Church Growth: A growing area?

One of the (many) challenges I have before me is to be found in the area of church growth. 

The problem is that the only substantial growth I'm generally coming across is in people who are looking to examine and produce academic papers on the subject. I have over the past few weeks met a handful for folk, all of whom were 'church growth experts'. This was a claim they substantiated by their post graduate qualifications in the subject and the academic papers they had presented!

Now don't get me wrong, I love academic study, but in conversation this morning I have come to realise a few interesting, and quite challenging (well they were for me but I'm pretty thick!) things too. So let us stop and take stock of things for a moment (before you reach for the sticks, stones and house bricks):

If you were to read a certain book on church growth by some who was doing it you will find people reconciled to God through Jesus (the Christ) enjoying being the people of God and celebrating that reality in the company of those who were both 'near and far off'. It was just like looking at the Church that Acts describes; unity in the Church and enjoying the favour of those who were not followers of 'The Way'.

Interestingly the same person who was running this expression of Church has now moved up the ladder a bit and the same freedoms that saw them establish successful and authentic Church is now replaced by structures, strategies, administrative block(age)s and all the stuff that makes running a number of which bodies manageable. It makes sense that different levels of Church need differing parameters and areas of control - but formalising the informal is sometimes the way to impede or constrict it!

This is perhaps a problem with the planned management training of potential bishops and other senior church staff as found in the Green report. We might have a bunch of people who have all the management tools that the world uses but without that spark that gives life to the dust and makes it live, without the breath of God, the reach, which causes us to soar like an eagle.

Everywhere I look I find Church Growth strategies and yet as one of my heroes, Stanley Hauerwas, says:

Church growth strategies are the death rattle of a church that has lost its way!

But, of course, Church growth is big business and the dual truths that are to be found in the expressions that:

In the the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king!

AND

Hungry men will follow the least likely of people in the hope that bread is to be found in them!

I hear of missional communities and of groups of people who are doing church in a fresh and engaged manner and yet, when I get to meet the people billed as the leaders of these happenings find something small and sometimes very much less that the PR might suggest.

Again, please don't think I'm knocking these - because I am most definitely not - but understand that as wonderful as this glowing embers are, replicating them in every aspect is (I am beginning to think) sheer folly. I have recently read a great piece of academic writing and within it find something successful grasped at, dissected and placed under the rigours of academic investigation and then the component parts are listed. But sadly, just like a flower or animal we have dissected, examined, understood the physiology and then itemised - the reality is that when we come to replicate or re-assemble the blessed thing all we have is something that is dead. We might understand the component parts and the processes but regardless of whatever it is that we have found, the reconstructed entity is dead.

We can scan a living hand and make a 3-D print of it and even though we might work hard to make it look like it is alive, it will never have the life of the original!

We talk of 'Best Practice' and we grasp at 'effective models of Church' and yet in doing so rationalise and construct some sort of Frankenstein-like monster which has the attributes of life but is not only pretty scary but pretty ugly too - and I see the Bride of Christ as something beautiful.

It is underpinned by prayer and enabled and given life by the Holy Spirit.

It is a body who are of one heart and mind, united in their hunger for the word and the love of those around them (close, near and far off) and this makes the what we now call 'missional'.

It is a bunch of people who support each other spiritually and, when the need arises, financially too; a people who pick up the fallen; heal the broken; correct those in error.

Authentic Church contains all of the above (and I'm sure you can all add to the list which is why we are all doing so well). It draws on the opportunities to put tools in the box so that we can build church (Tools like Mission Shaped Introduction and Mission Shaped Ministry and LYCIG* and more besides).

Desperation calls for desperate measures - but we aren't desperate, were assured and rather than worrying about numbers we are concerned with reconciling people to God through the Cross of the Christ and the fulfilment of the calling we have as the people of God.

we are, aren't we?




*LYCIG     Leading Your Church into Growth

An inside edge on my week thus far

And we've only just reach Wednesday!

I woke up this morning and my body said, 'Monday!'
My brain said, 'Friday!'
The alarm clock (for the mortals in the house) read, 'Wednesday!'

So I climbed out of bed and got on with it. Paper work done - emails answered and diary filled just that little bit more (now booking into mid-2105 for some stuff). It's been an amazing week - so full that I haven't managed to blog and yet full of stuff that has challenged, blessed and incensed me. Here's just a glimpse of the first two days:

Was surprised to meet a vicar of the female persuasion who confided that she'd be glad when 'that' vote was over and we could get back to, 'Doing what we should be doing rather than getting bound up in all that's been going on over it!' I wasn't surprised that she was was a woman with that view but at the fact she shared it (I barely know her).

Went to meet with someone I was sure would have been all for a 'Yes' vote and found them bemoaning the rift it would cement between Roman Catholicism and the CofE (something I'd not really given much thought to). A fascinating insight into the situation and the thought that, having come from a positive engagement with Francis, Justin might encourage slowing things down to see how Rome (with an apparently professed 2% of paedophile priests in their midst who will have to go) might look towards women's ministry and try to get some coherence. Knew that was never going to happen though!

Had a friend (and colleague) write:
'Women bishops aren't going to be any better (or worse) than male ones. Remember the woman Prime Minister? And the first black President hasn't exactly lived up to all the hype and hope. So, no, I'm not "#excited" or whatever. I'm long past caring on this one. God bless 'em all and I'll just carry on as before i.e. by lying low and staying out of their way. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." But better not to meet the boss at all if you can help it!'

I was surprised by the many (male and female) who were quite ambivalent towards women bishops - although more surprised by the women because I though there was a party line on the topic.

I was happy for those who were happy over it and sad with those who were saddened by it - I don't have an axe to grind either way and since I don't like the world of rights and inequality; or as I said to one lovely lady what might never talk to me again - positive discrimination has the word 'discrimination' and I'm never for that word - you perhaps do because you're the one hoping to be positively discriminated towards. Needs to be thought out that one I reckon. I'd rather see equality on the basis of the inability to differentiate on anything other than calling and ability (and that covers colour, sex, gender and anything else you might like to think of). It should be about righteous and right living - a quick and lively faith and the desire to preach (and live) Christ in and out of season. Anything else is religion (and probably politics).

Met a cleric who has decided to get on and do it all themselves after yet another Sunday came and went and the people who had taken jobs supporting, and in, the service failed to deliver. They made the very valid point that some of those who never do took great pleasure in moaning about stuff being wrong or not done well and the recipient of those moans was, of course, the cleric. So, they thought, 'I'll just do whatever needs to be done and then it'll work and if it doesn't then at least the complaints are rightly mine.'

Bumped into three people who had found themselves at odds with the 'We have to support Israel' brigade because they have the view that 'Palestine needs to be protected from Israel'! Also bumped into two who are trying to defend Israel by pointing to Syria and other places where, 'Even more atrocities are happening!'

Now that's some defence - don't deny that the nation is doing wrong but deflect criticism by telling those who criticise to look at someone else because they're worse - how cheap is that? Bet God loves that one ;-)

Apparently those who support Israel have the view that Israel is a spiritual nation and yet all I see is an increasingly secular state whose stated intentions of 'getting them before they get us' using the shoah* as some sort of defence+ denies everything that the God of the Jews calls Israel to be. I'm all for praying for the peace of Jerusalem and Gaza and Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria and  . . . .  . but I would like to see Israel be peacemakers as well (and I know the views that it's a small nation surrounded by people who wish to conqueror and destroy - been like that since always - not an excuse!).

Are you busy Vicar?

Had a fantastic time with 50+ young men and women who having donned military uniform got to hear about the spiritual realities of being Green and the Values and Standards that make our Army one of the very best in the world. To see so many people with a quick and ready mind and the enthusiasm of youth take up spiritual themes and be willing to consider, examine and discuss (not always positively) them and the resonances they might bring was a heart-gladdening event indeed.

Had a good meeting to harmonise baptisms around the parish and are moving on to do the same with weddings.

Got excited about the prospect of offering Mission Shaped Introduction and Mission Shaped Ministry across the diocese.

Got even more excited about the 24/7 prayer as it enters its last week of a four week offering (four locations across Tamworth) and at the people who had committed time to find (or rediscover) the joy of praying for more than four minutes during a Sunday service!

Got more excited still about the young woman who is fired by God to 'do something new' for God and is seeking to make this a reality (such joy when people hear and do).

So there we are - a brief insight into the first two days of the week - Praise God or what?

Now I need to go and pray about them all - perhaps some have touched you and challenge you to pray too - hope so :-)

* shoah Hebrew word for desolation, used in favour of the word 'holocaust' which means a burnt offering (often in the context of a sacrifice to gods/God).

+ The defence goes: 'Look what they did to us before - everything we do is defence as per the Bible's command 'Get them before they get you!'

Mission Shaped Ministry Course - Tamworth

Last Call for anyone who wants to be involved with the course which starts this Saturday (16th November) at 09:30;

A course for every church member

Not just those for those who are leaders,
Wanna be leaders
'Evangelists'

It's not too late - we can fit you in (honest)!

We'd love to fit you in

Come and put six Saturdays and five Thursdays where your mouth is (OK and a bit of money too)

And Get Passionate about Building Church and Doing Mission!

And if cost is the issue - talk to us, we have ways of making it available to you.

Fresh Expressions - Stale Church, protectionism and misunderstanding

One of the most obvious things in the whole of Christendom has to be what we call a 'Fresh Expression' of Church! One of the most depressing things has to be those people who consider them to be of limited value or a means of gathering people together so they can be shepherded into 'proper' church', especially when they consider themselves to be missionally minded.

Fresh Expressions provide an opportunity for people who 'aren't Church' to become 'Church' and this means that it happens when, and where, those who aren't can make be there. Not only that but it also does church in a way that those you're doing it for can understand it and make it theirs, as you lead them to a place where God makes them theirs!

Now there appears to be some who have misunderstood these Fresh Expression in that, using 'Messy Church' as an example, they see it as outreach rather than church and this is wrong, the Fresh Expression IS church and therefore, being a Cranmer fan, includes .bath and bread. - yes I defy people, the aim of the Fresh Expression is to build a sacrament entity - that's why it's called church!

So a few foundational thought and the erasure of a few lines that some appear to have drawn:

1. All clergy are pioneers - would that they were, but of course they should be in terms of hearts desire and in the equipping and enabling department too (which means supporting 'Mission Shaped Mission' course to their members and perhaps even signing up yourself!).

2. Fresh Expressions are hard - but they are valid and effective. They take time and should have as the subtext the understanding that it is Church that's being built, not some parachurch club!

3. It's all well and good being an 'entrepreneur' but that's not permission to be other than Church and something where it's hard to identify what you're doing as less than Christian. We do what we do in the name of Christ and if we neglect to proclaim Him or preach His crucified and risen we have to ask what we're doing and why?

4. Missioners, Pioneers and church-based Clergy are part of the same Church with the same goals and should see that we can only be effective when we are effective together - take a quick reminding glance of 1 Corinthians 12 - then realise the strength of the Church is in the engaged and effective, and deployed, laity

5. Mission, and especially Fresh Expressions, are best done across parish and denominational boundaries - stop making Parochial ( in its worst sense) and start being Kingdom minded.

So there we are - Monday is with us
let's need the difference where we are this week - be blessed out there :-)

Mission Shaped Ministry

Tonight sees the first of two 'taster' sessions for a new Mission Shaped Ministry course that is being held in Tamworth (staffordshire) and I have to be honest, I am excited about it.

We don't know how many will be coming to the thing and that makes it all the more fun - do we cater for thousands or five?

What I do know is that the whole concept of 'Fresh Expressions' and 'mixed economy' Church is the way forward and developing a people who are missional and looking to engage and be relevant is exactly what the Doctor ordered.

Here's a copy of the flyer I have distributed around the area for you to pray over, recommend and enjoy:

Thank You

Grateful - Who wouldn't be?

That's me, and for good reason too!

The reasons are many and obvious but for those who might need for me to tell them, here they are:

We have a Housegroup that came into being from a joint Anglican/Methodist Alpha course and it has proved to be a blessing and a joy then and now. Such lovely people and such a depth in personalities and abilities that I'm blessed every time I'm with them and joyful when I think of them.

We are about to have our second shared service with the local Methodist church and their minister, Tim, is to preach - a source of blessing as we seek to work as Kingdom rather than within denominational limitations.

Tamworth Street Angels is coming together - an ambition of mine for some time - and the web presence and Twitter account are now in place.

The next stage of having the plans drawn up for a new building is underway. The result will, I trust and pray, allow us to engage even more with the community we exist to serve.

The potential for a Mission Shaped Ministry (MSM) course in the Autumn is on the way to becoming a reality.

And that's the tip of the iceberg.

There's family, friends and so much to be grateful for in so many areas that to list them would be tedious for those reading. So I'll stop here and just praise God for His goodness.

Happy Friday

Mission Shaped Ministry

A brief 'heads up' for those who live within striking distance of Tamworth (Staffs) who might be interested in doing the 'Mission Shaped Ministry' (MSM) Course beginning on Thursday 26th September.

It's an amazingly valuable and effective resource for those engaged in (or thinking about) some form of Fresh Expression (FE) of Church and those who want to understand what it's all about and what FE might mean to them and their churches in an ecumenical setting (yes, that means people from ALL and ANY Christian churches are welcome)

The course covers various elements, including:
Starting, sustaining and growing fresh expressions of church;
Mission context;
The mission of God;
Vision and call;
Values;
Preparation for mission;
Listening for mission;
What is church?
Gospel and culture;
Team roles and behaviour;
Leadership;
Spirituality;
Discipleship;
Children and all-age;
Evangelism;
Lessons from weaknesses;
Handling setbacks and failure;
Small group church;
Worship and the sacraments.
(Phew)

How Long Does it Take?
Six evenings and Six Saturdays (plus potentially a weekend residential too)

Interested?
Then please contact me so we can gauge the demand and sort the thing out.
You can do that by messaging me or visit the St Francis' site (link on left of page) and mailing me.

Thanks