sustain:if:able kiwi

congregational innovation and missional texts: a snip from an email I wrote today

great question: how might a ‘missional reader’ in a local church innovate the bringing into public discourse the real, lived narratives of the people in our local churches? For me there have been key biblical texts and “questions” around which great energy has been released at Opawa. They are texts that we have lingered with and keep returning to. Four that immediately spring to mind are;

1) Luke 1:39-45 – what is God growing and birthing – how do older bless younger – how to speak words of courage and hope?

2) Peter vs Paul – what would it look like to be intentional about evangelism to Peter’s ie process and the invitation to community discernment around this process.

3) Change is best sourced in organic metaphors rather than narratives of decline.

4) The different responses of Peter, Mary, Thomas, John to the Risen Jesus and what does it mean for us to create spaces that acknowledge this diversity and allow this contextual freedom of expression; as a pre-cursor to our multi-congregational model as a concrete way of bringing about change in an established church context.

But these are unique to Opawa. So how transferable are these “texts”?