Many years ago missiologist Lesslie Newbigin presciently wrote:“The most important issue for the Western Church has been that it has totally failed to recognize that the most urgent contemporary mission field is to be found in their own traditional heartlands, and that the most aggressive paganism with which they have to engage is the ideology that now controls the developed world….”
In our October- November 2018 sermon series at Diamond Valley Baptist Church, we are going to explore seven questions to help us reflect on how to function as a community of faith into the future.
I’ve created a mnemonic to help us recall the questions:
Picture a cross; with a train travelling on the crossbeam. On it’s funnel there is strapped a Go-pro. In the lens of the go-pro is a heart, and growing out of the heart grows a large rambling strawberry bush. In amongst the strawberries is a large tomato sauce bottle, and leaning against the sauce bottle are a number of ladders. Got it? Good!
I’ve created a mnemonic to help us recall the questions:
Picture a cross; with a train travelling on the crossbeam. On it’s funnel there is strapped a Go-pro. In the lens of the go-pro is a heart, and growing out of the heart grows a large rambling strawberry bush. In amongst the strawberries is a large tomato sauce bottle, and leaning against the sauce bottle are a number of ladders. Got it? Good!
Continued ...
A LARGE WOODEN CROSS — Are we deeply Christ-Centred? Are we committed to the way of Christ? Carrying our cross daily, willing to pray, listen and obey? Do we live centred around the shared practices of the faith? Samuel Chadwick once said: “The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayer-less studies, prayer-less work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil – mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”
>> In what ways can we grow as Christ-centred Spirit-led believers?
STEAM TRAIN — Are we committed to excellent, practical training for discipleship and mission? This means growing both in knowledge and in our gifting and in the skills for living and serving. Mentoring, coaching and training will enable us to grow in confidence and competence to dare things for God. Jesus spent three years modelling and training the twelve, the seventy and the five-hundred.
>> In what ways can we develop mentorship and training processes to grow competent and confident disciples?
Go-Pro — Do we have a ‘vision for mission’ Or maybe, a better way to say that is do we have a sense of being on mission? I remember to talking to a Zimbabwean friend who had lived in Australia for a while saying: “It is you in the West that are now the uttermost parts of the earth, not we in Africa.” We are now ‘cross-cultural’ in the sense that we are the keepers of ancient story in a multi-cultural non-Christian world! We are no longer a congregation but a field team, each called to a life on mission, and that turns everything we’ve been taught on it’s head!
>> In what ways can we habituate missionary ‘lenses’?
HEART — Do we invest in our friends, neighbours and work mates so well, that we can discern their aspirations? Our actions and projects should grow out of the felt needs and aspirations of those we live amongst and serve. We are driven by love for the ‘people groups’ we live amongst. “What would Jesus do for these particular people?” And that may mean doing things and being in places we’ve never gone before.
>> In what ways can we develop people relations, resources and processes so as to discern the optimum ways to serve and relate to our neighbourhoods?
STRAWBERRY PLANT — Are we open to multiplying and blessing a diversity of off-site mission projects and communities, rather than inviting everyone onto to our property and gatherings? We will need to be like a strawberry plant that sends out runners and shoots up all over the place. Our centre is like a ‘cathedral’ that supports a host of ‘parishes’ — project teams, mission-communities, connect groups, church-plants, place-making projects etc. These become a loose network around a regional ‘centre.’
>> In what ways can we birth, release and support effective and sustainable mission projects and communities?
SAUCE BOTTLE — How can we develop the resources we will need? How will we develop our property into a regional resource centre relevant to it’s constituencies. What’s the most helpful legal advice and financial support?
>> In what ways can we optimise the structures and resources to multiply the resources needed?
LADDERS — How do we train and release a new generation of leaders? How will we identify, recruit and train and send out a new generation of ‘apostolic’ leaders - the visionary young leaders? Imagine leaders and teams who have had the training, mentoring, resources and team to competently initiate bold fresh expression of mission into the future?
>> In what ways can we design the leadership development processes to grow leaders who can cultivate fresh expressions of mission?
