Ecclesiology: The Mission Shaped Church (Steve Dutfield)
Discussion Point #1
Steve talks about a mission shaped church being hexagonal? That a mission shaped church is:-
- God-shaped
God must have his place
1 Cor. 1:23
- Prayer-shaped–
Prayer must be our first call
Revivals have started through prayer
- Outward-shaped
Focus on the community
Be first to respond to needs
'Build compassion capacity’ – Bill Hybels
- Conflict-shaped
Be prepared for it
- Leader-shaped
Be the best leader you can be
Develop your own leadership development plan
Read leadership books, Leadership Journal
- Culturally-shaped
Be relevant to your communities
Get involved
Don’t throw away your Faith in Context notes!
What areas do you agree/ disagree with?
What areas could be expanded
What areas would you add?
posted by ETLnetwork at 7:39 AM
13 Comments:
I agree with the various areas I think they are all relevant to a missional church.
I think the various areas could be expanded or reduced depending on the context and also at different times some areas could be of greater or lesser importance.
I would add the area of inward-shaped, not in the sense of being inward-looking, because the church also exists to edify and mature Chrisitans, to produce disciples. It allows for meaningful relationships, caring and belonging. This corporate behaviour is an important testimony to to the community. Also, if you don’t have that witness why would anyone want to be part of your church?
I also think when you produce disciples they in turn will reach out to others.The second flows out of the first, discipleship leads to mission.
Whilst I think there has to be a place for this inward -shaping there is also the inherent danger that it becomes all about the congregation, and so the church can be a place that largely exists for itself. Consequently, inward-shaping and outward-shaping need to be held in balance, it is not one at the expense of the other.
Yvonne
Yvonne - you should try and get to read Robert Warren's book on Healthy Church - he says much of what you have just said
Yvonne, I'm reminded about the old song, 'In - out - in - out, you shake it all about'. I think that sums up the tension, because it does start to shake things up when the focus moves from exclusively in, to a balance between in and out.
When you talk about disciples reaching out to others, I wonder if that expresses something of Ann Morisy'd cascades of grace.
This is nothing to do with the above, but I thought you might be interested in the Winter 2007 issue of Leadership. It's a great tool for lesadership in ministry, but this month's edition is devoted to mision. There's some great stuff in it and well worth a read.
I totally agree with steves observations .Our starting point is always God and His will for us. Many Churches forget that prayer is also the starting point for mission .I have tried to make this happen at my own Corps , but like many Churches we have the same loyal folk who attend Prayer meetings , many folk do not take opportunities for prayer when they arise. It is also challenge to get folk to look outwards into the community . This can be hard if there is a close knit group who get on well together , but do not see the need to venture out in order to bring the Kingdom of God to others. Looking outwards is more than the minister encouraging this. Members need a heart for their communities. Leaders do need to be Professional and strong . However, the church fellowship have a responsibility to be proactive in mission and to be a priesthood of all believers.With Mission there is always a possibility of conflict both within and outside of the Church . That is why Officers need to remain Christ focussed in all that they do.
Chris Hall
I have to admit that I am a little fed up with all the diagrams and graphs that supposedly give guidance to better leadership, mission or whatever else is the 'in thing' at the time!
Yet, I also have to admit that I cannot pass them by - and find myself having another look just incase there is something new that could revolutionise corps life/mission/leadership!!
I sometimes think that if more time was spent searching the Word of God and seeking God in prayer - personal lives, churches and communities would be very different places.
Having said all that - I did find your lecture Steve worthwhile and gave food for thought. Yes, I do agree with your list and perhaps one of the best pieces of advice is 'to be ready for conflict' - although I would rather make it a focus for prayer before it arises. Before a corps council meeting I set the hall out, and walked round the hall claiming God's peace in that place, naming each person on the council and binding any negative influence, those meetings went amazingly well!
I actually think that those 6 headings are a timely reminder for those of us in leadership, and a gentle pointer to the bases that we have to cover.
I would also say that if these are the values that we are working to, then these need to be communicated to the people that we lead. By commuicated, I don't just mean talked about, but lived out.
I feel that we do not (certainly in my observations) place enough importance on prayer. Perhaos the illustration of a hexagon implies that all sides are equal. I think that whilst the 6 'elements' are a great check-point to work from, I fel that the balance of each will alter. If we are reallyin tuneto hat is going around us then there will be timewhen we ahve to up the ante in some area.
I can idenify with Carol's comment about the many diagrams etc that are around, but I actuallfeel that this hexagonal model works quite well. I think too that the headings would be a good starting point for a teaching series within the church in relation to mission.
I do agree with previous comments that we sometimes get 'over modelled' but I did like this particular model. I agree with all aspects of the model and although a hexagonal shape indicates an even amount of time spent on each thought this may not always be the case as some aspects may be more relevant in some places than others. I certainly think that prayer needs to take precedence before we even consider any other part of the shape. I also agreed with Yvonne about being inward looking. It is the fact that we care for our 'own' people as well as the outside world that will encourage new people to stay.
I think that all of the headings in the hexagonal shape are important and I think this is a good model to try and follow.
Unfortunately more often than not there is a lot of conflict within Churches/Corps. Sometimes that is an encouraging thing because when things are going well at your Corps then obviously God is doing some amazing things and the devil doesn't like it so he rounds up his troops and sends them in to attack. It's when this happens that we have to remember that our fight isn't against flesh and blood and that we have to fight those fights within the spiritual realms, through prayer, like Carol mentioned.
I find people interesting and sometimes I find myself just watching them to try and read their body language and see how they interact with each other.
We had a united Churches Together prayer meeting at our hall recently and I watched everyone as they came in to see if they engaged with each other or whether they just stayed within their Church groups.
On the whole they did stay within their groups but some who were more confident did venture across the hall to speak to other people.
What I did notice though was the fact that nearly all the other Churches (especially the charismatic ones) would greet each other in the name of the Lord and would ask each other how they were and what sort of week they were having. If that person responded with a problem immediately a group of people from that Church would get together with the person who had the problem and would straight away pray for them as a matter of urgency, believing that God would answer that prayer.
Then I observed the Salvationists; they would also ask each other how they were, but the response was completely different. It usually resulted in the people sitting their comparing and moaning about their problems and making each other feel even more depressed than they did before.
I don't mean this derogatively but when you consider the kind of people that TSA was raised up to bring to faith; sometimes some of these people find it hard to be educated in an academic way and because of this it is vitally important that we show them Jesus through our actions in a real and authentic way. We need to be Holy people, set apart from everyone else that we come into contact with. If we have Christ at the top of our hexagon and we give prayer the importance that it deserves then everyone around us will learn from us and the more time we spend with each other the more they will learn how to behave.
You know what it's like when you have been married for a long time. You start to take on each other's characteristics and mannerisms. Sometimes we even start to look like our partners so people who see us wonder whether we are husband and wife or whether we are brother and sister.
The more time we spend with God the more we will become like him and likewise the more time our people spend with us, the more they will become like God because for many of our folk, their Christianity is learned through us.
I do agree with Yvonne that we need to be inward looking. I think I would go further and say that we need to regular self examine ourselves as a Church and keep referring back to God and asking ourselves why we do what we do and for whose benefit we do it for!
I do agree with all the areas, although I wonder whether Outward-shaped and Culturally shaped are merely the same. If you are outward-shaped, than you are naturally shaped by that outward-culture, isn't it? This outward-shaped area might be expanded by the fact that we live in a plural society, so it is shaped by all these streams and sub-cultures.
I somehow miss the disciple-shaped area, because I sens that the missional church exist of disciples ore missionairs, rather than simply members. They are of the utmost importance. And could it be that Christ-shaped is somehow a more accurate term than God shaped? This refers to the thoughts of Frost and Hirsh:christology-missiology-ecclesiology.
Interesting comments that make the original hexagon stronger I think! I'll try not to duplicate my predecessors, but with all the helpful remarks that is not an easy task.
One point of the hexagonal is in my view a bit out of place, because it is not something that requires action, allthough it requires re-action and that is conflict-shaped.
When we started in our corps two yeears ago, one of our fellow corps officers told us that we would first loose people, before there could be growth. He basically told us to be prepared for conflict.
Within half a year, I had a conflict with one of the corps council members. This ended in this person leaving the corps. A year later we still talk and there is even a pastoral relationship.
What I am trying to say is this: We should not take conflict for granted, as something that you should be prepared for and as something that can not be resolved. Maybe this is true for a lot of situations, but not for all.
Conflict is part of everyday life, but we can not take it for granted., therefore I would change conflict-shaped into reconciliation-shaped or leave it out and look at it as one of the elements, but not principles!
'Thanks Marc. I like the idea of changing conflict-shaped to reconciliation-shaped. It presupposes that conflict will happen, which I think is inevitable, but also gives the hope that this can be resolved. I will remember to make this point when I give this lecture during the coming year.'
Thanks,
Steve
I agree with Steve's observations I think that all the headings are important. It is right that we must be prepared for conflict and I agree with marc that sometimes people have to leave the corps to make way for growth I have known this happen more than once. People have left and the corps which had seemed to be at a stand still suddenly takes off and growth occurs. But we must be prepared for the fall out and the conflict that it can and will bring.
I also think that we should also be inward looking as well as outward looking as there are can be people on the edge of our corps who are in as much need as those who are outside the fellowship and it is important that we do not forget them.
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