Back again with the next installment. Tuesdays programme has a focus on how all these principles of missional community and huddles etc. worked out in practice at St Thomas' Philadelphia and Kings Church. So, here's the day in order with some of my notes and thoughts for your perusal:
1. Devotion by Mike Breen - Focusing on the confession of Peter in Matthew 16:13 and following. This is an example of Jesus using Deep Invitation and Deep Challenge as a strategy of discipleship. Mike has recently been in Jerusalem and surroundings and was able to reflect on the geography and history of Caeserea Phillipi as it would have been at this time - a place of pagan worship and hellish sinfulness.
Throughout this devotional Mike expanded on a number of Covenant and Kingdom issues - particularly around identity in Jesus sharing his name with Peter and linking other passage in the Old and New Testament to develop our understanding of the importance of the Rock, Cornerstone and Capstone imagery. I'll be getting the audio which you are welcome to borrow.
2. The Square. Rich Robinson led us through this leadership tool at a deeper level as we were in Stream 2 and many of us have experience of using this practically in our settings. He shared some of the Principles they apply when using the Square with Missional Communities/Clusters and Cluster leaders.
Particularly he shared principles of: Leaders raising Leaders through this tool; Invitation and Challenge is supported through the Square; Square encourages confidence in people and gives them ownership of the process and growth and vision.
Some of the hard lessons they have learnt include: people who are D1 Junkies (see above) and never get further than that; realising that between D2 and D3 potential is realised or lost; understanding that the corners are key times of transition; learnt to that you cannot teach what is intuitive...hard to sometimes communicate the next steps which seem obvious to hard but are harder to see from the 'inside'.
High accountability and Low Control.
3. Paul Maconochie gave an overview of how the Principles, Values and Missional focus pans out practically at Philadelphia.
Some of his points included: the transition between a pastoral model and a mission model - one gives birth to the other and it's more a case of new wineskins than a church changing style or shape. Succession planning is crucial in a missional model. Using a 6 monthly Learning Community has transformed their cluster model and made the number of leaders much bigger and more effective.
He recommended 'The Spider and the Starfish' book to take this further.
He also spoke about preparation for preaching and teaching - and challenged us to prepare our lives and trust that the word would come out of that.
Are you doing what God has called you to do or what the church has called you to do?
4. Creating a Missional Mindset - Paul led a seminar which was an extension of the previous session in many ways. Some of the key points:
Church is an effect, not a cause - we are called to make disciples not to build church.
He suggested 3 areas to develop this mindset:
Sowing seeds; modelling a missional lifestyle as leaders; sow a vision; cultivate a culture of repentance; raise a core team; go on journeys of faith together; share the stories.
Watering the Seeds: releasing group leaders; coaching other leaders; building relationships; increasing accountability (huddle, training, staff).
Building Momentum: more stories; supporting structures (cart to the horse of mission); allowing diversity; delegating leadership.
5. Pioneer Mission seminar with Toby Bassford. More of a discussion but some useful things came out for me:
The 3rd space in most people's lives (other than work and home) is generally unoccupied by Christians and yet that is where most of the population spend their 'free' time. Church acts as the pseudo '3rd space' for Christians.
I'd like to read more about this third space thing - I did a diagram for myself but can't replicate it easily on the blog...but it's three interconnected circles...
Our attractional model of church suffers because we don't spend enough time in the 3rd space of the majority of people and therefore our understanding of 'relevance' or 'need' is way off the mark. We also don't have integrity in what we do offer because we don't have relationships in the 3rd space.
Luke 10 and Matthew 10 are key passages for thinking and understanding church planting - or should that be Jesus planting??
The harvest is plentiful - is what the Bible says, But we don't believe that. We think people are uninterested...
These passage say - Go and Stay; be out of your depth; Don't take anything (no props) just Jesus; you bring the message; Stay in the house of the person of peace.
These passages are 1/3 about practical instruction and 2/3 about the persecution we should expect to face.
A great day...hope this summary helps your thinking...let me know your thoughts in the comments!
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