seriously explore more low-cost models of church planting such as those advocated by TC.

I wonder if one of the implications of the diocesan mission policy statement touches this area.
that is in the area of training - we need to see not just full time ‘professional’ pastor teachers and evangelists (planters) but also well trained lay, part time etc.
one of the enthusing aspects of the diocesan mission is encouraging everyone to be well trained as ministers and missionaries in their local context. I wonder if this will only be realised if we start to recognised biblically qualifies elders and overseers who may not necessarily have jumped through all the hoops we presently expect for church leaders?

if we say to lead a church you must have done an apprenticeship, 4 years BD then 3 years post college training - do you think we will ever have enough leaders for the type of cultural impact needed in planting many smaller churches in larger partnerships?

more trust and empowerment of more elders with less formal theological education (maybe more church based training) - abolishing the laity ?

Review - Chapter 1 - Why gospel?

In the Introduction, Chester and Timmis stated that the church must be both gospel-centered and community-centered. In chapter 1, they expand on what it means to be gospel-centered.

The chapter is too brief to really be the theological foundation of the book. Rather, I think it is more about establishing their evangelical credentials - a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

They state that being gospel-centered means being word-centered and mission-centered. Christianity is word-centered because God rules through His Word. Christianity is mission-centered because God extends His rule through His gospel Word. The gospel is a word, so the church must be word-centered. The gospel is a missionary word, so the church must be mission-centered.

They present the gospel itself in the context of the whole Bible, and they have clearly been influenced by biblical theology of the Goldsworthy variety. It is all solidly evangelical, and there are a few hints to suggest they are Reformed in their theology as well.

The chapter ends with a lament about the absolute failure of the church to reach the UK. Something different is needed - “whole-life, gospel-centered missional living”. The following chapters will explain what this means.

hey craig did you ever make chapter two?

I have been doing a bit of thinking about the whole issue of church as community or persons in community. This is often countered by those who argue that when the bible speaks about church it is talking about a particualr congregating of believers around the word

I have come up with following 3 aspects of church

1. being the church is an identity that comes out of our union with Christ and our union (or bond of love ) with one another in the word This is reflected in 1 Peter - you are the people of God - once you were not a people - now you are a people etc.

2. being the church means we gather at particualr times and places where we facilitate proclaim paise prohpecy etc around the word

3. being the church means we scatter in mission with the gospel word. This is not a rambo activitiy but something we do in community with church at the centre.

what do you think?
identity , gathering , scattering.

Total Church Conference Moore College April 8

Yeah I did make it past Chapter 1. I’ve been planning to continue my chapter by chapter review when I get a few moments

Craig Schwarze - 20 February 2008 09:01 PM

Well, their “small groups” are actually the church - they are a house church ministry. Each church has between 15 and 30 members, and they meet weekly for a regular church service. But because they are close to each other, they see each other throughout the week as well. They do social activities together, and hang out at each others houses. They also bring significant decisions (like, “should I buy this house?") to the group to discuss as a community decision. And they do their witnessing together, as a community, not individually.

Those are a few of the differences R&N;spoke about. Shane can probably remember some others.

I just knew the New Urbanists had a thing to teach the church about community being local… or is that remind, since the idea of community started within the first century church anyway, back before the disaster of the automobile?

The car and individuation of modern society have a lot to answer for.

I haven’t thought of it this way before but I suppose you could argue that it is good citizenship and stewardship of God’s resources to go local and join a missional community in your area so that you are not burning heaps of gas by driving 20 mins to shop at your preferred church supacentre?

I just knew the New Urbanists had a thing to teach the church about community being local…

The problem is Dave, your motivation is environmental rather than ecclesiological. I wish it were the other way around…

Surely “New Urbanism” is eschatological?

from Chapter 4

“I was talking with a prominent evangelical church leader and asked him why more people were not open to a household model of church....
People like me come from professional backgrounds and we want churches that reflect our backgrounds. I don’t want to be opening my home to people. I don’t want to get involved in people’s lives. I don’t want needy people in my church....when we get involved in ministry we bring those values with us. We want to lead growing churches with professional people, church administrators, healthy budgets. We want church to be a well-run organisation with polished presentations.”

There are many astute observations in this book.
Some of this relates well to my comments (that have now dissappeared with the website crash) on the Connect thread about door knocking.
What works in some parts of Sydney may not work so well in others.
But there is a need to critique our culture (and our churches) with the gospel and not just always go along with it.

John Sandeman - 20 March 2008 03:05 PM

Surely “New Urbanism” is eschatological?

Sure, I can buy that. But my question is “What is driving this?” Is is a realisation of the theological principles around community, or is it a desire to promote a certain eco-lifestyle? We can’t let the tail wag the dog.

new urbanism

“Giving people many choices for living in sustainable, convenient and enjoyable places, while providing the solutions to global warming, climate change, and peak oil”

eco life style is not a bad desciptor. Not all is bad about that, but its not God’s new city.

it would be interesting to study more about new urbanism and any parallel church platning movements asociated with their projects. The Villege church in Greenwich NYC might be along these lines?

But there is a need to critique our culture (and our churches) with the gospel and not just always go along with it.

the back end of that chapter is incredibly challenging.
having made three important assertions about ministry among the poor
1. evangelism and social action are distinct activities.
2. proclamation is central
3. evangelism and social action are inseparable.

the authors then remind us of God’s care for the poor, the foolishness of the cross, God’s boasting and middle class models of success

have we diminished the power of the cross? Has the way we have proclaimed the cross and the church cultures we have created been true to its message?

Have we left room for boasting by elevating some aspects of our culture too highly or have we nullified status intellect and wealth?

what I love about this chapter is that it presses us to ask how the gospel shapes our social involvement, and whether our social status has been counter culturally shaped by the cross. 

a church in a prosperous town with 27000 inhabitants recieved 60 applications for the post of assistant pastor. At the same time a church in the north of England with an established evangelical ministry serving a city of several thousand people could not get one application for the post of assistant pastor. People sometimes claim it is a question of calling.....p.80

For those who are interested you might like to have a look at Jeremy’s article

There is also a podcast where Stu Crawshaw and Shane Rogerson chat with Jeremy about connect 09 and the Total church paradigm.

And for the thinking person, our man at the Bod, Michael Jensen writes this
critique of the book by Timmis and Chester.

And if you want to come along to the conference on Tuesday the 8th April (next week!) its not too late to .

And for the thinking person, our man at the Bod, Michael Jensen…

So, MJ has officially lost “the common touch” ? ;-)

Thanks Shane, you beat me to it ;)

In my web article, I have reflected a bit more on the question ‘what is distinctive’ about this movement: (ie churches that are intentional about both Christian mission and Christian community).

This is a central issue because we have been dabbling in this talk for decades now… (remember the cafe church trend in the late 90s!)

As a journalist, I decided to answer this question through observation. I asked Michael Jensen to look at it theologically. Here three aspects I observed .

* Downplaying of ‘church’ as a Sunday event. (In practice, this is far more radical than it might sound on paper… it raises some big questions about the way our buildings hamper mission, about teaching, about sacraments etc). 

* Foregrounding of ‘church’ as ‘God’s people set apart as salt and light’ with high impact and visibility in their local community as a genuine prophetic voice. (In emerging church jargon this is sometimes called incarnational ministry.. a term I don’t like)

* Mission priority changes even mature Christians’ cultural preferences. (In my mind, this is very significant and highly unusual. Perhaps its because ‘living in community’ forces people to question their motives more deeply. The result - observed conversion growth outside the core groups’ demographic. This is why it is proving an effective model in so-called urban mission.)

Despite the solid biblical theology behind the model, I’m still not convinced that this is for everyone, or for every context.

There is no evidence in Sydney (yet) of TCH style replication. The examples here are more ‘missionary’ initiatives to a particular unreached people group. Love to hear Shane’s thoughts on this…

That said, it should not be relegated as merely the latest ‘answer’ for Sydney’s death valley which has nothing to say to the Bible belt. (see Stu Crawshaw’s Sutho Shire youth ministry)…

I think all our churches should reflect more deeply on the issues TC raises.