Reflections on the last audioconference

To my wonderful students: Once again I want to thank you for engaging so vigorously in discussion. I found the discussion last night to be very interesting. I was moved by the eloquence of your words, particularly on the subjects of hospitality and worship. What surprised me most was the diversity in the definitions of the missional church. I wish we could have another conversation to continue to hash the components of a good definition.

For me the definition has to include the missio dei, the sending of the Son and the Spirit for the redemption of the world. So perhaps I would define the missional church as a community of Christ's followers who take seriously their call to engage with the mission of the triune God in Christ and through the power of the Spirit.

Keep thinking and exploring these issues! Blessings to you all.

Thank you

I have just done the final count on the blog posts and have read or re-read the last batch of posts. I am so grateful for your engagement with each other and with the course material. I am humbled by your stories of faithfulness in congregational settings. I'm challenged by your questions. Thank you so very much for giving time and energy to this endeavor. I'm very much looking forward to our last evening together on Monday night.

I thought of another question for the last audioconference. Do you think the missional church is a fad or do you think it has lasting value for the Church in Aotearoa?

Last audioconference and last assignment

I've been thinking about our last audioconference, and I'd like to leave some time at the end for us to propose and discuss possible definitions of "missional church." So I invite you do to some thinking between now and then about how you would respond if someone came up to you and said, "You've been taking a paper on the missional church. After studying it for a semester, how would you describe what it is?"

For the last assignments, please email them to me as well as mail them in. That will help me with the marking.

I'm still enjoying your blog posts. Keep up the great work!

New blog posts here

Please use the "comments" link under this blog post for your own posts from now on. I welcome comments on any topic this week. Some suggestions are more thoughts about teams in the missional church and the relevance of the missional church for Aotearoa New Zealand.

As I said in the audioconference on Monday, I'm going to count everyone's posts and let you know how many I think you have (by putting a slip of paper in the envelope with assigment 2 when I send it back). On May 23 at 9 a.m. I'm going to do the final count of blog posts and your mark will be based on the number of posts you have made by that time.

Thanks so much for all your interesting comments. I have really enjoyed reading the blog posts. Be sure to read all the posts under my April 28 post because they're quite interesting.

Fresh Expressions website

Jan Clark sent me a link to a website you may be interested in. It is billed as a website for practitioners of Fresh Expressions. Take a look:
http://www.sharetheguide.org/