TRAVELLING!

Hey everyone, 

I'll be away from: Wednesday 5th of June and back on deck Wed 3rd of July 2013!

I will be in the U.K. with Esmae and our daughter Caity.

I will be involved in three 'ministry' related activities:

• The 3DM Pilgrimage Conference  10 - 14  June 2013 in  Sheffield.

• Conversations with a number of church leaders whose congregations have been on transformative journeys.

• The 3DM Senior Leaders and Spouses Retreat  24 - 26 June 2013, Oxfordshire.

In the meantime, Esmae and Caity, with a lamentable lack of commitment will be taking in the sights on our road trip, and taking no notes on missional church stuff! It will be a great blend of time connecting with some very insightful mission and ministry practitioners as well as travelling with my two favourite girls!

I am hoping to journal some of my learnings and reflections. So if these sort of themes interest you - stay tuned! 

Cheers,

Martin 

PS. If you are interested in the mission of the church, here's some Q&A that might be helpful:

What's the purpose of the Pilgrimage Conference?

Pilgrimage joins together leaders and their teams from churches of all sizes & denominations across the world, who are seeking to grow and develop the vision God has given to them. It consists of a 4 day event hosted by Network Church Sheffield & St Thomas Church Crookes (Sheffield, UK) in partnership with 3dm, a mission & discipleship ministry. Pilgrimage focuses on developing Missional Communities through looking at missional discipleship, theology, the church, your community and your ministry. It is designed to help you develop in your area of ministry or church role and provide you with the opportunity to gather, consult, reflect & learn from some great teachers, including Mike Breen (3DM), Paul Maconochie & Mick Woodhead.  The conference consists of daily teaching & worship, seminar sessions, consultation time & ministry. The four days will be shared between the campuses at Network Church Sheffield and St Thomas  Crookes. Days one and four will include input from both churches and their shared values and principles. Day two will look at Philadelphia’s practical outworking of these values as a Network Church, whilst Day Three will focus on Crookes as a Transitional Church.

Who are the presenters?

Mike Breen: is the global team leader of 3dm. He helps church leaders in transition and coaches church planters on how to be effective in our contemporary culture. He is the Senior Guardian of The Order of Mission (TOM), a global covenant community of networked missional leaders. Mike is also the author of numerous books, including Launching Missional Communities, Building a Discipling Culture and Covenant and Kingdom.

Paul Maconochie: is the senior leader of Network Church Sheffield. He has been part of the church since 1992 and has been on staff since 2000. He is a Baptist Minister and was the Senior Leader of St Thomas’ Philadelphia before moving into his current role. He also leads a national network of missional churches called the Covenant Kingdom Network and is a Guardian of The Order of Mission. Paul is married to Elly and they have two daughters, Grace and Hannah.

Mick Woodhead: is Rector and team leader of St Thomas Crookes, Sheffield. The church now operates as a ‘Church of Churches’ and has grown considerably over the past years, particularly with the 18-30s; 75% of the church is under 40.  Mick is a founding leader of The Order of Mission and has a vision for church growth and the development of Kingdom leaders. He is married to Tricia and has three grown-up children and one grandson.

Rich Robinson:  is the UK Director of 3dm as well as being a part of the senior leadership team of Network Church Sheffield, responsible for missional communities and training. He has been involved with missional communities for 12 years and has developed leaders’ training, coaching & consultancy resources and a coaching team to disciple leaders and support the work across the city. Rich is married to Anna and they have three young children – Josiah, Esther and Samuel.

What is 3DM? Who are St Thomas Church?

3DM trains churches and Christian leaders to do discipleship and mission in an increasingly post Christian world.

They combine 30+ years of learning from the context of a very secular England, penetrating Biblical insights and experience working with hundreds of faith communities worldwide — to come alongside churches and organizations who want to learn to be the church in this new world.

- They include mega-churches, church plants and everything in between.
- They are inter-denominational. 
- They include brand new churches and 200-year-old churches; rural, suburban and urban churches.
- They are a movement of churches learning how to thrive in the future.

History: Long before “missional” became a Christian buzzword, a church in England started doing things differently. It operated in a European culture that wasn’t friendly to Christians, and they knew that if they were going to reach the city for Jesus, it wasn’t going to happen in the confines of a church service. So they reinvented what church looked like, creating something that looked a lot like what we see in the early church.They took to the streets, to college campuses, living rooms, and pubs; and in doing so, quietly started a missional revolution. By 2000, it had become the largest church in the country.

At the heart of it all was a church culture that didn’t just create converts—it created disciples that seemed to live like Jesus did. They trained regular, ordinary lay people to be leaders, to listen to the voice of God and respond. And the people they trained in turn trained others. The movement spread.

Yes, there were best-selling books and speaking engagements across Europe, but more importantly, there was a movement, with hundreds and thousands of churches embracing a church life that puts both discipleship and mission at the center. This movement has made its way to four continents and is now exploding in North America.

What is Fresh Expressions?

'Fresh expressions of church' is a term coined by the Church of England report Mission-shaped Church (Edited by Bishop Graham Cray). The Fresh Expressions organization exists to encourage and support the fresh expressions movement, working with Christians from a variety of denominations and traditions. The initiative has resulted in hundreds of new congregations being formed alongside more traditional churches. It was started in 2005 by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York with the Methodist Council, but now involves many different church traditions and agencies.

We in Australia face the same ‘post-Christian’ world as our friends in the U.K. We too are asking what does it mean for the gospel to genuinely encounter the culture in which we find ourselves? How can we equip and release the people of God so as to be salt and light for such a time? What does it mean to express the good news and to form faith-communities in ways that communicate to the many who have not yet encountered Jesus? In other words - what do ‘fresh expressions’ of mission and church look like for our contexts? The Fresh Expressions initiative has been described as: “One of the most significant missional movements in the recent history of Christianity in these islands...” (Reformed, Reforming, Emerging and Experimenting, 2011). 

One of the core programs is the Mission Shaped Ministry (MSM). This is a one-year, part-time course takes participants on a learning journey as part of a supportive community, training them for ministry in fresh expressions of church. “ If the nation is to be changed the church has to change its way of communicating the good news about Jesus. This course has already helped many to reconnect with God's heart for the nation, and to find new ways of helping the church to find new ways of reaching the 97%. I thoroughly recommend it... but be warned... it might change your life as well as your view of church.”  (John Coles, Leader, New Wine)

What are the benefits?

The Australian Church is on a more similar journey to that of our UK friends than our USA friends - and yet so much our input comes from North America. I think there is value in increasing the links and stories from the UK. 

3DM and Fresh Expressions are key missional networks, now establishing in the Australian context. We are well placed to become partners and to benefit from these relationships.

The values of this trip:

Longer Term partnership with 3DM in building missional communities in Vic/Tas

Longer Term partnership with Fresh Expressions in building missional communities in Vic/Tas

Longer term partnership  in networking with respected practitioners from across the globe

Stories and inspiration to fuel our leaders in CCVT

Resources to bring to our situation - particularly training and releasing leaders

Insight and training to bring to our training programmes

Data for further research