The Kingdom Challenge - Can we make a difference?

On the past two Monday evenings (+ one more to come) around twenty Christians from eight different churches in the Stroud area met to reflect upon the content and challenges in the book, The Tangible Kingdom – creating incarnational community by Hugh Halter & Matt Smay (Publisher: Jossey-Bass). This book explores and asks ‘what is an appropriate posture’ for Christians seeking to incarnate the gospel message of Jesus? It asks searching questions, such as, ‘If you could no longer use words to communicate the gospel, what would you do?’ And BIG questions like, ‘What are the personal tensions you are processing as the church is transitioning from the centre of culture to its margins?' These evenings organised by the ‘Fresh Expressions Team’ at Minchinhampton Baptist Church have been challenging and thought-provoking. I wonder, what are the issues you currently are reflecting upon – and who might you partner with as you do so?

Film Club at Nailsea

A few of our churches have tried using film clubs as a way of building connections with their communities. After all, so many of us now have the hardware - a large screen, a projector, and a video license! Paul Carter at Nailsea told me about their very successful film club, primarily aimed at families. I think the key here is that families get to do exactly what they would naturally do at 5 o'clock on a Saturday - watch a good film together and have something to eat - only the screen is bigger and the cooking is done for them! This is Paul's report:

As Autumn approaches, Nailsea Baptist Church is gearing up for their second season of film club.  The church responded to a community need and this time last year launched a film club aimed primarily at families.  The club runs on the last Saturday of each month at 5 pm and one of the latest films to be released on DVD is shown.  As people arrive, a powerpoint presention is being shown on the big screen and people generally grab themselves a drink or visit the 'tuck shop.'  Word quickly spread about the film club and over 100 people, mainly unchurched came along on each evening.  Once the film is over, hot dogs are served and this gives the opportunity to have conversations and to build relationships with people.  There is no charge for the evening, although people are encouraged to make a donation to help suppor the film club.

As people are leaving, another group of people begin to assemble as a different film is shown on the same evening at 7.30 pm.  There has been a wide range of films shown ranging from 'amazing grace' to singalong with 'mammia mia.'  For this season of films, we are targetting different groups for the second showing.  We're hoping a good number of men will invite others along to watch 'Invictus' and a James Bond evening is being planned.

From the film club we are hoping that people will find themselves coming into other areas of church life. Possibly 'time out at 10', a group for parents and toddlers or to Messy church, a new venture for us at Nailsea Baptist which starts in November.

www.nailseabaptist.com 

Has anyone else tried using film to start a conversation with their community? Please comment below - you'll need a google account or similar but this can be set up in seconds.

Street Party at Totterdown

Speaking as a member of Totterdown Baptist Church in Bristol, I think that if we'd thrown a community street party ten years ago, it wouldn't have looked or felt anything like this. There's been a long, painstaking, detailed process of building bridges and developing relationships, with the organisations within and around the church, and with local people. The walls are nowhere near as thick as they used to be.

Your Giving - at an All Time High

We think that WEBA churches gave more to Home Mission up to the end of July 2010 than during the same period in any other year.

The year-to-date figure of £141,704 did include an unusual one-off gift, but even without that we would have topped our previous record of £131,336 at the end of July 2008.

What's really exciting isn't breaking records (or being, as we are at the moment, the second highest giving Association in the Baptist Union) It's not even about surviving the recession without losing what we have - the exciting thing is that our churches are taking mission seriously, supporting those churches who need a little extra help to follow their dream of connecting with their communities and being Christ among their neighbours.

Please pray for everyone who will have responsibility for using this money wisely, when there are still so many more dreams than grants available.

And if you're involved with budgeting for your church this year, please take the time to ask these questions:

• Is your church giving at least 5% of its income to Home Mission?
• Is your church giving regularly to help us with our planning?
• If you're in Pastoral Vacancy, could your church consider giving a month's stipend to Home Mission?
  

maybe small is still beautiful....

Thursday, 19 August 2010

From Nigel Coles' blog 'The Old Forge'

maybe small is still beautiful....

I went to meet a small village church to see what we might look at together. There were five of them and one of them wasn't part of the sunday congregation, which could number eight, but an infamous week recently was recalled when the visiting preacher turned up to no one! It's a chapel, which has existed for hundreds of years and their independent trustees have grown old and decided there's too little energy to carry on - none of them have been part of the worshipping community in the village for years. It seems strange to me, therefore, this is the meeting which gives me hope from the gatherings I've been in this week more than any - and I've been talking with various groups about much larger and potentially more influential projects. I'm not sure why yet. It may have something to do with the fact the only two old ladies who live in the village itself meet every thursday morning int he chapel to pray and I just sense there's more prayer for the kingdom and the future of this particular place than some of the other loftier concerns. We'll see....

Posted by Nigel Coles at 09:12

Welton

Welton

From Senior Regional Minister Nigel Coles' blog, http://nigcoles.blogspot.com

I'm not planning on reducing any blog entries to once a week, nor am I intending a weekly update on where I've been preaching. However, it does just happen I was at Welton yesterday morning and, along with being at my home church in the evening, it's caused me to think a little more about why we meet on Sundays the way most of us do.
Before all that - I always enjoy meeting people at Welton and it is one of those churches I could easily feel comfortable being a member of. Yesterday, I had some great conversations afterwards with a range of people about how they're engaging during the week with other people, not-yet Christians. A couple leaving the church formally, but not informally (we had a commissioning) to engage more in their own village, a GP talking about his Practice as a place of engagement, a guy involved in the whole re-enactment of US Civil War battles & Western genre in general who's clearly bringing Jesus into their frame and others - no wonder dinner was ready when I returned home!
One of the questions I'm coming away with is what can I help multiply from what I hear and see Sunday by Sunday? It's not about the passing on of good ideas, but helping people to be inspired by one another because there's some great stuff going on.
So, what are we doing when we gather on a Sunday?

The phrase I hear more than any other, when I ask what people are looking for when they gather on a Sunday, I think, is 'to be fed'.

I guess as Baptists are the pre-dominant group I'm asking, I shouldn't be surprised , or shocked by this. After all, we hold the preaching of the word highly and we are founded upon a foundation which relies upon God speaking through his word - to anyone, which also implies to everyone.

However, I am increasingly disturbed by the answer.

Not because I want to diminish the place of preaching - to be honest I'm not at all a 'let's replace the sermon' person and firmly believe the answer to bad preaching is not no preaching, but good preaching.

Not because, either, I'm not wanting people to be fed, or don't believe anymore in the ability of God's word.

My disturbance, I think, is wrapped up with what this says about people's expectations - Sunday gathering is being regarded as an end in itself in a way I do not believe it was intended. Sunday is the day of resurrection which is why Christians gravitated to this day for worship together. Something of this has been lost and with it teh sense of God re-creating and making all things new.

Yesterday we talked about how different Sunday is when we come together to celebrate who God is and where he's been seen and found in the previous week - both through our living and the wider world. Couple onto this the expectation God will be at work in and through us all next and we're onto something. Regarding the couple commissioned yesterday - it was great, but it in many ways we should not be seeing them as anyone special, or anyone different. We've talked a lot, as Ministers, about the relevance of the workplace, about workplace Ministry, about relating the work of God to the work of people monday-saturday, etc. in recent years. Honestly, how many references do I hear, or see, week by week? How much helps me in my life apart from the organised gathering? What degree of relationship is there between what happens when we gather and what God is up to when we're apart? The answer to all these questions, sadly, is 'next to nothing'. Herein lies a deeply disturbing issue.

Posted by Nigel Coles at 10:30

Thinking Big at Radstock

"We're a small church but we realise we've got to think big and expect big!" said Andrew Stammers, Minister in Training at Radstock Baptist Church in Somerset. In the run up to the World Cup the church went all out to let the community know that they were showing matches on their big screen. They had 1,000 flyers professionally designed and printed; they festooned the church with flags and inflatable footballs, and also got attention from the local newspaper.

"You've got to think like companies think" says Andrew, " find ways of attracting attention - I don't see anything wrong with that. The press are interested in why a church would show football in its main sanctuary - we've got to take advantage of that. The amount of people who say, yes, you're the church who showed football. It's been a big profile builder, if nothing else."

The matches themselves presented lots of opportunities for bonding, as older church members debated team formation with teenagers. The popularity of the matches tailed off after the England team came home, but the challenge, says Andrew, is to build on the community links they have begun to build.

The church have secured a Home Mission 'Mission through Project' grant to build a new kitchen.
"Our mission strategy is pretty much orientated around food" says Andrew. They already run 'jam' sessions for local musicians on Tuesdays evenings and on Sunday mornings, when a full fry up is included, and there are plans to use the 'Table Talk' resource as a way to invite people in for good food and discussion. (www.table-talk.org)

Andrew Stammers' energy is infectious when it comes to mission. "Give it a go!" he urges. "What's the worst that can happen? Tens of thousands of people don't know Christ, that's what."