Have been reading a book called "Breakout" recently (Thanks James and Amy) . It the story of St Andrews, Chorleywood transitioning their church into Mission Shaped Communities with a central resourcing church. It has been really helpful for me in thinking about the life of Aspley SA but also in my thinking about the Salvation Army at large. One quote caught my eye: "This (today's) culture tends to keep the army in the barracks, and of course if the army is in the barracks the enemy has got the rest of the world" (Stibbe and Williams,2008 :Page 211).It pretty obvious what is coming but it is something that has been bugging me a lot recently. How do engage with our community outside our church buildings? How do we move from maintenance to mission? How do we do church that makes sense to different groups of people of all ages? How do we make Christians confident in their faith enough to share it in the normal everyday?
I don't have many if any answers but I do know that the "come to us" model of church is no longer effective. We can't continue to wait for people to turn up on a Sunday, Alpha or Special services. We (the church) have to make the more out into our communities, in the reality of life. The problem is we feel safe in the barracks, protected by those we know and reassured by the familiar. yet, whilst we sit in our barracks we allow those people to continue to get lost, to miss out on the joy of being in a relationship with Jesus. It doesn't matter what model we use whether its cells, MSC, Alpha or planting (to name just a few), all I know is that we need to be creative and we need for it to make sense in our local communities first and foremost.
Still thinking this through but know that God wants more from his church, lets breakout and see what happens.
Matt
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