Wracked nerves

Yet another nerve-wracking performance by England. It's just like watching City except we keep winning.

I hope you folk in Ecuador are not too distressed.

To the pub

When Nick came to work with me in Bredbury two years ago we decided to lead the Church into a more missional phase of its life. Our plan was to become a "Mission-Shaped Church" or to do some mission knowing that it would shape the church.

In addition to the Church initiatives, we made a pact, to get out and meet people and to lead by example. We agreed that each of us would pursue a hobby which would allow us to make friends with normal people who don't come to church.

For several months this was just good intentions. Then last summer I actually took myself down to the local branch of the Manchester City FC Supporters Club. Since August last year I have been going to games at the City of Manchester stadium and drinking beer with the lads in the Conservative CLub where we have been meeting before the match.

Recently we changed venues so we now meet in The Crown which has lots of big TV screens. So tonight I'll be there in my England shirt cheering on our boys in Cologne.

No doubt my pal, Holy Spirit will be there too. We will be alert for any Kingdom opportunities as we enjoy being the church in the midst of the people.

Wild at Heart

In the Autumn of last year I read a book called "Wild at Heart" by John Eldredge. It was a bit over the top at first, but I found my spirit witnessing that God has indeed made men for adventure. As a man with Apostolic gifting it is stifling to spend all one's time and energy maintaining an institution.

I found myself remembering a conversation I had with God a year or so earlier as I struggled through a period of depression. I was trying to understand why I was not happy with my work. I concluded that I was bored and needed a fresh challenge. I need adventure.

Over the past 18 months I have been most energized when thinking about developing "Fresh Expressions" of church. I like to pioneer. I want to work on the frontier, starting up new things.

To be fair, this pioneering spirit is not a new development for me. In my work in banking I was a "swaps" pioneer doing interest rate swaps in the capital markets for 5 years in the days when they were a new financial instrument. I had to invent the accounting system and persuade the accountants that it was correct!!

When I went to work on the Racecourse Estate in Sale as curate in charge of the church plant I tried to start a Base Community. I heard about these radical expressions of Church by reading a book called "the Church in the Home" by David Prior (who had been my Vicar in Oxford). Leonardo Boff's book "Ecclesiogenesis" then blew me away - who would have believed that a Roman Catholic Liberation Theologian could be so biblical and so radical? With the help of Peter Price (now Bishop of Bath and Wells) I found out how to be church in this new way (New Way of Being Church).

The main problem with Base Communities was that they did not have a built in strategy for multiplication and they seemed to need a huge investment of time and energy from a "pastoral agent". If you want to know more leave me a comment and I can send you a copy of my Masters Dissertation on the subject.

So when I came to Bredbury we tried Cell Church. Again, radical and pioneering we started this in 1998 when it was the latest thing. However, from the outset we knew that this was not just another band-wagon. Cell church encapsulates all the values that we believe are important for church.

John Eldredge asserts that women sometimes try to tame men, even emasculate them!! Cell Groups are meant to be dynamic missional communities that reach out, grow and multiply as they advance the Kingdom of God. It is too easy for these groups to become cosy fellowship groups where we avoid the scary stuff like evangelism, prophecy, etc. No wonder I have been frustrated at times.

So where next?

The main weakness in all my efforts over the years has been in the area of making disciples. This is where we are now focussing our attention and energies. I will post a blog soon to explain what we are doing to learn how to make disciples.

Paradigm Shift

A few months ago I began reading Frost and Hirsch’s book “The Shaping of Things to Come”. At a gut level I felt that their conclusions are correct, that we need a radical new way of being church: revolution rather than evolution. Yet part of me was reluctant to give up on the traditional church. At the time I was hoping to get a job as Parish Mission Development officer for Chester Diocese. I was hoping that by encouraging fresh expressions of church around the Diocese new life would spring up and the church would have a future.

By the time I arrived at the interviews with Chester Diocese I no longer felt comfortable with the prospect of committing my energies to shoring up the creaking institution. My appetite for radical innovative mission had been stimulated by being interviewed by CMS for a new position fostering the development of missional cells (Andrew Jones and Richard White are going to job-share the position).

So here I am, part way through a paradigm shift. I am employed to do a job which in itself is good. People are being evangelised, blessed and saved. Mission is happening on the fringe of our church, and we are also doing some “out-there” mission amidst the unchurched youth of our neighbourhood. The church which I lead is transitioning and becoming a more effective agent of the Kingdom. It could even double in size within a few years if we work hard and put our energies into helping people to become disciples.

But … (big BUT) …. I am now convinced that because the church is an institution it is self limiting. The people of Bredbury and Woodley are pathologically adverse to institution. The few who try to do church are only able to sustain something of modest size (c 70 people) and there is considerable chaos as there are only a few professionals around. I do not believe that mega-church would fit our culture (potential for a future blog here I suspect).

And so I really do believe that we will only see massive spontaneous expansion of the Kingdom if we can foster the growth of home based churches. This is causing me a few problems. Not many other people are with me on this journey. It is going to take time to explain my thinking. I do not want to sound critical. Relative to many churches we are doing really well. My friends in the New Wine Network are growing their churches by dramatically modernising their way of doing church … but they are largely still within the old paradigm.

This morning I was reading Alexander Campbell’s Simplechurch blog. He has a diagram there about the “apostolic migration”. I am not sure where I am on this diagram. Am I at point minus 1 … moving in my spirit but not in my body/money? Or am I in the wilderness of religious detoxification? I think the past 3 months I have been in that wilderness. And I have now let go of my dream of being a “successful” leader of a big New Wine church. I am not sure if I am yet in point +1 … I am still hoping to foster new churches from my comfortable position as vicar of Bredbury….

…. interesting that God said to me on Tuesday “the Wilderness is not about going for a picnic in the countryside”. Hmm.

Infrequent Blogging

It has been rather quiet on the Blog recently. Andrew Jones has reassured me today that it is OK to post less often. This link explains why.