Thursday, October 16, 2003
Youthmin study tour to Sydney
OK, I've finally gotten around to throwing some thought together about the places that we visited with the Youth Vision guys last month. For another version, checkout what Scott wrote.
One place that we visited simply has a Christian running a coffee shop. However, within that environment the owner builds real long term relationships, through which over time he is able to share his faith in Jesus. He’s committed to doing whatever it takes, (within moral boundaries naturally!) to make disciples. He’s prepared to reimagine Church and develop new ways of thinking about Church, community and discipleship. Hmmm.
Penrith Christian Life Centre was an accidental miracle. Originally we weren’t going there, but a last-minute pullout led to us turning up without knowing anything about their youth ministry. What they are doing is simply amazing. Along with their entire Church, they have embraced the Bogota G12 cell model of ministry. They empower every person in their Church, and more importantly for us, every person in their youth ministry, to make disciples. They want everyone to pray for friends to know Christ. Once saved, they then become part of a cell group, and the leader joins a G12 leadership group themselves. These cells are actively winning disciples and are being led by even grade six students! When leaders are scarce in the local state school, they bus equipped leaders from their Christian school down to where the leaders are needed at lunchtime. Amazingly, their youth ministry has doubled from 250 to over 500 in cells over the last 18 months. (See www.g12harvest.org for more info on this model)
At Pendle Hill Church of Christ we were strongly challenged to develop compassionate hearts for the poor and under-privileged in society – sort of like God’s. It was a good kick up the proverbial.
The misspelt “Enigma Lounge” of Narara Valley Baptist challenged us to elevate the concept of mystery in our programs. Rather than pretending to have all the answers, we can people through relationships to confront the mystery of both God and the gospel.
Kingsway was one of the most inspiring Churches to visit of all. This long-established Church of Christ is ministering in four local schools. In two of these they actually have begun Churches inside the schools and use students as the worship leaders and preachers there.
Hillsong was the largest youth ministry we visited, yet their style was very similar to many other Churches, and certainly not out of reach of most Churches. They had an emphasis on cell groups, encouraged students to run their own lunchtime programs in schools and invested in young leaders from as young as eleven. They don’t bother trying to organise social activities, and worship services on Friday nights aimed strongly at youth.
A challenging Church was Gymea Anglican. They prefer the term peer group to youth group, promoting the idea that leaders are meant to be long-term friends, not short-term authority figures. Because they see Christian unity as a key tool of evangelism, they spend large amounts of time together as a natural outworking of their love for each other. Their youth ministry meets in an industrial shed leased especially for their hangout.
St Paul’s Anglican came to understand that if you attracted youth by huge flashy programs with heaps of games, then you would need to keep the same youth by the same flashiness the next week. Instead of the old bait and switch – come for the friends and fun - stay for Jesus – their students are told instead to invite friends along to a fun night where they will hear about Jesus. Sure there are a few games as well, but they also will hear a sermon from the gospel – every week – and see hundreds of other high schoolers around them.
We also talked to Andrew Palmer from Baptist Youth Ministries, who challenged us about a Biblical approach to evangelism. Rather than casting out gospel pearls at swine who will only trample them, he suggests politely waiting until we are asked before we share the gospel. Think Matthew 7, 1 Peter 3:15, Jesus’ parables and Col 4:5-6 and it makes a lot of sense. Rather than this being a lazy approach, he suggests that we try to stimulate people’s spiritual thirst through our actions and our conversation.
We also visited Dural Baptist, Fusion Church at Wesley Central Mission, a Skate ministry and attended about seven services while we were there. Finally, we relaxed at beautiful Stanwell tops with other youth pastors from around Australia for the National Youth Pastors Gathering.
Where all these ideas and experiences will take each of us, God only knows. I hope and pray that the time will bear fruit in the years ahead.
(0) comments
OK, I've finally gotten around to throwing some thought together about the places that we visited with the Youth Vision guys last month. For another version, checkout what Scott wrote.
One place that we visited simply has a Christian running a coffee shop. However, within that environment the owner builds real long term relationships, through which over time he is able to share his faith in Jesus. He’s committed to doing whatever it takes, (within moral boundaries naturally!) to make disciples. He’s prepared to reimagine Church and develop new ways of thinking about Church, community and discipleship. Hmmm.
Penrith Christian Life Centre was an accidental miracle. Originally we weren’t going there, but a last-minute pullout led to us turning up without knowing anything about their youth ministry. What they are doing is simply amazing. Along with their entire Church, they have embraced the Bogota G12 cell model of ministry. They empower every person in their Church, and more importantly for us, every person in their youth ministry, to make disciples. They want everyone to pray for friends to know Christ. Once saved, they then become part of a cell group, and the leader joins a G12 leadership group themselves. These cells are actively winning disciples and are being led by even grade six students! When leaders are scarce in the local state school, they bus equipped leaders from their Christian school down to where the leaders are needed at lunchtime. Amazingly, their youth ministry has doubled from 250 to over 500 in cells over the last 18 months. (See www.g12harvest.org for more info on this model)
At Pendle Hill Church of Christ we were strongly challenged to develop compassionate hearts for the poor and under-privileged in society – sort of like God’s. It was a good kick up the proverbial.
The misspelt “Enigma Lounge” of Narara Valley Baptist challenged us to elevate the concept of mystery in our programs. Rather than pretending to have all the answers, we can people through relationships to confront the mystery of both God and the gospel.
Kingsway was one of the most inspiring Churches to visit of all. This long-established Church of Christ is ministering in four local schools. In two of these they actually have begun Churches inside the schools and use students as the worship leaders and preachers there.
Hillsong was the largest youth ministry we visited, yet their style was very similar to many other Churches, and certainly not out of reach of most Churches. They had an emphasis on cell groups, encouraged students to run their own lunchtime programs in schools and invested in young leaders from as young as eleven. They don’t bother trying to organise social activities, and worship services on Friday nights aimed strongly at youth.
A challenging Church was Gymea Anglican. They prefer the term peer group to youth group, promoting the idea that leaders are meant to be long-term friends, not short-term authority figures. Because they see Christian unity as a key tool of evangelism, they spend large amounts of time together as a natural outworking of their love for each other. Their youth ministry meets in an industrial shed leased especially for their hangout.
St Paul’s Anglican came to understand that if you attracted youth by huge flashy programs with heaps of games, then you would need to keep the same youth by the same flashiness the next week. Instead of the old bait and switch – come for the friends and fun - stay for Jesus – their students are told instead to invite friends along to a fun night where they will hear about Jesus. Sure there are a few games as well, but they also will hear a sermon from the gospel – every week – and see hundreds of other high schoolers around them.
We also talked to Andrew Palmer from Baptist Youth Ministries, who challenged us about a Biblical approach to evangelism. Rather than casting out gospel pearls at swine who will only trample them, he suggests politely waiting until we are asked before we share the gospel. Think Matthew 7, 1 Peter 3:15, Jesus’ parables and Col 4:5-6 and it makes a lot of sense. Rather than this being a lazy approach, he suggests that we try to stimulate people’s spiritual thirst through our actions and our conversation.
We also visited Dural Baptist, Fusion Church at Wesley Central Mission, a Skate ministry and attended about seven services while we were there. Finally, we relaxed at beautiful Stanwell tops with other youth pastors from around Australia for the National Youth Pastors Gathering.
Where all these ideas and experiences will take each of us, God only knows. I hope and pray that the time will bear fruit in the years ahead.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
What's on my mind?
This is actually an email sent to a good friend.......
Had COC Sunstate convention on Thurs-Sunday.
It was huge - services every night, LADS concert with 700 (?) youth Sat, combined Churches on Sunday morning - springwood closed down for it - good stuff all up
Main sessions were by Bob Logan and the seminar I went to was by Neil Cole
Unfortunately, or fortunately, the content was mind-blowing. Seriously. I am now offiically profoundly disturbed. I am experienceing high levels of cognitive dissonance - an existential crisis perhaps. My brain keeps crying out for me to ignore everything that I heard and go back to my nice pleasant world. As I'm thinking now my heart is heavy and I think sometimes I'm close to crying.
Neil Cole's main analagy is that the Church is meant to be organic, like a crop. He keeps coming back to the Mark 4 parables, of the four soils, of the seed growing by itself and the mustard seed. If those parables are true, God's kingdom (ie the Church) should grow rapidly. Yet it doesn't! there are a few Churches here and there that do great jobs, but the norm seems to be bunches of Christians gathering without real fruit occurring. There are a few people doing the vast majority of the work, and a vast majority along for the ride. As Christians get older, rather than them becoming more like Christ instead we see them becoming more cynical, critical and judgemental. If the Church is a disciple-making factory its quality control processes are pretty dodgy!
Cole would suggest a few things. Raise the bar of what it means to be a disicple of Christ. Lower ther bar of what it means to start a Church. Have Churches that are small and are based on the DNA of Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships and Apostolic Mission. These Churches will intentionally reach out relationally to the unsaved and continually begin new Churches that themselves will have the same DNA that will reproduce itself. All these Churches would be self-propogating and self-perpetuating.
In practice this has happened, and the Churches have naturally spread all around the world without coordination or planning. The parables paint Church growth as normal and huge, and the stories Neil told show that it can happen!
I keep on trying to turn these ideas and appropriate them into the existing, institutional Church. Yet I wonder if that is a battle worth fighting. A key point Neil made was that there is good soil and bad soil. Good soil is made up of people who are poor (James 2:5), those who are bad (Luke 5:32), and the uneducated nobodies (1 Cor 1:27-29). Bad soil is those who think they are good, well off and intelligent etc. What sort of soil do institutional Churches seem to be?
There are so many other problems with institutional Churches, many of which have floated around my mind previously. They are incredibly dependant on the Senior Pastor. A scandal here, an accident there and you're in big trouble. The cost of buildings also seems such a waste of resources. Do we really need half a million or more to get a building for every new Church? The existence of ministry staff seems to somehow make people think that they are responsible for all teaching, pastoral care, evangelism, discipleship etc. I really wonder whether any Church with paid staff can ever truly realise the priesthood of all believers? Are the standard Church concepts of centralised authority, lecture style sermons, fake community and programmed worship true enough to the Scriptures or even acceptable to today's postmodern minds?
Obviously I've only given you a tiny fraction of what we explored over the seminars - I suspect I've missed key elements that make it - well make sense. I don't think I've said much about Neil's approach to evangelism, leadership, Church, discipleship etc - but I guess all that's detail - and I'll prob talk more about that to you later.
Where I fit into all that - who knows? Where Churches fit into that-wo knows? And that's why I'm unsettled. I guess the next step is prayer and lots of it.
Ok - I think that's the rant over for now.
Talk to you later,
(0) comments
This is actually an email sent to a good friend.......
Had COC Sunstate convention on Thurs-Sunday.
It was huge - services every night, LADS concert with 700 (?) youth Sat, combined Churches on Sunday morning - springwood closed down for it - good stuff all up
Main sessions were by Bob Logan and the seminar I went to was by Neil Cole
Unfortunately, or fortunately, the content was mind-blowing. Seriously. I am now offiically profoundly disturbed. I am experienceing high levels of cognitive dissonance - an existential crisis perhaps. My brain keeps crying out for me to ignore everything that I heard and go back to my nice pleasant world. As I'm thinking now my heart is heavy and I think sometimes I'm close to crying.
Neil Cole's main analagy is that the Church is meant to be organic, like a crop. He keeps coming back to the Mark 4 parables, of the four soils, of the seed growing by itself and the mustard seed. If those parables are true, God's kingdom (ie the Church) should grow rapidly. Yet it doesn't! there are a few Churches here and there that do great jobs, but the norm seems to be bunches of Christians gathering without real fruit occurring. There are a few people doing the vast majority of the work, and a vast majority along for the ride. As Christians get older, rather than them becoming more like Christ instead we see them becoming more cynical, critical and judgemental. If the Church is a disciple-making factory its quality control processes are pretty dodgy!
Cole would suggest a few things. Raise the bar of what it means to be a disicple of Christ. Lower ther bar of what it means to start a Church. Have Churches that are small and are based on the DNA of Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships and Apostolic Mission. These Churches will intentionally reach out relationally to the unsaved and continually begin new Churches that themselves will have the same DNA that will reproduce itself. All these Churches would be self-propogating and self-perpetuating.
In practice this has happened, and the Churches have naturally spread all around the world without coordination or planning. The parables paint Church growth as normal and huge, and the stories Neil told show that it can happen!
I keep on trying to turn these ideas and appropriate them into the existing, institutional Church. Yet I wonder if that is a battle worth fighting. A key point Neil made was that there is good soil and bad soil. Good soil is made up of people who are poor (James 2:5), those who are bad (Luke 5:32), and the uneducated nobodies (1 Cor 1:27-29). Bad soil is those who think they are good, well off and intelligent etc. What sort of soil do institutional Churches seem to be?
There are so many other problems with institutional Churches, many of which have floated around my mind previously. They are incredibly dependant on the Senior Pastor. A scandal here, an accident there and you're in big trouble. The cost of buildings also seems such a waste of resources. Do we really need half a million or more to get a building for every new Church? The existence of ministry staff seems to somehow make people think that they are responsible for all teaching, pastoral care, evangelism, discipleship etc. I really wonder whether any Church with paid staff can ever truly realise the priesthood of all believers? Are the standard Church concepts of centralised authority, lecture style sermons, fake community and programmed worship true enough to the Scriptures or even acceptable to today's postmodern minds?
Obviously I've only given you a tiny fraction of what we explored over the seminars - I suspect I've missed key elements that make it - well make sense. I don't think I've said much about Neil's approach to evangelism, leadership, Church, discipleship etc - but I guess all that's detail - and I'll prob talk more about that to you later.
Where I fit into all that - who knows? Where Churches fit into that-wo knows? And that's why I'm unsettled. I guess the next step is prayer and lots of it.
Ok - I think that's the rant over for now.
Talk to you later,
It’s a bit late, but watched the NRL grand final the other week – or at least the second half of it. Was a brilliant game. Better than the Rugby World Cup any day. When I got there the panthers were up 6-0 –nice work fellas – but within a few minutes the roosters caught up. I was spewing. That’s the sort of thing that always happens to me. The Broncos were beating the panthers in the quarter final until I sat down and then it was try-try-try. Anyway, I’d been supporting the panthers (after the Broncos of course) all year, as they were packed with great players, great coach and had such a pathetic record – last and third last in 2001, 2002. I thought they were under-rated, but didn’t think they’d go this far. I always like cheering for the underdog.
Anyway, the game turned into a cracker. Six all, and the evil roosters were throwing everything they had at the panthers. Then in the space of about ten minutes it all went downhill. Ryan girdler goes off injured, not to turn. Ouch. One of their wingers – I think it was Luke Lewis, ditto. Then Martin Lang does one of his trademark runs and is whacked by Adrian Morley so hard I couldn’t see him get up again. When he did he had a massive cut and went off the field. 20 mins to go, three players down and the roosters were playing brilliantly. My first thought – the panthers have no chance against the defending premiers. Second thought – nah – that’s the sort of situation dreams are made out of, ballads sung about and movies made out of.
Suddenly Byrne gets an intercept and starts running down toward the panthers line, when Scott Sattler – older than me! - runs across the field, catches up and tackles him into touch. Commentators won’t shut up about that one for years. Then Priddis does this brilliant dive at the goal that noone expected and scores. Next minute I’m running around the house, waking Ruth up and telling her that the panthers were up, Priddis was a Bronco (so really it would be a Bronco victory!) and that he was also in my fantasy NRL team. The you see Lang out there again hitting the ball up, ignoring his oain. Crazy. A few minutes later, everyone was expecting a field goal, and Priddis comes up again with an amazing pass that sends Rooney to score, seal the victory, win a premiership and secure the MotM award to Priddis. One of the best games I’ve seen for ages. Notch one up for the underdogs. When things are looking grimmest, look out!
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Anyway, the game turned into a cracker. Six all, and the evil roosters were throwing everything they had at the panthers. Then in the space of about ten minutes it all went downhill. Ryan girdler goes off injured, not to turn. Ouch. One of their wingers – I think it was Luke Lewis, ditto. Then Martin Lang does one of his trademark runs and is whacked by Adrian Morley so hard I couldn’t see him get up again. When he did he had a massive cut and went off the field. 20 mins to go, three players down and the roosters were playing brilliantly. My first thought – the panthers have no chance against the defending premiers. Second thought – nah – that’s the sort of situation dreams are made out of, ballads sung about and movies made out of.
Suddenly Byrne gets an intercept and starts running down toward the panthers line, when Scott Sattler – older than me! - runs across the field, catches up and tackles him into touch. Commentators won’t shut up about that one for years. Then Priddis does this brilliant dive at the goal that noone expected and scores. Next minute I’m running around the house, waking Ruth up and telling her that the panthers were up, Priddis was a Bronco (so really it would be a Bronco victory!) and that he was also in my fantasy NRL team. The you see Lang out there again hitting the ball up, ignoring his oain. Crazy. A few minutes later, everyone was expecting a field goal, and Priddis comes up again with an amazing pass that sends Rooney to score, seal the victory, win a premiership and secure the MotM award to Priddis. One of the best games I’ve seen for ages. Notch one up for the underdogs. When things are looking grimmest, look out!
