sustain:if:able kiwi

the unbiblical banality that is mission-shaped church/fresh expressions

For the Parish, by Andrew Davison and Alison Milbank, is an extended critique of fresh expressions. Always good to listen to the critics, so over the next weeks, I’ll be engaging the book, chapter by chapter.

The Introduction wastes little time; Mission-shaped church and fresh expressions are defective in methodology, inadequate in theology, and a capitulation to market values (page vii)! Fresh expressions are defined as “independent entities without any relation to the parish in which they operate … special interest groups … that defines the consumerist criterion of membership.” (vii) The book promises a critique on theological, philosophical and Biblical grounds. Fresh expressions is “unbiblical” (viii), a flight toward “segregation” (ix).

The abandonment of stability for novelty and given liturgy for ‘choice’, results in banality and pastiche, as well as a frail and atomized subjectivity. (ix)

Looking forward to chapter one arn’t we! Well, let’s all enjoy the weekend first 🙂

too blunt? the mirror held by early church preaching

I have a column over on the kiwimadepreaching website. Here’s my introduction:

Is the phrase “Biblical preaching” simply too blunt? I began to wonder this as I gazed into the preaching mirror held by the early church.

With over forty years of missionary service in Africa, David Dunn-Wilson has made a study of the sermons of the early church. In his book, A Mirror for the Church (Eerdmans, 2005) David points out how sermon change – in style, in subject – as the needs of congregations and contexts change.

The chapter headings tell the story.

I then explore categories of missionary preachers, apologist preachers, mystic preachers, theological preachers, homiletical preachers. For the full article, or to make a comment, head on over