Tag Archive for 'Mission'

Being holy for the Church

Published
by
Graeme
on July 24, 2008
in Community, Holiness and Mission
. 0 Comments

In my post about ‘the uprising’ I included the quote:

“unless the Bride of Christ is holy, no one else in the world will meet the Lord. Without our holiness, they won’t see the Lord.”

I’ve found myself coming back to that quote a few times because I found I needed to give the thought more consideration.

The first thought I found myself having was about the make-up of the Bride of Christ. My understanding is that it is actually the Church universal, rather than the individuals that make up the Church.

However, this was followed quickly by the reality that unless the individuals are holy, then surely the Church universal can’t be! At the very least there would be implications for the local expression of the Church should the members of the congregation not be pursuing holiness. This for me is where the crunch comes!

I believe passionately that the only way to reach the lost and to fulfil the Church’s mission in the world is at the local level. And by local I don’t mean at the level of the town, but at the level of the street!

In a paper to the Incarnate conference earlier this year Geoff Ryan said that he believes:

that God cannot – or will not – present himself in a neighbourhood or a community or amongst a people, unless his people, The Church, are themselves physically present and sharing life with the community.”

This is a difficult statement and whilst on one level I agree, I disagree on another level. However, if we accept that at some level this is correct it makes sense of Olivia Munn’s quote from the book. If the Church is not fulfilling its divine appointment and mission within a particular location then how will God be seen in that place? The only way for the Church to fulfil its mission is through the actions of its individual members working both individually and co-operatively. Therefore if the people of God, both as individuals and as a community of believers are not holy then how can the light of God reach the communities they live and serve in?

When thought of like this it makes absolute sense that our individual and corporate holiness is the key to fulfilling the mission!

Statements of intent

Published
by
Graeme
on July 20, 2008
in Mission
. 0 Comments

Here is the start of a Mission Statement that I saw recently in a church:

As a Christian Church and an integral part of the [denominational name] we offer…

I won’t go on to say the 3 things they offered because these in themselves are of significant difficulty to me. The real reason I raise the statement is to explore our attitudes towards mission.

Personally, I’m not sure whether I am comfortable with the word ‘offer’ being included in a mission statement for a church. It suggests a passive attitude in terms of the gospel. It suggests a come and see attitude towards church, rather than a get out into the world and live the life type attitude.

Commitment to Mission

Published
by
Graeme
on June 11, 2008
in Mission
. 3 Comments

In preparation for some teaching I’m going to be doing here in the corps I’ve been glancing through the excellent SA courses over at armybarmy.com. In the first session of SA201 there is a wonderful comment:

“Mission is to a movement what rice is to Chinese food. Without it, there’s just a bunch of vegetables lying around.”

My immediate reaction was to think of the Army I belong to and ask whether or not this is the experience we have. Thankfully in an increasing number of places mission focus is increasing and the fruit of people’s labour in the Spirit is being seen.

Another quote from the same source is a citing of William Booth which says:

“What is a Salvation Army Corps? - To this I reply that it is a band of people united together to attack and Christianise an entire town or neighbourhood. When an officer receives an appointment from headquarters, it is not contemplated that he shall deal merely with those who are already gathered within the walls of certain buildings, or with those who are already enrolled in our ranks, or with those who may be induced to come inside them; but it is intended that he shall be an apostle of the gospel to all those who live around. When you reach a station assigned to you, if it has not been done already, you should take your stand in that hall, or theatre, or tent, and draw a line around the breadth of population you can hope to reach, and make that your parish, and aim, with tears and prayers, and the trumpet blast of truth, and the power of the Holy Ghost, to convert and sanctify and enlist and disciple every soul within it.“(emphasis mine)

This is our mission and should be the mission of all Christians. Yet the important bit is to recognise the difference between getting people “born again” and Booth’s objectives! It is not enough for us to get people to proclaim Jesus as their personal Saviour and then move onto getting the next ‘convert’. Instead, we must follow the command of Jesus to go and make disciples and lead them to a life of committed discipleship rooted in holiness.

Provoking a response

Published
by
Graeme
on April 19, 2008
in Mission and discipleship
. 0 Comments

When we think about being provocative I would guess that a lot of people would see this as a negative thing. I suppose this is mainly because provocation is one of those words that seems to be a bad thing. We think of people being provoked into an argument or of someone hitting someone else after being provoked. So when a book suggests that the church should be provoking a response from people it could well get assigned to the spiritual dustbin, along with terminology such as ‘getting out of comfort zones’ and ‘taking risks’.

However, a few months ago a book that does exactly that was recommended to me. At that point I didn’t get it, but then as I was browsing the shelves of my local Christian bookshop about a month ago there it was simply begging me to buy it!

On Sunday night I finally got round to starting to read it, and so far I haven’t been disappointed. Its actually a book about evangelism, although I suspect that some reading it might not agree with the methods it suggests. What is refreshing though is that this is not a book that consigns verbal evangelism to the scrap heap, but instead elevates it to its rightful position within the church, front and centre.

By the way the book is Graham Tomlin’s The Provocative Church. The basic premise is that unless an individual, or a congregation, live their lives in such a way as to make people start asking questions about the way they are living no amount of evangelism is ever going to make an impact. One quote that stood out on the first page of Chapter 1 was,

Sometimes Christians assume that people ‘out there’ are eager to listen to what the Church has to say. The only problem is learning how to say it louder and more clearly.”

It immediately made me think of the stereotypical ‘Brit abroad’ picture. We have a reputation for talking to people who don’t speak English ‘loudly, slowly and clearly’ so that they will understand what we are saying. Of course the real problem is that we aren’t speaking their language. The same mentality still exists in some circles of the church, including The Salvation Army. It doesn’t seem to matter that people no longer speak our cultural language. All we have to do is say the same things louder, slower and clearer and everything will be ok.

As someone who has never felt entirely comfortable in traditional evangelistic methods this book is really speaking to me and I’ve been thinking in depth about possible efforts that we could get involved in here in our location. I’m well into chapter 5 and have numerous thoughts coming out of it, so I’ll probably be posting more on this.

Mission focussed

Published
by
Graeme
on March 8, 2008
in Mission and Reading
. 0 Comments

Slowly but surely I’m working my way through Restoring the Woven Cord which is about various aspects of Celtic Christianity and how they are relevant to today’s world. Interestingly, I’m noticing that I don’t agree quite so readily with some of the ideas that the author puts forward as I did when I read this through 10 years ago. Shows just how much we change over the years!

Yesterday I read the chapter about Evangelism and how the Celtic Church and of particular interest was the following quote:

…the Celtic church was utterly given to mission. It thought, lived and breathed mission. It could understand no Christianity that did not include mission. It had no interest in bureaucracies and institutions that existed simply to support the church. It had a wild, childlike, simple and overwhelming passion to see me, women and children of these lands and beyond find faith in Jesus Christ and it gave itself utterly to that end.

This reminded me so much of the earliest days of The Salvation Army and I couldn’t help but wonder why we lost this lifestyle. This is a subject that has been covered a great many times and I don’t want to go there fully. However, I think that the book has something to say about one of the reasons why the Celtic church managed to maintain the passion, where the Army fell down.

The church grew so fast because these cells were so wonderfully flexible and unrestrained by any institution, that they could easily multiply.

It is in this area that we got bogged down in my opinion! Now anyone who has studied Army history will acknowledge that William Booth was something of a control freak and that those that crossed him found themselves pushed out. Despite this there was a wonderful freedom in expression in much of what happened in the earliest days. Unfortunately, this wasn’t sustained for a multitude of reasons and we started concentrating on creating a culture. If this had been solely about building a Kingdom culture then that would have been wonderful but we ended concentrating on Salvationist culture which is not the same thing!

Thankfully we are seeing a rediscovery of a focus on mission, that isn’t restricted simply to proclamational evangelism. This again was a hallmark of the Celtic church, although they always made sure that the gospel was presented in some way. The keys to their success though was that they operated according to the Holy Spirit’s leading, were people marked by personal holiness and remarkable humility, and were also adaptive to culture. If we can be people marked by the same traits maybe we could all regain the same focus that the Celtic church did!

Infectious holiness

Published
by
Graeme
on February 27, 2008
in My Pilgrimage
. 0 Comments

In the January/February 2008 issue of the Officer publication, which I seem to get despite not being a commissioned officer, the editorial issued a challenge for officers to write articles about:

…how to be holy when we get out of the house and ‘test our style and morality in the mire of the times’

I wouldn’t consider writing an article for the Officer, partly because I would fully expect a rejection slip but also because it wouldn’t be accepted as I’m not an officer. So instead I get to post my thoughts here instead!

Basically the challenge has been there in the back of my mind for the last few weeks ever since I read the article. This has probably been helped by the fact that I’ve been preaching on the subject for the last few months. One thing I’ve realised that if holiness isn’t practical and based firmly in our life outside the house in the ‘mire of the times’, then its not really holiness at all. You see holiness is a bit like the wind, you can only really see because of the effect it has.

Firstly, holiness is a gift from God. It is not something that can be attained through adhering to the rules, no not even to the Army’s Orders and Regulations. Holiness can only be given to us by the One that is Holy. Secondly, its about being fully human, being the human we were created to be, just as Jesus is.

Now having got this out of the way, I come to the real thought of the post. Back in 1995/96 I was on the Frontline course that was run by the Oasis Trust and The Salvation Army. During my year I was introduced to Celtic Christianity and it touched a real chord within me and I picked up a number of books. After reading them once most of these ended up on the shelves and during our time in Latvia gathered dust. However, this week I picked up one of them again because of where my mind is and as I was reading I found this gem of a comment,

He [Aidan] was a man who had an infectious holiness, which, far from making him remote and other worldly, enabled him to mix with all kinds of people and to understand their world. They could believe in his message because he was a person whose life-style was transparently attractive to all who were seeking God.
Mitton, M., Restoring the Woven Cord - pg 16

How’s that for a testimony of someone’s life. Holiness was so evident in Aidan that it came across as infectious. People could ‘catch’ holiness of him because of the way he lived his life. Of equal interest is that his holiness opened him up to other people, who wanted to spend time with him and helped him to understand their world. This in many ways mirrors the sort of life that Jesus led, and leads me to think that the test of someone’s holiness is how attractive they are to others and how that holiness rubs off on them.

Being local

Published
by
Graeme
on February 1, 2008
in My Pilgrimage
. 2 Comments

Challenging questions seem to be taking centre stage in my thinking these days. One such question, well really a scenario with a question attached, was posed to me about a week ago and it went something like this:

The Salvation Army in the UK has well over 700 centres in the UK that it needs to find leaders for. Given the fact that many cadets currently in training are interested in planting in new areas, and the number of actively commissioned officers is falling, what should the Army do about this situation?

Well after my initial response I’ve continued to think about this and the more I think about it the more I realise there is no simple answer. Firstly, we need to ask why those people who are offering for officership would rather plant new corps than lead old ones. I think the answer the that particular question is a simple one and that is because, in Geoff Ryan’s words, “They suck!”

Now before anyone hits the roof, I know that is something of a generalisation and that there are a considerable number of corps around this territory who certainly do not suck. They are seeing people come to the Lord. They are reaching out into their communities with a gospel of hope. They have a vibrant worshipping community, both traditional and contemporary.

However, if we are truthful, there are corps out there that really do suck! Some have the focus on the wrong thing, and by the wrong thing I mean anything that isn’t Jesus. Some are so busy doing they have forgotten that being is the important thing. Some are so disconnected from the community that surround them they wouldn’t be missed if they were to vanish tonight without a trace!

Let’s be honest, we all know corps that fit that description and who would want to lead that sort of corps these days?

Why are our corps dying like this? What is it about the make up of Salvation Army corps that is leading so many to be in terminal decline? I’ve come to the conclusion that the real issue is community, or rather lack of community!

Let me ask a few questions! Firstly, how many of the people who come to the corps/church you attend on a Sunday live within a ten minute walk of the hall? I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember the last time I went to a corps when the answer to that question was over 50%. We’ve become a commuter church!

How big is the area that your corps has in its district? Now my understanding is that the Salvation Army operates in a similar way to the Church of England. I was told soon after I arrived here that my ‘patch’ goes from a place approximately 2 miles north of my hall to somewhere that is about 15 miles away south-west. No-one really seems to know how far east we go, but I’m guessing that the patch is at least 150 sq miles in size with 3 decent sized towns, several major villages, and quite a number of smaller villages. Obviously no-one is expected to cover that sort of area as some sort of super-officer, but even by being appointed to a town as a whole the focus could possibly be too wide.

A couple more questions for now! How many houses are there within 10 minute walk of your hall? How many people live in those houses?

Once upon a time each corps was split up into the ward system. In reality this was an early attempt at cell church by the Army. This has pretty much fallen by the wayside these days, partly due to the busyness of life, but also due to the fact that few people seem to live close together any more.

The Salvation Army has become like many other parts of society; fragmented. We need to become more community minded, and I don’t simply mean by reaching out to the community around our buildings and calling ourselves community church!

We need to immerse ourselves into the communities where God has placed us, not only individually but as a church as a whole. If no-one attending the Army is a credible witness in the community around our buildings, because no-one attending lives there, then how will our corps grow?