sustain:if:able kiwi

a genuine Salvation Army trumpet call? updated with resources

I am with a group of Salvation Army leaders today. Flying up to Wellington, then driving to Masterton. Then speaking for 3 sessions, on mission, change, leadership. Then driving back to Wellington, and home for a (late) dinner.

It is the fourth time I’ve been with a group of Salvation Army leaders here in New Zealand speaking in areas of mission and change. I have yet to see a genuine trumpet and a real uniform! But I remain hopeful.

The best thing is that this group has requested a copy of my The Out of Bounds Church?: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change book for every one of their leaders!

Updated: For those interested here is a summary of my sessions, the questions raised and the booklist that was missed off the bottom of my notes. Duh!

Session 1 – Mission: Acts 2:8 as a biblical beginning. Our mission contexts are plural: micro, meso macro. Pausing for some group work on micro context. Four ways to grasp our macro post-Christendom context – a story, a history, some reasoned bullet points, a pithy quote.

Session 2 – Change. A diagram of change that respects not just process of change, but seeks a theology and a set of practices. Three helpful lens by which to process change. An theology of change, emerging from Opawa, using Biblical narratives of Luke 2, I Kings 19 and Matthew 13.

Session 3 – Grounded in a story: what has emerged at Opawa. 6 practices, including

• Renewal of Bible in our congregational life
• Resourcing a 24/7 scattered faith
• A multicongregational approach
• Formation of mission action teams
• Discipling structures
• Resources (staff and buildings) aligned with our mission life

Questions raised: (If I get time, and if there is particular blog interest, I might post up responses)

• We were trained in certain ways. So were the people in our congregations. How do we embrace this new way of being?
• What do we do with the temptation to keep trying old models, just in case they still might work?
• How do we deal with the diversity of what is, and of starting new thinks?
• How to handle the tensions of attractional (coming) and missional (going)?
• How does growing disciples work in missional contexts? Or as a I reframed it? How should we disciple the Elamites of Acts 2:8 and the Ethiopian eunuch?
• How do we deal with existing expectations over our ministry shape, including the way that denominations request statistics?
• How is community built in new mission contexts? How does community ministry interface with church?
• Is this Biblical, because we read all this emergent literature coming in from US publishing companies?

Updated 2: Conference participant, Paul Gardiner, is blogging here as he continues to reflect upon my content and make application to his context. Good stuff.

Books useful in the mission, change, leadership journey.
Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, IVP, 2008.
John Drane, After McDonaldization: Mission, Ministry, and Christian Discipleship in an Age of Uncertainty, DLT: UK, 2008.
Olive Drane, Spirituality to Go: Rituals and Reflections for Everyday Living, DLT: UK, 2006.
Alan Roxburgh, Reaching a New Generation: Strategies for Tomorrow’s Church, IVP, 1993.