be” because our monthly statistic forms and financial records would be terrible indicators of Kingdom activity. Much time had to be invested listening to each other and creating space for each other. (Thankfully our Kingdom-focused leaders have been a brilliant support to us.)
6. It meant that we would never have a good answer to the “important questions” (insert sarcasm here) like, “How many people are you guys getting now?” To which I like to respond “10 or 12″… I just like to watch the expression on their faces. Or, “What percentage of people are involved in small/cell/house groups?” To which I usually respond “about zero”.

Technorati tags: Freeway, Pernell Goodyear, Missional Church, Emerging Church