|
My past few months have consisted of the
privilege of being on sabbatical. After some 14 years of ministry it
has been good to take time out, to think, to reflect and to plan. As
a journey and adventure of one kind there was my sponsored hike up to
Machu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes, that raised in excess of £3500.
What an experience that journey was!
But then, with my studies, I was on another kind of journey. For
this I focused on what I entitled, “Church Diversification, Mission
and Post-Modernity.” To many these may sound like a number of strange
and esoteric terms but they are all highly relevant, they all connect
in with where we are now in our denomination with Catch the Vision and
the general challenge to all the mainstream denominations with regard
to the future.
For a long time now we have been all to aware of the problem of
decline in our churches, ageing congregations and a dearth of young
people (from teenagers to those in their 20s to 50s). The truth is
that there have been massive shifts in society in the past 40 years
and with that the Church has been left a long way behind. For
generations we have assumed that people would come to us, all that we
had to do was to be there, in our churches, to welcome them.
Clearly this is an assumption and a mode of operation that is no
longer valid. What we have to do now is to find new ways of going to
them. What we have to learn is how to do mission in the context of
secular society in the 21st
Century.
At first all of this can seem rather strange to the point of being
daunting, such that it brings on a strange paralysis. However, as I
have discovered on my travels, Christ has gone ahead of us and new
forms of Church are already happening. This is what is called
“Emerging Church”, and this is a term that you will hear more about as
the years go by and as Catch the Vision gathers pace.
Essentially this is a catch-all term which covers many new forms of
Church. Perhaps the most generally applicable form is that of Cell
Church. This sits alongside the Sunday morning celebration, but
happens throughout the week and happens in church members` homes. It
is based on community, mission and worship.
The cells have a commitment to evangelism. From what I have seen in
churches that have taken this model on board things can actually
happen and do happen.
The Good News is that decline should never be seen as a terminal
state. Rather, we should understand ourselves as being in a
transitional period. God is around calling us onto something new.
There is something here about leaving Egypt to spend some time in the
wilderness. At first the wilderness is an uncomfortable place to be,
but in the wilderness God is there to meet us in unexpected ways.
Beyond the wilderness there is the Promised Land. It is a matter of
catching the vision!
Douglas
|
