Being Church in the real world.

Within the local church, people know they live  in a time of immense change. They are confused  by these changes  and conflicted  about what to do with  it  all because they  see and feel  going on   is so deep and disturbing.

A buisness man\woman  leaves work  at 6.30 am and is back home at 7.30p.m  with little time  for family.  Weekends  are spent  on housework shopping and childrens sport. At work she\he  is responsible for employees, many of whm are  about to loose their jobs  due to outsourcing  overseas. she wonders about  the church he\she has lnong known. How do they make sense  of being  christian in the midst of all this.

Space for Conversation:

Where do we give space in our churches  for people to talk about these realities.

Classical  Pastoral care is the key  to give people a voice. Pastoral care at its best  is about asking  the question, "How is your soul?"

This might involve  connecting with  people on a regular basis  without  an agenda asking questions that  are genuinely open ended, and inviting  people  to share  something  of what is happening in their lives.

This is how  church leaders can genuinely  begin to create an environment  in which people  feel 'listened into free speech'.

Our experience  is that other people rarely ask  us about our lives  at a deeper level than "Hi how are you?" unless they  want something  from us.  What would it  be like  to cultivate a church  in which people  ask deeper questions without strings attached.

Embrace the day

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

By Rumi, Translation by Coleman Barks

Leadership

"I came that you might have life and have it to the full."

Because our habits are so ingrained in us, what happens is what we call  the elastic band  phenomena . We will  try to pull  people  in a new direction  with new programs  or training workshops, but  within a short period  of time  they return to their former habits and practices because they are the ones  that have worked in the past.

Roxburgh, Alan J.. Introducing the Missional Church (Allelon Missional Series) (pp. 138). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition

Leadership

The Missional Model  introduces a process  for  cultivating  this level of  culture  change in the local church  or the systems that serve it . Cultured change  is never achieved  through  top-down process; it happens  as people are empowered  to m=name  their  own realities  and develop  experiments  in which   they test   out   new habits and practices.

Roxburgh, Alan J.. Introducing the Missional Church (Allelon Missional Series) (pp. 139). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition

Although   leadership in this bottom –up  process  is crucial, it operates differently than we expect. The leader whether  pastor, clergy, or board) needs to develop  skills  in  creating environments in which people  themselves  do the work  of discerning  and discovering  the imagination  that the  Spirit  is giving them for mission. The leader  creates space and experiences  for others  to imagine what the Spirit is calling forth . It is a move away  from the people being passive  to the people  being the  center  of the process of discernment . In his book  Community:  The  Structure of Belonging , Peter  Block  describes  one of the  primary roles  of the leader  as that of convening:

“This is not an argument  against leadership, only  a desire   to change the  nature  of our thinking .  Communal transformation  requires a  certain kind of leadership, one that ceates conditions where  context shifts.

Roxburgh, Alan J.. Introducing the Missional Church (Allelon Missional Series) (pp. 139). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition

Anne Frank

Up up and away

 Years ago I was trying to fix a drawer and got down to one last screw I had to get loose. The more I worked to loosen the screw, the tighter it seemed to get. I had worked as a carpenter’s helper for six months, but our company majored in restoring fire-damaged buildings, which apparently means I got better at demolishing things rather than fixing them. A friend was visiting, and it wasn’t too long before he realized I needed some help. Very quickly he said, “Oh, this has a left-handed thread; it’s a reverse screw. If you want to loosen it, you need to go in the opposite direction.” I’m thinking, “It took me ten years to find out how screws work, and now they change the rules on me?” Too often we approach leadership and life transformation in pragmatic ways. We uncritically adopt the latest business practices in the church, working hard to tighten the screw, only to find that the tighter the screw gets, the less we become like Jesus.

Recently, there were several people making claims about Jesus’ origins.

One person said, “I’m going to give you three good reasons why I believe Jesus was Italian. He loved to talk with his hands, he had wine with every meal, and he used olive oil quite a bit.”

Someone from California said, “I’m going to give you three reasons why I believe Jesus was Californian. He never cut his hair, he walked around barefoot all the time, and he started his own religion.”

Then a black person declared, “I’m going to give you three reasons why I believe Jesus was black. He called everyone brother, he liked gospel, and he couldn’t get a fair trial.”

After that a woman gave the most compelling evidence of all: three proofs that Jesus was a woman. “He had to feed a crowd at a moment’s notice when there was no food, he kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn’t get it, and even when he was dead he had to get up because there was more work for him to do.”[2]

Creating a Missional Culture Equipping the Church for the Sake of the World JR Woodward