Today’s Q Weekend magazine, an insert in Brisbane’s Courier Mail, features a story on house churches by Will Storr.
Will introduces readers to the house church movement through the eyes of Sarah Williams at Jahworks in Doveton, Melbourne (ex Salvation Army), Bessie Pereira, Oikos House Church Network, Dave Andrews at Waiters Union, members of Pacific Parks Uniting on the Gold Coast, Pathway in Brisbane, and a group meeting in Cloncurry. There’s a photograph from one of the Coomera Baptist house churches on the Gold Coast.
Will sums up the house church movement with the common hallmarks of being decentralised, self-funded and unadvertised, meeting on a Sunday or Thursday, sitting in a circle, being leaderless, having a prickly dislike of preaching, a loose conversational program of worship usually involving a meal, considering their entire lives to be an act of “church”, and acts of charity and social justice to be an essential element of their Christianity. He says they’re often the subject of persecution from the inhabitants of what they like to call “pointy buildings”.
It’s a risky thing talking to a reporter knowing that only small parts of your conversation will end up in the article, sandwiched by fashion advertisements linked with the new David Jones store in Brisbane. The section of the article that focuses on our house group shows us as a group who focus on conversation, risking hints of heresy and intimate enough to reveal deep hurts and differences. Suggesting that I started the group as part of my Vision for Mission investigation into new forms of worship doesn’t quite do justice to the team with whom Ennis and I are working. For some of us, we are able to express our membership of the Uniting Church in the house church setting. It’s not an either/or situation.
The Waiters Union is described as Dave Andrews’ house church - which again over simplifies a network of people who wouldn’t fit into the house church framework.
‘Houses of the holy’ is a colourful article, with vivid stories, a critique of institutional Christianity since Constantine, showing awareness of the diversity found in the house church movement. Will, a freelance writer from the UK, is known for his book, Will Storr versus The Supernatural, a John Safran-style exploration of the ghost busting industry. Photography is by Russell Shakespeare, on the Gold Coast.
Steve Drinkall in Brisbane has launched Postcard Radio, a podcast site focusing on emerging missional church in Queensland, sponsored by the Churches of Christ, Queensland Baptists and Uniting Church in Australia.
Postcard Radio is committed to discovering and interviewing those brave souls who are finding innovative new ways to communicate an old message. All of the people interviewed on the site live, serve, work and play in South East Queensland and all have a passion for helping ordinary Australians connect with the person of Jesus.
I’m one of the first three interviewees, along with two Baptists…
Billy Williams is serving and reaching urban aboriginal people in Brisbane’s northern suburbs. As the founders and leaders of Dhiiyaan , Billy and his wife are reinventing what it means to be the church at a park on any Sunday afternoon.
Mick Cross, youth pastor at Reedy Creek Baptist on the Gold Coast, has taken the challenge of multiplication seriously in his youth ministry. He has restructured everyone into “Tribes” and allowed student interests to dominate where they meet, what they do and who will lead them.
Some of the ideas here are small, some are large. Some involve thousands of people, some involve just a handful. Some require lots of resources and some are completely free. We hope that these stories and ideas will create a new movement of innovation in living and sharing the message of Jesus with people in our region. Tune in, switch your brain on and imagine what else we could do…
Stewart and Susan Harris, members of the Forge missional training network in Brisbane, are starting a missional church in the context of Brisbane’s Central Railway Station. Here’s the text from an article recently printed in the Queensland Baptist Magazine…
What is Central?
Central will be a group of Christian ‘City Dwellers’ (people who work in or live in or near the City) forming a church community that will be intentionally shaped by the mission of Jesus. Central will meet on Tuesdays @ 5:30pm in the Dining Car of the Grand Central Hotel (Ann St, opposite the Shrine of Remembrance).
Why meet at Central Railway Station?
Simple answer: because there are lots of people there! It’s going to be great doing church right there in the flow of city life! Our long term goal is to make Jesus and His church more accessible to the average person. Initially a core group will meet to renew their commitment to Christ’s mission. In time, our interested non Christian friends will be able to continue their search by coming along to Central with us.
What will happen at Central?
We will restructure our lives for mission by using Lifestyle – pray, standout, socialize, include, companion*, 5 clues to living mission. So a night might include investigating from the Bible how to live an attractive, distinctive Christian life, discussing a topic dominating culture, planning how to create meaningful social opportunities, praying for friends, learning how to engage people in conversations, discussing ways we can share the gospel in word and action. Most of the evangelism will happen through relationships in the flow of life, not in a building. (* Lifestyle developed by City North Baptist.)
Why meet on Tuesday’s?
First, it’s a good time for ‘City Dwellers’ to meet. People who work in the city can easily come to Central on their way home. Second, it will make some Sunday’s more available for meaningful socializing with non Christian friends. Third, it will be easier for curious ‘City Dwellers’ to access a church community.
If someone joins Central will they have to leave their church?
Yes and No. Central would become the core group’s church. But because we won’t meet on Sundays, people could continue their association with their local church. Central’s aim is to work in partnership with other churches that would release people who share Central’s focus.
Interested? Need more info? Contact Stewart & Susan Harris ssharris at tpg.com.au / 0401 762 121 and come along to an info night on Tuesday October 16, 23, 30.
Mark Driscoll, pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, has hit the emerging church blogosphere this week, with a video clip he provided for the National New Church Conference Church Planting conference in Miami last week. Mark wasn’t able to get to the conference and so sent a videotape of him speaking.
Mark focuses on 2 Timothy 2, the passage in which church planter Timothy is encouraged to be focused, hardworking and able to endure hardship.
“You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs�he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.”
Mark delivers his rant from a military cemetery, with a video closeup to the firm-wristed gun-toting soldier statue. He paints the church planting scene in terms of battleground and body count. He believes that selecting the ‘right man’ is critical to the success of a church plant. He suggests that the core mission is to find men to serve, put them through boot camp, instruct them, and through God’s grace force them to be people who will live as God’s people. “If you want to win a war you have to get the men.” The message, Driscoll says, is Jesus the warrior, king and hero who has fulfilled his mission: leaving his throne in heaven to live a life without sin, dying for our sin, rising from the dead triumphant over Satan, sin and death, and ascending into heaven. The message, Driscoll says, is not about some marginalised Gallilean peasant hippie in a dress rocking out to the Spice Girls in a cabriolet hoping to meet nice people to do aromatherapy with while drinking herbal tea. The snapshot from John in Revelation is of Jesus in his glory returned home as a triumphant warrior and victor.
Interestingly Mark’s video was just before Bill Hybels presented the closing address for the conference. Hybels simply suggested that church planting needed women in leadership before proceeding on to his talk.
Clearly the soldier image does it for some men. And some women. However the writer of 2 Timothy goes on to use the image of athlete and farmer as well. The early church would have had a healthy percentage of pacifists for whom the military connotations would have been repugnant.
I don’t agree with Mark’s commitment to use only men in church leadership roles. But I can sympathise with his efforts to develop a concept of church that will equip and inspire people with the Y chromosome. So are there models and metaphors that provide the sense of challenge and focus needed by men today?
Denny Weaver, in his book, Nonviolent Atonement, works with the Christus Victor concept in a way that clearly portrays Jesus as an alternative to the stereotypes of ‘macho marine’ and ‘gay hippie’. I’ve written a brief review of his Nonviolent Atonement at GodPost this week.
If we want to talk about being focused, hard working and enduring hardship we can learn from sportswear companies like Adidas. I’m aware of the questionable work practices of these companies, but we can learn from their advertising agencies!
Adidas, in its latest ‘Impossible is Nothing’ campaign, invites sports and adventure role models to talk about the toughest times of their lives, using art, animation and gritty honesty. They’ve interviewed women and men, young and old, and enabled each to cross the artificial boundary between creativity and gutsiness. Adidas doesn’t need to ignore women to attract male customers.
I mentioned in my review of the Forge Conference that Wolfgang Simson was a hyperbolic metaphoric passionate speaker. Well what do you know, he’s also a very approachable correspondent. I’ve had some very useful email conversation with Wolfgang in response, exploring the context and meaning of my remarks and his.
The ‘hyperbolic’ is tied up with the large number of house churches planted by the people Wolfgang met in India, Indonesia and Bangladesh. I got the impression he was being given numbers by church planters that couldn’t be corroborated. No doubt there had been a large number of groups started throughout these countries. But to give the numbers (was it 20,000?) was, I inferred, an example of hyperbole. Not lies. Maybe exaggeration. We got the point - that developing a reproducing theme at the heart of a church planting movement is so important.
Wolfgang responded by explaining that he had came from a background of healthy cynicism in which he set out to test claims of church growth, first in Europe and later in Asia. He provides some background to the people working and researching in India, Egypt, Indonesia and Bangladesh. It was good to hear Wolfgang’s life context and story.
When someone mentioned to me during the conference that they were having difficulty coping with the incredible stories of rapid church multiplication, I shared a story from my life in NZ. It was September 15, 2001. I was at a ministers gathering in Tokoroa, New Zealand, hearing from the AOG pastor who had just returned from India. He told us about incredible responses to the gospel from crowds of people there. He did acknowledge that a response at a revival meeting was not the same as a life-long response of world-changing action. He shared about the miracles, including people being brought back to life. We talked about the different environments, wondering if the Indian people were more open to anything happening.
When I returned home I discovered an ambulance at the front and a crowd gathered around. My wife was standing by the pavement distraught. On the road was my 18 month old daughter who had been hit by a car. She’d died on impact. A neighbour was administering CPR but it wasn’t working. I prayed to God with every bit of earnestness possible. I rushed into the house and rang the church where there was a worship service about to start, to ask for the prayers of the congregation. But Kristen didn’t come back to life. She would have turned 16 yesterday.
So how did I feel about those stories of resuscitation from India? How did the AOG pastor feel about this tragedy? We didn’t have much to say to one another. Neither event made the other impossible. As you can imagine, my wife and I felt dampened in our faith. We already knew that prayer is not magic. We knew that God suffers with us in difficulty. But mustering up the courage and grace to pray for God to intervene was hard for a while. We winced when we heard the story of a young man being revived through prayer at a crash scene not far away. Why didn’t God intervene at our crash scene? But it wasn’t long before we found ourselves plunged into God’s merciful intervention in the world again. It was the faith of our three year old daughter that led to praying for the healing of a friend’s broken arm, with amazing results.
The stories of amazing effectiveness go together with the stories of incredible struggle. And visa versa.
Forge Mission Training Network held its second national Australian summit this last weekend.
I flew in to Melbourne from Brisbane on Friday night, so only got into The Factory (Mitcham Baptist) in time to hear Sons of Korah performing. I missed Alan Hirsch introducing the conference and Mike Frost’s keynote address on dirt and soil. Alan and Deb are off to the western coast of the United States for a few years, sponsored by CRM to resource the missional church scene there.
More on Mike’s book, Exiles, and Alan’s book, The Forgotten Ways, in later posts…
Brian McLaren provided an inspiring and gracious challenge to the churches of the 21st Century, helping us recognise the key narratives found in humanity, such as domination, victim, shame, economic bargaining and withdrawal. Each of these approaches, Brian explained, can be found in the setting in which Jesus operated. So what does the alternative look like? Brian gave us the beautiful story of an outdoor jazz concert in Sydney in which a young boy is joined by others as they celebrate life in music.
I was able to attend sessions led by Wolfgang Simson (hyperbolic metaphoric storyteller enthusiastic about small and effective missional communities), and Geoff Westlake (community developer in WA focusing on the concept of ‘ecclesia’ as community development council).
I enjoyed the session on theological issues for the ‘emerging church’ led by Stephen Said and Randy Edwards.
Stephen Said provided a challenging analysis of the theological strengths and flaws found in the renewal of missional church in Australia. Key themes (strengths) coming through are the connection of Missio Dei (the other-focused nature of God) with the local context, bridging the secular and sacred, recovery of kingdom ecclesiology, and the reminder that mission is integral to Christian community. Holes identified by Steven were in some ways about the same themes. We can too easily separate missional and incarnational. With our ‘can-do’ focus on method we’re still missing out on the Spirit’s role in mission. The Holy Spirit’s work was rediscovered by many churches during the charismatic renewal days but for many there’s not much awareness of the Holy Spirit working outside the worship service. We’re still separating evangelism from social justice. In Australia we tend to have a suspicion of philosophy. We’re too easily caught up in the prevailing consumerist metanarrative of our time - addiction to the collection of experiences.
Another helpful observation in the theology elective, made by Randy Edwards I think, was that we have been over-valuing leadership. It’s almost as if everyone must be in a leadership position of some sort. “You’re not fulfilling your potential unless you’re influencing someone else.”
Here’s another quote from Randy Edwards that stuck with me…. “Protestants don’t know how to give. They only know how to invest”. This was in response to the observation that experimental groups are jettisoned when it appears as though they are not producing high numbers of church members. Permission to achieve is not the same as permission to try and fail.
I attended an all-too-brief interactive panel focusing on consumerism and faith. We could have spent the whole weekend unpacking this subject. Unfortunately we had less than an hour. I was reminded by Dave Andrews (earthy radical discipleship sage) that bold claims to be bucking the trend are revealed as posturing when we compare our incomes and lifestyles with those living in the seventy percent of the world’s population.
Darryl Gardiner, fellow Kiwi bald guy from Wellington, lightened up the atmosphere with his humorous but gritty introduction of the “Dirty Christ”, the one who was born in an earthy stable. Darryl’s carrying on the tradition of Barry Crump, NZ author, with his exploration of “bastards I have met”.
Saturday evening finished with the delightful comedic and insightful poetry of Cameron Semmens, the author of 26 Tales from the Testaments - alliterated Bible passages in every letter of the alphabet.
I must admit I spent most of Sunday in conversation with various people, missing many of the sessions and workshops. I did get to Brian McLaren’s reflections on what we can learn from Emerging Church movement in the United States. This wasn’t one of those “it’s all happening in America” workshops. It was helpful to hear about what other people are learning through trial and error, bitter criticism and collaboration across denominations.
It’s always interesting to hear the the Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian and United Church of Christ described as the ‘liberal’ denominations. I heard one of the presenters at Forge introduce himself as the pastor of an “Evangelical Uniting” church. Clearly for some it is really important to be known and regarded as “Evangelical”. It helps people know what you believe, I guess. The problem is that people who see things differently just become “liberal”. I think we need to upskill in our capacity to relate to Christians who come from different places.
I must say it was refreshing to be part of, and on the edge of, a movement that is morphing. Social justice, concern for the environment, and an honest re-exploration of the Christian gospel, were all included in an agenda in which there was room for ranters, story tellers, poets, evangelists, coffee-makers, conversationalists, multi-media artists and musicians. Forge, like the rest of the Australian church, continues to struggle with the gender balance of its speakers and facilitators. Speaking of facilitators, we could have done with less content and more time to process in small groups.
As with the first Forge Dangerous Stories summit, we didn’t start each session with a time of ‘praise and worship’. I wasn’t sorry about that, though I do enjoy the occasional bit of God-focused “Christian karaoke”. I’d like to see the re-emergence of corporate singing in this kind of environment, modelling some of the broad missional themes being explored by Forge. Another time, another place…
I’m working through Coachnet’s coaching accreditation process with a team from the Uniting Church in Australia, Queensland Synod. First textbook to process is “Coaching 101″, by Robert E. Logan and Sherilyn Carlton (Destination Coaching).
At the heart of Coaching 101 is a process involving five layers: relate, reflect, refocus, resource and review.
The “Relate” layer is focused on establishing a coaching relationship and agenda. I’ve found this helpful in clarifying the relational tasks needed at the beginning of a shared journey, and at the beginning of each coaching session. It’s not just about developing rapport and trust. There’s also a need to focus on how the coaching relationship will work, how each person will operate, the perameters of responsbility and accountability. I find myself coaching people who relate to me in many different settings. The ‘relate’ task will help narrow down the reason for getting together for an hour a month.
The “Reflect” layer is focused on discovering and exploring key issues for the person being coached. Helpful questions here are “What can we celebrate?”, “What is important?”, and “What are the obstacles you are facing?”. These allow for critical issues to come to the surface without heading straight into problem solving. Two more questions, “Where do you want to go?” and “How committed are you?”, provide a reality check for the coaching session, a way to filter out wishful thinking and stimulate realistic planning for action.
The “Refocus” layer is about determining strategic priorities and action steps. Logan and Carlton start this chapter by inviting the reader to consider potential barriers to successful refocusing: resistance to planning, fear of failure, living by ’shoulds’, and negative self-talk. With these in mind, the authors provide open-ended questions: “What do you want to accomplish?” “What are possible ways to get there?” “Which path will you choose?” “What will you do?” “How will you measure your progress?”
The “Resource” layer focuses on providing support and encouragement. Once again it’s a matter of asking open-ended questions. “What resources do you need to accomplish your goals?” “What resources do you already have?” “What resources are missing?” “Where will you find the resources you need?” I found the section on the coach’s resourcing role affirming and challenging. Yes - a coach can make connections and network the person being coached. But there’s a point at which a coach can become overpowering. I’ve made a commitment to get feedback on how useful my resourcing is.
The “Review” layer focuses on evaluation, celebration and revision of plans. The two key questions here are “What is working?” and “What isn’t working?”. I’m challenged by section on celebration to find practical ways to express affirmation for people I’m coaching. This section includes helpful evaluative questions to fine tune the coaching relationship.
Each chapter ends with an opportunity for individual or group reflection, often incorporating a sense of spiritual or theological formation. Many of the coaching examples given relate to people with responsibility for Christian communities. However the principles and questions outlined in the book would be transferable in a wide range of settings, in and outside faith environments.
The third instalment in a series on doctrine in the context of Pacific Parks, the house church I meet with each week.
Pacific Parks for four years has worked around the three core values of being relaxed, relational and relevant.
Founding members of Pacific Parks were aware of the difficulty many Australians have when first attending traditional worship. We identified cultural cringe factors for most Australians of our age and younger and undertook to develop a culture of gathering that did not feature ceremonial vestments, long sermons and hymn singing accompanied by organs. However our understanding of ‘relevance’ hopefully goes deeper than cultural preferences.
When we say ‘relevant’ we mean:
“We seek to make Jesus accessible to people, and seek to break down any barriers that might prevent people from knowing him personally. We value people, wanting them to discover and exercise their unique giftedness.”
As we developed our approach to being church in a number of new housing areas, we were deeply aware of the diversity we faced. There is no one culture on the north Gold Coast. Even though we had ‘postmodern’ and ‘emerging generations’ in our received mandate, we were very much aware that it would take several different approaches to connect people with the good news of Jesus.
Take music, for example. A number of our original members were embedded in the country music scene. Others were more into electronica and ambient music. Some enjoy singing praise and worship songs. Others don’t like singing in public at all. We have been tempted to develop formulas that will attract people from each of these cultures. What we’ve ended up doing though is focusing less on marketing, entertainment and ‘ambience’, and focusing more on relationship building that is uncluttered by programming.
We seek to make Jesus accessible to people, and seek to break down any barriers that might prevent people from knowing him personally.
Our value of accessibility is grounded in the doctrine of incarnation. We believe that God was in Christ, reconciling the world with Godself. As the Uniting Church Basis of Union says, our call is to be a fellowship of reconciliation, a body within which the diverse gifts of its members are used for the building up of the whole, an instrument through which Christ may work and bear witness to himself.
We believe Jesus to have lived as “God in the flesh” in the context of Roman-occupied Palestine. Looking at Jesus’ ministry we see a range of relationships. Jesus camped out and went fishing with the disciples. He dined in with wealthy society leaders. He took part in public expressions of worship in synagogues and in the temple. In all of these situations the focus was not on form. The focus was on accessibility.
With accessibility in mind we have let go our preoccupation with purpose-built church buildings, choosing instead to meet in places where people naturally gather. We meet in parks, homes, cafes and taverns, and at times in church buildings.
The doctrine of the incarnation tells us that God was prepared to become embedded in a small backwater local culture, without expecting instant success.
As frustrating as this has turned out to be, we have made a commitment to growing a relationship at a time.
One of the temptations of working with a commitment to accessibility is “fear of offending”. We have the challenge of presenting the good news of reconciliation in a way that leads to people living lives in harmony with the values of the Kingdom of God. We ourselves are confronted by the priorities of Jesus. We shouldn’t be surprised when others take offence at Jesus’ teaching. However we want to avoid offending people with cultural insensitivity or arrogance.
We value people, wanting them to discover and exercise their unique giftedness.
Our valuing of people is founded in a Christian doctrine of the human person, traditionally referred to as “Doctrine of Man”.
Most approaches to the Christian doctrine of the human person begin with creation - the belief that the human is created by God to be an expression of God’s character earthed in a environment of fragility and uncertainty. The inherent value of each person is grounded in the value given by God’s gift of life. As a community of faith we are challenged to see each person in our wider community as an expression of the image of God.
We believe that God has given us the capacity to continue discerning the depths of God’s call as a community, and also as persons in community. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, “Now I see in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” In our shared life-transforming interaction with God’s Spirit, we are equipped to recognise what it means to be truly human in our own context.
As we connect with Jesus, God’s character in each person emerges. We are gifted with the opportunity to participate in God’s ongoing act of creation. We can become tempted to interpret this challenge by filling out skills inventories to determine our contribution to weekly church life. The deeper challenge is to daily discern the ways in which we are called to live out an incarnational presence in our unique sphere of influence.
Pacific Parks Uniting began with a group of people who were keen to explore an alternative to the hectic pace of a church addicted to excellent performance. We’d been in churches that measured effectiveness by the number of people attending Sunday worship and midweek on-campus programs. We’d also been in churches with a focus on correctness, in which newcomers were carefully tested for right belief and respectable lifestyles.
We were committed to exploring an alternative approach to church that would equip its members to live out radical discipleship largely in the context of everyday relationships. Our gatherings would need to inspire and support people to engage with real life, seven days a week.
To summarise this approach, we started describing ourselves as “Relaxed Church”.
We come together in a welcoming, warm, encouraging and inclusive way.
The primary doctrine that we affirm here is the doctrine of grace.
Serene Jones describes a similar connection between the doctrine of grace and the ryhthms of a church’s life in her article, “Graced Practices: Excellence and Freedom in the Christian Life”, found in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, edited by Mirsolav Volf and Dorothy Bass, 2002. Jones is a theologian with membership in a United Church of Christ congregation in New Haven.
Serene Jones describes the ambitious vision-casting process developed by a ‘Millennial committee’. As they presented their plans to the congregations they found people becoming tired, overwhelmed and without enthusiasm. In response, the committee went back and explored the benefits of the good news of Jesus Christ. They unpacked what it meant to live out of justification and sanctification. They revisited the Scriptures and found there the narrative of God’s grace, from creation through to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The congregation’s leaders then began to explore what it would mean to develop gatherings that would be good news to their participants. Practicing the sabbath, grounded in the freedom of justification, became a gift to people already exhausted by hectic lifestyles.
So what would living in the grace of God look like for a new network of house churches? Pacific Parks began with the grace-imbued practices of Sabbath and hospitality. Instead of beginning with running worship services, we started with leadership meetings on Sunday mornings in each others homes, over a barbecue. We moved to public parks and started inviting friends and family. Our first purchase as a church was a large catering barbecue. We followed that up with sports equipment.
At first some of us felt a little anxious, perhaps guilty, about missing out on Sunday morning worship. We weren’t busy ‘running Church’. There were no rosters to fill. There were no offerings to take up and count as we had already made arrangements for direct debit giving. There was no ‘order of service’ and no post-event evaluation. It was strange for people who had spent all their lives ‘doing church’.
We discovered that our energy was now available to focus on expressing the hospitality of God to those around us. God brought into our circles people who would not have fitted neatly into a church committed to excellence. Like the woman with only one outfit for wearing in public who was anxious that her grandson was sipping on a drink during a worship time. We pointed out that most of us had a cup of coffee in our hands. The couple who were living together who joined one of our house churches, later holding their wedding in one of our homes and regularly bringing their extended family and network of friends. The young people who struggled with multiple addictions, who time and time again found themselves responding to God’s grace.
We seek to be flexible, accepting and authentic, creatively responding to others.
As in the relational approach to Church, our relaxed approach is connected with our perception of how God dynamically relates to the world. We believe that God interacts with the world as it is, continually helping creation respond in tune with God’s call. We don’t believe that God has a blueprint that we must discover and follow slavishly. In the life of Jesus we see constant examples of responding to people as they are, in the settings in which they live, using the elements of each scenario.
Earlier this month I met with a family network for a baptism in the park. When the parents of the boy being baptised asked if we had to hold the service in church on Sunday I explained that the Uniting in Worship regulations did specificy that baptism should be held after a sermon during a Sunday worship service. But because Pacific Parks was committed to developing flexible and creative approaches to church, we could say yes to Saturday morning in the local park. Besides, we didn’t have a church service on Sunday. Neither did we have a church building to hold it in!
So where’s the doctrine here? The Uniting Church in Australia does have well developed doctrine around the connection between word and sacrament, designed to ensure that baptism is a corporate experience of the wider Church and not just an individual rite of passage. In planning the baptism service one of my first priorities was to ascertain who the congregation of the faithful would be in this case. I had two couples from Pacific Parks Uniting who would be affirming a commitment to nurture faith in the child and his family. The parents themselves were keen to express their own emerging faith. His parents, sister and brother-in-law were Catholics and were able to participate meaningfully. For others it was a case of being welcome, included and encouraged to explore faith for themselves.
We have deliberately sought to delineate between primary doctrines of Christian faith and more practical doctrines that are not essential in these settings. For the sake of authenticity and consistency we seek to develop shared experiences of faith that are consistent with the Uniting Church services of baptism and communion. However, we sense no obligation to maintain the traditional or even contemporary ‘order of service’ for worship. For example, we rarely sing together. In our earlier days together we did. We bought a keyboard and practiced hard for our corporate gatherings. But as we moved into separate house churches we discovered that not everyone finds singing helpful in connecting with God. We came to see singing as a practice of faith that would be used when appropriate.
We have struggled with issues of sexuality and how they apply to doctrine. The Uniting Church Assembly in 2003 clarified that each Presbytery had the capacity to ordain people on a case by case basis. As a local leadership team we found it impossible to develop a shared understanding of how that related to doctrine. Was the Church’s traditional doctrine relating to homosexuality a primary affirmation, requiring a Christian to be heterosexual or live a lifetime of celibacy? Or was it possible that God was more flexible and welcoming than the Church had allowed for over time?
The next post will focus on doctrine in relation to being ‘Relevant Church’.
Earlier this year I started on a theology paper on doctrine and truth after modernity, a course I thought could be helpful in unpacking the role of doctrine in what we regard as a postmodern environment. When I was given the challenge of exploring in words the doctrines at work in my community of faith, I had to think carefully. For four years I’ve been a member of Pacific Parks Uniting, a house church network that would sit most comfortably in the Emerging Church movement.
Together with other leaders in the group I’ve struggled with the distinctive values and how they’re worked out in practice. But how do these values link in with the doctrines of the Church?
Over our first two months together in 2002, we developed the following statement about our life together:
“We are learning to be a relaxed, relational and relevant church in our community”.
In this post I’ll be exploring our understanding of being ‘relational church’, and how that relates to Christian doctrine. In the next two posts I’ll be exploring our values of ‘relaxed church’ and ‘relevant church’ and how they relate to Christian doctrine.
I’ll also be posting on how Pacific Parks’ approach to doctrine relates to George Lindbeck’s approach to theory of religion, considering his typology of cognitive-propositionalist, experiential-expressivist, and cultural-linguistic understandings of truth, expressed respectively in propositions, pre-cognitive experience and performance.
Relational Church
1. We value our personal and corporate relationships with God.
Here we begin with our primary assertion that our life’s meaning is found in relationship with God whose very being is relational. We discover in the way God interacts with creation, and indeed within Godself, that we are created to live in community. We’re invited to join in an experience of community expressed in that already developed in the being of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We affirm both personal and corporate expressions of relationship, reminding ourselves that no one person or group of people can claim to express or live out the fullness of relationship with God. Although we each have individual perspectives that are shaped by our unique life experiences and formation of beliefs, we are committed to our connection with the universal community of Christian faith through time. We are shaped by our dialogue with people who inspire us, as well as people who irritate us!
Our worship is shaped by that commitment to personal and corporate expressions of relationship with God. Each week as we gather, we find ways to grow in our everyday spiritual disciplines. Our worship style allows for a diversity of approaches to prayer. Some of us are aided in connection with God by prepared prayers and use of symbolic images, objects and acts. Some of us connect with God through corporate singing - which we do by linking up with celebration services in conventional churches in the weekend. Some of us worship God most meaningfully in active service in the home and community.
2. We value genuine relationships which are caring, generous and empowering, and which show integrity and mutual accountability.
It has been said that conventional churches tend to measure the quantity of relationships, while the house churches measure the quality of relationships. As a house church we have set out to measure our effectiveness by the capacity to foster authentic conversation in which we open ourselves to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. We don’t expect to stay the same.
Although many of us have been influenced by our engagement with the behavioural sciences, we ground our commitment to genuine relationships in the person of Jesus. The Uniting Church in Australia in its founding document, the Basis of Union, begins with Jesus Christ, the risen crucified one. As the fellowship of the Holy Spirit we confess Jesus as Lord over our own life, the beginning of a new humanity. Our commitment is to practically live out what that new humanity is about.
We see in Jesus the expression of God’s intention for servanthood (rather than grandiosity), generosity (rather than cynicism and acquisition of wealth), empowering leadership (rather than controlling leadership), integrity (rather than unthoughtful reflection of surrounding values), and mutual accountability (rather than self-righteousness).
So how does this translate into doctrine? Our belief in Jesus Christ affirms his reconciling work in the world, through his death and resurrection. The Uniting Church describes Jesus as the risen crucified one in whom God has taken away the world’s sin. But our doctrine of Christ goes beyond a one-off transaction that deals with sin. It’s this, and more. We believe that calling Jesus the Christ and referring to his reconciling work implies much more than preparing people for eternity in God’s presence in heaven. From a relational point of view, we perceive Jesus to be repairing the social fabric that has been marred by distorted expressions of humanity. We are called to be part of that transformation by learning, under his leadership, to be ‘relational church in the community’.
Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
I flew in to Melbourne from Brisbane on Friday night, so only got into The Factory (
I’m working through 
, edited by Mirsolav Volf and Dorothy Bass, 2002. Jones is a theologian with membership in a United Church of Christ congregation in New Haven.
