Tag Archives: People of peace

Mar 14 2013

Lessons in Mission: Young Adults

 

Over the last few years of being involved in mission with young adults, I have always had it on my heart to lead and help others grow communities where people know that they are “sent”. I can remember long conversations – with both those who are Christians and those who are not – about how God is a sending God, that He sent Jesus to die for us and that He has now sent us into the broken world around us to represent Him and help see it restored into His image.

Within this, lots of us have (slowly!) learned how to get better at knowing who God has sent us to and how we can be good news to those around us. However, what I have realised along with others that have shared this journey with me is this: it’s not just who He has sent us TO, but who He has sent us WITH that’s important.

I think there are 2 key things within this that God has taught us:

1. We PARTNER WITH HIM

Matt 28:19 – “Go and make disciples… and surely I am with you, even until the end of the age.”

So there is this great paradox with living in the Kingdom – that God sends us, but is also with us. Confusing? Maybe. Reassuring? Definitely! I suppose what I have missed out from the long conversations I mentioned earlier is the realisation that God has sent His Holy Spirit to live in us and lead us. No longer do we go anywhere on our own.

I remember being part of a young adult/workplace focussed missional community years ago when God first spoke to me about how much He wanted to come to work with me! My whole outlook on my work changed; I started looking to go on little adventures with God, and I can honestly say that it marked a turning point in seeing numerous opportunities to share Jesus with people and see them discipled in various ways.

2. We PARTNER WITH OTHERSteam-huddle

Why did Jesus bother to recruit 12 down-and-outs at the start of His ministry? Why did He send the apostles out in 2’s to the towns and cities ahead of Him (Luke 10)? Why did He get 2 people to fetch a donkey (Mark 14)?? There’s a common theme – we don’t work alone!

Again, I think choosing to partner with others in mission is one of the best things some of us as young adults have learned to do. Missional communities are about being on mission together! In our current community, we are really enjoying the opportunity to introduce our people of peace to each other and inviting them to join in more with the whole community, through various things that we do. Maybe it’s just me, but sharing the Good News with others and trying to disciple them can be really tiring and hard when I do it alone! I need other people to encourage, challenge and inspire me in mission. I’m fairly convinced that going alone also prevents people from experiencing the fullness of the Gospel message: God IS COMMUNITY – He shares 3 relationships within Himself – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They partner together in relationship with us and so when we go with others, we represent this to the world around us.

Two of the biggest giants that we have seen in young adult culture are probably individualism and consumerism. In essence, both of these are about putting “me” at the centre. What we have found is that if, as those trying to reach young adults, we buy into either of these 2 ways of thinking, we cease to be effective in mission. This is because mission isn’t about putting “me” at the centre – rather, it’s about God and others around us. So when we choose partnership it allows God’s natural grace for mission to flow and for others to experience God for who He really is – the One who is committed to relationship and adventure with others, no matter what. To a broken, lonely and frustrated generation, that’s incredibly Good News.

Who has God sent you to?

Are you partnering with Him?

Who are you taking with you as you go?

 

si ford

Simon Ford lives in Sheffield, is part of the King’s Centre Church and works for 3dm UK. He has been part of and led various young adult and workplace-focussed missional communities over the last 9 years.

Feb 28 2013

How to…start a Missional Community

In previous blogs we have looked at many of the principles and activities that go into the life of a Missional Community. As we look at some of the steps we need to take in starting an MC I am assuming that it is all being done with the agreement and blessing of the leadership of the church.

athletics track lanesStarting a Missional Community isn’t just a matter of going through a check list of tasks. There are practical steps that need to be taken as you begin, but they follow later in the process. As we have started MCs and helped others to start them the first thing we have done is ask a couple of questions. Those questions are:
  • What is God saying to YOU?
  • What is on your heart?
  • What are you passionate about?
Missional Communities are vision and passion led.

Over the past few years of leading and observing MCs we have identified that a clear vision and sense of calling have been a key factor to determine whether we see breakthrough in establishing a community.

In his book ‘The Forgotten Ways’ Alan Hirsch writes challengingly:

‘The most vigorous forms of community are those that come together in the context of a shared ordeal or, communities who define themselves as a group with a mission that lies beyond themselves – thus initiating a risky journey. Over-concern with safety and security, combined with comfort and convenience have lulled us out of our true calling and purpose.’

So for me the first step in starting an MC is to LISTEN. Listen to what God is saying to you. As you listen to God you might want to ask yourself a number of questions:
  • What is my heart’s desire? What do I long to see happen?
  • What do I ache for? What do I hope for?
  • What is my holy discontent? What do I long to see changed?
As you listen to God you will DISCERN.
  • Who am I called to?
  • Where am I called to?
This is followed with LOOKING and LISTENING.
  • Where are the opportunities to love and serve?
  • Where are the people and places of peace?
  • Where can we be good news to people?
  • What does good news look like to people?
As your vision for the MC becomes clearer you will need to write it down and share it with others who you see as potential leaders with you. Having refined and defined your vision and gathered a team who share your vision, you can begin to look at some of the other key principles that go into a Missional Community. Others have written about these in more detail but I do want to emphasise two.

Firstly ensure that the UP/IN/OUT principles are central to the life of your MC. Secondly make your MC Lightweight and Low maintenance. (For the 5 Essential Ingredients of a Missional Community see Mike Breen’s post from 3DM US.)

You are now ready, or as ready as you will ever be, to start your MC. Having a clear vision and knowing who and where you are called to will help answer the practical questions of where and when to meet.

So what do you do?

Just get going. Step out in faith and enjoy the adventure.

One of the promises that God gave us as we went on this journey is from Exodus 33:14 ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’
david and jenny rosser

David Rosser lives in Durham with his wife Jenny. They have been involved in the development and implementation of missional communities for the past 11 years.

Image courtesy of mack2happy / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Dec 4 2012

Lessons in Mission…The Gift of Christmas

 

In today’s blog we’re thinking about Christmas and how it applies within the context of Missional Communities.

giftChristmas is a gift to the world because it’s God’s generous action towards his world – the gift of himself in Jesus.

It’s a gift to the church because it’s a time to celebrate and to worship the King who became a man and look forward to the hope of heaven which awaits us in eternity when He will reign and all will be well again.

It’s a gift to individuals and families as it gives us a time to be together, to take time off, to finish the year well and spend quality time having fun and to say thank you to each other with hospitality and presents.

And it’s a gift to communities engaged in mission – because the message of Christmas contains great story that is bursting to be told again today.

I’m part of the Saint Aidan’s Missional Community living in north Coventry in the UK and I’m going to share a few ideas of how we’re choosing to connect what we’re about with the season of Christmas this year.

First up, and we’re doing something a bit different for our prayer rhythms as a community this advent in the run up to Christmas.  We’re following 24-7 Prayer’s Advent podcasts which each week day give you a 5 minute video looking at God’s encounters with us throughout the biblical narrative.  This is a great starting point to get your core community thinking about the Christmas story and the themes of hope and redemption, and hopefully help you carve out time each day to encounter God in this busy time of year.  If you have connections on social media, why not post or tweet about each day and start some conversations with your people of peace – or encourage them to join in?  All our team have an advent calendar to remind them to stop and pause each day to know that God invites us to encounter him.

mulled wineNext up, we’re going to be hosting a Christmas Mulled Wine Party at our house for all the people we’ve met and connected to over the past few months – this is about trying to create the extended social space that is key to allowing new people to join your community in a non-threatening way.  We’ll host it in our house, provide the drinks and ask neighbours, friends and contacts to come and bring something to share.  Think about the environment – what music could you play, and what sort of mix of churchy/non-churchy people would allow people to mix and chat?

Finally, we’ve just started up a Kidz Klub in the estate and on the Sunday before Christmas we’re joining with the local parish church to host a Family Nativity event based on re-telling the Christmas story through drama, music and food (of course!).  We hope that the kids will bring their families and get to hear a message of hope (big on invitation) and offer some further opportunities to connect (gentle challenge) in the New Year.  If you’re a smaller missional community that is very loosely connected with a more gathered expression of church, be it your local parish congregation or a large resourcing centre, it can be helpful to think about how you could connect with a larger expression of gathered worship. Invite your friends and contacts along who may well appreciate something and respond to the presence of God in a more structured event– be it a nativity, a Carol or Christingle service, or a  Christmas Eve service around the crib.  If you’re a missional community at the early stages of working out how to meet new people of peace, look out for newcomers at Christmas services and make sure they’re given a great welcome.

After the event (if it’s a big one) why don’t you suggest that you go out for a gingerbread latte, mince pie or a glass of mulled wine and chat about what people experienced?

Christmas is a great time to get creative in lots of ways – and thinking creatively and missionally as you lead your community through this season can be lots of fun.  It can allow you to celebrate together, reconnect with contacts that you’ve not seen for a while, and for more dispersed communities that maybe are still on the journey of becoming ‘church’ can look to the everlasting reality that is proclaimed at Christmas time in churches – that God is forever present with us and that he invites us to come and encounter him.

gareth irvine

 

Gareth Irvine, together with his wife Jenny and baby daughter have just planted a new missional community base called Saint Aidan’s in the north of the city of Coventry.  They took a small team of young adults with them, to live as an incarnational community focused around prayer and mission.  They’re currently involved in Kidz Klub which works with children from challenging housing estates, and visit about 30 families each week on the estate where they live.

 

Nov 12 2012

Celebrating Festivals as a Missional Community: Advent

All churches will differ in the way they celebrate the different festivals in the church calendar (Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost etc), but engaging in these can be a really helpful way to add rhythm to your MC, and often these things can become part of your identity or like ‘family traditions’. They can also be a great way to involve your people of peace in your MC.  Liz Lovell, Campus Chaplain at St Thomas’ Church Philadelphia in Sheffield, shares some of her tips and ideas on this topic.

The Liturgical Year is not about Sundays, rules and regulations, but about rhythm and creativity, richness of symbol, Word and Spirit, highs and lows. It is about celebration and memorial. Festivals help us celebrate our relationship with God, relationships in households and belonging community. They are opportunities for inviting others into our rich celebratory lifestyle. This was something I experienced when I was 12 and a Jewish school friend invited me to celebrate the Jewish ‘Feast of Tabernacles ‘with her family.

A festival is like a good meal – unhurried, joyful preparation, a celebratory meal followed by relaxation.
The challenge of Advent is choosing to ‘go against the flow’ of the world, making time for relaxed, enjoyable preparation, and using the period after Christmas to reflect and make life changes before the New Year.

Below are ideas used by households and Missional Communities – celebrating tradition yet bringing in the new.
• De-clutter before Decorating. To receive the new, first get rid of the old and make it fun! Items in good condition can be donated to charities. For children (as for all of us) it is discipleship in ‘simplicity’ and ‘generosity’.  Are there things in your community and household lifestyle which need simplifying?

• The Advent Crown – with community, friends and neighbours make simple advent wreaths – 4 candles with a central candle set in greenery. Seasonal food, music and a simple ‘devotional time’ set the scene.

• Assail the Senses – find creative ways of doing this – scented candles, mulled wine, spiced biscuits, the Christmas Greatest hits CD, Christmas lights inside and out. Even making a Community Christmas Cake together is symbolic of the rich ingredients of a life lived together with Christ.

• Do things differently – food, music and decorations. Create new traditions and memories. Our children came to enjoy the classical albums and carols played in December. During Advent they came downstairs in pyjamas for bedtime stories, hot chocolate, spiced biscuits and candlelight. These simple pleasures can help us all engage with the ‘deep magic’ of the Narnia stories.

• Try something unusual – on the Christmas dinner table I put a small ‘gold’ bowl with tiny amounts of frankincense and myrrh. Others may not notice, but the symbols of someone else’s birth and death are there for me.

• Santa’s Grotto or Prayer stations? Yes – your home can be like a series of prayer stations!

o Well-worn decorations trigger memories. Use them to give thanks for these and for people who have helped your spiritual journey. Particular tree decorations can remind us of family and friends who we miss.

o The Nativity Scene was never static – try putting 1 item out each day or move the Wise Men gradually towards the stable each day.

o The Advent Calendar – along with chocolates or small gifts put verses of scripture in the pockets – one for each member of the household. How about a community calendar – each person responsible for one day?

o Put decorations, story books or Bibles open at the Christmas story in unusual places- as you move around the house they are reminders of who we celebrate. Yes – even the loo can be a place of reflection! Scented candles are particularly useful in this context!

o Use your home prayer stations when you gather as a community.

These ideas may be helpful but I would encourage you to create traditions which help you to look back yet eagerly look forward, so that like the Wise men you too can ‘go back a different way’. (Matthew 2:10 – 12)

 

Liz Lovell is married to John and they have 2 grown-up children.  Liz is the Campus Chaplain for St Thomas’ Church Philadelphia, Sheffield. 

Jun 12 2012

Real Life Discipleship: converts or disciples?

I was talking to someone the other day who reminded me that we’re called to make disciples not converts….This got me thinking, how am I discipling others?

Most people in our Simple Church (Missional Community) spend the majority of their time in the week in work. From experience I believe there is a real opportunity to disciple people we work with by speaking truth into situations our colleagues are going through, giving wise and Godly counsel, living life differently (better?!). There is an opportunity to train people in the ways of the Lord – even if they are not yet aware of it! I look at Jesus’ life. Often he taught the crowds – explaining how to live life differently, better; highlighting the important things in HIS kingdom. I’m sure, like some of our colleagues, not everyone in the crowd knew who Jesus was, yet he taught and discipled them.

Then there were the 12. The 12 got to see Jesus on good days and bad days. They got to ask the questions on their minds and get the parables explained. Some of my colleagues have become good friends. We regularly eat dinner together at each other’s houses and share the ups and downs of life. With these friends I get to share my answers to prayers and talk about what having a faith means to me – it gets personal. As I have shared my life with my friends, they reflect on theirs and are now starting to ask their own questions about God and explore what having faith in God means.

Then there was James, John and Peter. Jesus sometimes invited these 3 disciples to go alone with him into particular places and situations. There was a higher level of invitation with these disciples but with that came a higher level of challenge. In our Simple Church we have accountability groups. These are single sex groups of 2 or 3 people. We try and meet weekly (at a separate time to our Simple Church gathering) to exhale the rubbish and sin in our lives through confession to each other and to the Lord and then inhale the word of God.  It’s challenging. As people join our Simple Church – whether they are new Christians or have been Christians for a while they will be invited into an accountability group as this is the place of intentional discipleship. It’s a high bar – confessing your sin/weakness to others is not easy yet there is invitation to go deeper with each other and with God.

As I have reflected on how I disciple others I have concluded that discipleship is not remote. If we want to make disciples and see lives change we need to live life close to people who don’t yet know Jesus – the closer they are to you, the more they get to see Jesus. The closer they are, the higher the challenge.

So, have a think about your week. How much time are you spending with people who don’t yet know Jesus? Could you invite them to spend more time with you? Could you talk about your faith more with your friends or colleagues?

Dawn Wilson lives in Sheffield with her husband James and her new baby girl Olive. They are part of the wider leadership team for city:base – one of the Network Church Sheffield bases. Dawn is a speech and language therapist though currently enjoying maternity leave!

Apr 10 2012

When it went wrong…and what we learnt: Alan!

In a Missional Community, things can and do go wrong… all the time.

For example, a colleague of mine, Alan, had expressed interest in church and faith and was pursuing relationship with me. Our Missional Community was, at that time, in a very embryonic phase and the thought of inviting Alan into it just didn’t seem to fit.

20120411-151213.jpg

We had heard of another Community whose aims and values seemed a really close match for what we thought Alan needed. Not only that but Alan already knew one of the leaders of this other Community. So it seemed sensible on several levels to try to connect Alan with this Community rather than invite him into ours. After all, Jesus said ‘One sows and another reaps’ (John 4:37).

We set to work re-establishing the relationship between Alan and his old acquaintance with the intention that Alan would ultimately be invited into Community and get the discipleship that he craved.

However, despite our best efforts and hints and encouragements, Alan didn’t do what he was supposed to! After several meetings with our mutual friend over lunch or after church, he was still showing no interest in joining our friend’s Community.

I often find that when things go ‘wrong’ people are the problem. They often don’t do what we think they should!

For want of a better idea, we started to invite Alan along to things that our Community was doing. And that was it. He loved it.

We recently did some ‘vision casting’ with the Community, inviting people to step up and take part in the things we feel God is calling us as a group to do. Alan signed up for practically everything.

This process taught us that you can’t socially engineer someone else’s discipleship! It seems an obvious statement to make but it’s an easy trap to fall into when you’re leading a Community. It is important to think carefully about the vision and the aims of your Community (read Jenny Rosser’s excellent post on finding vision). None-the-less, we shouldn’t let ourselves get so caught up in the vision that we overlook the importance of relationship.

Often, as with Alan, a strong relational connection can overcome any perceived mis-match of vision and aims.

20120411-150136.jpg

Stephen Richardson lives in Sheffield with his wife Tabea. He works as a Consultant Engineer for Derbyshire County Council and is trying to find out what the construction and property industry looks like in the God Kingdom. He co-leads a Missional Community that is exploring forms of new monasticism as a means to holistic discipleship and integrated living.