I have been increasingly concerned about the lack of social action and social engagement in our preaching of the gospel - we seem to be only preaching half of the message (note: Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God was at hand, and now come - not merely personal, indivindualistic salvation). As I personally have been looking at the practical faith community/church ministry of mission and the role of a church in a community, I have been burdened by a constant, piercing message. I believe this is God's message for His church in Australia at the moment, and I am struggling to figure out what this means for myself, my church, and for my faith community Anything Goes.
I believe this is a two fold message, and two phrases have been repeated at the many conferences and meetings I have been attending, from international to local grassroots speakers, from the Forge National Summit to Hillsong Conference...
1. If my church shut up shop this week, would my community notice? Is the community service and life giving family that is my church, by leaving, dissolve the web that binds this community? If not, what is my church not doing?
2. Revival. NOT revival as traditionally seen: movements of pray or singing, etc. But revival to God's intention of church: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, providing family for the lonely, giving hope to the hopeless, binding broken hearts, offering God's mercy, grace and salvation, etc.
As I said, I am stumbling over what that means practically for me and my church. This morning in my Church History B class at Morling College we looked at what the definition of evangelical was. Author David Bebbington penned four features:
1. conversion (experience new birth)
2. the Bible as the sole authority for all faith and practise
3. activism (social engagement)
4. crucicentrism: atonement, the cross as substitutionary
We looked at how over the last 400 years the balance of these has not always been in equilibrium, with the activism one often being the one that disappears. How can this be if the other three are taken so seriously? They all point to such, do they not?
Coming up is an event that touches on such issues. It explores the practical question:
"How does my church connect relationally with those in need in our community without marginalising its own congregation?"
The event is called Toward Kingdom Communities, October 24, speakers are Dave Andrews and Alan Hirsch. For those interested, contact organiser Elizabeth Gorham pr@bcs.org.au
3 comments:
Jen
You might be interested in some comments I posted on the topic of marginalisation in an electronic age at
http://mattstone.blogs.com/eclectic_itchings/2005/08/global_voices_a.html
The practical question "How does my church connect relationally with those in need in our community without marginalising its own congregation?" is a good one. One which I'd love to see debated in an public forum amongst ministry leaders at Pendle Hill. Of course these multiple levels to this - (1) emergency relief, (2)equipping the marginalised and (3) challenging the structures that marginalise.
Im a bit cynical about how many apart from Jane and a few others would be prepared to seriously operate at the third level of engagement and get the vibe that the risk of marginalising congregations at this structural level is quite high.
Matt, I agree with you about the Pendle Hill crew. I also would love to see the ministry leaders have a decent discussion about this.
You would be pleased to know that Jamie grabbed me today at college and said he wanted to have a chat about this very topic - I had sent this message as an email, the one I also sent to Thinplaces. He said he had recieved my "empassioned email". Very positive! Let's pray something good happens from here - maybe even sending the ministry leaders to the one day conference. For $10ea, the church could sponsor them!
:) Jen
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