Big Conversation

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Big Conversation
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Why Start a new Church?

• Authenticity
• Get back to true Christianity vs a wayward church
  
• Relevance
• Get church back in touch with wider culture
• Mission
• Re-engage with the world, and reach into new areas

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Changing Posture of Church
True Christianity
Nominal Christianity
Nominal Christianity
come
go
Secular Pluralist Western Culture
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Culture Shift
We have moved from an Age of DOUBT to an Age of
SUSPICION
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Forming Belief
Doubt FACTS influence BELIEF influences BE
HAVIOUR
Suspicion EXPERIENCE influences BEHAVIOUR inf
luences BELIEF
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Culture Shift

• When Christianity is one voice amongst many, how
  are people to decide who to believe?
• How do you communicate in a culture that is
  characterised by suspicion?
• What are the consequences of communicating in the
  old way?

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Experience

• Relationships
• Emotions
• Senses

What you experience right now is your reality
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Authenticity
Failure is authentic, and because it is
authentic, its real and genuine, and because of
that, its a pure state of being Heather in
Hey, Nostradamus by D Coupland
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Authenticity
Authenticity is the only authority in a 21st
Century world
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Cultural Shifts
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Communication Shifts
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Communication Shifts
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Communication Shifts
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Communication Shifts
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newsmap
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www.tenbyten.org
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Communication Shifts
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Communication
What communication changes have you observed in
churches? How did those changes reflect and
influence their theology/thinking?
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Communication
What are the implications of a digital age on
cultural expectations?
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What are the implication of a digital age on
cultural expectations?
non-hierarchical
peer-to-peer
communal
interactive
fluid
simulation
trust is authority
democratic
fast
random
participatory
diverse
voluntary
multi-media
note rebuilt oral culture
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Communication
What then is the role of the teacher in an age
where all information can be googled?
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Wisdom
Wisdom is the new evangelism Bishop Graham Cray
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Community
Our worship gatherings are not meant to be shows
or concerts. They are designed as interactive
experiences. We invite participants to join in,
share what they have, and take a piece of what
those around have to give. Reimagining Spiritual
Formation, Doug Pagitt
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Community
The community embodies the Christian narrative,
the unchurched step into the narrative, the
narrative grasps them even as they grasp it, and
eventually the individual embodies the reality of
the churchs story as he chooses to live his life
from the standpoint of the community of
faith Younger Evangelicals, Robert Webber
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You (pl) are the body of Christ
to say the church is the body of Christ is to
affirm the church is the continuation of the
presence of Jesus in the world its life is
sustained by the energy of the Spirit there is
a divine side and a human side to the church
In this sense the church does not have a
mission, it is mission, by its very existence in
the world. Robert Webber, Younger Evangelicals
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Re-modelling Church
Bounded Set
Centred Set
Scope of focus
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Community
What does it mean to say that we should be
church rather than do church?
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Discuss
Church practices are accommodations to a society
that no longer exists Being alternative is a
poor strategy for change though it may help you
feel better
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Features of a Missional Community

• Engaged
• The people we know those we reach out to
• With the realities of our world
• Distinct
• the world is waiting to see what Christianity
  would really be like if people lived it
• Inclusive
• Jesus offended the religious by his radical
  acceptance of the sinner

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Cultural Shifts