Mission-Shaped Evangelism

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Mission-Shaped Evangelism

• Listening to God in the cultural context

2
Double listening

• Two ears one mouth
• Use accordingly in mission
• Failure to enter the other persons world leaves
  us like the tourists who keep speaking louder in
  their own language

3
Post-modernity? Modernity to
Postmodernity
I tell my story
I choose my beliefs
truth as fact
truth as experience
I buy my identity
The logic of consumerism
4
Post-Christendom?
Church attendance 2005
76 of New Christians Come from 26 De-Churched
finding faith today 1992
65 Non Churched
This section of the population is older and
decreasing over time
26 De Churched
9 monthly
5
Post-Christendom?

• Not just about church attendance
• Grace Davie,
• - Believing without belonging and vicarious faith
• But changing belief
• Fading of occasional office
• Decline in Christian identity
• Stages in the decline of Christendom not a new
  way for it to persist

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Belief in God
7
Infant Baptism C of E 2007
8
Church Weddings 2007
9
Christian Affiliation UK
10
Christian Affiliation 2001
11
Christian Affiliation
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Builders (born 20s30s) in 2005
13
Boomers (born 40s50s) in 2005
14
Gen-Xers (born 60s70s) in 2005
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Gen-Yers (born 80s90s) in 2015?
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Post- Secularism?

• Post-modernity - multi-faith in a post-secular
  age
• Post-modern move from truth as fact to truth as
  experience - From universal truth to true for me
  may be different to true for you.
• Rejection of objectivity for subjectivity
• Personal belief re-enters the public square
• Any and every belief . All are equally
  unprovable
• All of this much to the annoyance of Richard
  Dawkins.
• and Christians?
• Religion once more on the agenda but any religion
  with no way back to Christendom ..indeed is
  Christianity disadvantaged compared to the
  alternatives?

17
Spiritual experience in 2000 Vs 1987
1987 48 report a spiritual experience - 2000
risen to 76
25 the presence of evil up 108
But what are they experiencing?
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The excluded middle

• Paul Heibert
• Many traditional religions have a sacred
  dimension about the Gods and secular dimension to
  do with the non-spiritual but also a middle
  ground of the superstitious and everyday
  spiritual. He saw this as missing from
  Christianity,
• This area very much addressed by new
  spiritualities

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Believe in an afterlife
20
Believe in restless spirits
21
Believe in Karma
22
Experience of fortune telling, Tarot, astrology,
psychics, palmists
23
Australian Gen Y like Britain?
Rationalist humanist
Non believing 14
Moral relativism, pick n mix, truth in all
religions but not just one, something out there
occult and paranormal experienced BUT open rather
than committed or seeing as important
Includes neo pagans and followers or frequent
participants in the esoteric/occult
growing
shrinking
new spiritual 23
Religious 17
24
Japan Britain
25
Consumer Christianity?
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Consumer Christianity?

• God the cosmic therapist?
• Cruise liner or Battleship?
• John Wimber
• Church shopping?
• Looking for what I get out of it
• Looking for the one that does things my way
• Buying religious product?
• Baptisms weddings
• Rosaries
• Retreats
• Christmas Carols

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Mission-Shaped Evangelism

• Listening to God in the Christian tradition

Steve Hollinghurst Oct 10
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Jesus, mission and other faiths

• The Vision of the kingdom of God (cf Luke 5-8)
• Radical values of inclusion leading to
  transformation and reversals of status the
  sinful, the unclean, women, the non-Jew ( in
  spite of Jesus claim to only be sent to the lost
  sheep of Israel)
• The use of parables
• Making disciples who will make disciples
• The parable of the sower (Luke 8) followed by
  sending of The 12 (Luke 9) and 72 (Luke 10) as
  Jesus has been sent (John 17) (apostolic church).
  To make disciples in all cultures (Matt 28)
• Weakness and vulnerability the marks of the
  missionary
• Sent to be the guests of those they are to
  witness amongst
• Becoming as servants and children (Mark 9)
• The small things leading to great change
  mustard seed and yeast in dough

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Crossing culture - The Early Church

• In Jerusalem
• The Pentecost Sermon to Jews Acts 2
• The Jerusalem church Acts 4
• The Hellenists fresh insight Persecution
• In Judea and Samaria
• The dispersal of the Hellenists
• Philip the Samaritans Ethiopian Eunuch Acts 8
• To the ends of the earth
• Peter and Cornelius Acts 10
• The Church in Antioch Acts 11
• The Gentile mission from Antioch

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Paul does double-listening

• Acts 14 Lystra
• After healing a crippled man the crowd think Paul
  and Barnabas are Hermes and Zeus.
• Paul reasons from nature not scripture to explain
  his faith.and struggles to communicate
• Acts 17 Athens
• Paul goes round the temples learning about Greek
  belief we see the results in his address to the
  Areopagus.
• He debates with the philosophers in the market
  place.and struggles to communicate they call
  him a spermalgos someone who doesnt know
  what they are talking about!

31
Pauls two sermons
Jews .and.Greeks?

• Jesus is the expected messiah who will fulfil the
  prophets and law
• He was killed as a sacrifice but rose
• He has been appointed judge and we must now
  change the directions of our lives

• We are all searchers after God
• The God of the universe doesnt live in temples
• That God has set a day to judge the nations so we
  must now change the directions of our lives
• The judge will be Jesus who was raised from the
  dead

Mission in Christendom is like Jewish Mission
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Paul and Paganism

• Following the Jewish legacy
• God can be found in Pagan religion but is
  revealed to be more than those religions show and
  not all of it is to be accepted.
• This can be used to aid mission
• eg Lystra, Athens Ephesus
• The issue of food sacrificed to idols (I Cor 10)
• Give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the
  church of God, just as I try to please everyone
  in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage,
  but that of many so that they may be saved. (vs
  32-33)
• The Roman approach to religion must be avoided

33
Incarnational mission Phil 2
Jesus as part of Trinity
All must kneel before him
Takes on the form of those to whom he is sent
God exalts him
How might this passage influence our thinking on
mission?
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Incarnational mission Phil 2

• We take off our current form and put on that of
  those we seek to reach and affirm their culture
• We die to ourselves in incarnation in order to be
  obedient to God
• God will use this to exalt Jesus
• All must come to accept Jesus as Lord and this
  will involve challenging culture as people become
  like Christ.

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The limits to incarnation

• 1 Cor 919-24
• Though free I have become a slave in order to win
  people (Philippians model)
• As a Jew to Jews, as a Greek to Greeks
• All things to all people so by all means I might
  save some. For the sake of the gospel
• But
• As an African to the Africansas a Goth to
  Gothsas criminal to criminalsas a prostitute to
  prostitutes?
• Jesus like us in every way but without sin

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Mission shift to Christendom

• Early Church incarnate in local culture
• Greek Church - Paul uses poetry to Zeus
• Roman Church - Jesus as Orpheus
• Coptic Church - the image of Isis becomes Mary
• Celtic Church - Jesus the Druid (Columba)
• Germanic Church - the Heliand
• Christendom one faith one empire
• The Saxon Church and the war band
• Synod of Whitby - the date of Easter monks hair
• Mission ends within empire,
• becomes conquest beyond it
• Modernity evangelism recovered in Christendom
• Individuals called to belief in a Christian
  country
• Aimed at intellectual conviction and crisis
  conversion

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Mission-Shaped Evangelism

• In the twenty first century

Steve Hollinghurst Oct 10
38
A new Reformation?
?
400 BC
600 AD
1500 AD
2000 AD
Early Church
?
Judaism
Christendom
Reformation
Changing expression David Bosch Transforming
Mission
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Mission in Christendom

• Mission (abroad)
• Cultural export Vs Inhabiting local culture

• Evangelism (at home)
• Calling people back to the national faith

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Learning from foreign mission

• Do not call people back to where they were (they
  never were there)
• Do not call people to where you are, as beautiful
  as it may seem to you
• But travel with them to a place neither of you
  have been before

Vincent Donovan Christianity re-discovered
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Changing Mission?

• From sharing the Gospel in come to us mode

• To Exploring Church in go to them mode

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From individuals to all creation

• Restoring the whole story of salvation

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Gods Mission Gods Kingdom

• The transformation of people linked to the
  transformation of creation Romans 8, 2 Cor 5
• Reconciliation as a reversal of the fall
• Humanity restored to Gods image as missionary to
  creation
• Social transformation linked to evangelism
• Any Gospel that does not proclaim and seek to
  bring about Gods Kingdom fails to understand
  Jesus and Gods mission
• Any Gospel that does not set people free from sin
  will never achieve social transformation

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Three levels of mission community
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Who are on the way?
Bounded set ? Or..
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Who are on the way?
Bounded set ? Or.Centred Set?
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Who are on the way?
Bounded set ? Or.Centred Set?
48
A new apologetics?

• Hearing relating to what is going on in
  peoples lives not assuming a pattern
• Holistic not just brains but people drawn to
  God
• Hopeful assume God is at work in others, see
  what God is doing and join in
• Humble we have a lot to learn too from God and
  others, including those of other faiths and
  no-faith
• Hidden the parable tradition people ignore
  the obvious answer but explore the open ended.
• Heavenward focus on where we are going and
  invite people on the journey

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Lessons for sharing faith

• People increasingly come to faith through
  experience rather than changing thinking
• People want to grow spiritually and will take
  support in this seriously
• Sharing faith is welcomed. Telling others what
  they share is wrong simply closes the
  conversation
• People arent interested if Christianity is true
  but if it is inspiring and life changing
• with the internet everything is public be
  consistent
• We need to know how we will handle issues of
  gender, the environment, evil, other-faiths
• Avoid Christian language like sin, salvation,
  redemption etc people dont understand it or
  misunderstand it but we still need to talk
  about them but with different words
• We need to live as if what we say really does
  work
• Remember God transforms people not Christians

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Resources
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Evangelism is..

• Not getting people to Church .....
• but getting people to be Church
• Not taking God to people
• but seeing what he is already doing in their
  lives
• Not first about getting people into heaven
• but getting heaven into people
• Not saving people from the world ....
• but allowing God to transform them
• as part of a plan to transform the world also
• Your Kingdom come your will be done
• on earth as it is in heaven