sustain:if:able kiwi

brian mclaren session 2: forming disciples : panel

Panel 2: Lyn Campbell, Alan Jamieson, Kathy Mayes. They are not experts. They are helping us contextualise and process what Brian is saying and what it means for us.

What is resonating:
You learn by doing. The gap is supervision, we lack “disciple makers.” Kiwi’s are “can do” No. 8 wire people. The danger of this is that we don’t pass on what we learnt. Young people need not “can do” No. 8 wire people, but people to walk beside them.

Do indigenous cultures offer us better apprentice models than Western cultures?

The church must re-think mission so that people can learn by doing. There are some wonderful things happening in New Zealand but boy, we have a long way to go.

What does it mean for families as models of “doing” and apprenticeships?

So many families talk about spirituality in our culture. Families in New Zealand are around parenting and work/life balance. Can the church take our families with us to meet these needs; and see a gathering mission momentum?

Most Christian diet today is simplistic. Churches go for lowest common denominator. We are simple. We need to talk about complexity, let alone perplexity. Life is more grey than church is making out, because people notice that our reality is grey.

Churches are greedy of people’s time and money. We suck people dry and so they are stressed.

The rule of the art of discipling: What is one way in your context people could pick up the “art.”:
Pastors invest in people. Rabbi’s class – every fortnight to talk about whatever with pastoral leaders.

To do is to make mistakes and to learn. We are in a “perfect” society; body, family. We need to learn to let each other make mistakes.

The art of discipling is not cloning. It is helping them be true to themselves.

There is a dearth of Christians in “public” places. How do we as churches and families open up our children and young people to think about working in difficult places?

Who are our mentors? We seldom get to see people thinking out aloud. We only hear them report the solution. [are blogs a way of hearing people think out aloud?] It’s time to stop portraying perfection and to be honest and keep speaking aloud. We need leaders to model not being all together.