lifeasmission

I wanted to jot down some of my thoughts on the mini-seminar.

David and the 2 other part-time pastors from Life on the Vine gave brief presentations and then led discussion.  Here are the topics we discussed and some of my notes.

1. The Challenge of Leading Missional Church Communities

– there is a vast difference in church planting in a Post-Christendom context as opposed to a Christendom one

– In missional community we gather for formation and intentional resistance and counter-witness to the dominant forces of culture, not, as is more common in Christendom churches, primarily for teaching aimed at merely believing the right things and living defensively

– missional community happens not with a senior pastor on whose shoulders final responsibility and authority rests, but amongst shared and gifted leadership

– missional community emphasizes appreciative inquiry, where God is working, not on marketing and culturally savvy targeted programming

– missional community emphasizes a gospel way of life over evangelistic strategies or arguments over truth

2. Multiple, Bi-Ministerial Leadership

The thrust of this presentation/discussion had to do with the value of the “generative tension” which exists when leaders, who don’t have identical ministry philosophies or leadership styles, serve alongside each other while committing to a common vision of the gospel and in the life of a community.  This is understood as differening from the dominant model of hiring professionals who have the capacity to “produce results” by virtue of their own skills and talents.

3. Doing Liturgy in an Artistic and Accessible way

Hard to really put this in words – more of an experiential thing.  Long story short, while I have seen glimpses of it in different places, Aaron (who led this section),  totally sold me on the value of creative and appropriate liturgical exercises in terms of the community of the people of God.

4. Preaching to Fund the New Reality

This last section was really about the ways in which dominant styles of preaching almost always turn Scripture into a commodity, something to be understood in terms of “its usefulness to me,” as opposed to the proclamation of a story and reality into which we are invited.  A simple and brilliant observation whose implications are nothing shy of revolutionary for the church in the United States.

That’s the run down of our time together – really enjoyed hearing from the guys from Life on the Vine as well as others who were in attendance.

On another note, I also had the opportunity (for the first time) to visit Willowcreek, where my cousin and her fiance attend. Talk about a stark contrast – on Saturday evening Willow ended its service by announcing that cups of juice and pieces of bred were available up front as people left and if they wanted to they could come forward, but mind you, the service had ended and the vast majority of people simply left.  Compare this with Life on the Vine, which I traveled to the next morning an hour before the “actual” service began to participate in an hour long celebration of the Lord’s Table.  Pretty telling in terms of where the focus of these 2 communities lies.