A Radical Vision
The NSW Moderator has implored his church to start selling its underutilised churches, manses and halls and give the proceeds to the poor and disadvantaged.
Faced with dwindling congregations and conceding the church could all but disappear in 30 years, the Reverend Niall Reid says the church should let go of its “holy, sacred spaces as beautiful as they may be” and work to establish an “underground” community of faithful that connects with the spiritually needy in pubs, on beaches and in shopping malls.
His radical vision was presented at the NSW Synod’s annual meeting last weekend and comes as the church recently valued its property assets including schools and aged care facilities at $3.9 billion. With land, the assets of the church could be double that.
Read what the Sydney Morning Herald wrote on this here
Why do we want children?
I’ve recently been wondering: why do we want children part of our church community? What is the purpose of children’s ministry? And how can we meet this purpose through family ministry?
When I ponder my first question the cynic in me sometimes entertains the thought that some churches want children in their church to fill in the space and give them hope that their church will continue on the way that they created it beyond their life time. However, I’m snapped back in to reality when I see the likes of many family ministries like those in the western suburbs of Adelaide who have many playgroups which meet the needs of families in their area and then go the step further to create a day of festivities, completely free to the public specifically catering for families. Playgroup in the Park is all about the families and showing them love. Then I see ministries such as that close to the city who run a day camp for primary aged children in the school holidays. They provide respite for tired parents, fun for bored kids and care and love and a glimpse of Jesus for everyone attending. I see these examples in the country as well with amazing music and playgroup programs in the South East. The truth is we have some great ministries, not programs, which meet the needs of our community. Are these ministries the answer to my third question?
I better not get ahead of myself. Why do we want children part of our church community? The Uniting Church sums up what we believe Church is about in our vision statement “We seek to be an innovative, growing church proclaiming Jesus Christ, empowered by the Spirit to transform God’s world.” In my mind this translates to us having something to offer the world. What do we have to offer?
1. We have a Lord who anyone, regardless of age, gender, social status, can personally connect with. We offer this Lord by introducing children to him through teaching, prayer and worship.
2. We have faith in a God that is life giving. We can live out this faith through mission, service and fighting for justice in the world.
3. We have love, care and support.
These aspects of our community are so amazing, we should want this type of community for our children to participate, experience and learn from. However, I fear that some of us have been living with these aspects for so long, that we become desensitised to how amazing they truly are. Some of us have got caught up running a church instead of being church. And our creativity in some areas has fizzled, making it hard to create new ways of celebrating the amazing attributes that we have.
So now that we have briefly explored why we want to involve children in our church we should look at the purpose for ministering with families. I would argue that the reason we want them part of our church may also be the purpose for which we minister to them. To disciple, to help children live out their beliefs and faith, and to care for them. We want them to have the best.
The emergent church would look at needs in the community and help provide for them. Maybe this is something that the church could do in ministering with families? One example of this is playgroups where we can offer discipleship by demonstrating in our own actions who Jesus is. If participants want to take it further we need to be prepared to share our faith and knowledge as well as provide appropriate resources. We can live out what we believe with playgroup families by enabling them to participate in mission. Simple things like shoe box of love appeal is one simple way of doing this, there are many others. Pastoral care is so easy to do through playgroups as many families need support. This can be simply through allowing them time to talk, or providing meals when they are going through a rough time, or connecting them with appropriate community services to meet their needs. And just like that we have met the purpose of church. We have invited people into our community and offered them what we have.
This is simply one way we can be church with families, feel free to add your own ideas of how you believe it can be done. I know that there are plenty of examples of how this is done during Sunday worship as well as during the week in the community. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and insights.
Heidi Harding
Church as minority
Whether we like it or not, the Christian church is no longer a central part of most people’s lives and is now a ‘minority group’ in Australian society. That means we are at risk of doing what minority groups do – building enclaves to preserve our language, culture, music and beliefs. It’s the same process for migrants in a new country and it is important in that context especially where people have migrated out of ‘necessity’ for example as refugees. Maintaining culture in those settings is vital as culture is an essential part of identity, an identity which may have been oppressed or resulted in victimisation presenting the need to migrate or seek asylum in the first place.
It is normally the second generation migrants who as young people, begin to venture out into the ‘mainstream’ society and find themselves developing a ‘mosaic’ identity with components from the old and the new. This is where conflict begins to develop between them and their elders as they begin to talk and act in way their parents are unable to relate to.
Tony Floyd, Director of Multi-cultural Ministry with the Uniting Church talked about this in his recent visit to Adelaide. Tony indicated that it is second generation young people who are suggesting a new paradigm for multi-cultural ministry. One which has an awareness of the multiple factors which go into forming identity and begins with the common element identified in many faiths and cultures, that of Spirit. While we may have been accustomed to starting our conversations with Christ as the centre, this new paradigm suggests that we begin with Spirit as a way of building connection and shared identity with others.
So how does this relate to the church as a minority in society? Well for starters there’s the challenge to ourselves about the ‘enclaves’ we might be tempted to build. Yes maintaining culture is an important part of identity. The language, ritual, music which are part of our tradition, assist in forming our identity. But if we are going to engage with, walk beside and serve in a society where identity is plural, it will only be possible for us to ‘be Christ’ in that setting if we are open and accepting and inclusive of the other. If we go with a preparedness to learn, to listen and to be changed by our encounters, then I would suggest we have the opportunity to ‘be Christ’ wherever we go. But if we go thinking we have all the answers and that it is for us to convince others of that then we may as well stay in our enclaves.
Spirit, God, Christ. It reminds me of the ‘inclusion, control, acceptance’ model presented by David Augsburger from Fuller Theological College on his recent visit to Adelaide. Connect with others through Spirit, the ‘common’, inclusive element which may be expressed through art, a love for the outdoors, physical activity or time in community. Spirit – who some understand as the breath of God, who with that breath forms life. Life which matters and which has the capacity to act, to influence, to make a difference. That’s the ‘control’ part of the model, the part when we listen and encourage others to express their identity and their capacity for influencing the world around them. And then Christ, the one who showed that no matter what your identity is or what others say about you or what you do, you are loved and accepted for who you are.
In Search of Faith
Here’s a fascinating project: visit 52 churches in one year and report on the findings. That is some church crawl! And it is exactly what novelist Suzanne Strempek Shea did. Her findings were published in April this year as a book Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith. When Pope John Paul II died in 2005 Suzanne, who had turned away from the Catholic Church of her childhood, saw in his mourners a faith filled passion that she wanted to find for herself. For one year she attended different non-Catholic services across America. She wanted to learn what makes the denominations differ and different from the Catholicism she was raised in, and to understand more about faith and why people go to church.
Near the end of the book she writes, ” the past year has distilled for me the qualities I’d need in a new church home: a community that welcomed me warmly, didn’t give a whit about my politics or lifestyle, gave tons of whits about the social justice needs locally and beyond, contained little-to-no hierarchy, allowed congregants a say in decisions large and small offered a spiritual message inspired by love rather than fear, and did all this in an art-filled space that rang with awesome music.”
A reviewer of this book on the Amazon.com site says this: “By the end of this book I felt I had not only traveled roads to outlandish and inspiring places, but I also felt I had reached a personal revelation of what spirituality could be, whether or not it was tied to a religion, a creed, or a parcel of dogma. As I read I was amused, astonished, and sometimes shocked by the types of worship she observed, and ultimately I had to admit I was profoundly moved by what she showed me about faith and belief. For when we witness others’ faith, we allow our own to grow. “
The book can be purchased from Amazon. com I dont think it is available in Australia yet.
Posted by Louise
Comments on the Pope’s visit
Two articles commenting on the recent visit of the Pope to Australia:
1. Written by Associate Professor Andrew Dutney, senior lecturer in theology at Flinders University and director of the university’s Centre for Theology, Science and Culture.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,,24047541-5006301,00.html
2. Written by Alexander Downer who was Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister, 1996-2007.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,,24085821-22202,00.html
Posted by Charlene
Virtual Church
Good Morning folks,
A really interesting article from this week’s Christianity Today ’s Leadership Weekly Newsletter Leadership Journal on virtual church and the significant number of people who are plugging into this form of religious expression. The article had a three minute U Tube Link which gave an intro to one of the sites.
Shalom
Matt
There is another life beyond this one: a realm where one’s role on earth is a distant memory, where inhabitants have new bodies and can fly anywhere they like. It sounds a bit like heaven. But it’s not. It’s cyberspace.
from the article: The First Church of second Life:What is the role of real Christians in a virtual world? by Angie Ward
Read the whole article here
Visit Second Life’s website here
