Collaboration and Future Mission

1
Collaboration and Future Mission

• Revd Graham Jones
• National Rural Officer
• Methodist Church and United Reformed Church

2

• The Sufi Wise Woman Story

3
The Cavalry wont be coming!

• Youre on your own!
• but
• You have what is needed.

4
Not re-arranging the deckchairs

• How best are we to shape church relationships
  and activities to reflect the relational
  character of Gods Being and live in greater
  harmony with each other and with Creation?
• How does the church demonstrate the full
  potential of life in God through relationships
  built on patterns of radical equality and dynamic
  mutuality?

5
Is fair trade a good thing?

• Is collaboration a good thing?

6

• In the ecclesia of God it is never a question of
  whether we shall collaborate or not that is
  never the question. The question is how shall we
  do it so that the true character of the gospel of
  God shines forth more brightly.
• Bishop Stephen Pickard

7
The ministry of the baptized

• Church is
• a community gathered around a minister
• or
• a ministering community?

8
Critical Moves (Pickard)

• From
• fragmentation to integration
• mechanism to organism
• competition to co-operation
• non-relational to relational
• skills to character
• structure to energy
• servant to friend

9
Fragmentation to Integration

• Presbyters are not a caste outside the laos,
  they are a category within the laos. They are
  members of the laos who are placed in a
  particular pastoral relation to other members of
  the laos.
• Being a Priest Today
• Christopher Cocksworth and Rosalind Brown

10
Mechanism to Organism

• Ministry was a gift given by Christ to the Church
  from beyond, passed on via the apostles to the
  bishops with the weight of history on its side
  its authorisation is beyond human contingency and
  set above and over against the Body of Christ.
• or
• An integrated doctrine of ministry gives greater
  weight to organic metaphors to interdependence
  connectivity and cooperation ... all related to
  the central concept of the Church as the Body of
  Christ ... the riskier but open way of the Spirit
  that breathes new life into ancient forms.

11
Competition to Co-operation

• Constant tension between the two elemental drives
  of competition and co-operation.
• However, in our context, human society is geared
  to a market economy that thrives on competition.
  The competitive spirit is deeply encoded into our
  way of life economically, socially, politically
  and alas religiously.
• Where competition rather than cooperation
  dominates the scene, power will be skewed in
  unhealthy ways.

12
Competition to Co-operation

• Fragmentation and competition
• often go hand in hand.
• Integration and co-operation
• do so also.

13
Non-relational to Relational

• Ministry echoes the perichoretic (to dance
  around) life of God which is the deepest
  foundation for a collaborative ministry.
• Its about connectivity, about thinking together
  rather than apart, about living and acting
  mind-full of the other, indeed bent towards the
  other.
• Rublevs icon

14
Skills to Character

• In a fragmented, competitive, mechanistic
  environment questions of character and virtue
  will always be triumphed by skills and
  competencies.
• Integration, organic networked ministry and
  cooperative ventures need the kinds of people who
  know how to work openly and joyfully with others
  in a higher task.

15
Structure to Energy

• In times of significant upheaval, uncertainty and
  anxiety leaders default into structure not any
  kind of structure but pre-eminently new
  structure.
• What are the things that give life and energy to
  ministry?
• The great need is to shift the emphasis from
  structure to energy the collaborative ideal in
  ministry is a way of release of energy.

16
Servant to Friend

• Through the death of their friend the disciples
  become his friends forever ... they remain in the
  circle of his friendship when they keep his
  commandments and become friends of one another
  (Moltmann)
• Whats been constant with me is the importance
  of friendship. I think thats why God gave us
  Christ, to make us friends with God, and friends
  with each other. (Hauerwas)
• Ministry as friendship means being fully engaged
  with God, others, and ones self. (Zaragoza)

17
Future Ministry and Mission

• Ministry that is genuinely Christian is one that
  is collaborative.
• If ministry and mission are not genuinely
  collaborative then it remains questionable
  whether ministry and mission have a Christian
  future.
• It is only through a ministry that is
  collaborative in character that the bright
  mystery at the heart of faith can appear and
  transform the world.

18
Ultimately, its about POWER

• What the world needs is more circles and fewer
  pyramids. There is no up to go to in a circle,
  no crowning point upon which to plant a flag or
  stake a claim or build a throne. Pyramids assume
  a society of serfs, of peasants, of lackeys and
  underlings, of in-groups and out-groups, of
  higher and lower classes. Circles assume a
  society of equals ... they depend more on
  consensus than they do on control.
• Sister Joan Chittister

19

• 10 small rural churches
• 10 diverse and distinctive rural communities
• 1 full-time equivalent post
• Apart from that a clean slate!
• How would you collaborate for mission?