As kids growing up, one of the games we used to play was blowing Dandelion seeds from the Dandelion stalk and seeing how the wind took them. Great fun we thought but not Dad who had just dug half a dozen Dandelion weed plants out of his treasured lawn. However, that blowing in the wind game, where we do not know where the wind will take the seed or which will take root and grow, can I think act as a metaphor for how God transmits the gospel.
The cultural principle needed for our 21st century mission to local communities can be summed up with this slogan – ‘Their place, Their style, Their language, Their time’
And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand in the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
In this time of catastrophic and ongoing decline in Christianity in Australia, and the western world generally, simplistic assessments of church vitality will only compound our missional failure. What is actually needed is a forensic critical analysis of churches and the reasons for their long-term failure to make Disciples of Jesus in anything like the numbers required if there is to be any hope of reversing chronic trends of decline
The sun’s rim dips, the stars rush out, At one stride comes the dark’
“Hear this Word, this lament I have concerning you. I hate! I despise your religious gatherings; your church services are a stench to me. Even though you give money in the offering plate, or on-line, I will not accept it. Though you give offerings for special causes and occasions, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your praise songs! I will not listen to the music of your keyboards, drums and guitars. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
The current missional mindset of most local churches, and particularly of those in leadership, continues to be controlled by the assumption, even if subconsciously, that the goal is to reach a still-Christianised society living on what might be termed a ‘cultural Earth,’ whereas the reality is that most of Western society has changed address to a distant ‘cultural Pluto’. The failure to realise and respond to this is a major factor in the missional malaise
Our, now decades long, failure in meeting Jesus’ mandate to ‘make disciples’, will not be reversed until Christians and churches don’t just claim to be ‘bible believing’ but cease their use of the SBV, re-insert the word ALL into the Missionary Verse, and act on it.
‘Our shared morality, once the glue that held the social fabric together, is being torn apart’. Paul Kelly - 2nd March 2024․ *** Around a year ago I wrote this regarding our times; tragically it is even more relevant twelve months later – ‘In the West, we have arrived at Easter 2023 as a … Continue reading When the ‘Church’ Has Lost Its Way
The start of a new year is traditionally a time to reflect on the year ahead. To ask the question, what picture will we paint on this blank canvas of time that God has given us in the year of 2024? How does God want us to use the resources (paints) that he has given … Continue reading The ‘Good Thing’ or the ‘God Thing’ – That is the Question?
