Reading where we are

How much time do you spend thinking about where you are?  How much time does your church spend taking a measure of the community in which it ministers and which it serves.

In the Church Planting Manual from the Redeemer Church Planting Centre they encourage you to do a survey of the area, then plant using information from that survey.  They then encourage you, having launched, to continue learning about the area which you serve and if necessary to re-launch.  Not necessarily in terms of stopping everything and starting again but simply in terms of learning to read the area you are in and seeking to show Jesus love in tangible ways.

This launch - learn - relaunch/model strategy is one which I think largely goes untried in the UK.  I wonder particularly if the older the church is, in terms of how established it is, the less likely it is to be engaging with, enquiring of and learning from the community around it.

As we have settled into our new home, both on Sunday's and on Monday's we are continuing to learn about the community we feel God has called us to serve.  And one of the things we are learning most of all is that there is a deep seated suspicion of church.  We have had a number of conversations recently which have been very revealing about church in general and the way it is perceived.  There were those we spoke to who would come to the toddler group if it was just run by those individuals running it, but won't come because it's run by a church, even though it is the same individuals running it.

Why?  Because of previous bad experiences of church and of Christians.  Learning must inform our approach to ministry and serving the area here with the gospel.  We know it must be long term, we know it will be hard and slow, we know that we must work to win people over before they will even enter a toddlers let alone church, we know that relationships with individuals and families will be key, and that they need to see more than ever our love displayed in practical ways that astound them.

There are other ways in which we are learning about the area; people feel they need to be invited to church, they do not assume that there is an open invitation to come along to church week by week.  So how do we relearn, how do we relaunch (small scale not big)?  We must develop a programme of year round accessible invitational services, we must expect to have to invite, invite and invite, and once people come we must make a point of welcoming people so well that they know they are always welcome.

There are hundreds of other ways we are learning every week, in every conversation at the school gates and at the local shop and in toddlers, and we need to take time to think about what God is showing us about the people he has called us to love, serve and take the gospel to.  And as we do so we need to be thinking about where we relaunch, whilst certain that we will never need to relaunch the gospel.

My fear is that too often the community we read is the wrong one.  It may be that we read the community inside the church in which case we will just become more 'churchy' and less and less accessible.  Or we might read the 'disenfranchised Christian community' - those who have left church for one reason or another - and only want to come back to a church in the image they want which meets their needs.   These people need reaching with the gospel, they need grace and love.  We may need to ask their forgiveness, but I don't think they are the community we should read.  The gospel, missional discipleship calls us to be reading the unbelieving community round about us, so that we can reach them with the gospel.

7 beliefs fundamental to evangelism

1. People matter to God
2. People are lost and face a lost eternity
3. People need Jesus Christ as their Saviour
4. People need answers to their questions
5. People need and want community
6. People need cultural relevance
7. People need time and love

These 7 fundamental beliefs about people are essential if we are to engage in Biblical evangelism. Without an understanding of these our evangelism will be skewed.

For example if we don't believe people matter to God we will not engage with them at all. If we don't believe Jesus they face a lost eternity and Jesus is their only hope of salvation we will not feel the need to share the gospel with them. Unless we are prepared to answer their questions about faith we will never truly share the gospel with them. Unless we introduce them to the church they will never see true community and the gospel in action. Unless we show people that the Bible is culturally relevant they will not understand why they need it today. And unless we love people and give time to them we will engage in hit and run evangelism rather than the relational missional living and evangelism we see in the New Testament.

Is being British a sin?

Its an interesting question that has been thrown up by a comment I made recently that our British reserve is sinful when it becomes an excuse for not engaging with our culture and not evangelising. I have been very struck in recent weeks with the number of people from across the country who have very few people they are living missionally before. They have acquaintances but very few people who know them well enough to see the change that the gospel is making in their lives. They have few if any friends who they are engaged with conversation with who challenge them about what they believe and how they live. And all too often we try to excuse ourselves by saying its OK for you but I don't have your personality, I'm not as outgoing as you are, or I'm more reserved. I think we need to recognise that they are excuses, they are a way of ducking the real issues.

Paul consistently assumes that the churches he writes to will be engaging with the world around them, as does Peter. It is why they are exhorted to live a life worthy of the gospel, and why Peter exhorts the church to always be ready to give a reason for the hope that you have. They assumption is that they are engaged with the world. I think our problem is that we are more like the Pharisees than the early church. And Jesus does not hold back on rebuking the Pharisees for their legalism and isolationist living. To that extent I think Jesus would rebuke us for being British just as he did the Pharisees.

The challenge is to change - to start engaging, to learn the lessons of Colossians 4:2-6 and start praying for God to open doors and for clarity to recognise an opportunity and speak into it when it comes up. We need to be loving and living with those with work alongside, live alongside and relax alongside, we need to be engaging with the world, and when that little voice says no your British, we need to remind ourselves being a Pharisee didn't spare them from Jesus rebuke.

The Gospel community

Sometimes God hammers home lessons by simply putting it across our path at every turn. Yesterday lunch time I was involved in an interesting discussion about community and how the gospel at work in church communities is attractive to the outsider. Then in the afternoon as we looked at passages we had prepared a number of times the theme of community came out again and again. It is there in Colossians 2:1-5 which I am preparing for Sunday as Paul struggles with all Christ's energy for the community of grace at Colossae and warns them of dangers they face.

Then yesterday evening in another meeting community was again the focus as we looked at Acts 20 and Paul's parting words to the Ephesian elders warning them to protect the community of grace and love and shepherd the flock. Then ended the day by reading Isaiah 65 where the picture is of a redeemed community, of the gospel community fully realised.

This morning I read the following on Tim Chester's blog about the rhythms of a missional church and what it looks like in practice for them:

"B. We bless - Each week we aspire to bless others in our Christian community and local neighbourhood in word, action or gift at least three times.
L. We listen - Each week we aspire to listen to God, looking for him to guide us through his word and Spirit. And we listen to people around us to understand their stories and the story of our culture.
E. We eat - Each week we aspire to eat or have a drink with people outside our immediate family at least three times, offering friendship and community.
S. We speak -Each week we aspire to tell people the story of Jesus and our story of Jesus, making Jesus a normal part of our conversations. And we speak to God through prayer, recognising our dependence on him in all things.
S. We sabbath - Each week we aspire to spend time in rest, praise, play, partying and creativity."

To say we live in a missional community as the church is to misunderstand and mis-speak. If we live in a missional community we only do so when we are in it. No, we are a missional community - whether we are gathered together corporately, on a small scale, or individually. But we need to be calling others to come and experience that community.

Next term we are going to try to hold at least one if not two or three 50:50 meals. Meals where we get friends together to share food and company, where we invite friends we love who know Jesus to spend time with friends we love who don't know Jesus. Why? Because as people see the gospel at work in our relationships they will see what a difference the cross makes and that we are not just odd and alone, but that Christ is the answer to every ones need.

Measuring commitment

How do we measure commitment?

I worry sometimes when the Pharisee in me comes out, I want to see people at this or that meeting as a sign of their commitment to things. I always find that Jesus challenge is by contrast to send people out to do what they do in a committed way. So rather than having such a busy calendar with 'church' stuff Jesus equips and sends out. So the disciples are sent out, those Jesus heals are then sent back to their homes to tell others and so on.

Paul seems to do like wise telling the Thessalonians off not for not spending enough time in committee or church meetings but for giving up work. I have to learn to measure commitment by determination to take the gospel into everyday life, to live every moment worthy of the gospel in front of a watching world, not to be at prayer meeting, home group, leading youth work, a missionary meeting, and two services on a Sunday. That is religion and legalism, and we are saved to go into our world and be grace to people.

That is not say we are not to meet up and pray and support one another, that is vital, but the question is one of balance. Have I got the balance right? Does my diary reveal a right balance or an imbalance? Does it reveal a missional Jesus follower or a religious fanatic?