Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Thriving.
Thriving is created by the discipleship and advocacy team of the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania Uniting Church in Australia.
This podcast is produced on the unceded land of the Wurundjeri people.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: It's been great today for Greg Ross and Bethany Broadstock, Chris Barnett and I to meet with Tim Lee and Son Goddard here in London and we've been having a fantastic time talking about the Fresh expressrooms movement. What we in Australia and what you guys here have learnt from that movement and what it has yet to teach us into the future. We talked about singing our own song, the song lines. That's very Australian language, our song lines.
[00:00:42] Speaker C: So I think we, if you like, we've had this whole kind of thing that actually have. We spent our time providing a technical solution to what actually is a cultural problem within the wider church. And so probably November 23rd we went through our.
As our usual story is, we explored for ourselves as to whether actually we should still be here, do we still have a role? So we were, I think, suspicious that whether we did.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: So if a technical fit is we're going to build new communities and that's going to get people coming into the church and then hopefully their bums will end up on Sunday morning seats, that would be the technical fix. And what you're saying is the adaptive change would be to do something quite different.
Yeah. And what's that?
[00:01:25] Speaker C: It's effectively how do we change the culture in which, you know, the early adopters have taken this and run with it. They're the people, you know, the keen is the people who felt us. Whereas actually we're moving into a context called to be missional disciples in the context in which we find ourselves nowadays. And the consequences of that are incredibly far reaching because it means that actually nearly everything that we've done and how we've experienced it needs to change because our context is different.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Our context is ever changing.
[00:01:56] Speaker D: Yeah, Just sort of carrying on from that. Our context as fresh expressions have changed as well. We're in a different financial landscape and there was a temptation, I would say, of us going where the money was in order to do the work that we want to do.
But actually sometimes when you go where the money is, you don't end up doing the work you want to do. And we decided at that point, as we reflected on what we were doing, that there is still a role for us, but we don't want to be taking requests in the sense of we don't want to be singing the song that the person who's playing. The piper wants us to sing or to play. And so we had spent a bit of time going through a process of working out what our song was. And at this point in time, we identified six things which afterwards we realized, sort of mapped onto the Fresh Expressions journey for us as an organization. And so those six things, if we go around that journey, first one is listen. And we felt that what we had been doing and what we want to do more of is create spaces, help the church, help people who are discerning what God's doing to create spaces to listen, perhaps stopping other stuff and creating space to listen. And so that's some of what we do now is creating spaces. Next on that journey is loving and serving. And we felt that we wanted to give more attention to the margins. We think God has a bit of a bias towards the poor and those on the edges of society. And so we wanted to be working and enabling those who are working on the margins to see what new community might look like in those places. Thirdly is building community.
And that's where the culture piece comes to. How do we. How do we build communities which inhabit and embody the cultures that will enable people to connect with God? We'd enable what we're hoping in terms of a better world to emerge out of people gathering together. Then the fourth one is encouraging discipleship. And one of the areas that we've been leaning into was coaching and leads on that. And so it's a different way of doing discipleship. It's about trusting that the answers are within each one of us and need to be drawn out rather than imposed
[00:04:10] Speaker B: real. If the image of God is in me, then the answer should be somehow come from me. I don't need the expert out there to be able to tell me stuff.
[00:04:18] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And also, if you like the whole thing about the Missio Dao, do we actually really believe what that work is and enable another person, encourage another person to realize that and to see it and to, you know, begin to understand it or to sense it?
[00:04:36] Speaker D: And so those last two circles in that fresh expressionist journey are the church emerging. And for us there, we need to be doing theological reflection on what we're learning, as you say, from this journey that we've been on. But God's continuing to reveal stuff to us a bit. One of those things, what does it mean to be a guest in a community rather than the host of a community? And then the final one is do it again. And the question there is, what sort of leadership do we need? And for us, that was do it again in the local context. For us, it's about leadership. How do we equip and enable and empower and release people to lead church in these new ways.
[00:05:18] Speaker E: So another thing that I found really interesting in all of this conversation today that I was not expecting is that you were talking, talking about the importance of the contemplative and how that has helped both of you go in your own discipleship and how you're using that in the discipleship, helping other people grow. So it's not about teaching them about Jesus, not the sermon, teaching about Jesus having some facts and I become a better disciple. But there's something about the contemplative which of course for me fills my heart with joy because I like icons and love leading a contemplative communities. And you're singing my song.
How does that help grow disciples?
[00:05:57] Speaker F: I think it's because George Leeds has a really helpful book called Seven Sacred Spaces.
We have concentrated on one of those spaces.
And if you like, the contemplative tradition would say, how do we spend time in our cell? The contraption tradition, they would talk about, go to your cell and your cell will teach you everything. And I think for me, my contemplative tradition has sent me into that cell.
My practice of silence and of solitude on a regular basis has meant that I am becoming more aware of my demons and my monsters, my ego, but also much deeper than that is actually God is no longer distant and out there, God is within me.
The kingdom of heaven is within us.
And there is something which is going on which I can only describe as almost a fountain, which probably has been here all of the time, but only recently have I become aware of that actually now flows out of me rather than me appropriating it from external to me.
And that means about dealing with ego, it means about dealing with my hang ups, my mistakes.
But it's also about who it is that I really am and being able to live that out.
And I know that I don't think I could be a missionary in today's world without doing that journey, that interior journey, that interior work, because fundamentally it grounds me not in my activity, but in my relationship with Jesus.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:08:10] Speaker G: I would talk.
One of the things that Reformation brought about was this Protestant work ethic.
And we do rest, but we tend to rest from our work.
And I think there's an alternative way of looking at what we're called to do is probably work from our rest.
So the practice of contemplation is the space where we discern what God is asking of us, what he's saying to us, where we discerning who we are and where we are and who we're with.
And then in that we discern what God's calling us into, what his mission is for us out of the people that he's putting, created us to be out of the place that He's, He's. He's put us for, for that place's well being and flourishing. And our work then has, has purpose because it's, we find that purpose in the rest. So for me, that's part of how I've discovered contemplation. I'm a third order Franciscan and as, as a Baptist, that's an unusual.
And I would describe myself as a Bapto Catholic. And I, for me, I think the church thankfully is rediscovering some of the treasures that we threw out in the Reformation. We're rediscovering some of the gifts that the Church had.
And you know, it's easy when we talk about fresh expressions to give the impression that we want to do away with.
[00:09:40] Speaker E: It's all going to be new and zappy.
[00:09:41] Speaker G: Do away with everything that the Church is and stands for and has accumulated over its history.
But it's not that. But it's about finding and identifying the treasures that we can pass on to a new generation. The treasures that help people discern who they are, who God's calling them to be, who and what he's calling the place where they are to be. And I think for me that's where contemplation gives. That's.
[00:10:13] Speaker F: And I also think that I know from my own journey, actually it means I can walk in liminal.
[00:10:19] Speaker E: Ah, okay, just explain that word liminal for people.
[00:10:24] Speaker F: Okay, so liminal comes from the word doorway or lintel.
And it talks about the fact that actually it's about that when we pass through a liminal, we pass from kind of one, one roo to another or one space to another in between.
And it's an in between and if you like. And the danger is that actually what we always try and do is to resolve the liminal because we want to constantly live in certainty.
And actually, yeah, I would say it gives you the ability to be able to hold and to not know.
And that actually is quite profound for us because actually, let's face it, you know, sometimes we just want to tell
[00:11:12] Speaker E: people the right answers.
[00:11:14] Speaker F: Yeah. Or we think that we as church know what they are. And actually, you know, in our new context, in which we find ourselves in the spaces in which we're walking, in the worlds in which we're moving. Then actually, maybe not knowing leads to curiosity.
[00:11:33] Speaker E: Now, Greg was asking a question just before we're talking about the missio dei, and Greg was saying that sometimes in our churches we talk about, you know, our church has a mission and what we need to do a mission study to work out what our church's mission is.
Is the mission of fresh expressions, to work out what each individual church's individual mission is. Or has it got something to do with the missio dei?
[00:11:55] Speaker G: Well, I'm reminded of.
[00:11:58] Speaker E: I may be being provocative.
[00:12:00] Speaker G: I'm reminded of an activity that we had in the mission shaped ministry course, and it was true or false. Various statements and people had to decide, and one of them was the.
So you have to decide between does the church have a mission or does the God of mission have a church?
And I would suggest the God of mission has a church. God is at work in the world. God has a clear intention for this world to flourish, to be a place of justice and hope and love and peace.
And he's, you know, that works out differently. That gospel, that good news of what God's doing in the world works out differently in every community is being worked out differently in every community.
And if we spend that time that we were just talking about, listening and contemplating and observing, then I think we become aware of the way God is working in our communities and that's where the invitation to join him is found.
[00:13:03] Speaker E: And that's what the first Expressions movement's calling us to do.
[00:13:05] Speaker F: Yeah, yeah. It's like something chimes
[00:13:11] Speaker E: the God in me speaks to the God in you, or something like that.
[00:13:13] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:13:14] Speaker F: And it's like there's something which goes on and you just think, oh, and you can almost feel it. It almost causes you to stop as you recognize it and you wonder and you think, oh, let's dig into this.
And I think he quite naturally makes you curious and wanting to notice and to slow down.
And I think all of those things in the context in which we find ourselves are really good missional postures.
[00:13:43] Speaker G: I'll just give one practical example from a sort of a church context. When I was in local ministry, some people in my church were saying we need to start a youth work.
And there is. We were quite a small church and it wasn't something we'd just start youth work. At the same time, we were aware that there was a youth club in a neighbouring village that was just happening, but was crying out for volunteers. It was going to close if there weren't two or three more volunteers.
And in that process, we discerned that it wasn't for us to start a new youth club in the church trying to get, you know, children, young people coming into our church. It was about us going and being volunteers in that space. And it turned out that it was almost embarrassing because there was children that had come to our Holiday Bible Club in that youth club, and when they saw that I was there, they started singing the Holiday Club songs. And I'm not sure we're supposed to be doing this, but it was.
God was there before us.
And, you know, so sometimes understanding the mission of God is thinking. Actually, it's not always about us doing something, starting something.
It's about maybe there is something happening already that he's inviting us to be part of.
[00:15:00] Speaker F: Yeah, I would always say, yeah, the mission of God is bigger than where the church is.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:15:07] Speaker E: Thank you so much for having time with us today. We've really appreciated being here.
[00:15:11] Speaker F: It's been great spending time with you.
[00:15:13] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to Thriving.
This podcast is hosted and produced by by Sandy Brodine. If you have enjoyed Thriving, don't forget to like and subscribe. You might also like to share with your church community or friends and talk about how these ideas can help you grow your thriving community of faith. We'll see you next time.
