God's Mission and the church

Ecclesiastes 3:14-15I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.

Tom Allan, in his 1954 publication: The Face of My Parish, describes D P Thomson's notion of a "Church within the Church": "Corresponding closely to the people who surrounded Jesus...there are the five thousand - the "fringers"...who remain on the periphery...the seventy - the dependable workers...leaders of organisations...loyal to their church...the twelve - a narrower circle and the intimate friends - those who have truly been with Jesus."(The Face of My Parish, Tom Allan p51)  

He viewed part of his task as bringing people from one circle into another, always moving closer to Christ. And he sought to achieve this by involving them in missionary activities in the parish.

However, although he was seeing a rapid growth in membership of the parish church, he cautions: "It Is the easiest thing in the world to get people to "join" the church; it is supremely difficult to know what to do with them once they are in; and it is virtually impossible to keep the majority of them within the conventional framework of the church's life."  (The Face of My Parish, Tom Allan p33)

Sixty plus years on, as congregations explore what it means to be a Missional Church today, we are rediscovering some of those challenges that Allan faced in his parishes in Glasgow. While we are not experiencing rapid numerical growth, we are grappling with how, or more realistically, whether to assimilate those who are experiencing growth in faith and commitment. As God continues to reshape the church today, it is clear that a fluid, less structured body is required to support disciples whose call is to live incarnationally in their neighbourhoods.

Recognising that God is already at work in our communities we face again the knowledge that, often, the church as an institution is a stumbling block rather than a launch pad that helps people discover the call to discipleship, discern their gifts and then equips and releases folk to live out the good news in their many and varied contexts.

In Mission by the People: Rediscovering the Dynamic Missiology of Tom Allan and his Scottish Contemporaries; (Alexander Forsyth 2017)  Forsyth draws this conclusion:

"...practical and theological highpoints of Allan’s missiology can be identified. These demonstrate that his missiology should not be viewed primarily in terms of practical “failure” viewed from the present vantage point, but in many ways as a success and source of inspiration."

It is to be hoped that, as the institution and individual congregations grasp the need to be tentative, to be places of experimentation where we learn from failure rather than fail to take risks, that we will continue to be grateful for saints who have gone before us leaving clues along the way. And, learning from their endeavours, we will contribute to the picture of God at work in the world, calling the church into mission.

Hebrews 11:39-40 (The Message)

Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.

Generating Capacity

Leadership should generate capacity, not dependency.

Ronald Heifetz

One of the things we seek to do on Path of Renewal is encourage others to listen to what God is asking of them in their current context - and, having discerned that, to step into that role at God's invitation. 

There is no scarcity of God's gifting but sometimes a reluctance or fear or simply blindness on our part to celebrate and release those gifts in others. And that's just part of the adaptive challenge that we are being forced to confront at this stage of our journey in faith.

Often our default mode is, when we see a gap, to seek to plug that gap, a simple, technical fix. Such fixes, however, do not generate capacity in others but help to shore up the myth of our usefulness based on the authority or position of leadership that we hold.

Developing and nurturing spiritual practices that make space to listen to God is an important task to be engaged in both as individuals and as a community. And spending time with the ancient stories of God's people in our sacred texts alert us to signposts that provide way markers for today. There are plenty of stories of the people of God stepping into unlikely leadership roles demanded of them as they journeyed with God learning how to be God's people in each place and time.

One of the things Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his book Lessons in Leadership, explores is the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land, charting the journey Moses made as he grew into leadership:

One illustration he uses is the description of how, early on the journey, the people complain to Moses about the lack of food and Moses provides food - with God, manna is provided. Moses meets a technical challenge at that stage. The people need food, Moses speaks to God and food is provided.

However, a bit further on in the journey, when the people complain about food again, Moses despairs. He asks God to let him die because he cannot carry this burden. Why such a different response?Because Moses recognises this as a deeper test of his leadership. This is no longer simply about food. It's a revelation of some of the hard battles that are before him, not just taking the people out of Egypt but taking Egypt out of the people!

It is at that point that Moses realises that simply plugging the gap, supplying food is not enough. He is now faced with an adaptive challenge, that of changing the hearts and minds of the people he leads, equipping them to be strong and resilient, ready to face what lies ahead on the journey. They too need to develop leadership skills rather than constantly succumbing to authoritarian figures who, albeit cruelly, have supplied their needs as a people in slavery.

Leadership requires grace that can accommodate the anger of people resistant to change. It also brings out, releases and encourages gifts of leadership in others. 

Leadership takes seriously the possibility of learning from all sorts of unexpected sources, being prepared, even expectant for our own growth as well as celebrating growth in others.

Leadership distinguishes between technical and adaptive challenges and recognises that there are often others who are better equipped than we are to take on a task and helps facilitate the recognition and use of different gifts that build up the body of Christ. 

Leadership that embraces humility and vulnerability is more suited to responding to adaptive challenges. That is the kind of leadership we seek to embolden and encourage today.

Ephesians 4:15-16

But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

Path of Renewal - A movement, not a programme

Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

From the beginning, we've been at pains to make it clear that Path of Renewal is not simply another church growth programme - or, indeed, any type of programme. It is not an attempt to "fix" the church but a movement that seeks to recover the core purpose of what the church is about and work out how we live out those immutable values in our local communities today.

Many institutions have grown out of good and noble and sometimes radical intentions to provide services - religion, finance, education, health: The National Health Service (in the UK) sought to provide health care for all, free at the point of delivery.

The challenge is that, once these institutions become established, the radical nature of their instigation and their core values become obscured, not least by bureaucracy and by other competing interests.

In response to this, movements arise on the margins that seek to challenge the stagnation or status quo of institutions in an attempt to recover those radical principles on which they were founded. However, in an institution there are a lot of extraneous paraphernalia at stake, useful for maintaining an institution but not for delivering or engaging with the core purpose of the organisation and there is often a struggle to maintain the status quo that protects those elements of an institution, particularly when status or employment is at stake.

Sometimes movements have to constantly battle against institutions. Occasionally, the institution sees the value of a movement and offers collaboration to help it restore core purposes.

Those who participate in movements find their values critically examined by others. This is helpful in honing and defining the purpose of a movement. It also helps those engaged in the movement to embody the changes they want to effect. 

Our work in Path of Renewal, part of which is establishing spiritual practices that transform the lives of leaders involved is an important part of that embodiment.

In the stories of the Exodus of God's people from Egypt, we see God's people being transformed by the re-establishment of God's will and purpose in their lives individually and in community.

As they became settled in a new land, institutions grew up, a monarchy was established and corruption set in. Prophets then emerged to challenge those institutions and to lead new movements that re-established the core purposes of the people of God - to live in God's peacable kingdom where the lion lies down with the lamb by loving justice, practising mercy and walking humbly with God.

Similarly, we see Jesus and his disciples engaged in a kingdom movement, challenging the political and religious authorities of the day. And what a movement - one that included prostitutes and tax collectors, that encouraged parties but that also promoted focussing on the inner life - feeding body, mind and spirit!

The vitality of the church demands that such movements, birthed by the Holy Spirit remain active in communities today, embodied, contagious, always willing to challenge institutions by focussing on renewal, inspiring others to re-define core values and how those might be lived out in our different cultures today. 

Movements, though they must remain mobile and light on their feet, responsive to new insight and revelation, also require resilience and a commitment for the long term. Change, particularly cultural change is an ambitious endeavour and slow to effect. That is why embodying effective Spiritual Practices are essential for health and growth. These practices are also transformative for individuals.

And so we continue to be part of a movement not a programme, a kingdom movement that seeks to discern and realise the purposes of God today.