This is one of the reasons I love blogging. Not only does it allow me to express my thoughts on all manner of things, I also get to hear the thoughts of people from all over the world on the topics I write about.

A couple of weeks ago I posted something called “Church Planting: Slums or Suburbs? WWJP? (Where Would Jesus Plant?)” in which I basically made the case that Jesus was intentional about spending time with the poor and that we should follow his example and do the same.

A lot of good discussion followed – some comments in agreement, others not. I found this comment by Edgar de Blieck (who lives in Scotland and blogs here) particularly compelling as a rebuttal:

It’s not clear from the existing evidence that Jesus did make that choice. Let’s imagine – for the sake of argument only – that he was democratic in the way he spread his ministry about. Of course, that would involve him being with more poor people than rich people, on demographic grounds: there are *always* significantly more poor people than there are rich people.

Moreover, in his day, the Roman occupation saw to it that the poor-oppressed were proportionally greater in percentage terms than they are at other periods in history and in other locations. Given the paucity of the source material, and given its qualitative nature, I’d be uncomfortable making a quantitative case about how Jesus spent his time on the basis of it.

I do hear about him getting into trouble for hanging out with rich embezzlers like Zacchaeus. I daresay that the wife of Herod’s steward wasn’t flavour of the month with the ornery folks either…

At the same time, it’s clear that rich and poor hung out with Jesus, and that he sent his people out without money or provisions, expecting that they should be provided for.

This provision might reasonably be expected to come from those whose charity could extend to itinerant preachers on the basis of their ability to support them. The labourer may be worthy of his hire, but if he can’t be paid, then he labours in vain.

All I can say is that Jesus loves me, and, like you, I’m mind-meltingly wealthy. (We don’t even have to get as far as the fact that you’re reading this on a computer screen to make that deduction: the fact that you’re literate at all is evidence of your wealth!)

I’m glad God laid obedience to the great commission on the hearts of the folks that planted my church, where someone told me the gospel, or else how would I have heard it? It was through hearing it that I was saved.

Wealth isn’t a constraint or a consideration. The earth is God’s. He’ll make it possible for churches to come into existence wherever his Spirit blows. I’m praying for African missionaries to come to Scotland.

I saw it again today – a brand new subdivision in a prospering town. And right there in the mix, a big new church building.

It feels a bit wrong to say something negative about all the effort it must have taken to build that church. We do need more churches after all, and I certainly hope that the church I saw was planted after seeking God’s will and hearing from him that that was the place to build.

But what about the location? Is this where Jesus, were he to strategically plant a church, would focus his efforts? In the Gospels, those who live on the upper end of advantage don’t seem to have “ears to hear” what Jesus is saying. In a number of places Jesus even takes direct aim at them and warns them that their affluence is an impediment to their becoming followers of his.

Instead, he seemed to mostly attract the opposite type – the types whose identities were shaped far more by disadvantages than advantages.

Aren’t our choices evidence that we still think that wealth is power and that a fancy new building in the center of that wealth is the way to reach a community? Is that working?

When we intentionally – and almost exclusively – associate with the opposite class of people that Jesus associated with, we miss the main thrust of his life and ministry.

He WENT to the poor; the rich, on occasion, sought him out – usually under cover of darkness or when the crowds had dissipated.

Poverty has not been eradicated. We still have poor people even in our smallest towns. Oddly enough, thriving churches rarely see fit to plant themselves among them. This doesn’t happen by mistake; each plant, each new building effort requires both practical and philosophical choices along the way.

A plant has roots. The whole idea of a church plant is to be part of – to be rooted in – the community, to plant itself in the middle of those it seeks to reach.

Now, you ask, are these upper-middleclass suburbanites in less need of Jesus and his good news? No, of course not. But for some reason these were not the people that Jesus figured would hear the Good News as good news.

How much of the Good News really sounds good to people who have no practical needs?

We are sinners; Christ died and rose from death for us…
Sell what you own and give it to the poor…
Follow me; I have nowhere to sleep tonight…
Take up your cross…
Blessed are those who mourn…
Blessed are those who are persecuted…
Blessed are those who experience lack…
Blessed are those who hunger…

Does this sound like good news to you?

Granted, the preaching and proclamation of God’s word will always bear fruit, but if Jesus’ example tells us something about where to find a healthy ratio of effort to results (seed to harvest), it’s not among the affluent in our society. It’s among those who live in the poor part of your town.

***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.

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

After the day’s events ended I spent a lot of time talking to a number of people about yesterday’s session by Stuart Murray & Julie Kilpin.

In this short piece (posted this morning at The Resurgence), Jonathan Dodson articulates with a bit more clarity (and brevity) what I was attempting to say yesterday. The post is part of a series called “How NOT To Be A Missional Church” examining common errors of overemphasis in missional churches.

Dodson makes three points, the second of which is the meat of the post:

Social action doesn’t create 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.

Dodson’s third point is also worth reading, although he falls into the trap of flinging the word “liberal” as a universal derogative (we can explore the validity of such a tactic in another post perhaps). When he gets past that, he says this:

When missional communities focus on social mission alone, they disregard their evangelistic identity, gifting, and responsibility as the church of Jesus Christ, the Jesus who died and rose to make all things new—people and products, souls and society.

Dodson shows good balance in this post. For too long now social action hasn’t been very high on the Evangelical agenda. We have created a new pejorative out of the word combination “social gospel” – which is sometimes inappropriately applied to those who are actually more balanced in word and deed than we are. This is unfortunate, since the effects of the gospel certainly have vast implications for the social structures of our world.

By my observation, both “sides” have a tendency to adjust their practice in reaction not to scripture, but to the practice of those they perceive as foes and therefore seek to avoid affiliation with. So when some engage in an almost exclusively action-oriented form of “social gospel”, others react by avoiding social action altogether.

These are equal errors.

(All of my posts from Renov8 will be at this page. Refresh (and comment) often.)

Urban Expression

The questions to be answered: What is God doing in my nhood and how can I discern that? What does the missio dei look like in a particular place? How do you know if something is an act of God or just social action?

Church planters used to think they were “bringing God to the nhood”. We do not “bring God with us” into the nhood; he is already there.

The simplistic, attractional programmatic model is no longer working. We must distinguish between unchurched and dechurched. Dechurched (former church-goer) demographic is shrinking; unchurched/neverchurched demographic is growing immensely.

“God’s church does not have a mission; God’s mission has a church” – Stuart Murray

We used to know ahead of time what a church plant would look like… because we were targeting the dechurched.  A plant among un/neverchurched is far less predictable, which is why the nomenclature of the “emerging church” has caught on.

At this point I was more or less on board. After this I wasn’t in total disagreement but my attitude about the talk took a turn.

He spoke a lot about Shalom being “the dream of God for his creation”… the goal of missio dei. Fine, all will be well… all things new… reconciliation. But next he said that “God is not choosey about who he uses to bring shalom. Partners and allies everywhere…” In other words – and this is something I heard all afternoon – God uses people who don’t know themselves that God is using them. Well, yes, this is partly true but I’m not sure it’s correct to paint this as normative. But that seemed to be the gist of the talk, that God’s preferred way of working in the world is through people other than Christians.

I am willing to be challenged and expanded on this so feel free to comment.

3 things planters bring:

1. The story of God, interpretation. We help people see what God is doing in that neighborhood

2. Spiritual resources to weary shalom seekers

3. Catalyze a community of faith that makes sense of what God is doing in that community and mediate those spiritual resources

Do we believe that the Holy Spirit can work even where the name of Jesus is not yet known? She assumes we do. Again, he may but we should not paint this as normative.

“Don’t just sit there. DO something!” often results in unprepared short-termers who sometimes do damage. Rather say “Don’t just do something. Sit there.” In other words, live there. Don’t just act hastily; consider your actions first.

Social networking in neighborhoods: find out who makes things happen in the community. Basically, cozy up to the community influencers. Is this really a Jesus model? Didn’t he tend to be with the people who had no influence because they were outcasts?

Is God able to work beyond the “walls of the church”? She assumes he is. Again, yes he might, but the church is his preferred instrument throughout the NT.

She came right out and said, “Get rid of your church building.” This would encourage nhood involvement and huge benefits would result. This came up again in the Q&A an she backed away from it some.

“Take a lesson from this movie that came out last year: Yes Man.” Her point? Say yes to any invitation you receive. To parties, meals, etc. but the relationships opened opportunities we otherwise wouldn’t have got.

What will your neighborhood look like when the kingdom has fully come?

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All of this leaves me with some questions: If people are already agents of shalom, is there any need for them to respond to the gospel or any consequence for rejecting it? The presenters seem to be saying that people are generally good and are actually already doing God’s work. We just need to awaken them to the fact that this is what they’re doing.

If this is the case, when do we tell them about the need for repentance? Do we tell them? Wouldn’t their response be “What would I repent of? You already told me I’m doing the work of God.

In a morning session, Anthony Brown told us that, “The gospel is meant to provoke a public response because it is public news. The message must be clear; people must know that there is a decision to be made.” This is what seems to be missing in this session: any indication that a public response or decision needs to be made.

Without getting too far into eschatology, asking a question like, “What will your neighborhood look like when the kingdom has fully come?” without acknowledging (with much regret and sadness) that those who have not responded to the gospel and made a decision about Christ as savior and lord will be eternally separated from God seems a little disingenuous.

This is not to say that the presenters presented lies, only that they didn’t bring the whole truth. Jesus is a demanding savior, and he is as demanding of those who have not put their trust in him as he is of those who have.

Engage.

(All of my posts from Renov8 will be at this page. Refresh (and comment) often.)

Anthony Brown (bio) is the Director of Education for Forge and also teaches at Regent College.

The mission is God’s, not ours. This has been repeated throughout the conference, at every session I’ve been at so far.

Brown led us through Luke 9:1-11  to find basic principles/foundations of Christian mission.

In this passage Jesus gives the twelve power and authority, sends them, and instructs to take nothing. They do as he says.

The ministry Jesus gives them is indistinguishable from his own. He doesn’t give them a mission; he invites them into his mission. (Echoes of Eugene Peterson)

We need to ask: Does the mission we engage in look the same as the mission of Jesus or have we found missions for ourselves that look nothing like the mission of Jesus.

We are called to do the same work as Jesus in the world.  The mission is his, not ours. Our mission is not growth or to keep the doors open. We don’t mind accepting a mission from Jesus, but we want to do it our way. When we do this we’re not really participating in his mission. Be willing to do it, and also to do it his way.

Mission is always communal. He calls them together, gives them a mission; they return as a group. We’re not supposed to be free agents pursuing our own missions, checking in with each other every once in a while; we are supposed to engage Jesus mission as a group of disciples. The only togetherness we experience is once a week at our Sunday gatherings.

The love of God must be proclaimed in both word and deed. All injustice is demonically inspired. Demonic deliverance can be social, economical etc.

He instructs the twelve to distinguish themselves from other teachers… don’t take funds or clothing or food, rely on God’s provision, don’t seek earthly rewards as part of the mission. How can we call others to trust in God if we don’t really trust God ourselves to provide our daily bread? His restrictions were designed to draw them closer to God, to trust him fully.

So much outreach is powerless because we don’t truly trust God… while we implore others to do so. If we are to be a foretaste of the kingdom, to show a better life, the kingdom way, we must live our lives together with them.

It is important to ACCEPT hospitality, especially when extended by those who are seeking God. Their success depended on the hospitality of those to whom they were sent.

Re: following Jesus, are you the chicken or the pig? The chicken makes a contribution, but the pig gives everything. As Christians we are to give everything, not just what we can easily produce again.

The message must be clear; people must know that there is a decision to be made, but we are not to retaliate if they reject Christ.

“The gospel is meant to provoke a public response because it is public news.”

In V1 they are called “the twelve”; in v10 they are called “the apostles” – mission transforms us into “sent ones”. We must engage in mission if we want to be conformed to the image of Christ. We can only discover our identity by following him into mission.

This was a rich hour of Bible teaching with relevant application. I like this guy.

 (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.

There are a number of people tweeting and blogging the conference. Here are some ways you can follow:

Follow everyone tweeting the conference with the #rv8 tag.

Here are some bloggers that are liveblogging:
Nick Melazzo
Troy Selley
Rohadi
Dave Harder
Ben Klassen
Keith Waara
The Official Renov8 blog is here

All of my posts from Renov8 will be at this page. Refresh (and comment) often.

If you know of any others, leave it in the comments and I’ll add to the list.

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

(Whoever planned the music for this session had their head on straight: the singing actually involved the assembled attendees. The music was led by a 10-person home church, accompanied by only an acoustic guitar and some hand-drums. Sure, this seemed a little neo-hippy at first, but by the end they had almost everyone in the sanctuary singing, and that’s what’s important.)

Ok, the Michael Frost session:

Frost framed his talk around several stories of people who became vigilantes for the kingdom of God, people who were fed up with the status quo and took drastic, self-sacrificial action. These people are “missional heroes” but this should be the norm for all Christians.

One was a pastor in Cambodia who moved into a community that had been displaced by its government with 30 minutes notice. “He moved his pregnant wife into a mosquito infested slum, and read the book of Acts, and the Kingdom of God is unfolding in the middle of hell.” Frost asks this man what books he read that inspired such courage and zeal. “Acts, John, Luke…” the man replies.

One was a pastor who took action of the alcohol-related crime in his community by assembling a team of “street pastors” to assist people in their various states of drunken stupor. This was more effective than the city’s $2-million plan to deal with the problem.

One was a businessman in Texas who saw deplorable conditions in a trailer park and ended up buying the entire trailer park and tending to its transformation.

“The goal of Christian mission is not church planting or church growth, not building up a kingdom. The goal is alerting people to the reign and rule of God in Christ.”

“How do you alert people to the rule and reign of God in Christ? You create foretaste. Our lives should be like movie trailers: they should make others say ‘I want to see more of that’” When people see the kingdom at work, we can tell them it’s a trailer of the blockbuster to come. He worked this metaphor well.

His point is this: As churches, let’s orient ourselves around the needs of our neighborhood, and this will look different depending on the environment we’re in. Most churches offer their neighborhoods a big Sunday service and little else.

Jesus chooses a term with both civic and religious connotations (“ecclesia”) to describe his followers. Yes, we gather to worship and to be taught but also to be recognized as good and wise and true by our communities. We are the sent to add value to our neighborhoods, to be God’s sent gift into our neighborhoods so that it will be better with us than without us.

“Most of our communities don’t even know that we’re there, and if we were gone, they wouldn’t miss us. If our church were taken away from our neighborhood, would they grieve for their loss?”

We shouldn’t have to talk about knocking down walls – how did it come to this? It was never meant to be this way – that we would wall ourselves up, away from people in need.

“To whom has God sent you? There is no such thing as an unsent Christian. Go where God sends you. Make a home there. Love those people. Put deep roots into that place. Live there, love them, and never leave them.”

Frost gave a good presentation of and a challenge to participate in incarnational ministry.

All of my posts from Renov8 will be at this page. Refresh (and comment) often.

(All of my posts from Renov8 will be at this page. Refresh (and comment) often.)

Got up at 4:15 this morning to get ready and catch a 7:15 flight to Calgary.

This is the first time I’ve flown on a plane with one screen per person. When we first sat down I could see that 5 of the screens visible to me were parked on NHL highlights. Mine was one of them.  One screen per person is actually a little distracting. Every time I look up I see a variety of channels. This doesn’t help with the motion sickness.

Everything has gone very smoothly so far. The company is good; a group of bright and witty fellow travelers always makes the journey more enjoyable.

6:30PM
30 minutes to show time and the place is beginning to buzz. This church is (to use an annoying neologism) GINOURMOUS. I hear that this is the biggest church in Canada and that about 7000 people come through here on a weekend. The building is bigger than some malls I’ve seen – and it has a better foodcourt.

The first session is “Vision for Transforming Neighbourhoods” with Michael Frost.

I’ll be back to post after the session…

This week I’ll be in Calgary at Renov8 and I’ll be liveblogging the sessions that I’m at (providing they have wifi available).

A list of the speakers can be found here and seminars/workshops here.

All of my posts from Renov8 will be at this page. Refresh (and comment) often.