musing

I'm sat alone in an office this morning at Beauchamp House. It's a little cold and the sunshine continues to play some kind of game or dance with showers of rain that frequently come and go.

My day today is pretty free without obligation or any meetings or pressing things to do, so it's good to take a chance to reflect on how things are going.

It's been good to meet some people recently and catch up, or start new conversations. some new people are interested in being part of re:Fresh. enthusiasm about a weekly prayer space, cafe style for youth after school is growing. a few of us are keen to start cultivating a regular rhythm of prayer with no strings attached. hope08 is still going strong with some cool projects and plans for Christmas time. some new folks are interested in coming along to the monthly church workers prayer breakfast...lots of things are kicking off...

And, its well and truly Autumn, which I love.

I've also spent quite a bit of time reflecting on missional communities this week, the whole 'pioneer' stuff and fresh expressions etc. If you get some time check out 24-7's Brian Heasley's blog and scroll down - he's got 5 points on missional stuff and its pretty cool...I haven't read it all yet. But the guy is a dude so check it out if you can...

Some other dude called 'reinhold' (his blog post on mission and worship here) wrote an interesting reflection:

"The "Great Commission" - at least in its common evangelical understanding - is no longer a sufficient basis for mission in the 21th century alone. Mission is not only about the Cross and Resurrection and making disciples and leading them to a personal relationship with Jesus, but also proclaiming God's overall reign and will over creation and society. Incarnational mission includes, but is so much more than saving souls and making disciples (which, normally, means "making Christians" :-)"

My other thoughts have scrambled all over the place, and its hard to write a summary of them here. I'll try to do so as things get smoother in my head. But basically, I think we're going wrong with the whole emerging/simple/fresh expressions of church stuff if all we're trying to do is create new forms of church - even creative and imaginative spaces for community, where there's a comfortable, accessible, inclusive and non-threatening environment for people to explore faith are dangerous things - if they aren't set up with the right attitude and the right motivation...

We have to have our whole goal and vision to be Jesus people. To pioneer a fresh expression of Christian living, a wave of Jesus behaviour. True to Christ....undoubtedly if this is done, new forms of church will appear, but only as a result of, or as a fruit of the goal being Jesus.

(Interestingly I read 'this article' about the demise of the term emerging church - there seems to be growing number of people with similar concerns.)

I'm kinda shocked at how grasped I am about this at the moment. It seems to be a very important time, and before we start taking the terminology lightly, we have to wake up and realise that if there is a movement going on, then its a movement crying out for a sacrifical lifestyle in worship and devotion to Jesus that changes the way we live, day in day out...whatever that ends up looking like, then so be it...

umm..I've written too much.