Unleashing the APEs!

This weekend sees the second learning day of 2008 where we focus on 'Unleashing the APEs'. Simply put this involves encouraging the apostolic, evangelistic and prophetic members of the church to function as we need them to. In a world that has relied on the pastor/teacher we are increasingly seeing that we must re-engage these other parts of the body.

Geoff Westlake will be presenting at both days and we'd love to have you there.

May Sat 3rd – City 9.30am-12.30pm - The Outback Centre 315 Bagot Rd Subiaco
May Sun 4th – Country 1.30am-5.00pm - Busselton Church of Christ

Cost for those not enrolled for "Re-imagine" is $20.00

Ships and Turning Circles

Thanks Hamo for getting this blog happening!

I wanted to briefly share something I have gleaned over the last 3 or 4 years on this journey toward missional. Living in Binningup it had to have something to link it to the ocean!

Over the last few years I have noticed a bit of a phenomenon in the local church scene. A number of long established churches have struggled in various ways to keep their heads above water as their congregations have moved away to a large, professional, "purpose driven" kind of church on the other side of town - our own congregation has suffered and struggled with this as well.

As we were just starting out on our own missional journey at about the same time all this was happeningn it got me thinking about what it was we were trying to do to get more involved with our local community and in grappling with the role of the local church in the community, compared with what the big, attractional church in the nearby city was doing to successfully grow and reach its community.

The conclusion I came to was that we were actually in a much better position to have a real effect on our town and to see our focus change from attractional (which simply wasn't working for us anymore for a whole range of reasons) to missional, than the big church perhaps ever would be. I also came to realise that while the big church was incredibly successful at growing large, it actually wasn't at all successful in being active in the community outside its walls.

So I concluded, what was true of ships was also true of churches: A big ship takes a long time to turn around, yet a small ship or boat can turn relatively quickly when it has to, especially if it believes it has a good reason for turning in the first place!

In smaller congregations there are less people to keep happy, there are usually more people already involved in, or with an interest in the organisational side of things, and there is usually a greater sense of community (that's real community - people involved in each others lives on more than just Sundays and in real and meaningful ways) and loyalty among those members who have stuck it out.

So even though a number of those who have gone before say it is virtually impossible for any institutionalised incarnation of the church to turn, if it is going to be possible at all, it's the small ship that has the greatest chance of success.

I would love to hear about and discuss your experiences so far on the journey towards missional.

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• How have things like institutionalised thinking contributed or ditracted from your experience?

• What are your experiences - good and bad - in getting more involved with the community around you?

• Are you a big "ship" trying to turn or a small "boat" like us? What are your experiences?
  
  
• Are you trying to "turn" at all or rather just incorporate a missional praxis into your established setting?
  

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I am really looking forward to hearing what you have to say and to getting to know more about you all and your experiences.

Unless a kernel of wheat...

Darryl Dash is a Canadian who has been exploring for some time now what it means for an established church to embrace missional thinking and practice.

His blog 'Dying Church', is less negative than it sounds and has some great insights into how we can die to one imagination of church and begin to explore another one.

For some excellent food for thought in an established context Dying Church is well worth a read. Here's a great post to get you started.

Salt & Light

What does it look like to be salt and light in our own context?...

Here's another short clip from Tim Keller of Redeemer church in New York addressing that question.

What do you think?

Missional v Evangelistic

Tim Keller draws some interesting distinctions in this short clip. (This is one of the clips we had hoped to show at the first learning day, but technology defeated us on the day!)

The Players

Re-imagine is being run by Forgewa and is the start of a process by which established churches can literally re-imagine their whole approach to church and mission using a "missional incarnational" framework.

Simply put this means seeing themselves as a missionary community who are living in a missionary context and then exploring the most effective ways to respond to that context.

This year we have 6 churches signed up to engage in the process. They are:

Freochurch - Seventh Day Adventist Church in Fremantle
Maida Vale Baptist Church
Fremantle Church of Christ
Busselton Church of Christ
Eaton Baptist Church
Binningup Beach Christian Fellowship

If you would like to know more of what is happening in the reimagine stream then you can go here and check out the course outline.

Possibilities

We are setting up a blog specifically for those in the forgewa re-imagine stream - people in established churches who are seeking to re-think their approaches to church and mission.

Our hope is that this blog will be a place of shared learning, inspiration and encouragement for those on the journey of 're-imagining'.