Church for Every Context
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Оглавление
Michael Moynagh. Church for Every Context
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Four tributaries
Church planting
The emerging church conversation
Fresh expressions of church
Communities in mission
New monasticism
Definition
Some examples
Missional, contextual, formational and ecclesial
Scope of the book
An outline of the book
Resources
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Saint Paul’s New Contextual Churches
From mission as ‘come’ to mission as ‘go’
Centripetal mission in Israel
The emergence of centrifugal mission
Sustaining the ‘mixed economy’
The dispute over identity
Maintaining fellowship
Paul’s use of teams
From mission team to centre mission
Keys to effective teamwork
Paul’s methods
Paul’s strategy
Evangelism was much more than preaching
Culture-specific churches?
Jerusalem and Antioch
Rome
Paul’s churches
Sustainable leadership
Delegation with support
Church took its shape from future leaders
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Contextual Churches in History
Real presence in Antioch
The word of life from the north to the south of England
Benedict’s guidance of souls
The Beguines on the edge
Nicholas Ferrar’s holy calling
John Wesley’s mirror of God
Charles Kingsley’s life in the kingdom
Dorothy L. Sayers’s pub audience
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Fresh Expressions of Church in Britain
Complexity theory
What are complexity theories?
A fourfold model
Disequilibrium
Growing dis-ease with church
Combinations of difference
Amplification
Spreading stories
The Fresh Expressions team
Official support
Networks
Amplification and the individual
Recombination/self-organization
Old and new attractors
The strength of the old attractor
The mixed economy
Corridors
Regional and local cooperation
‘Temples’, ‘synagogues’ and ‘tents’
Downward causation
Stabilization
Adapting to the denomination
Adapting to the context
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Sociological Perspectives
An ecclesial turn
Secularization
A problem of demand or supply?
A self-limiting church?
A blueprint for change
An ethical turn
What lies behind this change?
Some characteristics of the expressive self
Connecting with an immanent world
An economic and social turn
From a mass to a customized world
The space of flows
Networks and emergence
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
What is the Purpose and Nature of the Church?
What is the purpose of the church?
Church-shaped kingdom?
World-shaped kingdom?
Kingdom-shaped church
The essence of church
Mission and communion approaches
Church as four sets of relationships2
Relationships and practices
Why this four-relationships approach?
Mature church
A starting definition
Who should decide?
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Should Mission be a First Step for the Church?
The mission of God
What is the place of mission?
Mission as a second step for God?
Mission as an attribute of God
Mission as an eternal step for God
What is the nature of mission?
Self-giving as the essence of God
Self-giving as the essence of mission
What is the goal of mission?
How does the church share in God’s mission?
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Mission by Individuals or Communities?
Stanley Hauerwas and Lesslie Newbigin
Stanley Hauerwas
Lesslie Newbigin
Gathered for worship, scattered for mission
Community-in-mission
The divine communion-in-mission
The creation mandate
Community-in-mission after the Fall
Communal mission in the local church
Scattered and gathered for mission
The potential of communal mission
Some challenges
How small is church?
Providing support
Belonging to more than one church
Remaining missional
Meeting challenges step by step
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Why Church with Many Shapes?
Three arguments for contextualization
Contextualization is part of life
God’s revelation involves contextualization
Contextualization serves the kingdom
What are the limits to contextualization?
A gospel core?
An ecclesial core?
Some criteria
Approaching contextualization contextually
The translation model
The anthropological model
The praxis model
The conversation model
The counter-cultural model
The subjective model
Using these models in new contextual churches
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Are Culture-specific Churches Legitimate?
Three views
A missional goal
A missional first step
A missional no-go
Focused-and-connected church
An argument from social reality
An argument from God’s purposes
An argument from election
An argument from the new creation
Arguments from justice
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Are New Contextual Churches Faithful to the Tradition?
Identifying with the context
Serving a culture
Dying for a culture
The departure of Jesus
Christ will fill all cultures
Church in every place
Diversity and unity
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
How Do Contextual Churches Emerge?
Birthing churches as a church practice
Simple, complicated, complex and chaotic contexts
The birthing of church as a ‘practice’
Some implications
Journeys to church
A worship-first journey
A serving-first journey
Introducing Jesus
Some clarifications
A rationale
Empirical evidence
A strategic rationale
A theological rationale
An earlier version
A qualification
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Gathering a Mission Community
Two theoretical approaches
Rational choice
Identity voyages
The emerging leader
Recognition of a call
Recognition by followers
Forming the mission community
Gathering the community
The decision to join
Some dangers
Hearing a mission call
Developing a mission focus
Mission values
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Researching Opportunities
What does researching opportunities involve?
Recognition or creation?
Researching as contextual mission
Who are the research partners?
The context
Christian friends and the local church
The wider church
What should be researched?
Draw on what you know
Opportunities and resources
Indigenous leadership
What research methods should be used?
Observation
Conversation
Experimentation
Participation
Investigation
Imagination
How might the results of research be processed?
Corporate alertness
How might a vision emerge?
The nature of the vision
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Engaging Partners
Partners
Prayer partners
The people the venture is called to serve
Permission-givers
Holders of purse strings
Partnerships
The public
Building a web of belief
Forming relationships of trust
What influences success?
What do webs of belief deliver?
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Action-based Learning
Planning as learning
An unpredictable world
Learning by doing
Planning through conversations
Looking forward and looking back
Looking forward
Looking back
Discerning the initiative’s values
Combining looking forward and looking back
Milestone reviews
The value of milestone reviews
Planning not plans
Evaluation
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Team Awareness
Conversations and community
Understanding organizations
The emergent nature of leadership
Three temptations
The dynamics of conversations
Attending to conversations
Forming
Size and composition
Becoming community
Noting conversational patterns
Norming
Spiritual norms2
Communal norms
Task norms
Talking about norms
Storming
Welcoming conflict
The use of silence
Articulating differences
Communities of grace
Performing
How do church founders learn?
Creating a coaching culture
Adjourning
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Discipleship
Inviting people into the kingdom
Can evangelism be justified?
Evangelistic pointers to Christ
Evangelism within a kingdom narrative
Initiating people into the kingdom
Conversion within the evangelizing community
Milestones to faith
Initiation into the evangelizing community
Forming disciples within the kingdom
Engaging the world
Being present in the world
Formed in community
Connected to the living tradition
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Worship
Worship and mission
The relationship between mission and worship
Bringing worship and mission together
Worship and the journey to faith
The place of worship in evangelism
The role of Holy Communion
The place of worship in initiation
Worship and Christian formation
How far should worship be different to life?
Temples, synagogues and tents
Context and tradition
Distinctive expressions of worship
A liturgical supermarket?
Some good practice
Worship and identity
Texts as a source of identity?
Shape as a source of identity?
Values as a source of identity?
Story as a source of identity
The role of authority
Good practice within the gathering
Celebrating Holy Communion where there is no ordained minister
Generous exceptions
Worship online
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Community
Turning to the Old Testament
Forming community
Hospitality
Exclusiveness and openness
Some notable outsiders
Jesus’ welcome of outsiders
‘Centred-set’ communities
Solidarity
Having a stake
Having a stake in the form of gifts
Dispersing power
Deuteronomy’s ideal
Practising dispersed leadership
Making a difference to life
A community in life
Contextualizing the law
New Testament and subsequent practice
Identity
Identity through story
Contested identities
Community identity today
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Sustainability1
What do we mean by sustainability?
Are the ‘four selfs’ still valid?
An alternative approach
Facing in a sustainable direction
Sustaining the pioneer
Size to fit the context
Simplicity
Simple and clustered
Transitioning from first- to second- generation leaders
Three models
Preparation
Who, when and how?
Keeping fresh
Sustaining church reproduction
Encountering Jesus
Intentionality
Everything is reproducible
Mentoring
Growth through networks
Learning from the context
Remaining missional
Strategies to multiply reproducing churches
Leadership
Definition
Rationale
Lay led
Research
Vision
Initiatives
Support
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Towards the Mixed-economy Church
Prophets, purists and pragmatists
What’s not to like?
Three types of critique
Five theological lenses
A Trinitarian perspective
A creation perspective
A New Testament perspective
A sacramental perspective
A prophetic perspective
Responding to prophets, pragmatists and purists
Prophets
Purists
Pragmatists
What can we hope for?
Further reading
Questions for discussion
Bibliography
Отрывок из книги
Church for Every Context
An Introduction to Theology and Practice
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Third, Paul had a ‘grand strategy to fulfil the mission of Israel to the nations and to fulfil Israel’s eschatological hopes in regard to the nations’ (Dunn, 2009, p. 543). In his mission, Paul saw himself as acting on behalf of Israel. Dunn follows Rainer Riesner, who argues that the rough direction of Paul’s mission matched the principal direction of travel envisaged in the list of nations in Isaiah 66.19. As one influence on him, Paul seems to have viewed his mission as a fulfilment of Isaiah 66. He was going out to the nations at the end times. The financial gift from his churches for Jerusalem may have symbolized the nations gathering at Zion (Riesner, 1998, pp. 245–56).
Was this a view that Paul had from the start of his mission from Antioch, or did it emerge gradually in the light of his experience? If the latter, Paul can perhaps be seen as a practical theologian (in today’s language), learning from experience as he reflected theologically upon it.12
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