Mission is a Mirror Ball

Whilst the letters of Paul and Peter are filled with insights into the New Testament church, the words of Jesus recorded in the gospels have less to say on the subject. It seems that Jesus bequeathed to us the community itself and the goals and the principles it should adhere to: but no blueprint for its structure or operation.

In the one place Jesus does seem to be describing the church, though, a powerful picture is given of the kind of community it will become. John 15 takes a metaphor familiar to Israel, of God’s people as his vineyard or vine, and appropriates it for the new community the followers of Jesus will form. Eight times Jesus urges his followers to ‘abide’ in him, and eight times he calls them to ‘bear fruit’.

What is significant in these repeated commands is that they are, in the life of a vine, opposite injunctions. The call to abide is a call to stay close; to cling to the root. It carries, for the church, a sense of ‘drawing-in’. But to bear good fruit, a vine moves in the opposite direction. It presses out, away from the root. This is why vine-growers in our day create long, stretched-out fences along which the vines can travel: the best fruit grows when the new shoots are allowed to travel furthest. The call to bear fruit, then, is a call to move out, to get as far from the root as is possible without losing contact.

This carries, for the church, an outward thrust. Thus the one metaphor Jesus does establish for the church introduces the paradox of these two forces: the one drawing us in – to discipleship and intimacy; to closeness and connection, the other thrusting us out – to fruitfulness in the world’s far corners. The vine is a unique picture of a plant that thrives by obeying these two distinct commands: stating connected to the root, but pushing out into the field: a powerful metaphor for the church.

This same paradox underlies the Pauline vision of church, where the gathering in and sending out of God’s people co-exist. Ephesians 4:12 explores the mechanics of how this takes place. How can a gathered, concentrated community be central to God’s purposes without becoming the focus of them? How does the light get from the body of the church to the outer edges of our context and culture? The answer lies in what the church does:

¹¹ He is the one who gave these gifts to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. ¹² Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ, ¹³ until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ.

By equipping each member of the body to fulfil their calling in Christ, the church ‘sends out’ the light to every corner of the world. Discipleship and deployment go hand-in-hand.  Personal growth and purposeful living are two sides of the same coin, as human beings called to the light of Christ become, more and more, the carriers of that light. The light of God breaks into its many constituent colours in the many different callings of God’s people.

In our community in Amsterdam we decided to use not a prism but a mirror-ball to illustrate this. Sometimes when we prayed in our auditorium for the fulfilment of God’s purposes in and through our community, we would drop the house lights and shine a spotlight or two on our mirror ball, suspended above the worship space. As we prayed little squares of light would begin to move around the room, finding their way into every corner, poking every dark nook and shadowed cranny. The central mirror-ball is organised and crafted. It has structure and intentionality, and a small motor powering its rotation. The little squares of light are dispersed and creative. They find their way to different places. The reflecting-out is their equipping. Focussed beams of pure white light break into a shower of tiny torches when they are sent out in bouncing fragments. It is not a perfect metaphor, and it was certainly not one available to Paul, but the mirror ball is a fair image, in physical form, of the church that Paul is describing.

A mirror-ball faith is both gathered and dispersed. It has an expression in which resources are drawn in and concentrated, when worship and giving and energy and volunteering all move in an inward direction, to build-up and strengthen this new community. But there is also a dispersed expression, an expression in which every ounce of our energy moves outwards and we seek to resource God’s people in every place to which the winds of God will carry them.

In the gathered expression of church we are transformed.

In its dispersed expression we transform.

Drawn in, we are changed. Sent out, we change. Paul’s model avoids the creation of a self-centred and self-indulgent community because everything about the gathering is to do with the dispersal. The leadership gifts given to the church are given not to do God’s work in the world but to equip those who do. The resulting vision of God’s project for his world is summed up in the definition of prismatic church – “all the colours of God’s wisdom, through all the callings of God’s people, to every corner of God’s world”.

Extracted from Church Actually – Rediscovering the Brilliance of God’s Plan, to be published by Lion in March 20 12

Blessay: Transformission

Slavonski Brod is a jewel of a town in the Slavonia region of Croatia. “Brod’ means ‘ship’ in modern Croatian, but in earlier times it had the sense of ‘water crossing’ – akin to the English ford. Its place in the town’s name reflects its most prominent feature, the Sava: a wide and winding river used for transport and popular with fishermen, canoeists and promenade-walkers. It is impossible to miss the river, so important is it to the town’s history and architecture. Slavonski Brod was also the scene of intense fighting in the recent Balkan wars, and the beautiful river no longer simply flows through the town: it divides it between two nations. The bridge has become an international border between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The area of town on the south bank, now called Bosanski Brod, belongs to the Serbian enclave of Bosnia.

So fierce was the fighting at the height of the war that at one stage it was reported that every window in the centre of Slavonski Brod had been broken. This one provincial town played out in miniature the entire crisis of the Balkan nations. Over the past nine years we have had the privilege, through the Bless Network, of taking teams of young people into Brod each summer. Working in partnership with the Baptist church there, we run sports camps and children’s clubs, and an evening ‘youth space’. The aim is to offer unconditional love and unrestrained encouragement to the children and young people of the town. Many have been born since peace broke out: but there are none who are not in some way marked by war. Every family has been touched by the devastation that swept through the region in the 1990’s. Many continue to be touched by the economic uncertainties of a stop-start recovery.

We have seen our teams make a measurable impact on the town and we have regular contact with many of the local young people they have worked with. But something else has happened that we didn’t expect, and are immeasurably grateful for. Slavonski Brod has made an impact on our teams. Something about being in this place so recently traumatised; bringing words of hope and encouragement to children and teens;  speaking blessing over them, has deeply affected the hearts of the young people who have made up our teams. We challenge our teams not only to act but also to pray. We ask them to worship God in the open air, seeking his heart for the city. We urge them to grasp and hold onto a vision for this city God so loves. And the starkness of this context has enabled many to come to a deeper understanding of the mission of God.

When we visited the team in July 2011, we joined them on the riverbank, where they were taking time to pray for the town. They sang in worship and brought to God their hopes and dreams for this broken city. Chalks were distributed, and the team began to write their prayers on the riverside pavement. In coloured chalks, the words in places decorated with cartoon crowns and flowers, they wrote on the skin of Slavonski Brod.

“A crown of beauty instead of ashes”

“More valuable than a whole flock of sparrows”

“Turning brokenness into beauty”

“God will paint grace graffiti on the fences. All the frightened children will run to him”

What does it mean to write such words on the pavements of a town you are growing to love? Does such an act have meaning beyond the moment? Our sense is that in the lives of these young people it does. Those writing were young adults, mostly from the UK. None of them would claim to have a sophisticated or well-developed missiology. They would not present themselves as experts in the things of God. But what they do have is a hunch. It is a hunch that the God who is at work in their lives and in the lives of others around also has a dream for towns and cities: that the God who created every person in Slavonski Brod has dreams for each of their lives. They have a hunch that God’s work in the world is about change – change for the better and change for good.

Nearly 2000 kilometers north, in Lisieux in France, our teams have worked in a similar way on Hauteville, a pubic housing area with 9000 residents and many issues around drugs, crime and gang culture. Lisieux is a cathedral city and one of the most established pilgrimage centres in France. After Lourdes, more spiritual seekers come to the city of “La Petite Therese” than to any other French shrine. But Lisieux is also a city of high unemployment, with a local economy rocked by changes in French agricultural and industrial life. Many families struggle with the social issues related to low incomes, poor educational achievement and limited opportunity: and many such issues find their focus in Hauteville.

The commitment of our teams has been to pray for the area and to work alongside children and young people, bringing whatever joy they can and seeking to bless the families of the area. On one of their early expeditions to the area, our teams wrote prayers of blessing on the soles of their shoes, walking them across the Hauteville turf. When they checked later in the day, the prayers were gone: worn off as the day wore on. They were struck by the serendipity of this event, sensing that their prayers had been deposited on the ground they walked. They now write sole blessings every time they visit.

What these young people have come in some small way to grasp is that the mission of God is, at heart, a work of transformation. That which God does in me he wants to do in the wider world. There is a qualitative link between the inner transformation I experience in Christ and the outward transformation he will bring to whole communities. We can walk the blessings of God into the dust of Hauteville and to pray for a crown of beauty for Slavonski Brod because we believe that ultimately this is what God wants. Where war has brought trauma and devastation, the God of Peace longs to bring repair. Where enmity has torn down walls and raised up fences, the God of reconciliation longs for grace to do its work. The gospel we proclaim is a message of transformation, and there is no outer limit to how far God would have that transformation be known.

Those who are changed by the work of Christ are invited us into active participation in God’s plans to bring salvation to the world – those who, changed by the work of Christ, become agents of change in their world. Grace pops and fizzes with the life of God, infusing culture like a soluble aspirin. It brings change by its very nature, and the more its recipients surrender to the transforming presence of God, the more change it brings. Those called to inward transformation are turned outward to their neighbour in loving service. Those receiving forgiveness are empowered to forgive. Those transformed by grace become the very essence of grace to others. The people of God are called not only to receive healing but to be a source of healing in their world; not only to know reconciliation but to bring reconciliation; not only to be blessed but to carry blessing outward. The church that is a formed as a result of God’s movement of change in the world by turn becomes God’s movement for change in the world. Changed people change people, and the people they change change the world.

c Gerard Kelly, extracted from Church Actually: Rediscovering the Brilliance of God’s Plan, to be published by Monarch in April 2012

Stay at Bethanie, our missional training centre in France, and enter into our rhythm of daily prayer and shared meals. Explore new and old forms of prayer and learn how to create transformissional prayer spaces.

For more info or to make a booking contact gemma@blessnet.eu

On the first friday of each month we have a 24hr non-stop day of prayer for the transformation of Europe and the work of The Bless Network. Why not join in!?

This Friday (1st July) we’re praying specifically for our 2011/2012 fundraising goals:

1. To raise through donations and investments €320,000 (£280,000) needed to repay short-term loans and complete the purchase of Bethanie.

2. To raise through partnerships an ongoing income stream of €50,000 (£44,000) per year for development of our vision at Bethanie.

3. To raise through donations, investments and donated labour a further €120,000 (£105,000) for conversion of additional buildings at Bethanie.

Each month we suggest creative prayer activities…

Read Romans 8:18-27 (in The Message if poss)

Consider this; ‘Waiting does not diminish us… we are enlarged in the waiting’

Pray this prayer with us…

When we’re blinded by bigness

Give us Your blueprints

Enlarge our vision in the waiting

When we’re lost because of lack of skill

Give us Your labourers

Enlarge our trust in the waiting

When are pockets are penniless

Give us Your pursestrings

Enlarge our faith in the waiting

When are giving out hits ground zero

Give us Your grace

Enlarge us in the waiting

Amen

[Prayer written in Prayer room at Bethanie, June 2011]

If you’d like to get involved or would like more info email matt@blessnet.eu

This month we are raising funds to subsidise our short-term summer mission trips. We’ve assembled a 5-a-side Bless football team and are going on a fundraising football tour across the UK.

Wed 8th June: Chawn Hill, Stourbridge
Thurs 9th June: All Saints Church, Wellington
Friday 10th June: Rising Brook, Stafford
Saturday 11th June: Carshalton Beeches, Surrey
Sunday 12th June: Christ the Rock, Yate

Where will my £5 go?

This year we are sending go2bless mission teams to serve local churches in Lisieux, France and Slavonski Brod, Croatia. Each day we create space for prayer and worship. We gather in a public place to worship God, declaring His sovereignty over the city we’re serving and we pray for the people we come into contact with. Each day we create space to study the Bible. We gather in a local café to read and wrestle with God’s word, inspiring and sustaining us as we join in with what God is doing. Each day we create space for people to encounter God. We run activity clubs and sports camps on local housing estates and open youth cafés at local churches.

Your £5 will help us to resource go2bless 2011; buying materials and equipment and subsidising leaders places.

We are still looking for TWO people to join our Croatia team. Contact chez@blessnet.eu if you’re interested or for more info

The sun in shining, the daffodils are in full bloom and the clocks go forward this weekend! All signs that the summer is nearly here. Which brings us back to our original question; what are you doing this summer?

If you’re over 16 why not sign up for a go2bless summer mission trip. This year we are sending mission teams to serve local churches in Lisieux, France and Slavonski Brod, Croatia. We’ll be praying, face painting, juggling, eating, bible-studying, serving, sport-ing, worshipping, barbecuing… and training for 5 days at Bethanie

TRAINING FROM 4th – 9th JULY

LISIEUX: 10th – 18th JULY // SLAVONSKI BROD: 10th – 28th JULY

For more information or to request an application from contact Caroline@blessnet.eu

Gerard and Chrissie will be visiting the Netherlands March 2nd to 6th, meeting leaders in and around Amsterdam through the week. On the evening of the 5th they will be at Clara Maria Farm for a wine and cheese evening to explore the future of The Bless Network in Holland. A really exciting time as we explore recruiting Dutch young people for mission across Europe; bringing non-Dutch young people into Holland to work with local churches and engaging in prayer for Amsterdam…  Do join us on the 5th if you can.

Our discussion groups this afternoon have come up with eight suggestions:

1. Start in the heart. Social transformation begins with the individual: my heart and the hearts of those I influence. From individuals, churches are formed, and from churches movements of transformation can flow. It all begins with individual faith.

2. Practise double listening. We listen to the voice of God and the voice of our culture. We Ask why? What is it that the people around us are seeking?  We learn, perhaps, to interpret back to people the true meaning of their needs / desires. Europe’s history can be told as a series of searches, always for truth, justice and freedom. Can we relate the story of God to these longings?

3. Tell the Story. Faith as story is more powerful than faith as facts. The Bible’s story addressers human needs and human aspiration. My challenge is to express God’s story and my personal story. Where, in my everyday life; in ‘secular’ settings, can my story have influence? What creative opportunities do I have to embody the story of God?

4. Seek stillness - sanity is found in the quieting of outside voices, but also in the quieting of the noise within. Prayer is punctuation, interrupting accepting social rhythms to hear God speak; finding God in the pauses.

5. Be rooted. Rediscovering our own identity in Christ. For the UK, rediscovering our identity as European Christians. Encouraging travel / exchange; seeking unity. Revolutions are founded on rooted people.

6. Embrace the everyday. Reject any shadow of the sacred / secular divide and find God in the rhythms of ordinary life. Unlock strongholds of head and heart through random acts of kindness: grace in unexpected places. Live the faith – move from theories of life to life itself.

7.  Pray. Embed prayer in listening and visiting. Stand in the places you are praying for, and listen! Seek strategies in prayer. Find God’s way of bringing change. Soak all your activities in prayer.

8. Foster Unity. Connect churches;  encourage local change then add it together. Create exchanges between different churches; create flow around the ‘network’ that is the Body of Christ.