1. Listening to the context
Gospel ministry in post-Christian culture the Challenge for the local church
Listening to the context

2. Double listening Two ears one mouth Use accordingly in mission
Failure to enter the other persons world leaves us like the tourists who keep speaking louder in their own language
To the essence of the Christian Inheritance
To the Mission Context

3. Globalisation and ‘Glocalism’
Increasingly diverse cultures across the globe are subject to common global issues and culture
Consumerism and commodifcation, subjectivism, new communication, a reaction against these, Keppel ‘the revenge of God’.
Glocalism
These are not expressed the same in each locality but are present in most so one must both ‘think global but act local’ but also listen to the local expression of the global
One size does not fit all, there are no off the shelf solutions.

4. Post-community?
In which community
should church exist?

5. Post-modernity? Modernity to Postmodernity
I tell my story
I choose my beliefs
truth as fact
truth as experience
I buy my identity
The logic of consumerism

6. Post-Christendom? Church attendance 2005
76% of New Christians Come from 26% De-Churched
finding faith today 1992
65% Non Churched
This section of the population is older and decreasing over time
26% De Churched
9% monthly

7. Post-Christendom? Not just about church attendance Grace Davie,
- Believing without belonging and vicarious faith
But changing belief
Fading of occasional office
Decline in Christian identity
Stages in the decline of Christendom not a new way for it to persist

8. Belief in God

9. Infant Baptism C of E 2007

10. Church Weddings 2007

11. Christian Affiliation UK

12. Christian Affiliation 2001

13. Christian Affiliation

14. Builders (born 20s+30s) in 2005

15. Boomers (born 40s+50s) in 2005

16. Gen-Xers (born 60s+70s) in 2005

17. Gen-Yers (born 80s+90s) in 2015?

18. Post- Secularism? Post-modernity - multi-faith in a post-secular age
Post-modern move from truth as fact to truth as experience - From universal truth to true for me may be different to true for you.
Rejection of objectivity for subjectivity
Personal belief re-enters the public square
Any and every belief …. All are equally unprovable
And so …
All of this much to the annoyance of Richard Dawkins…….
and Christians?
Religion once more on the agenda but any religion with no way back to Christendom …..indeed is Christianity disadvantaged compared to the alternatives?

19. ‘Spiritual’ experience in 2000 Vs 1987
% report a spiritual experience risen to 76%
55% saw a patterning of events – up 90%
38% felt God’s presence – up 41%
37% had answered prayer – up 48%
29% felt sacred in nature – up 81%
25% the presence of the dead – up 39%
25% the presence of evil – up 108%
But what are they experiencing?

20. The ‘excluded middle’ Paul Heibert
Many traditional religions have a sacred dimension about the Gods and secular dimension to do with the non-spiritual but also a middle ground of the superstitious and everyday spiritual. He saw this as missing from Christianity,
This area very much addressed by new spiritualities

21. Believe in the soul

22. Believe in an afterlife

23. Believe in restless spirits

24. Believe in Karma

25. Experience of fortune telling, Tarot, astrology, psychics, palmists

26. Australian Gen Y – like Britain?
Rationalist humanist
Non believing 14%
Moral relativism, pick ‘n’ mix, truth in all religions but not just one, something ‘out there’ occult and paranormal experienced
BUT open rather than committed or seeing as important
Includes neo pagans and followers or frequent participants in the esoteric/occult
growing
shrinking
‘new spiritual’ 23%
Religious 17%

27. Japan Britain

28. Consumer Christianity?

29. Consumer Christianity?
God the cosmic therapist?
Cruise liner – or Battleship?
John Wimber
Church shopping?
Looking for what I get out of it
Looking for the one that does things my way
Buying religious product?
Baptisms & weddings
Rosaries
Retreats
Christmas Carols

30. Network theory and small churches
Culture formed through relationships
Those around us raise us with views like theirs
We tend to follow these unless we also form relationships with those of different views
In a multi-cultural setting this can lead to loss of challenging relationships
But minority opinions are kept out and taboos that make such views embarrassing or offensive are employed
Reversing the Christendom picture?...
In some cultures very hard now for Christians to enter other networks unless they keep faith quiet.
Danger Christians create a protective ghetto that may protect Christians but kills mission
Ghetto tends to reinforce negativity to the church
But also danger that those in the world lose their faith
We need confident supported Christians who can enter other networks for effective mission

31. Listening to God in the history of mission
Gospel ministry in post-Christian culture the Challenge for the local church
Listening to God in the history of mission

32. Jesus, mission and other faiths
The Vision of the kingdom of God (cf Luke 5-8)
Radical values of inclusion leading to transformation and reversals of status – the sinful, the unclean, women, the non-Jew ( in spite of Jesus claim to only be sent to the ‘lost sheep of Israel’)
The use of parables
Making disciples who will make disciples
The parable of the sower (Luke 8) followed by sending of The 12 (Luke 9) and 72 (Luke 10) as Jesus has been sent (John 17) (apostolic church). To make disciples in all cultures (Matt 28)
Weakness and vulnerability the marks of the missionary
Sent to be the guests of those they are to witness amongst
Becoming as servants and children (Mark 9)
The small things leading to great change – mustard seed and yeast in dough

33. Crossing culture - The Early Church
In Jerusalem
The Pentecost Sermon to Jews Acts 2
The Jerusalem church Acts 4
The Hellenists – fresh insight & Persecution
In Judea and Samaria
The dispersal of the Hellenists
Philip – the Samaritans & Ethiopian Eunuch Acts 8
To the ends of the earth
Peter and Cornelius Acts 10
The Church in Antioch Acts 11
The Gentile mission from Antioch

34. Paul does ‘double-listening’
Acts 14 – Lystra
After healing a crippled man the crowd think Paul and Barnabas are Hermes and Zeus.
Paul reasons from nature not scripture to explain his faith….and struggles to communicate
Acts 17 – Athens
Paul goes round the temples learning about Greek belief – we see the results in his address to the Areopagus.
He debates with the philosophers in the market place….and struggles to communicate – they call him a ‘spermalgos’ – someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about!

35. Mission in Christendom is like Jewish Mission
Paul’s two sermons
Jews …….and…….Greeks?
Jesus is the expected messiah who will fulfil the prophets and law
He was killed as a sacrifice but rose
He has been appointed judge and we must now change the directions of our lives
We are all searchers after God
The God of the universe doesn’t live in temples
That God has set a day to judge the nations so we must now change the directions of our lives
The judge will be Jesus who was raised from the dead
We can see a similar process going on in the early church as they move from a Jewish to a gentile culture. Compare the two sermons Paul preaches in Athens. The first in the synagogue (click) Jesus is the expected messiah who will fulfil the prophets and law (click) He was killed as a sacrifice but rose (click) He has been appointed judge and we must now change the directions of our lives. This builds on the Jewish knowledge of scripture and the prophecies of the messiah and Jewish sacrificial system. The second at the Greek Areopagus is in some ways very different (click) it begins by saying We are all searchers after God (click) The God of the universe doesn’t live in temples (click) but goes on to say That God has set a day to judge the nations so we must now change the directions of our lives, as he said in the synagogue, and finally (click)
The judge will be Jesus who was raised from the dead, mentioned right at the end. So how might we be called to do this in our different cultures? (click) as we were thinking earlier at the start of this session (click to next slide)
Mission in Christendom is like Jewish Mission

36. Mission: shift to Christendom
Early Church incarnate in local culture
Greek Church - Paul uses poetry to Zeus
Roman Church - Jesus as Orpheus
Coptic Church - the image of Isis becomes Mary
Celtic Church - Jesus the Druid (Columba)
Germanic Church - the Heliand
Christendom one faith one empire
The Saxon Church and the war band
Synod of Whitby - the date of Easter; monks hair
Mission ends within empire,
becomes conquest beyond it
Modernity evangelism recovered in Christendom
Individuals called to belief in a Christian country
Aimed at intellectual conviction and crisis conversion

37. Embodying God in today’s world
Gospel ministry in post-Christian culture the Challenge for the local church
Embodying God in today’s world

38. A new Reformation? ? ? Eternal Gospel Early Church Judaism Christendom
400 BC
600 AD
1500 AD
2000 AD
Early Church ?
Judaism
Christendom
Reformation
Changing expression – David Bosch ‘Transforming Mission’

39. Mission in Christendom
Mission (abroad)
Cultural export Vs Inhabiting local culture
Evangelism (at home)
Calling people back to ‘the national faith’

40. Learning from foreign mission
“Do not call people back to where they were (they never were there)
Do not call people to where you are, as beautiful as it may seem to you
But travel with them to a place neither of you have been before”
Vincent Donovan – ‘Christianity re-discovered’

41. To boldly go where no church has gone before
Changing Mission?
From: sharing the Gospel in “come to us” mode
To: Exploring Church in “go to them” mode
Church Missions
To boldly go where no church has gone before
Courses
‘Seeker’ Services

42. From individuals to all creation
Restoring the whole story of salvation
creation
sin
salvation
New creation
If we have already seen that emerging mission may move from come to us to go to them, from methods to exploration, from ideas to relationships it also I think suggests a move from salvation as centred purely on individuals to all creation. (click) what Graham Cray refers to as restoring the whole story of salvation. We have been good (click) at focusing on this bit of the story but have ignored the whole story (click) in which God’s saving work stretches from creation to new creation. Perhaps an important corrective in an age concerned with ecological issues. (click to next slide)
Individuals saved
All creation saved

43. God’s Mission & God’s Kingdom
The transformation of people linked to the transformation of creation – Romans 8, 2 Cor 5
Reconciliation as a reversal of the fall
Humanity restored to God’s image as missionary to creation
Social transformation linked to evangelism
Any Gospel that does not proclaim and seek to bring about God’s Kingdom fails to understand Jesus and God’s mission
Any Gospel that does not set people free from sin will never achieve social transformation

44. Three levels of mission community
wider community
Christian
community
halfway meeting space

45. Who are on the way?
Bounded set ? Or..

46. Who are on the way?
Bounded set ? Or…….Centred Set?

47. Who are on the way?
Bounded set ? Or…….Centred Set?

48. Lessons for sharing faith
People increasingly come to faith through experience rather than changing thinking
Many people want to grow spiritually and will take support in this seriously
Sharing faith is welcomed. Telling others what they share is wrong simply closes the conversation
Most people aren’t interested if Christianity is true but if it is inspiring and life changing
In the internet age everything is public be consistent
We need to know how we will handle issues of gender, the environment, evil, other-faiths
Avoid Christian language like sin, salvation, redemption etc people don’t understand it or misunderstand it – but we still need to talk about them but with different words
We need to live as if what we say really does work
Remember God transforms people not Christians

49. Resources

50. Your Kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Evangelism is…..
Not getting people to Church ………………..….……..
but getting people to be Church
Not taking God to people …………………………………
but seeing what he is already doing in their lives
Not first about getting people into heaven ……………
but getting heaven into people
Not saving people from the world ..…………………..
but allowing God to transform them
as part of a plan to transform the world also
Your Kingdom come your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven