rhythm & reign: living as church on the margins of culture & foretaste of the kingdom
DESCRIPTION
Rhythm & Reign: Living as Church on the Margins of Culture & Foretaste of the Kingdom. Gary Nelson and Fred Harrell. City Church: Our Story. Rev Fred Harrell City Church San Francisco. "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill. OUR - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Rhythm & Reign: Living as Church on the Margins of Culture
& Foretaste of the Kingdom
Gary Nelson and Fred Harrell
City Church: Our Story
Rev Fred HarrellCity Church San Francisco
"Success consists ofgoing from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
Winston Churchill
OURCHALLENGE
WAS TWOFOLD
To create a gracious environment
To create a culture where the good news is being lived out
IT IS A COUNTERINTUITIVEWAY OF DOING CHURCH
A CHURCH“NOT JUST FOR OURSELVES”
A CHURCH THAT TRIES ALWAYSTO REMEMBER WHAT IT’S
LIKE NOT TO BELIEVE
I BELIEVE WE HAVE SEEN THISTAKE PLACE DUE TO
FOUR MAJOR COMMITMENTS
COMMITMENT NUMBER 1Developing a Mentality of Church
as Mission Outpost
All is done “before the nations”
Cultivating the bringer mentality
Comprehensibile
Constant Evaluation
COMMITMENT NUMBER 2Embodying the Good News as a Church with Kingdom Priorities
The Kingdom of God:God coming to reclaim
and restore His creation
We Seek the Renewalof All Things and
Shalom of All
Modeling the Sociological Impossibility of the Church
Community:Embodying the Gospel
to Each Other
COMMITMENT NUMBER 3Understanding our Context
NEW TO CHRISTIANITY
COMPETENT
VISUAL
SUSPICIOUS
POLITICIZED
ARGUING WITH ME
RESPECTS THEIR OWN “AUTHORITIES”NOT MY AUTHORITIES
DYING FOR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY, BUT HAVE AN INABILITY TO
EXPERIENCE IT
HAS A HUNGER FOR A LINK TO THE PAST, AND DOESN’T WANT TO BE
BOUND TO GLITZ AND SHALLOWNESS
COMMITMENT NUMBER 4A Pastoral Commitment to
Incarnate the Gospel
A commitment to intense pastoral involvement
You must listen
You must get inside their world
You must let them into your world
You must be a pacesetter
You must develop leaders and attenders who are sensitive to the vision and who take into account these contextual commitments
Question:
Is your church the kind of place that makes people say:
“This is where I need to bring my non-Christian friends,
this is exactly what they need to hear, and how they need to hear it!”
Wait! This isn’t a nurturing model…or is it?
Mission breeds discipleship, and is the fuel of Christian growth!
• “Thursday, March 29. I left London and in the evening expounded to a small company in Basingstoke. Sat. 31. In the evening I reached Bristol and met Mr. Whitefield there. I could scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields,
of which he set me an example on Sunday, having been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.”
• “Mon. 2. At four in the afternoon I submitted to
‘be more vile’, and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people.”
• From Wesley’s published Journal, for March-April 1739 (The Works of John Wesley, vol. 19, Ed. W. R. Ward and R. P. Heitzenrater (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 46). The ‘be more vile’ quote is from 2 Samuel 6:22.
Rooting Our Identity
“ When the spine of identity is well established, it is possible to risk relating in depth to those whoa re different from ourselves. When the spine of identity is weak, then everything is a threat.”
- James Fowler Weaving the New Creation
“In the context of the secularized, post-Christian West our witness will be credible only if it flows from a local, worshiping community. Newbigin suggests that the only hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. ”
- David J. Bosch
REFLECTION
What are you going to take back with you to your local church context?