Thursday, April 15, 2010

Missional Think Tank: Monday PM

Monday afternoon, we spent the bulk of our time in our cohorts discussing themes from the morning's presentation. We spent time dwelling in the Word on our Luke 10 passage. We reflected on the insights we gleaned from this passage as a group. What stood out to us in our reading of the passage was the fact that it is God's harvest, God's ministry, God's action. We are graciously called to be a part of God's work, but it is not ours to own or control. Missional ministry is, by nature, very unpredictable, and can be discouraging at times when we don't see always see measurable results of our work - at least not right away. It is both comforting and challening to acknowledge the fact that the Kingdom is God's, and therefore the work and the results are ultimately God's. In missional ministry, we must give up our control and our agendas that we may become in sync with what God is doing.

These insights led to a discussion of our theology of God - do we have a big enough theology of God? Do we truly see God as in control of all things, including our local ministires, or do we try to domesticate God, putting God in a box that we can manage? We also spoke of the importance of developing an adequate pneumatology for the church in our age. The Holy Spirit empowers our work, and gives us both the wisdom and power to address the dark spiritual forces in our world. We discussed the significance of the Spirit's power in addressing not just evil forces in individuals such as addiction, but also systemic evil in our societal structures. In order for the church to speak prophetically against the evil in our world, we must rely upon the Holy Spirit for discernment, courage, and power to act. Only then can we truly experience the words of Jesus, "The Kingdom of God has come near to you."

After our cohort session, we met back as a large group, and spent time listening across the various cohorts in a unique, "speed dating" style discussion. The chairs were set up in small groups of rows facing each other, and we were instructed to sit in a color-coded seat that corresponded to our cohort (this ensured that there was an appropriate mix of various cohort members in each group). This seating arrangement placed us opposite someone from a different cohort. We then began listening and discussing what we were sensing God was saying to us in our respective cohorts. We had six minutes to discuss, then the person in the right hand row shifted to the left one seat, and we began another six minute discussion with a new person from a different cohort (it's a little confusing to explain how we did this, so I hope this makes sense). We continued discussions in this fashion for six rounds. By the end, we were able to interact with someone from each of the different cohorts. This exercise proved to be a unique and profitable way to listen to what God was saying to us across the various cohorts. Perhaps this process could be a useful discussion/discernment model for churches?

More later. Blessings for now!

1 comment:

  1. Since the collapse of the old ways of doing church that Lauren Mead (Once and Future Church) called "Christendom," the name "Missional Church" has sounded good to me.
    After reading this far, it still sounds good to me, but it is a much greater paradigm shift than I had realized before, both for the pastor and especially for the lay leadership (elders.) It is also more challenging, anxiety producing and messy than I had yet realized.
    This kind of shift will be extremely difficult for churches where many in leadership long for the tranquility of the mythic "good old days."

    Tim Woodruff

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