The questions we ask in the Dreaming time are about what could be. What is our potential future? How can we imagine God working around us, with us and through us in the future? Here I’ve listed six “dream questions” that tie in with the discovery process embedded in the Mission Stories DVD resource coming out this month. See my earlier article on Dreaming Together.
1. How might our environment be different? What could we do to respond to changes in our community?
2. How could we embody the gospel as a community of compassion and generosity? What expressions of the gospel could we explore in practices of faith?
3. How might we resource people as everyday disiciples of Jesus?
4. Who might we partner with, in our local community and beyond? What could we do together?
5. Which people groups could we be connecting with? How might we do that?
6. How might we more fully integrate the whole mission of God?
We could look at responses in terms of how we worship together, the programs we run, the ways in which we use and develop property, the ways in which we use our financial resources, planning for staffing, collaboration with other congregations, agencies, companies and community organisations.
We can foster provocative shared visions that need significant investments of time and resources. We can foster equally provocative visions that can be picked up and implemented by individuals and small groups without large budgets.
Kennon Callahan, in Twelve Keys to an Effective Church, reminds us that mission is most effective when it comes from the grassroots, not from a “top down” committee or task group. He suggests we ask our members five invitational questions.
1. What specific human hurts and hopes do you have longings to help with?
2. What concrete strengths do you have with which to share effective help for those specific human hurts and hopes?
3. What three to five persons do you know who have similar longings and strengths in your church or in your community?
4. What events in the community would make this mission effort timely?
5. In what specific ways is this emerging outreach one in which God is calling you to invest your life?