Mission is no longer from the West to the Rest but from Everywhere to Everywhere
The New Normal
As attention begins to move towards the lifting of the lockdown, church leaders are asking a range of questions, some hopeful, some not so hopeful. Business leaders, politicians, economists, educationalists and significant church leaders are all clear that we will not be going back to “the old normal”. The problem is that no- one knows exactly what “the new normal” is going to look like.
How do we take the precarious path from one reality to the next? Church leaders are talking about three things. First, how many churches will not open again? Second, when we do open again, how can we safeguard those who attend? Third, what new mission opportunities have opened for us once we get past lockdown? Next week we will look at a range of mission opportunities.
Resources
Understanding the new normal
In the following video, Alan Roxburgh, a leading writer and thinker from Vancouver, Canada, explores the significance of the changes that are taking place around us. Alan is one the editors of the Journal of Missional Practice (JMP). The JMP is a cooperative venture between the Missional Network in North America and ForMission College in Europe. Click on the link below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YqTR7IX1l1EL7psBrtbGpAVlpj26IOWj/view
Exploring multi-cultural church planting
How can churches reach people from multiple cultures? What does it look like to plant such a church? Here, Martin Robinson discusses core principles and appropriate training in creating a successful, multi-cultural church-planting strategy. For example, class and age groups form important cultural barriers; as does the total immersion of people in a secular worldview with no room for God. Furthermore, the church could be said to constitute a particular culture or even sub-culture which those of us in the church need to understand. Click on the link to view the video.
https://foclonline.org/talk/multi-cultural-church-planting
Evangelical Migrant Churches as Partners
Europe and the West once represented the secure mission base and the rest of the world represented the mission field. Today, missions are from everywhere to everywhere. It is still a relatively new experience for Europeans to receive missionaries, especially from the former mission fields. Working out how this modern ‘Macedonian call’ might work in practice is both challenging and complex. The potential for partnerships creates the possibility of misunderstanding, confusion; conflict and division. Here we explore key principles in creating healthy working relationships with fellow believers from other cultures. Click on link to view video:
https://foclonline.org/talk/macedonian-call-evangelical-migrant-churches-mission-partners
News
The Burslem Church have posted a wonderful account of the their 130th anniversary – an entirely different event under lockdown! To access the newsletter see attachment to the email that the newsletter came with.
As we mentioned a few weeks ago, FCC has been able to help the Central Avenue, Wigston congregation repair the roof using the property fund. Repairs completed and the cross placed back very carefully!
Till next week…
Martin Robinson (Interim National Moderator)