(All of my posts from Renov8 will be at this page. Refresh (and comment) often.)
Wednesday morning plenary session – Glenn Smith (bio). Glenn is a prof at McGill University.
Who is this God we serve and why does he love neighborhoods so much?
“We cannot separate God’s mission from the church’s existence and action.”
If you’re looking for an unreached people group, a university campus is a good place to start.
The privatization of life is an increasing problem. Many live alone, so the poor get diffused all over. The question is no longer “Where is the church?”, but “How will we pursue mission in a biblical way WITH our neigborhoods? What kind of Christian followers will we BE?”
Glenn talked about three horizons we must explore if we’re going to have an authentic missional encounter with our neighborhoods. By his definition, a horizon is the place where the plane meets the sky.
Horizon 1. Engagement w Gods revelation in creation, scripture, and Jesus
Scripture:
There is widespread disengagement from biblical texts. The dilemma is we don’t take it seriously… we use it but we don’t listen to it. It only transforms us as we get involved in transformation. Many have community (based on Trinity), but they don’t do anything while, by example, the Trinity is active. We cannot separate God’s mission from the church’s existence and action. “He doesn’t just be, he is being in action.”
2. The church with the city
The church must intersect with Canadian city. We must take “place” seriously – history of city, identity of people, their preoccupations
We must understand the core (functions, demographics, social makeup, economic livelihood, etc), the behavior (different ways of doing life), and the outside/boundaries.
We must understand how Canadian cities have evolved (population shifts). For example, 1/3 Canadians live in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal Add Calgary and Edmonton and you’re at 50%. Poverty is now diffused, not in certain nhoods (ghettos).
Canadian cities are very different from American cities. In form, density, transportation,
3. Engagement of the church w the neighborhood
Fourfold agenda
1. As Christians we need to commit to being the entity that interprets the triune God and his revelation to the neighborhood
a. The first and maybe only bible people will read is us
b. Stand for what God stands for
2. We must bear witness to the God of Jesus and all his teachings in word and deed
a. Faith MUST be a public identity, not a private practice
b. If you have a problem with discipleship then you have a problem w evangelism
c. Poverty is about broken relationships… (think about it)
d. Pursue sustainable nhood development, and in this context we propose Jesus
3. We must take spiritual formation, discipleship, and church education seriously
a. Live out your faith in the nhood and FOR the nhood
b. Spiritual poverty and illiteracy
4. We must bring together the heart and the head in preaching and theological education
a. Churches live disembodies spiritualities excarnational faith (Charles Taylor) we live our spirituality only in our heads, not in our bodies
b. People in nhood want to know who we are, not just what we believe
c. How do we move from excarnational to incarnational faith?
We don’t have anything to offer our nhoods other than the triune God.
