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In Vestry Vibes for last month I talked about the idea of
Emerging Church. This is
a catch-all term which covers many new forms of church. Though we
might not be aware of it there are many new ways of being church that
are gradually being developed around us.
The
significant Church of England report Mission-Shaped Church, which was
published in 2004, lists a variety of these:
Alternative
worship communities:
- Base Eccelsial
Communities
- Café
- Multiple and
midweek congregations
- Seeker church
- Youth
congregations
While the
terms being used for various of these can seem strange and bewildering
the essential thing to note and understand is that there is much being
done to reshape the church that it might be more effective in the new
context in which we now find ourselves living.
When we
wonder about what is happening to the church and why there is so much
decline, we need to take on board the understanding that things around
us have changed very substantially.
If you go
back some way, for a very long time the church was there in the centre
of society. In actual fact that was pretty much the case from the
time of the Roman Emperor Constantine. The Christian faith was made
the religion of the Empire and with that the Church was at the centre
of everything.
That was the
case for 1500 years but then things began to change. In reality we
have been drifting from the centre to the margins for some time now, it
is just that in the past 40 years so that has been more emphatic and
more obvious.
The trouble
is that we still think as if we are still in the centre and we still
model so much of our church life with that in mind. Within the
church we get all hurt and upset that people no longer come in through
the door as once they did and that often leads to recrimination within
many church communities. It is a measure of our anxiety about the
situation.
So now we
have to learn new ways of being church. Or rather, perhaps, what we
have to do now is to relearn some very ancient skills as to how to do
and be church. Our situation is now not unlike the situation of the
early church of the Apostles, we live with our particular story of God
to tell, but we do so as a minority surrounded by a dominant culture.
So instead
of being an institution at the centre of things that expects people to
be attracted to it we have to learn about how to be a missional
movement.
What do I
mean by that term? I mean that we have to show new flexibility. Just
because we have previously done things in a certain way, it doesn’t
have to be always that way.
I also
means that in all aspects of our church life there must be a real
sense in going out and beyond the literal and metaphorical four walls
of the church.
That is
what the early church had to do. That is what we have to do. Various
of the above examples from Mission-Shaped Church do just that.
Redland Park
has a proud history of doing just that. The Shaftesbury Crusade and
Broadplain come to mind. But much more is needed than that.
Such work is
often the activity of a few, what we need is that outreach etc becomes
the activity and the norm of the many. Why and how that might work is
what I intend to pursue in the November edition of the Recorder.
Please bear
in mind that the massive restructuring of our denomination and Synod
is all about the need for mission. The very real challenge will be to
all local churches to likewise engage with this essential aspect of
being Christian in their own local context.
Douglas Burnett
October 2005
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