Mission Shaped Church

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Mission Shaped Church
Theology for a
Some of the working group
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Ch 5 Key theological ideas - menu

• Church is shaped by who God is community in
  mission
• Church is the fruit and sign of Gods mission.
• Its DNA is missionary community. p 84-86
• Christ and culture
• His Birth, Cross and Resurrection underpin both
  Inculturation and being counter-cultural p 86-90
• Inculturation is serious engagement
• between the seeds of both the gospel and the
  church, with the soil of a culture. p 90-91.
• Church has definitive marks
• It is also designed to reproduce p 93 96
• One Holy Catholic and Apostolic pp 96-99

NB These ideas outcrop throughout MSC in
practical stories, methodology and analogy
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Theological principle ONE

• Church is shaped by who God is
• The Trinity are community-in-mission
• Church is the fruit of Gods mission. p 85 but..
• Church is not agent that is the Holy Spirit
• but a sign of Gods mission
• Churchs DNA is missionary community.

Mission comes from the Father, through the Son in
the power of the Spirit MSC p85
MSC pp 84-86
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Mission-shaped Church DNA will ..

• Be Trinitarian
• Understand Church primarily as community-in-missio
  n
• Be relational
• Rather than see Church as structure, history or
  external practices
• Be Incarnational like Jesus
• Laying aside our status and preferences Phil 2
• Be disciplers, like Jesus
• Growing communities of those who follow him and
  draw others to him
• Be Transformational, like the work of the Trinity
• Looking beyond themselves to a kingdom centred,
  counter-cultural affect upon society

MSC pp81-82 This an adapted order 1 5 2 4 3 to
put ontology before function
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Trust the DNA .

• You cant know
• the results first !

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A hint from history
From church as centre, to SONs mission as centre
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Mission-shaped Church

• But a divine process
• Mission shaped the divine Missioner Jesus
• Incarnation describes this
• Philippians ch2 sings its praises
• John 20.21 hands the pattern on

cf MSC p88
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Let Copernicus talk to the church ..

• Is it just accident that the church now finds
  itself at the margins ?

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Theological principle TWO

• Christs patterns
• His Birth, Cross and Resurrection underpin both
  Inculturation and being counter-cultural p 86-90
• There is here an inherent process from
  Christological example

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Incarnation OR Counter-Cultural ?
Resurrection and Ascension
Lordship underpins conflicting engagement
Kingdom Signs
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Theological principle THREE

• Inculturation is serious engagement
• It is not imposed by an individual from above or
  outside, but from the community and below
• Inculturation and Contextualisation should be
  treated as friends

• Both gospel and church, must be sown
• entering the soil of a culture.

MSC pp 90-91.
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Definition result

• Church planting is the process by which a seed
  of the life and message of Jesus, embodied by a
  community of Christians, is immersed for mission
  reasons, in a particular cultural or geographic
  context.
• The intended consequence is that it roots there,
  coming to life as a new indigenous body of
  Christian disciples well suited to continue in
  mission

Mission-shaped Church p 32-33
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Theological principle FOUR

• Church has definitive marks
• It is designed to reproduce p 93 96
• One Holy Catholic and Apostolic pp 96-99
• The Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateral pp 100
• Scripture, Creeds, 2 Sacraments, Episcopacy

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OHCA
Enduring Marks
Four linked Journeys
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The forgotten dimension ?

• Thanks for
• Communion UP
• Community - IN
• Commission OUT

• May I add
• Communicate, Continuity or Connectedness
  OF

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Church with Mission in the DNA will ..

• Be Trinitarian
• Focussing on God the Trinity, sharing their
  mission
• Be relational
• Following the Trinity who are community-in-mission
  
• Be Incarnational like Jesus
• Laying aside their own status and preferences
  Phil 2
• Be disciplers, like Jesus
• Growing communities of those following him
• Be Transformational like the economic Trinity
• Looking beyond themselves to a kingdom centred,
  counter-cultural affect upon society

MSC pp81-82 This an adapted order 1 5 2 4 3 to
put ontology before function
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Foundations sometimes matter