It’s now Day Two for the Forge Grassroots Mission Festival in Melbourne. Somewhere around 350 to 400 people have gathered from around Australia to catch up with each other and keep the cutting edge of the missional church movement sharp.
Al Hirsch was in full swing on Thursday, providing a bonus day of input for Forge interns and other interested visitors, talking through his book, The Forgotten Ways. Inspired by the early New Testament church experience, and that of the persecuted churches in China, Al talked about hallmarks of strong vital missional movements. Al spent a fair amount of time in the morning setting the scene for why the church needs to get its act together as incarnational and missional (being sent beyond itself). The afternoon was focused on developing common values, beliefs and practices expressed in practical ways.
Al reflected on the dangers of hierarchical approaches to church expressed in high views of ordination, and attempts to reproduce the Old Testament temple approach to worship. At the same time he expressed concern that ‘house church’ models were limited because they lacked the broadness of community found in the extended household models of the New Testament.
Al has spent the last year in the United States, on a speaking tour and working with leaders there. It was interesting to note his concern about the tendency of some emerging church leaders to lose a sense of confidence in the gospel. Moving past faith into doubt, Al suggested, would put the brakes on any sense of healthy movement. I’m not sure I agree with Al here. Yes, when we stop standing for anything positive we often stop looking beyond ourselves. But there is a season for reassessing and deconstructing before redeveloping expressions of faith that can be held with integrity and passion.
More to Come
It’s not too late to turn up at the Forge conference - at 488 Swanston Street, Carlton, Melbourne. I’ll be taking workshops in the afternoon on ‘post liturgical, post charismatic, post alt worship’, working with Cheryl Lawrie in the basement car park of the Uniting Church Centre, 380 Little Collins Street, 1.30 - 4.30 pm, Saturday and Sunday. Cheryl and team have set up a ’sacred space’ art installation with a focus on life in the city. In the same space Adrian Greenwood and the Praxis team have set up a cafe and exhibit focusing on ending sex traffic.
It’s been a fascinating couple of days in the Emerging Church international movement. Forge Missional Training Network distanced themselves from Emerging Church movements in the United States and UK in their response to DA Carson’s “Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church”.
Tuesday July 19
The pdf file, created at 6.52 am and modified 4.53 pm, titled: Don Carson and the Australian Missional Church Movement: A Forge response. The nine-page paper’s aim was to help frame responses to the various reactions brought about by Don Carson’s critique of Emergent and how it might have an effect of Forge’s ministry and that of the emerging missional church in Australia which Forge serves.
Wednesday July 20
The pdf file was posted, 11.05 pm, at Andrew Hamilton’s site, Backyard Missionary
Thursday July 21
received a copy of the file by Forge Queensland, 10.37 am.
4.26 pm Andrew Jones posts at Tall Skinny Kiwi
11.28 pm Tony Jones, Emergent National Co-ordinator expresses concern in comments at Backyard Missionary and Tall Skinny Kiwi. Alan Hirsch responds.
Friday July 22
1.16 Steve McCoy of Reformisssionary posts on Drawing Lines. and again at Emerging SBC Leaders.
2.09 am Stephen Shields gives his commentary at Emergesque.
9.20 am Jordon Cooper points out that despite advanced technology, we do a lousy job of talking to each other. What might have happened if Carson had sat down and talked with McLaren? What might Frost and Hirsch’s paper looked like if they’d included McLaren’s input? He’s since deleted the post.
9.25 am Andrew Hamilton places an apology from Alan Hirsch and withdraws the pdf.
9.43 am Subversive Influence post
4.30 pm I finally get to read the document I’d printed out earlier. I post something here and then discover the conversation’s happened already. I delete the post when I get home later in the evening.
In the meantime, I finally manage to read Brian McLaren’s “The Last Word and the Word After That”, and start on Don Carson’s “Becoming Conversant”. Reviews coming when I’m finished.
There’s an interesting conversation going on at Signposts, sparked by a post by Canadian Leighton LeBay reviewing John Bevere’s model of APEPT in charismatic churches at TheHeresy.com.
Alan Hirsch, in Leighton’s comments, restates his belief that at least a five-fold ministry model is prescribed by the Ephesians 4 passage. This is consistent with Alan’s approach in the book, The Shaping of Things to Come (of which I bought 15 copies today!)
Dan of Signposts in Melbourne wonders if the focus on ‘apostolic leadership’ may have negative consequences for the church as a whole. She makes a link with her earlier questions on women in leadership.
Steve Taylor, Emergent Kiwi, comments that the APEPT model is one of the more problematic things he’s come across in the emerging church conversation. He says that one small section of Ephesians is not enough to build a prescriptive model of leadership for the New Testament churches let alone the 21st Century churches in all their diversity. I agree.
Steve refers to Andrew Clarke’s “Serve the Community of the Church: Christians as Leaders and Ministers“. Clarke examines leadership in the Graeco-Roman society, at city, voluntary associations, family, household, and Jewish synagogues. Clarke takes us through the many models of leadership found in the New Testament. Corinth was a community wavering between being boastful of its leaders and being divided over them. The church in Rome was a community of leaders preoccupied with status. The church in Philippi was a church preoccupied with politics. Leadership outlined in Pauline writing was in fact a response to the socio-economic settings of each city.
I think we need to commission and welcome people with leadership that goes beyond the local congregation. Obviously I’m biased as my role as mission consultant includes aspects of apostolic and prophetic ministry. But I would be very very reluctant to limit leadership roles to the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher brackets. I’m with Steve Taylor on this. I’m sure we need to move out of a dependence on ‘clergy’. But we also need to recognise the huge varieties of leadership styles and frameworks God uses in churches around the world.
Homer Paxton, internet troll extraordinaire, asks in Dan’s comments how apostles and prophets get to be chosen. My response…
From the evidence of The Didache the early church found it difficult to work out which prophets and apostles were to be recognised. Just like now, there was no shortage of people who made a living out of travelling around with the message of the Lord. Many were genuine. Some were spongers. And so the paragraph quoted here from the Didache:
“Concerning the apostles and prophets, so do according to the ordinance of the Gospel. Let every apostle, when he comes to you, be received as the Lord; but he shall not abide more than a single day, or if there be need, a second day. If he abides three days, he is a false prophet. When he departs let the apostle receive nothing except bread, until he finds shelter; but if he ask for money, he is a false prophet.”
Steve refers to Andrew Clarke’s “
