Renov8

***This will be the last of the liveblog posts. I will probably follow up with some further thoughts later next week. Thanks for reading*** (All of my posts from Renov8 can be found here)

The time has come to wrap up the conference, and who better to do that than the guy who got us started: Michael Frost.

He starts with a story of a heroic church planter, an ADHD dyslexic church-planter who couldn’t sit still and up straight so decided to stop going.

Instead, he gathers some friends and goes water skiing and it turns into a regular gathering. Eventually he had close to 100 people gathering at the docks for prayer and teaching, communion, baptism. Frost says to him “You say this like it’s a problem…” to which the guy replies: “I think I might have accidentally started a church!”

His point is that there are people planting churches who have never been to a church planting conference. Part of what he feels he is called to do is find these planters and bless their plants as legitimate churches because sometimes they’re not sure that they are.

We need to keep our eyes open for these kinds of churches – these “Accidental Churches”. If you’re a denominational leader, this tends to freak you out, but these churches do want encouragement and oversight, so why not give it to them?

5 things we need to remember and hold on to as we go from this conference

1. Let Jesus be our reference point
This sounds strange to say to a bunch of Christians but he’s been with too many planters and others who make him wonder if they’ve ever read the Gospels. They know a type of Jesus, but not the one in the gospels.

What would we have done if we’d been present at the wedding in Cana at which Jesus turned water into wine? We would have left before the miracle occurred. Michael Frost retelling this story is something worth hearing

Don’t worry what people say about you, because the supposed “holy” people of his day hated him too.

2. Foster a radical spirituality of engagement
We often only connect with God on retreat – we have a spirituality of retreat. He’s not saying a single word against retreat time, it is a good thing to do, but we tend to think that time spent on “life” is time spent away from God and we need to retreat to spend time with him.

But all of these daily and mundane tasks ARE time with God, not just the things that are called “ministry”. God is present in every task. Jesus said, “My food is to DO the will of God.” Why shouldn’t that be our food as well?

I like Frost… a thoroughly biblical renegade. As a speaker, he is very good at anticipating objections and addressing them.

3. Be inspired by prevenient grace
Be aware that God has already prevened before we intervene or convene. Look for shalom; look for where God is at work. This has been said all over the conference, but Frost is the first one to successfully articulate what it means. Thank you.

He tells the story of Australian author Patrick White, a gay atheist, who suddenly felt the need to go to church after experiencing prevenient grace. (story found in “Flaws in the Glass” by Patrick White). When people experience prevenient grace, they think they need to go to a church to find out what is happening to them, only too often they find building with people in it who are devoid of any grace at all.

Prevenient grace is at work in everyday experiences. People are having religious experiences all the time, and we’re not there to tell them what it is. (This echoes Wagdi saying that Muslims often see visions of Jesus after Ramadan)

We need to do less gathering and more infiltrating.

4. Follow the Missio Dei into strange places
Say yes to what the Missio Dei is doing, don’t always wait for others to tell you where its going

5. Inspire others to go with you
Ask God to raise up others to go with you to look for evidences of prevenient grace. We need more people following the Missio Dei, not more people filling seats.

“Ignite a revolution of missional engagement.”

He ended the talk with a poem by Adrian Plass poem called “Amen”:

Adrian Plass – Amen

When I became a Christian I said, Lord, now fill me in,
Tell me what I’ll suffer in this world of shame and sin.
He said, Your body may be killed, and left to rot and stink,
Do you still want to follow me? I said, Amen! – I think.
I think Amen, Amen I think, I think I say Amen,
I’m not completely sure, can you just run through that again?
You say my body may be killed and left to rot and stink,
Well, yes, that sounds terrific, Lord, I say Amen – I think.

But , Lord, there must be other ways to follow you, I said,
I really would prefer to end up dying in my bed.
Well, yes, he said, you could put up with sneers and scorn and spit,
Do you still want to follow me? I said, Amen! – a bit.
A bit Amen, Amen a bit, a bit I say Amen,
I’m not completely sure, can you just run through that again?
You say I could put up with sneers and also scorn and spit,
Well, yes, I’ve made my mind up, and I say Amen! – a bit.

Well I sat back and thought a while, then tried a different ploy,
Now, Lord, I said, the Good Book says that Christians live in joy.
That’s true, he said, you need the joy to bear the pain and sorrow,
So do you still want to follow me? I said, Amen! – tomorrow.
Tomorrow, Lord, I’ll say it then, that’s when I’ll say Amen,
I need to get it clear, can I just run through that again?
You said I will need the joy, to bear the pain and sorrow,
Well, yes, I think I’ve got it straight, I’ll say, Amen – tomorrow.

He said, Look, I’m not asking you to spend an hour with me,
A quick salvation sandwich and a cup of sanctity,
The cost is you, not half of you, but every single bit.
Now tell me, will you follow me? I said, Amen! – I quit.
I’m very sorry, Lord, I said, I’d like to follow you,
But I don’t think religion is a manly thing to do.
He said, Forget religion then, and think about my Son,
And tell me if you’re man enough to do what he has done.

Are you man enough to see the need, and man enough to go,
Man enough to care for those whom no one wants to know,
Man enough to say the thing that people hate to hear,
To battle through Gethsemane in loneliness and fear.
And listen! Are you man enough to stand it at the end,
The moment of betrayal by the kisses of a friend,
Are you man enough to hold your tongue, and man enough to cry,
When the nails break your body – are you man enough to die?
Man enough to take the pain, and wear it like a crown,
Man enough to love the world and turn t upside down,
Are you man enough to follow me, I ask you once again.
I said, Oh Lord, I’m frightened, but I also said Amen.
Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen,
I said, Oh Lord, I’m frightened, but I also said, Amen.

(All of my posts from Renov8 can be found here)

The session started out with Howard explaining the following. I say “explaining” but really he proceeded under the assumption that we were all familiar with this, and all that was needed was a review… so I’m not entirely sure about the source of the ideas:

The terminology in this talk was similar to that in the Stuart Murray & Julie Kilpin session right before it. There, non-churchgoing people in through whom God is already working were called “Shalom Seekers”; here they are called “Kingdom Seekers”.

What is urgently needed, he insists, is a renewed theological vision of the church. In the Q&A afterward Stuart Murray says that he wishes church planters were more “theologically daring”. I don’t understand what this means. Is the offense of the Gospel and the potential of being hated by the world not daring enough?

They then led us through an exercise (actually borrowed from Bill Hybel’s “Just Walk Across The Room” – shhhhhhhh) to map the houses on our streets and name the people in them, the names of their kids, their vocation, their spiritual state, etc. This is a valid exercise that makes a salient point. We were on our way to doing this on the street we just moved from and we need to do a little better on our new street.

How do we represent the reign of God to the world? How do we live into what God is doing?

Before it is called to do anything, the church is called to be a community. We MUST first be a community.

Howard says: “We degrade non-believers by calling them ‘the world’.” Really? Because that’s what the bible calls those who are serving the passions of the flesh and not the will of God. Strange.

The rationale seems to be that if you do something good and “Kingdom Seekers” join in, they are doing the work of the kingdom. Anyone who will join in with things we are doing for Jesus are “Kingdom Seekers”. Will have to chew on that one for a bit.

“Instead of doing community in the church, let’s do church in the community.” I like this idea. There is a common thought in many sessions that communities of faith should be geographical. This needs some consideration but seems to be a biblical way to go.

Good Living in Your Neighborhood
1. Identify your nhood and dwell
2. Discover the Kingdom Seekers and eat with them
3. Discern what God’s up to and participate in it
4. Gather with others who are doing this

In this session, people were categorized as “Christians” and “Kingdom Seekers”. This was confusing enough but then Karen Wilk seemed to start using the terms interchangeably. I tried to get a question in but they didn’t acknowledge.

So as far as categories go (and yes, I know I’m a bad boy for trying to categorize people) what are the options?
1. Christians, Kingdom Seekers, and Other ?
2. Kingdom Seekers – Christians, Kingdom Seekers – non-Christians, Other?
3. All Kingdom Seekers?

I’m really not sure… and this was the least effective workshop I went to. Questions were avoided, unanswered, and the material was presented as if made up on the spot. Maybe it was.

 ***More session notes sent to me by a co-worker who was also at Renov8*** (All of my posts from Rnov8 can be found here)

In 1998 Bow Valley Christian church felt led to plant a church, planted a church and 5 years later again felt led to plant another church. Keith felt called and wrote a proposal for a network of house churches who would be linked together for encouragement, vision, mission, etc… www.connectionsCC.ca

So he set out plant one church and the movement grew to 6 churches that were networked and linked. They would meet once a month for a larger gathering, one bank account, and common vision, 1 leader administering and coaching, meeting weekly with the leaders of the house churches for coaching, encouragement and teaching. Found that this model is well suited to urban areas.

After training a successor Keith moved to Vancouver in 2008 and started another network.

The nature of Connections:
1. Minimal reliance on buildings
2. Minimal reliance on programs
3. Minimal reliance on staff

What they do at each gathering:
- Everyone shares all the responsibilities. Believe that it is not about the main person preaching and leading music, teaching, etc… a place for people to blossom in their gifts. Everyone’s gift unleashed, freed up to practice their spiritual gifts.
- A shared meal which is celebrated as the Lord’s Supper. The meal consists of food the family would normally eat at supper. Bread referred to as the body of Christ, the cup as the blood of Christ.
- Singing – songs of praise
- Teaching time
- Children grade 5 and young – Sunday school curriculum
- Teens and adults together for a learning and prayer time.
- Generous living is promoted and a collection taken at each gathering:
10% used for new church plants
10% local endeavors
10% international poverty relief

Once a month would gather together in a larger group:
- For a celebration, a reunion and an opportunity to communicate about things which affect the entire community
- Reminder that we are part of something bigger than the small groups of people with whom we regularly meet, a reminder that we are accountable
- Encourage the group to go out into our worlds, where God is at work and then coming back to celebrate how God is at work through people.

Each house church and indeed each individual seeks out ways in which they can be missional:
- Groups visit senior homes
- Paint a widows fence.
- Volunteer to support and hold accountable high risk sex offenders who have been released into the community.
- Provide friendship and a worship service for street people at local street missions.

Do something:
- Incarnational mission starts with each and every one of us.
- Pastors and leaders of churches are often the worst  at doing these things

Experiment:
We will never again be the first century church, throughout history we have experimented what it means to be “The Church”
Need to keep trying new ways of being the church
Don’t be satisfied with the way we have always done things
Holy Men and Women of God

It’s not about models and techniques. We need to be people of faith, people who truly follow Jesus. This model is simple – house church does not have large resources tied up in buildings, equipment and programs, and it allows for mobilization of large numbers of lay people.

Important to note that he does not believe this model is the only way; it is one of the ways of doing church.

(All of my posts from Renov8 can be found here)

The impact of Wagdi’s talk has been immense.. here are a few more details about his story, as told in the session yesterday:

- Memorized entire Koran at 6-yrs-old. All by memorization, didn’t know how to read/write

- He was told: Burn Christians before they burn you.

- At one point made a pact with his friends to kill a Christian. He agreed to do the killing of someone who had been trying to convert him.

- He beat someone but it was the wrong person… the guy was paralyzed for life.

- Hatred pumped into him as a child, and when a Christian tried to proselytize as a young adult all of that hate resurfaced

- He was shunned after mistakenly tasting alcohol and was beaten by 800 people and thrown out of his Mosque

- During this time he began to be disillusioned with Islam and would renew his shunning every 40-days by touching alcohol. Also during this time, he reconnected with the friend he had previously tried to kill and accepted an invitation to go to church with him. After hearing people’s prayer requests, Wagdi suggested they answer their prayer requests with violence. Company not paying you? Let’s bomb it! They showed him the Sermon on the Mount and he began to read the entire NT.

- Was told by a pastor, “If you do not allow the Spirit into your life you cannot practice what it says in the Bible.” and eventually he was converted

- Because of this he had to go to court because it was illegal to convert to Christianity in his country. He was thrown in jail, where other converts taught him what he needed to know about following Jesus. The judge’s verdict was execution… His two friends were hanged, but he was spared when a war broke out. The prison was bombed and he escaped.

Wagdi told us that because of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons , many Muslims wanted to know about Christianity and he was very busy discipling them. Unfortunately there were not nearly enough people able or available for this great opportunity to share the gospel with Muslims.

“The only ones that can help the Muslims,” he told us, “is the Christians and the church.”

Muslim ministry is at zero while Islam is growing exponentially in North America. He urged us to pray for them. At the end of Ramadan, many Muslims see Jesus in visions and dreams, and this is a glorious opportunity that goes to waste when we are not prepared and positioned to speak.

He asked us to set aside at least one day a year to pray for Muslims in our cities/areas, informing us that Muslims have the goal of converting Christians. They are missional about making new Muslims. We should be equally missional towards them. Islam is not a threat, it is a golden opportunity and churches should adopt a mosque to pray for.

Wagdi brought the talk home with stories of the blood of martyrs being the seed of the church. This is the part that wrecked a lot of people in the auditorium. The stories themselves were gripping enough, but Wagdi ended the talk by saying,

“We need a martyr to wake up the church. I am willing to be that martyr.”

Wow. How many others are willing to say that?

As far as I can tell, Ragdi’s talk is the only one that explicitly embraced the biblical idea that some of those to whom we are sent will hate us to the point of wanting to murder us. Every other talk has a flavor of “If we would just do THIS or THAT correctly, everyone would fall in line and the Kingdom of God will be ushered in.”

The average Canadian may be less violent than the Muslims Washdi evangelizes, but many of them will hate the gospel and its messengers no less.

Have you heard anyone else at this conference talk about being hated by those to whom we are sent?

***

Here is a sampling of Twitter statuses posted after the talk:

(All of my posts from Renov8 can be found here)

At Renov8 this week we’ve talked a number of times about the categories of “dechurched” and “unchurched”. Clarifying these terms will assist us in missional church planting.

Here are basic definitions to start with:

Unchurched / Neverchurched
People who have never been affiliated with a church body and lack a basic understanding of the Christian faith.

Dechurched
People who were at one time affiliated with a church, have a basic or advanced understanding of the Christian faith, but who no longer have, or want to have anything to do with a church.

What needs to be added/clarified?

(All of my posts from Renov8 can be found here)

We just heard a devastating talk by Pastor Wagdi Iskander about his conversion from Islam to Christianity. You can read his story here.

Being a convert, he was able to say things that, were any of us to say them, might bring accusations of intolerance or worse. He pleaded with us to pray for the conversion of Muslims to Christianity. He told us that only the church and Christians can help the Muslims – not the government or political programs. We need people who will actively pursue the conversion of Muslims to Christianity.

Being in close proximity to a Christian leader who is a convert from Islam, I took the opportunity to get his take on three things:

1. Joint Statements of Faith Between Muslims and Christians
I asked him in particular about statements like A Common Word, and he also mentioned another statement put out by the Vatican. In essence, these statements seek common ground between Muslims and Christians by claiming that the God that Muslims worship is the same God that Christians worship.

Wagdi was clear that he and the other Muslim convert leaders are saddened by these statements. Muslim converts do not believe that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.

So why are we trying so hard to say that we are? Unfortunately, a number of prominent Christian pastors have signed the document.

2. Christians Participating in Ramadan
I was curious about this since I have been following Brian McLaren’s initiative to participate in Ramadan this year and wondering if this was something I could also engage in as a missional activity.

Wagdi was very quick to say that this is compromise since, as stated in point 1 above, Christians and Muslims do not in fact worship the same God. We should fast for them, he said, and we should pray for them, but to participate with them in Ramadan is to engage in the worship of another God. Ramadan is an act of worship, a confirmation that one believes the Koran to be the holy word of God.

3. Is Isa a Valid Name For Jesus?
As we have explored extensively in another post at The Ascent to Truth, Rick Warren used the name Isa to refer to Jesus and was almost hung for it by other Christians (and some watchbloggers too). Wagdi also used the name Isa for Jesus during his talk and affirmed (again) that this is an entirely appropriate name to use for Jesus.

So there you have it: answers to Muslim-related issues from a Holy Spirit-filled Muslim convert.

(All of my posts from Renov8 can be found here)

Glenn Smith’s site is http://www.direction.ca/

First priority is always to discern where God is at work, then establish ways for people to follow Jesus in a way that makes sense to them

Contextualization means weaving the good news together with the context of the community.

The Gospel is the only message worth incarnating in the community

He then proceeded to talk about “Key Indicators of a Transformed City” (click on the image to see a larger version):

The heart of transformation the paradigm for missional engagement in cities
1. The heart is the church and reconciliation

2. Urban Community

At this point I felt overwhelmed with statistics, which kind of goes against the grain of the conf… Analyzing success by what can be quantified.

We’ll call this model “Transformation by Computation” or maybe “Paralysis by Analysis”. I didn’t get much out of this one.

(All of my posts from Renov8 can be found here)

Stuart Murray & Julie Kilpin again. This session actually redeemed a lot of yesterday’s session.

***I missed a bit of this session since I was talking to a new friend, who is a very engaging fellow-writer***

When I arrive, Julie is being critical of people who can’t handle “alternative expressions of church.” I wish she had a more positive expression for her cynicism. She’s cynical, bordering on depressive. Anyway…

Some denomination had a training module called “Making Mission Safe” and this is what she’s riffing on. God is safe in that he has the world in his hands, but in his mission to bring creation back to him, how safe is he really? Good point. She paints a picture of a wild Jesus… “Making mission safe? Where the heck do we get that idea from?!”

We have permission to pursue creative, adventurous approaches to mission. How does our understanding of God’s mission impact our vision of the church?

Stuart takes the stage. He is calm, pastoral, optimistic…
Planting used to be about replicating the same thing in different places. We can no longer take for granted that we know what church is. It is now about reproducing rather than replicating. This gives us hope of connecting with the diversity of our nhoods. I like the distinction he makes between replicating and reproducing.

God is Creator of all things… he is a diverse creator (300+ different kinds of beetles), so why can’t we be more creative in terms of church life?

What do we mean by church?

Four concerns:
1. We cannot create designer or boutique churches that are cool for us and our friends but no one else.

2. We must have missiology before ecclesiology

3. The danger of paying too little issue to contextual issues

4. The questions, “What is mission? What is church?” will affect how we answer “What is the Gospel today, the good news, in our community?”

Three things planters bring:
1. Convictions
We bring passionate convictions
We come with things that are non-negotiable, but hopefully we bring things that are negotiable

2. Context
Importance of place
If the church is for/with/within the nhood, we may end up planting a church we don’t like very much but is appropriate for the community

3. Constraints
We don’t have endless resources. Sometimes we plan something that we can’t actually pull off.

Regarding contextualization: “Some emerging churches are completely disappearing into their culture, becoming so much like their culture they lose the ability to influence.” In the past we were too quick to see the negative in the community. Now the pendulum has swung and we ignore the negative things.

What kind of church would you plant in Sodom? Relational fidelity
In an affluent culture? Simplicity?
Etc.

Don’t ask “How do we fit?” but “How do we work towards transformation?”

What is the gospel/good news?  What ways can we use to tell the Jesus story? Find the scriptural imagery that makes the most sense in that community. Scripture is rich with a variety of metaphors, some of which that have become dominant, almost canonical. “Born Again”, for example is a biblical metaphor that has become the litmus phrase for many people.

The expression of the good news (not the good news itself) is different in different cultures. See above. Find out what the starting point is. It will be different for a guilt-based culture than it will be for a fear-based culture. But being gospel-counter-culture is always the answer. Find out what the expression of the good news in your nhood?

Jesus is the answer, but what are the questions to which he is the answer? Stuart mentioned sin as something that needs to be maintained as a focus, but there are different ways to get there. Thank-you Stuart. This addresses my concerns from yesterday’s session.

The great creeds of the church has bracketed out the life of Jesus. Jesus was 1. born, 2. suffered… the rest of the life of Jesus is reduced to a comma. Good point.

What does it mean to be disciples today?
Societal values are drip-fed into us everyday; what kind of church do we need to resist the secular values of the current empire? What kind of catechesis do we need that will detox people from empire?

Good session. Stuart is a winsome and articulate. I want to hear more.