Church Growth Discussion

[RamiC]

Well this is a space, in keeping with my Lent prayer theme for the Church of England, for ideas that might enable our churches to grow.

Quoting myself from another thread "Also in parts of this country where there is a lot of poverty, I have heard of priests checking that their graveyard is out of use, having the ground deconsecrated, and then starting a community vegetable garden around their church. They had plenty of volunteers to help with the gardening in exchange for free food from it when it grew, and from conversations while working on it, gardening volunteers ended up going to church. So certainly meeting needs in your community can get people to the Bible."

 

[Shane R]

A report I read from an African pastor this morning:

"Something happened on Sunday that impressed me.​

I happened to visit a children's home.​

Since I am a servant of God, his spirit led me to teach them about baptism, although I'd prepared to teach them about fasting.​

I took one stick and asked them what I had, one child responded, "kiboko" (Swahili for cane)​

Then I told them that God has kept the kiboko for all those who are not his children.​

Then I took another stick and combined them to form a cross and then I asked them what I had. They said "msalaba (cross)" Then I told them, this is what makes us God's children so that we avoid the cane.​

The I asked them how many are God's children? They all raised their hands.​

Again I asked how does one become a child of God?​

They all answered in unison, "kwa kubatizwa"(through baptism)​

I again asked them, ni wangapi wamebatizwa? (How many are baptized)​

At this only three raised their hands.​

That's when the reality dawned. I told them only those three are God's children, the rest are not.​

All of a sudden they were all willing and ready to be baptised. I left the task with their pastor to organize. Probably soon he's going to have them baptized."​

What struck me was the bit about the cane. If you came into an American institution and employed that illustration you would probably have your visititation privileges revoked. If you said that in a public school, I would fully expect one or more of the teachers to file an anonymouse complaint with Child Protective Services. Yet it worked in this African cultural context; clear effective teaching.

What's the takeaway for you? The immigrant population is often left alone or thoroughly misunderstood. Might be we have to say something that woulld make a white thoroughly uncomfortable to get through to those folks.

 

[Carl Emerson]

This is a big conversation.

My take is that the church was born on an existing Jewish community culture. This was formed with the wisdom of the Lord revealed through scripture and preserved through tradition.

Therefore the radical equality and love we read about in the early chapters of Acts was already birthed in the culture and was indeed necessary for the survival of the minority people group under threat, pressure and persecution.

So our Father intended to demonstrate a Godly way of living through Israel but they blew it. The church was to carry on this mandate but fell into similar problems over time.

The power and prestige associated with church leadership was too much for frail human kind looking to themselves for justification and identity and the opportunities for loving community were suppressed .

However the challenge remains - Jesus said in John 17 that the world would be attracted to the truth by the visible unity among believers. This was evident in Acts and attracted thousands to faith in short order.

So what we seem to have missed is that there should be two streams of authority working together.
The spiritual functions of the church and the practical functions of Christian community.

In this mode household heads directly accountable to God would function as priests in their family domain and break bread as they did at the beginning.

The heart of fellowship would centre on families and the gathering for worship in a district would compliment what Jesus was already doing in life.

In this mode Godly traditions are formed in the context of the age, and healthy community life is preserved.

Can we do this again and see the faith thrive ?

Yes... but human kingdoms around present church life would need to yield to grass roots initiatives and celebrate their legitimate spiritual function.

Have you noticed that a healthy function of faith is entirely missing from liturgy - personal testimony of what Jesus is doing.

This is because the expectation is that all legitimate spiritual activity will be within the institution.

 

[RileyG]

Prayers for the Anglican Communion throughout the world as they look towards the future

Blessings!