My overall experience of Big Tent was very positive once again. This time I got more out of the fellowship and encouragement (worship especially) than out of the workshops themselves. I feel like they were focused on an introduction to 1001 and I feel like I'm already well down that path. Perhaps some presenters outside the PCUSA or some "advanced" workshops for folks already on the journey of planting an NWC would have been more helpful.
Big Tent Keynote 1
Frank Yamada, President of McCormick Seminary
Putting God’s First Things First
Matt 6:33 – Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, then all these
things shall be added unto you.
Frank asked the question, “How do we put God’s first things
first?”
He talked quite a bit about distractions and how they take
us away from the true purpose of life.
He mentioned Csiksentmihalyi’s concept of flow in which a person is so
engaged in a task and is working at optimal productivity that time seems to
suspend. We might call it being “in the
zone.” He said attention and focus turn
us into extraordinary creatures. But he
said the enemy of attention and focus is worry and distraction. “You cannot serve 2 masters” meaning you
cannot focus on a task and a distraction at the same time. “Do not worry about what you eat, what you
will drink, what you will wear…” Worry
is a distraction. Here he defined worry
as something over which we have no control.
(I began to ponder what are the things we worry about that distract
us. Is it our meals? Our drinks?
Our clothes? Is it security? Status?)
Frank went on to say
that idolatry is putting our focus on the wrong God. He also made a metaphor that I distraction is
a seed, then worry is the soil, and social pressure is the greenhouse. When we are in a society the puts pressure to
value the wrong things, and when we are preoccupied by things that we have no
control over, then we are prone to distraction.
He also said that he thought Jesus’ use of metaphors from
creation was appropriate here. The birds
do not worry about what they will eat.
The lilies do not worry about what they will wear. Etc.
He said that creation is fundamentally good, in fact it is very good
(Genesis 1 and 2). And above all, the
creation story and creation itself tells us that we have value in God’s
eyes. He said that the thing which we
worry about most and are distracted by most is our value and how we measure our
value and if we recognize how valuable we are to God we will be able to avoid
distraction on focus.
“The simplicity of the gospel is a salve for an overly
complex, distracted world.”
Workshop 1
Evangelism and Justice (Compassion, Peace and
Justice Track)
Joseph Johnson, Chair of Self-development of People
The premise of this workshop was to address the dichotomy
that we observe in the mainline church between justice and evangelism. Does it have to be that way? Why is it that way?
We started by looking at Mark 1:14-2:12
The
world was sick. The teachers were boring
and hypocritical. The people were
desperate. And they had never seen the
power of the gospel. Joseph said it was
a massive criticism of the people of God of the time that, when Jesus told the
man to get up and walk and he did, the people said, “We have never seen anything
like this!” Joseph asked, “What were
they doing all that time??!?”
We talked about what the word repent means and how we don’t
really use it. What do we have to repent
of? What was Jesus calling to repent
of? What is repentance? Joseph suggested that repenting was more a
changing of orientation rather than a changing of action. He proposed (borrowing from Bruggeman) that
to repent is to “Stop accepting as normal the narrative of chaos. The way we have been told the world is is
wrong.”
(Here he did some interested exegesis of some bible
passages. When Jesus said the poor will
always be with you, the emphasis was on you.
Meaning, if you’re doing justice and evangelism, the poor will come and
find you. He also talked about a living
wage and how the parable of the workers in the vineyard was really not about
how long the workers had worked but about the owner realizing what they
needed. The justice wasn't equal pay for
equal work, it was giving people what they needed to live.)
Ultimately, the bottom line of the workshop was the idea
that justice and evangelism are both encapsulated in the idea of being good
news to people. When we build
relationships, when we help and serve, when we love, then we are doing justice
and evangelism.
Joseph said we should not be ashamed to say we come and
serve in the name of Jesus.
Some questions to ask of a community that we’re trying to
minister to?
“What is God’s good news for this community?” “What are the sickness, death, leprosy, and
demons in the community?”
More ideas from Bruggeman: “Evangelism is the authorizing of
people to give up false and distorted stories of life and reality in exchange
for the biblical narrative as the defining story of life and reality.”
“Justice is the liberation from that which destroys and
oppresses and the destruction of the corresponding systems. This is good news to all who are under the
yoke of those systems.”
Lunch Panel
Vera White – Former AEP of Pittsburgh Pres. over NCD’s (and
a bunch of other stuff)
Dylan – Elder at Hot Metal Bridge
Steve Yamaguchi – Executive of Los Ranchos Presbytery
I wasn’t taking notes since I was busy eating, but a couple
of things that resonated for me from this panel:
·
A new church development/new worshipping
community needs to be given permission and to help accountable. It may seem like a contradiction, but they
need to space to try new things and to fail, but they also someone to say, “You
say you believe in this. How are you
putting that into action?”
·
It’s all about call. No amount of seminary training, experience,
people, or money can replace call.
People who want to plant NWC’s because it’s cool or because they’re
burnt out on institutional church will not succeed.
·
It’s hard work.
It requires sacrifice.
The Anglican church talked about mixed economy
of church – it’s not that the inherited church (established) is bad or failing
and the fresh expressions of church (new plants) are good or successful. The church needs to be expressed in different
ways in different contexts for any of it to work. When new plants are successful, they inspire
inherited churches to rekindle their love.
Plenary 1
1001 overview
There
wasn’t much here that hasn’t been on the website or discussed before. If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably
familiar with the 1001 initiative.
Some interesting takes on 1001
Jerry
Beavers talked about UKirk, a movement to start 101 of the 1001 NWC’s on
college campuses and the transformed understanding of campus ministry to be
about community, relationship, and mission instead of program.
Plenary 2
1001 for mid-councils
Steve
Yamaguchi talked some more about fresh expressions in the UK. He said, “The most important thing a
presbytery can do to support a NWC is take the pastor out to lunch once a
month.” There was also some discussion
of the role of the NWC leader and specifically about his/her training. It’s often not an ordained teaching elder,
but a Commissioned Ruling Elder or even a “lay person” wanting to start a community. It’s important that they have the theological
anchor, but perhaps the role of the teaching elder is changing. Maybe the teaching elder is becoming the
“theologian in residence” while the pastor can be a ruling elder or someone
else. (I’ve always thought it was
strange that we require/expect our pastors to be teachers, preachers,
caregivers, administrators, evangelists, scholars, accountants, and leaders,
not to mention plumbers, construction workers, day care workers, etc.)
Hector
Rodriguez, Marisa Galvan, and Lionel <something> talked about some of the
particular challenges of NWC’s with racial/ethnic minorities and immigrant
communities.
The grand conclusion was “There is no silver bullet
model. You cannot skip the work of being
with the people, getting to know them, and loving them.”
Ray Jones – Evangelism Coordinator
Disciple making for NWC’s
How do we make disciples?
- If we develop disciples, we will get the church, but if we simply try to start a church/structure, we won’t necessarily get disciples. Discipleship is about intentional relationships in which we walk alongside other disciples in order to equip, encourage, and challenge one another in love to grow toward maturity in Christ.
- Invest in core leaders through engaging scripture, one another, prayer
- Ray’s question to a PNC: Would the leadership of the church be willing to meet every week around word, share, prayer? Or at least twice a month?
- Invest in community/prayer walks
- Invest in people in the community – invite them into our meals, our lives, our service, our prayers
- How discipleship works
- Information – teaching, theology, ecclesiology, history
- Imitation* – Mentoring, close relationships, life on life, authenticity
- Innovation – New person in our life, new community speaking to us, new ministry idea, etc…
- “When we engage our stories and God’s story, we grow in our need for Jesus’ resources. Discipleships becomes the way in which we are nurtured in our faith and equipped for God’s mission. Through worship, prayer, scripture, fellowship, and spiritual practices, we are encouraged and challenged to live Jesus’ way.”
- 5 gifts from Ephesians 4: Apostleship (starting things), evangelism (heart for reaching people for Christ), prophetic voice (course correction), shepherds, teachers
Acts 17:16-34
We went over Paul's sermon in the areopagus and his work leading up tho that point:
- Starts in the synagogue – we have to start with ourselves and get equipped
- Into the marketplace – he wins the right to be heard
- His heart broke because of all the idols
- Is authentic and respectful
- Goes to the meeting where they talk about ideas
- Authentic preaching
- Meets them in their context (the unknown God)
- 3 results as determined by the Holy Spirit: Some sneer, some want to know more, some become followers
Acts 2:42-47
- Teaching
- Prayer
- Koinonia
- Worship
- Breaking bread together
- Hold all things in common
Ray talked about the 3 movements of discipleship:
Doxological (Up), koinonial (in), missional (out)
He showed us a video – what are you looking for as you go
about your life?
What about existing congregations?
Ann Philbrick
The question Ann sought to address was the role of existing congregations in the 1001 NWC movement. In particular, a lot of existing congregations complain that we're putting all this effort into these new NWC's when they are struggling.
(Somewhere during the weekend, the terminology of "inherited churches" and "fresh expressions of church" was introduced, which I thought was helpful in showing that these two types of church are not opposed to one another).
NWC's are our R&D Lab – our decline as a denomination is directly
correlated with our cessation of new church plants.
Fruitfulness – From a biological perspective, fruit is not
just a sweet apple, but another tree. A
fruitful apple tree results in another apple tree.
Launching and supporting is not a matter of size, it’s a
matter of inspiration and imagination.
Ann used a couple clips for Toy Story to illustrate her points:
Toy Story – the universal search for belonging and purpose (Woody and Buzz realize they are toys and they belong to Andy and their purpose is to love and be loved by Andy.) Faith
sharing is telling the story of God loving and claiming us.
Toy Story 2 – Woody faced the decision between being loved by Andy and
eventually being discarded or being preserved exactly the way he is in a museum. For Jessie, the decision was to be vulnerable to love and be
loved again.
This is the same struggle for congregations.
You may have to start with internal evangelism. Do our people still remember their love for God and the purpose in the world? Ann said, "The problem with our churches is they have more memories
than dreams."
What will motivate your people? Dreams?
Threats? Scares? Theology?
Creating a sense of urgency/sell the problem.
Engaging Discipleship
Stan Ott – Acts 16:5 Initiative
Ed. note: By this point in the conference I was having trouble retaining information, so here's what I wrote but I don't exactly remember what a lot of it means.
The woman with internal bleeding: “Are you touching Jesus?”
How do we grow each other and ourselves in discipleship?
First, how are we doing?
Not so well.
In PCUSA, men who were 60 showed no more love for God than
20 year old men. Women did (because they
weren’t working), but now women’s spiritual growth is the same (bad).
Everything we do today to make disciples, we did 40 years ago. Sunday school, choir, youth programs, camps
and conferences.
“The twentieth century is the name of a train that no longer
runs.”
Flux. Discontinuous
change. Things change rapidly and
unpredictably.
Some things don’t change.
The love of the God who sustains us.
The love of the people of God who encourage us. Our love for those to whom God sends us.
“In times of rapid change, what you know can mislead you.”
Some things will fail, which is okay. You have to be willing to experiment.
Toxic: “I told you it wouldn’t work.”
Neutralize advocacy, emphasize inquiry. (We don’t already know the answer. If we did, we wouldn’t have the problem.)
Americans are stupefyingly dumb about what they are supposed
to believe.” – Prothero
Why focus on discipleship?
A: You hear the word of Jesus and know the heart of Jesus
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to
me. Therefore, The great
commission.
The heart – Jesus was moved with compassion
People eyes – what do you see when you look at someone? Can you really see the hurt of the people in
around you. Who do you see around
you? Who do you ignore?
“Your programs will not outlive you, but the people you have
developed will.”
Growing disciples with an end in mind – having a well-attended
church/program is not the end.
Discipleship is the end. What are
the 20 or so things that someone needs to know to be a healthy, mature
disciple? THEN what are the things we’re
going to do to get them there? Acts
4:13=> from programs to relationships.
3 areas of Christian growth – loving God and being loved by
God, loving and being loved by church, loving and being loved by world
(Doxological, Koinonial, and missional).
The great commandment, the great commission, and the new commandment.
Discipleship a lifestyle to be lived before it is a program
to be run.
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