A background to urban evangelism and church growth

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A background to urban evangelism and church
growth
Chester Diocese 2012
The Sheffield Centre Church Armys Research unit
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1 Its harder than it used to be

• Some of you said so
• How do we know?
• What measures might tell us?
• What images might illustrate this

Yet positively, our urban contexts, that can seem
barren, may be the very seedbeds for finding
shapes to post-Christendom mission and church
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Tough because of Church disconnected
10 Regular at church Attend monthly or more
40 The Non-Churched Never have come
10 Irregular at church Attend less than monthly
20 are open to come back
40 The De-Churched Used to come but dont now.
Adults in England
20 are never coming back!
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Its more serious than we thought ENGLAND
Church attendance and experience segmentation in
2006
Regular churchgoers (at least monthly)14 5.9m
Fringe churchgoers(less often but at least 6x
yr. ) 3 1.4m
Other religions 7 3.0m
Unassigned 2 1.0m
Closednon-churched 33 13.7m
Occasionalchurchgoers(less often but at least
annually) 7 2.9m
Open de-churched 5 1.9m
Closedde-churched 26 10.8m
Opennon-churched 1 0.5m
Base Adults 16 in England (unw. 5907 w. 5774)
Popn (000s) 41,043
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Dont think itll get better
Most existing churches are not aware of this, nor
shaped to meet it 76 of converts came from
the dechurched
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Some C of E indicators
NB In which decade is decline faster?
change 1980 2000
change 1990-2000
change 1980-90
PCC Voltry Income
Stipend Clergy
The variety of fringe contacts are declining
faster than the core membership indicators
Contacts with those under 35 are in steepest
decline
Adult attend
Electoral Rolls
Easter HC
Baptisms
Xmas HC
Child Attendance
Marriages
Confirmations
Child lt16
Bob Jackson, Hope for the Church p. 2 put in a
different order
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Why so tough A new Mission Context
We are in a radically new situation and cannot
dream either of a Constantianian authority or of
a Pre-Constantianian innocence Bishop Lesslie
Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p.
224
There hasnt been a mission field like ours
before George Lings Church Army Researcher
There is no precedent for a mission to a culture
that thought it had been converted when it hadn't
and then publicly discarded the Christian
faith. Harold Turner Senior New Zealand
Missiologist
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An image - the going of Come
From the 4th century in the west, the surrounding
culture brought people to the door of the Church.
What brought them ? Baptisms / Weddings /
Funerals Questions of life / Pastoral
Crises Our church we dont go to Coming back to
values or past known Church

• The mission task was
• Respond well to their requests
• Take them, from enquiry to commitment

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The coming - of Going
?
With the ending of Christendom, and onset of
secularisation, the culture no longer brings
people to the door of the Church.

• Few churches
• have experience of this profoundly different
  shape to mission
• know how to travel out from Church in go mode
• can envisage how to be fresh imaginings of
  church - at the end of the journey

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Consequences

• Evangelism changing and becoming a longer process
• Mission having to start further back
• Church looking more culturally distanced
• Choosing different starting points from the past

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Process evangelism getting jumpy

• How many find it starts for back enough?
• How many find it conveys people all the way to
  commitment and joining existing church?

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Some barriers to church
What are you finding where you are?

• Are they
• Cultural
• Educational
• Social
• Spiritual
• Image
• Peer pressure

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Bridges but how much progress really?

• Fair or unfair?

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2 Some ways forward

• A The draw of authentic community

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Choices of where to start
Target Group
Or Mission Cotext
Starting Place
Relational evangelism
Community theirs ours
Worship
Apology
Climate
Style
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Ways forward cont

• B High tolerance of mess in church life

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Expect church mess
We love it tidy and ordered, but
Luther re the Christian Simul justus et
peccator In English that means
simultaneously justified and a sinner
cf Rom 7 vs 15-end What is church made
of ? only these ingredients
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Why should we expect mess ?

• 1 Because of Creation and Fall

And

• Everything is partial, incomplete, provisional
• Even lots of Church doctrine has been reactive

Those in glass churches should not throw stony
theology
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Why expect the incomplete ?

• 2 Because of the nature of the Kingdom

Already the kingdom of God is near you
Luke 109 Not yet when you pray say Your
Kingdom come Luke 112
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The Now and Not Yet of the Kingdom
It affects how we understand Salvation Spiritual
ity Inner purity
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The Now and Not Yet of the Kingdom
It affects how we understand Salvation
We find three tenses used in the NT I
have been saved from the penalty of sin I am
being saved from the power of sin I will be
saved from the presence of sin
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The Now and Not Yet of the Kingdom
It affects how we understand Spirituality -
starting sustaining the God relationship I
have begun that journey I am very aware of how
far there is to go I will be finally fully
united with Him
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The Now and Not Yet of the Kingdom
It affects how we understand Inner Purity -
living out the Sermon on the Mount I have
accepted these are Jesus values I am painfully
aware of my inner thoughts I will be, one day,
whole in mind
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The Now and Not Yet
If mess, provisionality and incompleteness affect
how we understand and how we experience Kingdom
Salvation Spirituality Inner purity
Why dont we apply that to church life
behaviour too?
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Life at St Leonards Norfolk Park
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Questions to ask
Go for life transformation not sin management

• Dont think how are they doing?
• Rather ask
• Where did they come from?
• What are the signs of transforming grace?
• What is God calling them to?

Whats so amazing about Grace not whats so
dreadful about sin
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Ways forward cont

• C Expect stages like stepping stones

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Welcome to the Anston villages
North
South
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Stepping Stones - early days
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Stepping Stones further on
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Still Stepping out .
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Making it up as we go along ?

• Of course thats research

• Of course thats missionary

• Of course were in a new context

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Ways forward cont
D start something else

• A major limitation pressure on leaders

Can we invent what we need and preserve what we
already have?
Rising competition well go elsewhere
Draining people
Rising Standards
Value for Money
Rising Expectation
Widening Roles
Burning Out
Helps Free lay leaders Use another day Use low
control with high accountability
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Can we start something else? pt 2
Old sheep dogs and new tricks?
High above the crowd, Rex tried to remain
focussed, still he couldnt shake one nagging
thought He was an old dog and this was a new
trick.
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Ways forward cont

• E Learn from others
• Livability
• Urban Expression
• Faithworks
• Effective Church Presence and Enterprise Project
  2008
• Eden Projects

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Planning to succeed?The building blocks of a
great community project

• 360 Practice

Jon Kuhrt, Adam Bonner David Arscott, Livability
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Equipping Christians to transform communities

• Direct work with churches talks, workshops,
  evaluations and consultancy
• Website www.communitymission.org.uk
• Training events
• Resources and booklets

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Urban Expression

• is an urban mission agency that recruits,
  equips, deploys and networks self-financing teams
  pioneering creative and relevant expressions of
  the Christian church in under-churched areas of
  the inner city.

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Inner-city church planting

• What is different?
• What can be learnt?
• What methods are needed?
• What does this teach us about future church?

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Ways forward cont..

• The basis of our hope
• Not our strategies
• Not even loving service and good community
• Encounter with Christ which transforms people
• The work of the Spirit leading to fruit
• changed lives
• gifts and ministries discovered
• further Christians
• more Christian communities

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Do not despise the day of small things

• Zechariah 410
• a word in relation to only foundations being
  laid
• In the NT
• The widows mite
• The five loaves and two fish
• Become like a child

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Jesus different pictures of his people

• Salt
• Yeast

• The city set on a hill
• The lamp on the stand

Values Gathered Visible Attracting
Values Dispersed Invisible Subverting
We are free to use all of them which suit best
after Christendom?