Vision day session two

The second session was focused on the values required to successfully create a fresh expression.

The danger of a fresh expression is that it turns out to not be God focused and is basically nothing more than a social club. To help avoid this everything you do should be grounded in deep prayer.  You should also ensure you have someone who can be constructively critical of your plans every step of the way to help keep you on track and focused on God's will rather than just your own. The speaker had a great message regarding this:

"In an age that café church is cool, make sure it's more than just cappuccino froth!"

It is crucial to listen to what God is telling you to do. You aren't going out to enforce your form of worship onto a community, you are going find a way to plant the seed of faith within their preexisting culture by making worship of Him relevant to them. 

It all comes back to loving service. Go out and be Christ-like, show you care for and respect people on their level, make friendships and build a community who can engage with God on their terms, asking questions not being preached at. 

The speaker referenced the works of Roland Allen and Vincent Donovan, both failed missionaries who had gone out and tried taking traditional British church out to Asia. It was only when they adopted the culture of the area that people started to understand and properly engage and now membership of church cell groups in China out numbers membership of the communist party there! 

Once you have built that foundation of trust and friendship and people have begun exploring God in their own ways your church takes shape in its own way, even though it may be radically different from 'ordinary church.' as long as what you have created is one holy catholic and apostolic church - a community of worship to God with a connection to other churches around it and is missional it doesn't matter as for those people you have made them disciples of the Lord and provided them with a meeting place to talk with God. 

But you shouldn't rest on your laurels, get it set up and self managing then move on and do it again. Multiply rather than add to. That way Christianity can become exponentially bigger! 

The session ended by looking at the core values that should shape all expressions of church fresh or not. 

• We should be part of a mission shaped community. Jesus was incarnate to go and spread the word of His Father around the world. We should also be incarnate, heading out into communities and spreading the love of God where it is needed. We can find this by listening to what people in a community are saying, identifying it's needs and creating new methods of worship that are true to the Gospel and relevant to the people. 

• It should embrace creativity. Be willing to change and try new things to avoid becoming stale and irrelevant. 

 

• It should have cultural authenticity. Don't go in with assumptions, allow the ideas to grow organically as you get to know the people. 

•  Make it transformative. God's love is transformative by nature, we channel it to help people with the issues in their lives. God doesn't just accept us as we are but also he wants to see us reach  our full potential. It could be as simple as providing maths and English lessons to them which will help improve their life options. Help then take control of their lives and have a solid foundation to see where God is leading them. 

• Encourage discipleship, people worshiping God and following the teachings of Jesus.  This doesn't mean they should be filling a seat in church on a Sunday.  Jesus told us to 'Go and make disciples in all cultures' this is our task. 

• It will be sacrificial. Jesus' entire life was full of sacrifice. We need to help show people that being rich and famous isn't the be all and end all, that pipe dream can be sacrificed and instead you can focus on being the best person you can be. 

• Finally it must find unity in diversity.  This means working ecumenical with other churches. If another church in the area is running an expression you wanted to set up don't go into competition with them, work together to improve and enhance it so you provide the best possible experience for the community.   The same applies within church. Sadly there are some people with an 'over my dead body!' mentality. We shouldn't force them to go along with the changes your church may be making - you can't force someone to be a volunteer after all - but instead to get them to pray and pay. Offer prayer for the success of new projects and to accept that their donations to church will be helping them fund it. This way if and when it is successful rather than feeling ostracised you can make them feel as though they had an integral role in its creation and therefore success. 

The main take home message of this session was that the Church is very much like a tree.  Growth takes place around the edge, not in the established middle. The tree is always at risk of growing the wrong way and causing itself to die however if all of its energy is spent preserving the centre then it will quickly run out of options for sunlight and nutrients as the plants around it take them and it will definitely wither and die without fail.  It's better to take the chance!