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?
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Examples of Interesting Blogs
Students' Blogs
- Amos Muzondiwa's blog
- Andrew Howley's blog
- Annette Cater's blog
- Annika Hinze's blog
- Carolyn Tregea's blog
- Derik Kotze's blog
- Joe Hogan's blog
- John Patteson Ngalihesi
- Julie Harper's blog
- Linda King's blog
- Moka Taleni's blog
- Pete Watson's blog
- Ross McComish's blog
- Shar Davis's blog
- Vickie Cross's blog
Lynne Baab
About Me
- Lynne Baab
- Dunedin, New Zealand
- Lynne Baab is the author of numerous books about Christian spiritual practices including Sabbath Keeping and Fasting. She is a Presbyterian minister and holds a PhD in communication from the University of Washington. From 2007 to 2017, she and Dave lived in Dunedin, New Zealand, where she served as the Jack Sommerville Lecturer in Pastoral Theology, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Otago and Adjunct Tutor, Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership. Lynne's website is www.lynnebaab.com where she blogs weekly about spiritual practices. Many magazine articles she has written are available on her website, as is information about her books. Dave Baab is a retired dentist and associate professor in dentistry, a watercolor artist, and an enthusiastic tennis and pickleball player. After three years back in Seattle, Dave and Lynne returned to Dunedin in October 2020.
4 comments:
I think that whenever there is potential for growth there is also tremendous turmoil. Yes, the missional church could be a fad. I hope not, because it breathes new life into a dying church. The evidence of the Holy Spirit going before the growth, the increase in Spirituality of the participants, to my mind means that the final shape may not be the missional church as we see it evolving, but when the dust settles we will have the church of the future.
Seti Afoa writes:
How is worship Missional?
I thought we struggled with this topic tonight with probably the most diverse answers to any of the points raised in the Audio conferences. I did like Susan’s point that worship is abandoning oneself into the sacrament of worship (I think that is what was said). I also could not get away from Labberton’s point (in talking about worship) that nothing is as dangerous as encountering the true and living God. Because when that happens, we come face to face with the living God it redefines everything we call normal and demands everything of us – to abandon ourselves into the sacredness of the moment. This is because worship surrenders the self to God. I agree with Labberton’s point that self is the most popular idol about. I would think also that Labberton’s point hits a raw nerve – that really the church avoids the kinds of transformation that a real encounter with God brings and suggests that we actually choose to live something other than we confess. So far he is leading us on because he is yet to define what that encounter with God is, which I think he means worship. I do agree with him that an encounter with God is life changing. But I also think that a lot of people encounter God outside the realm of worship, and are transformed, at least the type of worship he seems to be proposing.
However I agree also with Susan’s analysis tonight that this is not a very good reading. While making some wonderful points, Labberton loses me with being flippant: “The real danger of encountering the living God is like the difference between the gentle wind of our imagination and the whirlwind of God’s unmatched power of authority,” and “The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, making up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning (quoting Annie Dillard),” etc. etc.
What I think Labberton would agree with Susan’s definition that worship is abandoning oneself to God in sacred way. It may involve prostration (I think Labberton would like that) and total submission of the self to the divine will. If this is what Labberton intends for worship to be then I would say Amen too! It is an Isaiah-like experience where one’s real worth is exposed – “Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips,” (Isaiah 6:1-7). Within worship there is an act of purification – we confess our sins because we are being found out and the blackness of our sins are exposed against the brightness of God’s holiness. At this moment, we are enabled again to be God’s representatives in our situations and context. We, like Isaiah and the Apostles in the Upper room, are forgiven of our failings and sins, and we can’t help but proclaim God’s goodness to everyone. It swells up inside of us from our innermost being. Such an experience results in the act of being Missional under the power of God. Worship then is vitally important to being Missional.
Two things stand out. First worship remains undefinable to a distinct definition after tonights audio conference. I got the impression it is a dangerous thing and we may be shy of it like it is TNT. If Labberton who was writing about it can't define it then we can only stab at it too. Secondly, I think worship is a vital ingredient of our Christian experience. Perhaps the fact it is directly related to an encounter with God may mean that we are a bit more shy of it.
(Readings: Mark Labberton, The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God’s Call to Justice (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP, 2007), 61-77 )
Seti Afoa writes:
Is creativity and the arts a reflection of self (and is that what comes through when creativity is used in Church)?
What a great question. There are two answers and they are Yes and No! Firstly the yes part – creativity is self imaging when used in church services. A lot of the arts are used in worship during services – from singing, dancing, drama and acting, interpretive readings and other forms. Many times I have been to services where musicians are at the front of the congregation leading the people in energetic worship. In those circumstances I have come away many times with a feeling that the message I have just received is a compromised one. The same goes for a lot of the dance acts in churches. Particularly when it comes to the more exuberant variety, I fail to see how any of it could be for the purpose of drawing attention to God. Some of the acts, including worship teams and singing, invariably fall into the entertainment value and not the worship criteria. That would be ok if the directive was specifically spelled out as spiritual entertainment for the edification of the saints. If the acts are incorporated into the worship and counted as worship, the danger of the self peeping out in the performances is very real.
This is the key, when we go to church we want to see Jesus. And what a wonderful thing it is when those leading us do exactly that. When those leading us are not seen or heard because they lead us past themselves and away from everything else directly into the throne room of God then that is heaven. It happens a lot. When the arts and creativity are used in such a way where the performer becomes a vehicle of God’s presence where we see Jesus and not the actors then that is using creativity in a selfless and imageless way.
I would like to believe Gibbs and Bolger’s proposal that creativity is not ego driven. I have seen it less so. But I am not sure that creativity is in itself worship. Primarily because worship is not defined by Gibbs and Bolger. Their conclusion is that we give back worship to God as a gift through our creative expressions. I can come to terms with this to a degree. However, it depends on the definition of worship. If worship means an acknowledging of God in a public and corporate way then it may fit. The problem is creativity can be an end to itself. We can be so impressed by a performance that we clap the performers and not God.
Reading: Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 173-190.
Seti Afoa writes:
How would I describe MINX405?
It is difficult, as I heard many of my colleagues try to do tonight, to try and summarise this paper in a few lines. If I were to be pressed for a two-line answer I might manage it and it would be: MINX405 is a relevant and necessary paper in order to understand the nature of God’s mission in the changing cultural mosaic of today. It defines the purpose, breadth and application of that mission, underlines the message and best practice methods of delivering that message in a fast changing and confusing landscape. I would add at the end, by doing this paper, one is only starting to be aware of our task ahead.
The scary thing is the guesswork that is involved in a lot of this. There is no exact science as to what we can do from here. We indeed find ourselves in a tunnel, between the old and the new. We don’t quite know what the new looks like and our best efforts are trying to predict the future outline of our task. Despite the guesswork, the current setting is well defined (Tom Sine; Frost & Hirsch); key issues are addressed such as leadership (Roxburgh; Otis; Guder , Wagner, McNeal and Cladis); key functions are (attempted) defined and addressed (Hospitality, Worship and Creativity). The idea of Emerging church poked its head every now and again but it was not the focus of this discussion. That is how wide the scope is of the our current situation and why a final conclusion is a work in progress. Aside from Hobbs, I particularly liked Christopher Wright’s paper (The Misison of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Nottingham: IVP, 2006) and Ray Anderson’s (Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP, 2006).
Having said that I, like Roly, find Hobbs’s twelve indicators to a Missional manifesto if there is to be one, useful and necessary. I like it because it is wholesome, foundational and can be built upon. It is also presentable and is accessible (in reading) to many readers. The other’s like Guder, Newbigin, Roxburgh and many of the Course authors at the very base have at a combination of Hobbs’s 12-points somewhere as the foundation of their respective proposals.
I have come away from this being able to identify the Missional outlines in the field. It seems that we are all doing it separately and individually the best way we know how. I take courage to think that Missional Church is a current topic of discussion in Campuses around NZ today. We have a diverse cultural mallais. All cultures of the world are found here in such a small place. This cultural melting pot presents a unique Missional opportunity to the Church in Aotearoa, NZ. This paper has helped me prepare and has equipped me for the missional encounter that is here now. Tomorrow may be different again.
Post a Comment