changing church for a changing world · Leonard Sweet describes the old world of modernity and the...

changing church for a changing world

Session 5 - Re-imagining church - leadership and discipleship

Aim: to explore the type of leadership needed in fresh expressions of

church and how to facilitate discipleship

Overview Section one - welcome, introductions and worship

Intro, recap weeks 1 to 4 presentation 5 minutes Worship and prayer corporate 5 minutes Section two - valuing creativity

Made in the image of God presentation 10 minutes Section three - leadership

Group work and drink DVD and 20 minutes group work Leadership in a FE of church presentation 10 minutes Surprising models group work 15 minutes Pause for praise corporate 5 minutes Section four - discipleship

Definition of discipleship presentation 10 minutes How was it for you? group work 10 minutes Developing discipleship in presentation 20 minutes fresh expressions and group work Section five - closing meditation

Spiral galaxy corporate 10 minutes

Materials needed: • Sheets of flipchart paper and pens. • Equipment to show DVD clips - laptop and projector, or DVD player and TV. • Whale Rider DVD (Caro, 2002). • The Wrong Trousers DVD (Park, 1993). • ‘Pioneer Ministers’ film clip. You will need to download this from

www.freshexpressions.org.uk/missionshapedintro using a broadband connection. You will need to get someone to burn it onto a DVD for you, or use a laptop to show it.

• expressions: the DVD1:stories of church for a changing culture. • Muslin or other material for closing activity. • Luminous stars or counters, around five for each person.

Plan well There is a lot of material to cover this session on both leadership and discipleship, but it’s all good! Feel free to adapt the session to the needs of your group. For example, you may like to take more time to cover the material on creativity and leadership and then add another session to the course to teach on discipleship.

Ninety-minute version To reduce the material from 2 hours to 90 minutes, we suggest you make the following

amendments:

Section one:

• Do a 5-minute introduction and worship song. Section three:

• Take 10 minutes on each section of group work instead of 20 and 15. Section four:

• Do the definition of discipleship material in 5 minutes instead of 10. • Reduce the developing discipleship section to 15 minutes.

Alternatively, you could concentrate in this session on creativity and leadership, leaving out Section four completely. Then add an extra session to the course to cover the material on discipleship. Or adapt the material yourself to suit the emphasis of your group.

Section one: welcome, introductions and worship Welcome - (5 minutes) Take time to welcome participants.

SLIDE 2 -

Give a quick recap of the material covered so far in the course: • Mission-shaped Church report and the impact it has had • Our changing world and the way the church needs to respond • Need for strong community within church and openness to community outside church. • Need to re-imagine worship.

SLIDE 3 -

Worship and prayer - (5 minutes) Choose a worship song to sing together and add the words to the PowerPoint presentation. After the sung worship, pray for God’s blessing on the session. If appropriate, you could ask one or two people in the group to pray.

Section two: valuing creativity Made in the image of God - (10 minutes)

SLIDE 4 -

This excellent quote from Leonard Sweet is rather long and needs to be read well. You may want to shorten it for your group.

Leonard Sweet describes the old world of modernity and the new world of postmodernity in which we all now exist like this:

The modern world was grounded. Its favorite definition of God was ‘Ground of Being’. Its basic metaphors were drawn from a landscape consciousness that didn’t trust water. Scholars are trained to keep categories clean and ‘watertight’. We were taught to avoid watering down our insights. The surface on which we lived was solid, fixed, and predictable. We could get the lay of the land, mark off directions where we were headed, and follow maps and blueprints to get where we were going. Much time, energy, and even spilt blood were devoted to defending, maintaining, and marking off our boundaries. Border disputes were common and devastating. Postmodern culture has marched off all maps. Its environment is a seascape; its surface is fluid and not fixed. It changes with every gust of wind and every wave. It is always unpredictable. Old maps and blueprints are useless on an uncharted, ever changing seascape. The sea knows no boundaries. The only way to get where one is going on a seascape is through nautical skill and trajectories rather than through fixed and clearly identified roads and highways. In this world, fluidity wins over fixity. Instead of structuring and ordering and solidifying reality, cyberspace bends and melts it. Life is a fluid realm. Fluid however, does not mean anything goes, as any capable ship captain will quickly affirm. Fluid is a different kind of order, a different kind of going. Soul Tsunami: Sink or Swim in New Millennium Culture (Leonard Sweet, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House, 1999).

SLIDE 5 -

So how do we navigate this ever-changing seascape? There is one quality that will prove very important, and it is the one that we explored last week when we looked at worship - creativity. Let’s look at a definition of ‘create’:

cre·ate tr.v. cre·at·ed, cre·at·ing, cre·ates 1. To cause to exist; bring into being. 2. To give rise to; produce. 3. To invest with an office or title; appoint. 4. To produce through artistic or imaginative effort: create a poem; create a role.

SLIDES 6 TO 8 -

Read Colossians 1:15-20.

SLIDE 9 -

Jesus is our creator.

He is the ‘firstborn of all creation’, meaning not that he was the first to be created as Jehovah’s Witnesses say - but that he is the ‘most important’, ‘supreme over creation’. Verse 16 says ‘in him all things… were created’ = Christ is creator. Verse 17: ‘He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.’ Created things and created beings, the universe in fact, continue to exist because Christ allows it, ‘makes is so’. But interestingly having established Christ as creator Paul then links this to the church.

Verse 18: ‘He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.’ Christ creator leads the Church; he is its head, its controlling influence. Jesus recreates after the fall. Verse 20: ‘and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.’ Christ crucified allows creation to be restored - a re-creative action. So God is the creator of the universe, not just as an action that he did in the past, but something he is still involved in. God creates and will continue to create.

But God expects us to be creative too. He gave us the cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ God gave us the task of unlocking the potential he had placed in creation, and bringing new things to birth. The Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city; God expects us to develop the creation in a way that honours God and reflects God’s nature. God rested after the work of creating the world, but he had not done it all! That’s where we fit in - cooperating with God in ongoing creative living.

SLIDE 10 -

Back to our statement of ‘ologies’ from the first session. Our Christology affects our missiology which determines our ecclesiology. Our beliefs about God will affect our understanding of mission which will determine the way we do church. Church must reflect the creative nature of God, so creativity isn’t an option. It is part of who we are, and we need to remember that as we chart the ever-changing seascape of the culture we belong to. Christian leadership must involve helping people and Christian communities bring about new things in God. Christian leadership should, in large part, be about fostering, encouraging, enabling creativity in the Christian community.

SLIDE 11 -

But does that happen? Does church culture nurture or stifle creativity and freethinking across its wider membership? Some individuals, artists, liturgists and musicians have been nurtured and commissioned as creative artists for the church. But in terms of every-member ministry, creativity and freethinking for all has not been the dominant culture.

Church culture: • can stifle creativity

Church as institution can frame regulations and structures to order its life and protect against error but these can generate a ‘can’t do’ rather than a ‘can-do’ mindset. Given to protect Christian heritage, church regulations can leave people feeling restricted and disempowered. This results in an attitude of ‘We have had something special passed down to us and we must be careful to protect it from harm.’

• or it can foster creativity

Church must reflect every aspect of the nature of God including God the creator and that aspect of church life should be shaped by permission giving, experimentation, and releasing. Creativity should be the norm - not only in worship, but in thinking about forms of church community, mission, prayer - in fact in its whole life as a community, church should be shaped by creativity. There seems to be a recent surge of creativity in the church and this is a move of the Holy Spirit and not to be quenched. So as we look at fresh expressions of church, we need to value creativity.

SLIDE 12 -

Leadership for this time of change, and for navigating this seascape, will involve helping people and Christian communities explore their God-given creativity.

Section three: leadership Group work and drink - 20 minutes

SLIDE 13 -

Show a clip from the film Whale Rider.

In New Zealand, Koro, the leader of a Maori tribe, is looking forward to the birth of his grandchild. He wants to train up a new leader of the tribe but his own two sons have proved unsuitable and all his hope is resting on the next generation. His daughter-in-law gives birth to twins, but he is devastated when the boy baby dies, leaving only a girl, Pai. When the mother dies too, her husband, Pai’s father, cannot cope and he leaves Pai to be brought up by her grandparents. Pai adores Koro, but he can’t see beyond her gender to recognise the gifts and potential that she has. Rejected again and again by Koro because she is a girl, she somehow finds the inner strength to persevere in trying to win his love. The clip starts at 16:15 during chapter 4 of the DVD. Cue the clip after Koro’s comments about Pai’s teacher, as he rides home with Pai on his bike. The clip ends at 18:38 after Koro says ‘It’s dangerous’. Koro is keen to maintain the status quo, to keep things as they have been for generations. He doesn’t recognise the gifts and leadership potential in his granddaughter and the fact that she has the calling to lead the tribe. The whole film is a good metaphor for leadership within the church and is worth watching.

SLIDE 14 -

We’re going to explore what kind of leader will thrive in fresh expressions of church, but before we do that we’re going to look at the opposite. What type of leader is required to maintain the status quo, to keep the church as it is, like Koro with his tribe? What qualities and values does that kind of leader have? Take a piece of flipchart paper and a pen and in your group, come up with a picture. You may like to draw a figure, with symbols that represent different things. Or you may like to list the qualities. You have ten minutes and you can collect a drink while you are doing it. After ten minutes or so, get people to give feedback. Remind them, if necessary, not to identify particular leaders through their comments!

Leadership in a fresh expression of church - (10 minutes)

Here are some of the qualities that leaders of fresh expressions of churches will need.

SLIDE 15 -

Willingness to take risks Fresh expressions are uncharted territory. A common cry of pioneers in fresh expressions is this … ‘We don’t really know what we are doing’. It will be important to rest on your sense of calling and seek confidence in God in this.

SLIDE 16 -

There will be exposure to scrutiny. At least in the early stages you will stand out and be scrutinised by local churches, leaders, members, local community and media. This is quite correct and we should expect to give an account for what we are establishing. Any form of church leadership is a public role in the wider community. There will be a high risk of failure. This is true in all leadership but when leading people into uncertainty, precarious positions and untried forms of community and worship, failure is more likely.

As a leader, you will need to be able to cope with this. Some comments may be unfairly negative and critical. Yes, learn humility, be open-minded, be a listener and weigh people’s comments about what you are doing but don’t let people talk you out of a radical idea if you are confident in it - it might simply be that they just can’t see it. It doesn’t mean that your ideas are wrong. Be unreasonable if necessary!

Fresh Expressions provide multiple challenges to our basic assumptions, pre-conceptions, traditions and theologies. A leader of a ‘fresh expression’ initiative went to speak to members of local churches about her church. She was told that her initiative was ‘dangerous’. True or not, would this be a bad thing? Was Jesus a ‘dangerous’ leader? If there is time, you may like to discuss this question.

Leadership for this time of change, as we navigate this seascape, will necessarily involve risk and that risk may well come at a price.

SLIDE 18 -

Empowering others and valuing team

SLIDE 19 -

Occasionally it is said that small study groups amount to little more than ‘pooled ignorance’ - a cynical view that does not accept all Christian people as having something of God to contribute to one another. It might be said that only authorized, ‘tested’ individuals should be trusted with leadership responsibility On the other hand are we to say that church members have nothing of significance, no wisdom or knowledge, no experience to bring to the leadership role?

The attitude of ministers and church members is very significant in structural change. In earlier weeks we’ve been challenged about attitudes to outsiders or ‘not-yet Christians’ and their potential contribution to what we call church. So what about our attitudes to Christians within our church communities?

SLIDE 20 -

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams commented that the greatest gift a minister can bring to a parish are the things he or she cannot do.

Gone are the days when the church leader was the expert who told others what to think and who did most of the work, carrying the burden of the church. The Bible is full of surprising choices for leadership roles - Peter, an impetuous fisherman who often made mistakes, went on to be a leader in the early church. The leaders who will thrive in fresh expressions are those who are able to see the potential in others and who give them space to develop their gifts. This should lead us to embrace ‘us’ - the variety of Christians in community, to value what each brings, and the multi-faceted nature of the Christian community. Leadership for this time of change, navigating this seascape, will be leadership which is shared, and values team.

SLIDE 22 -

Able to learn and adapt

SLIDE 23 -

It could be said that the learners shall inherit the earth Effective leaders are learners and teachers in equal measure. The Church in postmodernism needs to be a learning organism! Even when we try hard to work out exactly what form of church is appropriate in our neighbourhood, in our culture and in our time, and then set that up; we still have the challenge that we must remain open to redoing the same exercise a few years later when without a doubt, the context for mission will have changed.

Because society is fluid and constantly changing, and because there is not just one culture but many that overlap and are interconnected, we will have to be quick learners and supremely adaptable. Some will be called to lead or to help Christian communities to navigate this ever-changing ‘seascape’. Imagine the church as an organism that learns rather than an organisation that lurches. A young church leader was once advised, ‘Don’t ever use the word “change!”’ For many leaders, this fear of change has shaped their ministries.

SLIDE 24 -

But ‘constant change is here to stay!’ We argue that change is necessary to life and that leaders are those who will help others to manage change well, to appreciate the need for change, to suggest changes that might be brought about and on the larger canvas to offer a vision for the future. The very stuff of life is constantly changing. There is nothing that is alive which isn’t in constant change! A church that cannot change is a dead church, a fossilised church maybe.

Let’s stay with this image for a moment - Fossil church. It’s a powerful image - a church that bears the impression of Christ, as a fossil bears the impression of a life once lived, but is not itself alive. How many churches are like that?

SLIDE 25 -

Here is an even stronger image! In November 1998, Hurricane Mitch ravaged the Honduras. This is a photograph of Choluteca bridge The waters swelled the river which the new bridge originally spanned, but as the waters dropped, the river chose for itself a different course. The bridge no longer spans the river! The metaphor is powerful.

Once the structures were fit for purpose - they did their job. They were beautiful and much investment was put in them. But now, the movement, the life, the energy isn’t within these structures. Solid church is immoveable, unable to shift with change and time. We need church than can navigate the seascape A mature community will respect its heritage, and look for God in it, yet be open to what God might do in the future. There need be no choice between the two! An example can be found in the increasing interest in Celtic tradition, which seems to meet a need in people for ‘rooted’ spirituality.

Mature leadership will help people to find the living God in the past and in the future.

SLIDE 26 -

Vincent Donovan, who worked with the Masai tribe said:

‘Do not try to call [people] back to where they were, and do not try to call them to where you are, as beautiful as it may seem to you. You must have the courage to go with them to a place that neither you nor they have ever been before.’ Christianity Rediscovered - Vincent Donovan SCM Press London 1982 (2nd Edition)

SLIDE 27 -

Leadership for this time of change, navigating this seascape, will involve helping Christian communities to learn then to respond, react and change quickly to circumstances.

SLIDE 28 -

I’m going to show you a clip from The Wrong Trousers. Wallace and Gromit have taken in a lodger, a mysterious penguin who hijacks Wallace’s Techno Trousers and uses them in a robbery. He’s about to make off with the diamond that he stole when Gromit confronts him with a rolling pin.

The clip starts at the beginning of chapter 6 of the DVD of the film as Wallace confronts the penguin with a rolling pin. It ends after Wallace says ‘Well done! We did it!’ Start time of clip: 0:23:24; end time of clip: 0:26:22. People who have started a fresh expression often talk of the way ahead becoming clear as they moved forward i.e. the track being laid as they were moving along. God led them into new ways of being church together, and they needed to be able to think on their feet and adapt to their environment and the people they met. Surprising models - (15 minutes) In response to Mission-shaped Church and the recognition that leaders of fresh expressions of church will need different training and skills, the Church of England has developed lay and ordination training routes for Pioneer Ministers. This clip explains more. Show the ‘Pioneer Ministers’ clip. It lasts 4’30”. Invite questions or comments at the end.

SLIDE 29 -

We all agree that leadership is critical. And yet we have this love-hate relationship with leaders. On the one hand we quite like strong leaders (Churchill topped the BBC’s poll of ‘Greatest Britons’). But woe betide the leader who doesn’t give us a say in things - we’re independent, free-thinking human beings who don’t like others making decisions for us. What does this mean for leadership today? Let’s look in some fresh places for examples of people who express leadership in surprisingly different ways.

1. Jesus Unsurprisingly Jesus is our starting point - not because he had a particular management style but simply because of his surprising use of questions and stories. In the 67 conversations recorded in the book of Mark, 50 of them involve Jesus asking questions, showing that he trusted people enough to discover the answers for themselves. If he wasn’t asking questions he was telling stories - stories which encourage people to find meaning for themselves.

2. Frodo (from The Fellowship of the Ring, Jackson, 2001) ‘I will carry the Ring to Mordor … though I do not know the way.’ The leadership style that once dominated our culture - often drawing its examples from the military or business - is passing away. Instead of the Lone Ranger we have Frodo - the halfling - full of self-questioning, relying on those around for strength, clarity and purpose. Or Neo - from The Matrix - young and inexperienced. Leadership for the emerging generation (post-modern) will take surprising forms. 3. Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz, Fleming, 1939)

At the end of the story the little Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal that the great Wizard of Oz is a very average guy hiding behind an imposing image (sound familiar?). The real leader we discover, is Dorothy - at first sight all wrong - the wrong gender (female), the wrong age (young) and rather

than being a person with all the answers, she is herself lost, a seeker, often bewildered and vulnerable. But she gathers other needy people round her in the belief that all their needs can be met in a common quest.

4. The air traffic controller Doesn’t fly the planes, only directs them. Her primary function is to clear aircraft for takeoff and landing and ensure that they stay on the safe path once airborne. Almost invisible, her role is essential in enabling the flight.

5. The symphony conductor His primary role is to listen - to the silent, inner music. Once he has lost himself in this music then he helps others hear it to. 6. The parent The frightening reality, as every parent will know, is that children watch us closely and learn by our example. Lectures are all but hopeless. Our actions speak far louder than our words. ‘Tell me and I may forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand.’

7. The gardener

Knows that she can’t make the flowers grow, but she can create the right environment for them to flourish. She must know how to weed, prune, spread manure - she must enjoy getting her hands dirty, not mind the aching back and sore knees. She must know her own limits and be humble enough to give glory to the true source of life.

SLIDE 30 -

Those who would lead a fresh expression of church face a daunting challenge. Some are suggesting that the struggles of church in our days are at least in part due to models of leadership which are at best outdated, at worst never worked. So which of the seven models might apply to your culture and the people you are working with? Take five minutes to reflect together and explore the different models - they all have strengths and weaknesses - but leadership is often about having the courage to look at things in a different way. Allow some space for feedback to find out how people have responded to this exercise.

SLIDE 31 -

Pause for praise - (5 minutes) Choose a suitable worship song and add the words to the PowerPoint slide.

Section four: discipleship Thinking about discipleship - (10 minutes) We are all familiar with the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his disciples, just before he returned to be with his father.

SLIDE 32 -

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ (Matthew 28:16-20)

This is the task that we have inherited, to ‘make disciples’ of all people - not just to count converts, or fill our churches, but to create environments where people grow and develop in their faith, becoming mature, long-term followers of Christ.

SLIDE 33 -

1. Discipleship - a journey, not a crisis event

Some forms of mission in the past have focused on events that demand a response - giving people an opportunity to make a decision for Christ at an evangelistic event or rally; the ‘what would happen to you tonight if you were run over by a bus?’ style of evangelism. While still recognising that people do need to make a decision about following Christ, the emphasis more recently in many parts of the church has been on discipleship as a journey rather than a crisis event. People are growing in relationship to Christ before they ‘pray the prayer’, and will continue to grow after they have made a commitment. The decision to follow Christ is just one milestone on the journey; what counts is people’s relationship with God now, not whether they went forward at an evangelistic event in the past.

2. Believe; behave; belong?

This next insight comes from the world of Christian youth work where discipleship has been a key issue. Youth workers want to see young people grow up to become adult followers of Christ, rather than Christian faith being a ‘phase’ they went through. In the past, some churches expected certain standards before people were fully welcomed as members of the church. The emphasis was on ‘believe; behave; belong.’ Or in other words, ‘You need to believe the same as us; you need to behave to our standards and then we will let you belong to our community.’ Christian youth workers have found a different emphasis to be much more effective in making disciples: ‘belong; believe; behave’. They allow young people to belong to the group regardless of their beliefs, sharing life, learning and worship with Christians. Once these young people have a sense of belonging, they have a safe space to ask questions, to learn and grow, and they will come to believe in Jesus. Once they have had an encounter with Jesus, their behaviour will begin to change as they are transformed by the Holy Spirit.

Or you may want to put the words in a different order, with a slightly different understanding of the word ‘behave’. The model could now be ‘belong; behave’ believe’. People are welcomed as part of the community; they are encouraged to behave like followers of Christ, taking part in worship, as appropriate, and service alongside other Christians in the community even if they are not yet committed believers; and they will then come to a place of belief in Jesus and a relationship with him. What is important in both these two models, is that we welcome people into our communities, accept them as they are, and recognise that God is at work in them as much as he is in us.

3. Lessons from the past

In the early centuries of Christianity, the process of making disciples was known as catechesis (kat-i-kee-sis). Various models of discipleship or catechesis were developed in the first four centuries of church history, and differences in emphases, content and length are evident. Nevertheless, ‘classic’ catechesis involved several discernable phases, beginning with the inquiry of a ‘seeker’ and ending with a mature, fully initiated Christian.

SLIDE 36 -

Gathering seekers

‘Inquirers’ or ‘seekers’ were gathered together in a group and shared in what might now be regarded as ‘pre-evangelism’. Seekers were welcomed by the leader, introduced to each other and to some Christians who also shared in the group. The balance of seekers and Christians was carefully thought out. Seekers and Christians alike were provided with opportunities to share stories of emerging faith. These ‘stories’ were often used to illustrate the leading of God in their lives. Seekers were seeking, they were told, because of God’s ‘prevenient’ grace through his Spirit - (God already at work in seekers’ lives before they realised it).

SLIDE 37 -

Seekers were encouraged to begin the pilgrimage of faith in earnest, and the spiritual practices and disciplines such as praying, fasting, repentance and forgiveness probably began at this point. They shared worship in the group, but not yet public worship with believers. This first phase often ended with a special formal event, giving the opportunity for people to continue, or withdraw with dignity.

Growing disciples

Next was a lengthy process of further inquiry and instruction, including reading the Scriptures and having them explained. But there was also an emphasis on experience and encounter, of turning from evil and holding fast to God in Christ. There was discovery and dialogue, prayer and purgation, openness and obedience. There was rite and ritual, rote and rigour. It was as if the whole person - soul, mind and body - was being engaged. They were engaged in what we would call multi-sensory worship - rubbing salt on their tongues, anointing with Chrism oil on foreheads to ‘think the things of Christ’, and were weekly ‘exorcised’.

SLIDE 39 -

Through this came the repeated invitation to believe and this meant commitment to Christ, his people the church, the imitation of his lifestyle and the taking up of the life of faith.

SLIDE 40 -

Preparing the elect

At a certain point in the process, the mood moved from exploration to preparation. The catechumens began to be referred to as the ‘elect’ and spiritual preparation for serious Christian commitment (sealed supremely in baptism) began in a new and serious way. Prayer, fasting, and ritual exorcisms increased (often over the period of Lent) ending in a joyful, serious, ‘public’ baptism when for the first time, the believer took his or her place in the congregation of the faithful and shared fully in corporate worship including for the first time, Holy Communion. Are there lessons we can learn from this process? We need not be afraid of rigorous discipleship programmes; but they need to be rooted in relationships and in community.

How was it for you? - (10 minutes) Invite people to discuss the questions on the slide:

How have you grown as a Christian? What has helped you in your journey of discipleship? What models of discipleship are appropriate to fresh expressions of church?

After five or six minutes, invite feedback and draw out common themes.

SLIDE 42 -

Developing discipleship in fresh expressions - (20 minutes) Show a clip from expressions: the DVD1 that shows how one fresh expression of church invited people to belong first, and then belief followed later. Show chapter 14 of expressions: the DVD1 which is about Cable Street Community Church. The clip lasts 5’42”.

SLIDE 43 -

So how can you develop opportunities for discipleship within a fresh expression of church? Unlike many more traditional church plants, a fresh expression needs to think carefully about starting with a worship service. If you launch a worship service, you know who is going to come - Christians! So if the aim is to serve people who don’t come to church, you may not get very far. Instead, as we have been saying, a fresh expression will come from listening to and following God’s call. Instead of starting with a worship service, fresh expressions are more likely to begin with loving service - a community café for people at home, kite-flying with a group of friends, a bus with food and videos for teenagers, an after-school club, a zone in which to relax and explore spirituality, a course on money management, a local campaign on behalf of asylum seekers… the possibilities are endless!

From that basis of loving service, a community is formed, evangelism and discipleship take place and authentic worship grows. Building an experience of community within the context of loving service is vital, but it is not something clergy trained traditionally were taught to do. People may not come back if they don’t feel accepted and valued. But if friendships form, the coffee may be dreadful (although it shouldn’t be!), the talk can be really boring, the building may be down at heel, there may be no wind to fly your kite, but people will still turn up. They will come because they like each other. Creating community may be the biggest service you offer. But you will want to think about how you bring evangelism and discipleship into that community without changing its essence.

SLIDE 45 -

Discussion

And that’s what we’d like you to do now. In your groups, take one of these examples of a fresh expression and think about how you would introduce some intentional spirituality and discipleship.

• A lunch club for older people in the community that meets once a week, serving hot food and giving people a place to talk and connect.

• A café in the heart of a local community, providing good quality food and drink and run by Christians.

• A ‘dads and lads’ group that organizes activities for men and their sons on a Saturday morning with opportunities for discussion over coffee afterwards

Give people five minutes to discuss one of these

options in their small groups, and then get feedback. You could draw out from their discussions these three models, or present them separately afterwards.

SLIDE 46 -

• Include an explicitly Christian dimension from an early stage. A luncheon club might put candles on the tables after the plates have been cleared, play some Christian music, read a few verses from Scripture, allow time for silent prayer and ask someone to read a couple of written prayers - all lasting about twenty minutes. Guests could leave after lunch if they wished, or stay on for this time of reflection. As prayers were answered, this short act of worship might lead to fortnightly Bible study after lunch, or a separate discipleship course.

• Include a more general spiritual dimension from an early stage. At the end of the

evening, members of a divorce recovery group might be invited to share a period of quietness, in which they could pray to God as they understood him (or her) or think positive thoughts about each other. The leader would quietly pray that Holy Spirit graciously responds.

In time, they might be invited to share with their neighbour their hopes and concerns about the coming week, and then pray for - or have positive thoughts about - the other person. Feedback on whether this was helpful might create openings for the group to discuss what God is like and how he gets involved in people’s lives. • Create opportunities to form a separate discipleship group. As relationships develop and

personal evangelism takes place, some people may become interested in exploring the Christian faith. A group might meet at a different time of the week for this purpose.

As people explore the Christian faith and worship together, they are not encouraged to join ‘the main church’, as has traditionally happened. They are invited to explore what it means to be church themselves, as they meet, worship and relate to each other. Mature church begins to develop when there is growth in all four dimensions of UP (God-wards), IN (fellowship), OUT (mission and evangelism) and OF (catholicity and connection with the rest of the church).

Closing meditation - a spiral galaxy - (10 minutes)

SLIDE 47 -

This meditation/activity works best in the centre of the room on a space cleared before the session began. It would be good to darken the room, except for the screen and a spotlight on the floor. Thin, white material, such as inexpensive muslin or calico should be placed on the floor to make an area about three metres square ready for the activity. Place a few stars/counters on the material. Have some meditative music playing during this activity.

Let the first pattern of stars represent people in a community with each star representing a person. Lonely, beautiful lights, unique. Look at the stars; let them remind you of your own local community and networks. We have been thinking about the journey towards Christ that each of us is on. A church contains people all on that same journey, each of them starting from different places and going at a different pace. But the church needs to be a naturally attractive community as if it had a gravity of its own,

drawing people towards Jesus Christ, its centre, without it necessarily having a clear edge or boundary. (Pause - leave time for people to engage with the image.)

SLIDE 48 -

So picture now a cluster galaxy - the stars being drawn in toward its centre. Some stars are very close to the centre, others remain far away. There is no clear edge or boundary - every star is influenced by this gravity, some more than others. (Pause.)

SLIDE 49 -

Now enjoy the fully developed system, this beautiful image of a galaxy with its spiral arms sweeping out into the stars around as if gathering in stars as it spins. We could imagine a Christ centred community in this image, gathering in people by Godly gravity! Invite the group to create a spiral galaxy on the floor.

Take some of the stars or counters. Chose a number of them to represent people you know - Christians or others. Bring them into the centre and place them on the material in a place that corresponds to that person’s relationship with God - close to the centre, on the outskirts or further away. As you place your star, pray for God to draw that person closer to himself, that they would become true disciples.

SLIDE 50 -

Close in prayer.

Finish Thank people for coming. Point out the recommended books on the handout

changing church for a changing world · Leonard Sweet describes the old world of modernity and the...

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