Lead into the Community

Charles Van Engen has been quoted in the Swedish Missiological Themes talking about this. Evangelism invites into a community sui generis with no other limits than the whole human race – a community based on a human belonging more encompassing than any existing form of political or biological connectedness. The missionary movement of the Churches claims to be relevant to women and men of all stripes and walks of life.

"By witnessing to the possibility of a common life sustained by God’s creative breaking of existing frontiers and showing that creative authority in the pattern of relation... (it fosters), the building up of
Christ-like persons... The Church’s good news is that human community is possible; the Church’s challenge is in its insistence...that the relations constituting Christ’s Body neither compete with nor vindicate others, but simply stand in their own right as the context which relativises all others... The Church's primitive and angular separateness... is meant to be a protest on behalf of a unified world, the world that holds together in and because of Jesus Christ."

Seeing our leaders willing and able to thrive in the world and in the Church is empowering and offers the opportunity for others to do the same.

 "Alan Roxburgh, (2006, 12-13) proposes a paradigm of leadership that contrasts the operating models of a typical pastor with that of a missional pastor who functions in an apostolic way. He also asserts (Roxburgh 1997, 62) that “discipling and equipping require a leadership that demonstrates encounter with the culture in action. This is the role of the apostle.” “Pastor, as apostle, is foundational to all other functions.”

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What is this Community like?

Imagine pinpointing the poorest community in your neighbourhood and creating an incarnational presence there.

It is there, in that one act, we no longer are people who have said things, we are people who display those words and what they mean in the way we live and worship.  Of course, once displayed, they cannot be denied, only rejected or entered into.  So the persuasion if you will are living displays of truth, not rational one-on-one arguments.

The seeker-sensitive church was an interesting approach, but it was a marketing approach and did not shape itself around the church and its mission.  We can be influencers in our community as the church by being the Church.

Cardinal Avery Dulles, in his book, Models of the Church, presents some interesting thoughts along these lines.  Take a look by following this link, http://www.buildupourparish.com/home.php?page_id=62

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• A New Definition of Seeker Sensitive Ministry (via Eric McKiddie) (mgpcpastor.com)