100704

Click here to listen to the sermon. 22mins

2 Kings 5v1-14                   Naaman healed of Leprosy

Galatians 6v(1-6) 7-16       Doing Good to All

Luke 10v1-11,16-21          Jesus sends out the 72

A Mission Church.

1990s Decade of Evangelism? Arch Bishop Carey

1994 “Church planting in the Church of England”

2004 “The Mission Shaped Church” 2004  Bishop Graham Cray.

We are looking at a ‘Variety’ of congregations, not multiple congregations of the same mould or clones of past traditions, and neither scrapping the past and starting all over again. But a ‘Variety’ in Christ!

“Our diverse consumer culture will never be reached by one standard form of church” (Mission shaped church pxi introduction)

“Church has to be planted not cloned” (Mission shaped church pxii inroduction)

“It is the incarnating of the Gospel, within a dominant consumer society, that provides the Church with its major missionary challenge” (and opportunity) (Mission shaped church pxiii introduction)

Child attendance in church in 1950 55%, in 2000 4%  (Mission shaped church p41)

“Instead of ‘Come to us’ the approach is now ‘Go to them’” p12.

The Anglican pattern of incarnation means to live Christ from within the community, connecting with people’s micro culture. Context-ualisation means finding fresh expressions of being church in each context.

For us it might be Offspring, Parenting Courses, Super Meals, Rest Homes, Home groups, internet networks, café group, even perhaps Garage Sale etc. All these can been seen as ways the church is trying to live incarnately from within these local cultures, being Christ out there!

Look around at each other and notice the age group.   Am I the youngest at 53?

Here are six different potential home groups or congregation possibilities that could be considered as Fresh Expressions of church incarnately alive from within the community.

1.     An open group gathering in Whispers on Thursdays at 2pm and inviting your de-churched friends and others to share the fellowship?

2.     A ministry visiting all those that receive Ezee meals and meeting once a month or quarter for a shared meal, a song and a prayer?

3.     An internet church based on Facebook for those isolated on farms and busy with business and family life etc, who would like to fellowship through Facebook to talk, pray, and meet once a term for a meal on a Monday night at 7pm.  Are you any good at Facebook and fancy gathering and leading a congregation?

4.     A post bereavement group who again could chat via a Facebook account and meet once a month for a shared meal for fellowship and encouragement.

5.     A Soaking Room to gather and pray for healing for each other.

6.     A Weekly Café gathering for one hour in your community.

You may be able to incarnately be a congregation in Christ in your micro-culture and link under the Authority of the Anglican Church.

All these congregations would have a ‘fellowship’ and a ‘mission’ dimension to them in Christ, rather that merely exist as another club, to warrant being a congregation.

Each Fresh Expression would need an agreed leader and four other helpers to work together as a team.

Talk to me with any of your ideas! I would love to discus and encourage any possibilities locally here in Levin under the Anglican umbrella.

Over these next months we are considering our approach to mission locally here from the Anglican Church.

I hope this will create new Fresh Congregations affiliated to the Anglican Church and led by lay people.

This is the way forward to explore into the next millennium, supported by the bishops and ArchBishops of the Church.

The message for the church today is “Be prepared to change and Grow, or die!”

Are you willing create ways to go into the community and live Christ there?

“Mission Shaped Church” By Bishop Graham Cray. 2004

“Engagement 21” By Bishop Richard Randerson. 2010

“A New Kind of Christianity” by Brian McClaren.