Back in Derbyshire
Taking a break from dissertation writing for a day or so, hopefully will clear my head before the final push...but I can feel the dealine looming
I'm at Baptist Union Council again at the Hayes Centre.
Will probably take the chance to nip up to Cliff College for visit to the Library to check out some stuff while I'm up this way.

Study, study, study
I'm currently fortunate enough to have a few weeks off regular duties, as a kind of mini-sabbatical.
My main job is to get my dissertation done! (just a small thing).

Anyway I just came across this quote from Bruce Milne's Dynamic Diversity that I though was worth posting:
"Christian worship needs to be sociologically inexplicable not sociologically conformist. It should reflect the new order of the kingdom of God, where relationships become possible that surrounding society can never achieve" (p110)

Unintentional Divides?
Continuing to think about how church can be multi-cultural and multi-generational, inclusive community for my dissertation.
And in doing some reading came across this quote:
"Most of our current models of youth ministry work on assumptions about generational distinctives that are often aimed at specific sub-cultural groups within white society. In the process they reinforce generational and cultural divides and the full gospel is no longer presented to all young people". (Simon Bell)

I would subtract the word "young" from the last sentence, because the assumptions we base so much youth ministry on affects the demonstration of the gospel to all people and leaves the church as less than should be.
The quote is from this book "Happy in my Skin", which I'm appreciating more 2nd time around.

Derbyshire (again)
Am back in Derbyshire at the moment for a couple of things.
Currently hauled up at The Hayes in Swanwick for Baptist Union Council. A few Baptist bloggers here but not much comment as yet, probably due the nature of the agenda which varies from session to session. Interesting session on the European Baptist Federation this evening, which covers a huge geographical area. Some inspiring and challenging stories of churches and pastors risking for the gospel.

Tomorrow off to a dissertation day at Cliff College. I've done my 4 modules, so just the dissertation to crack if I want to get my MA! I see I'm missing Andrew Jones by 1 day, as he's a guest lecturer on the emerging church course on Thursday, at the invitation of Ron Willoughby, with whom a previous set of emerging church module students (myself included) shared a few fun conversations in the local watering hole a year or so back.

Nice day for a trip to the peak district
Today the sun was shining. So it was good day to be going to Cliff College for a research conference.
The day started (after the drive up the M1) with Professor Elaine Graham giving a lecture on "Word made flesh: Becoming a practical Theologian", which was worth getting there for.
Then we had "colloquia" giving outlines and discussing our dissertations. I'm way behind most of those who presented in terms of how far I've got (partly because when I joined the course I only signed up for PG Dip but have since jumped in to the full MA). Some good questions being examined, from the role of Bishops in post-war Sudan, to sci-fi show Firefly (see this blog).
Then it was back down the M1 with the sun still shining.
Good stuff.

Quick Catch Up
Been lots going on since Easter, such as:

• An away day with leaderships from 2 churches in Chippenham, Wiltshire
• My home church weekend away at Pilgrim Hall
• A training with a church on teaching the Bible to young people
• Assignment for my last college module (just the small thing of dissertation to look at now!).

Clicking the link to Cliff College, I see the postgrad department has got some new titles happening such as "Mission and Religious Pluralism", "Celtic Mission and Evangelism", and "Mission and the World of Work". Looks good...

Meanwhile it's our 10th Wedding Anniversary tomorrow! (That makes me feel old!).
And a week or so off work, which I'm looking forward to.

Distinct?
Just re-reading Mustard Seed Versus McWorld by Tom Sine as part of getting my head round my current college assignment.
Here's a quote that you may have heard before, but resonated again with me:
"I am convinced that one of the reasons Western Christians aren't terribly effective in evangelism is that we are so much like the culture around us that we have very little to call people to. We hang around church buildings more than others do. We abstain from a few things. We aren't as hedonistic as the people around us - but we certainly keep trying" (p223)

Discipleship & Leadership
Just doing some reading/thinking around discipleship for my next MA assignement.
Came accross this quote from Alan Hirsch's Forgotten Ways:
"the quality of the church's leadership is directly proportional to the quality of discipleship"

What he seems to be saying is that if you want to raise up leaders then you've got to do the discipleship thing well. But it could also be read in a way that says "churches get the leaders they deserve". Is that true? Or do "leaders get churches in thier image" or both - depending on who has the "power"?

(on a seperate note - anybody know what the deal is with Blogger's spell check? Seems to be not working - so sorry if this post has errors!!!)

The week that was
Another great teaching block at Cliff.
Good teaching, as well as good space for reflection, conversation, worship and ministry.
Lots of good stuff, although a session this moring on "Postmdern Discipleship" was particularly inspiring. Instead of rehearsing the usual arguments Phil Meadows focused on discipleship as participation in God, living in the Divine Embrace.

The picture on the left is the river in the picturesque town of Bakewell. My discovery of Bakewell was not so pleasant though, as it was where I needed to go for a emmergency dental appointment - apparently an infection under a tooth I had crowned a couple of months ago. Always amazes me how something so small can cause such distraction.

Back at Cliff
I'm back at Cliff College for my 4th intensive study week. It's the second "Leadership, Renewal and Mission" module: "Renewal: Spirituality and Discipleship"
I was greeted by snowy scenes from about junction 28 of the M1, but all cleared here now.
Looking forward to another challening and thought provoking week.

Assignment Complete
I posted the essay off yesterday - so its out of my hands and now at the mercy of the postal system!
Was interesting thinking through the issues of inculturation and contextualisation. Seems to me that there are 2 common responses I hear from people (and in some of the literature): one is fear, sometimes driven by a conservative theology, but often I think fear of change, of not being "sound". The other is the opposite, which results in almost an obsession with relevance and fitting "my culture" that we lose sight of the church's call to be a distinctive community. I agree with those who say that the church should be odd, but that has to be because we're shaped by the gospel rather than just out of touch!
I think one thing we're (me too) often bad at is listening. Its probably an under used part of mission!

Back in the big smoke
I'm back in London, after what turned out to be a positive council experience.
Kezia has blogged some details of the discussions and outcomes, especially around an apology for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The research day at Cliff was also helpful, and good to catch up with people.
Now I need to knuckle down and get my assignment out the way...

Assignment Fever
Couple of weeks to go until my next assignment deadline for Cliff College.
The title is all about inculturation, and is that a sufficient expression of mission. So lots of thinking about gospel and culture and contextualisation etc.
And lots more to write...
Of course blogging is a good distraction!

Quick Quote
I'm officially "on holiday", but still trying to keep on top of my next college assignment.
Just came across this quote:
"A vigorous emerging church thus formulates its beliefs, and even its basic theology, according to immediate local needs and pressures, rather than waiting for the approval of venerable and distant mentors. What the"mainstream" church thinks is not terribly important for them, and mainstream is a designation that changes over time" (Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom, p139).
I think it applies to the "emerging church" in the post-modern West as much as expressions birthed elsewhere.

Quote
Another stimulating intensive week at Cliff.
Here's a quote that struck me:
"If we don't contextualise the gospel for people they will contextualise a false one for themselves" (David Dunn-Wilson)

Off to Cliff (again)
Start of the next module at Cliff College tomorrow.
"Mission and Evangelism in World Perspective". Sounds like a lot for one week!

Gone!
My Cliff College assignment has been posted - now I'm at the mercy of the postal system! The next job will be to get my office back into some kind of order, and catch up on the filing (oh joy!).

The question was "Can an inherited church become an emerging church?". To summarise what took me the best part of 7000 words - I think yes, but it's a painful slow journey.
There are some great stories on the Roxburgh Journal about churches that have made the journey to becoming missional. I think we do need people to pioneer new things "on the edge" as it were, but I don't buy into the notion that we should always go for birth over resurrection. I think we need both/and.

Inside the Organic Church
Like every good conference, there was a bookroom at the Matrix. I picked up a copy of Bob Whitesel's Inside the Organic Church.
The book is a pretty good, short, easy to read description of Bob's journey to 12 emerging churches. 10 of the churches are US based. It's not an in depth book like Gibbs and Bolger's, but gives a good flavour, an introduction to some expressions of emerging church. My only concern is that people could read the book and look at his lessons from each church and miss the point totally by using them as a programme or way to change worship (he is very clear that that is not what he wants people to do).
One of the most helpful things in the book is a chart contrasting Institutionalization with Improvisation (which came out of his observations at Solomon's Porch).
He suggests:
"My observations led me to believe that the organic church sees effectiveness (connecting people to Christ) as trumping efficiency (doing it in the most programmatic and premeditated way possible).Thus improvisation...must be preferred over a propensity to execute things perfectly" (p118)

The Sky is Falling?!?
Just been reading this book by Alan Roxburgh as background for my next college assignment (here's the essay title: "Can an inherited church become an emerging church?"- good eh?).
The subtitle of the book is "Leaders Lost in Transition", and I found it's good stuff. He argues that the radical change merchants (he calls them emergents) and the established leaders facing changing times (he calls them liminals) need each other to face the missional challenges of our day.
Here's a couple of quotes:
"Emergence cannot be imposed form above; it is cultivated by participation. Leaders must let go of the belief that more information or more data or some new program can reestablish control and result in a desired future" (p89-90).
That in itself is so helpful - change must be about more than the leaders "selling the vision". I think that also has huge implications for youth ministry and the church, in terms of vision and participation.

Here's another, a definition of the role of leadership, especially apostolic leadership:
"The role of leaders is to cultivate environments that release the missional imagination of the people of God".

My only gripe is that I had to order it from the USA, but the Allelon shop was very efficient!

Home again!
Good to be back home! Apart from the Mrs, I missed hot baths and fresh fruit smoothies!
The last couple of days at Cliff included input from John and Olive Drane, around ecclesiology and leadership. Also some good stuff from George Lings around church planting, Fresh Expressions and Mission Shaped Church.
George made some interesting observations that among Anglicans the idea of "fresh expressions" has found more currency than "Mission Shaped" - but that may have led to lots of stuff taking the label "fresh" and the "mission" part being neglected. What matters is that church and mission flow from and lead to one another, even if stylistically the result isn't hip or trendy. It seems that "emerging/postmodern" is just one strand of the whole picture for George, which I think make sense.
George also place great emphasis on the notion of "dying to live", and the need for us to seek reproduction rather than cloning in our church planting.
Great stuff - now I have to knuckle down and pick an assignment!