MattGlover.com

Back in this post, I flagged the impending critique that I wanted to put together to help bring some of our people along the journey we are taking. I guess you could say I’m hoping to write a simple but direct ‘why we do what we’re doing’ series of papers that draw on Biblical witness, history, theology and experience to build a framework that will release us into forms of mission and church that we have not experienced before.

At the same time, I want it to be an honest critique, that draws on the joys and heartaches of people who have experienced life in the emerging missional church. I want us to be as aware as we can be of the real, hard stuff of doing ministry this way.

I’ve put this critique down as one of my goals for this semester, so my supervisor will be on my back if it doesn’t get done! I’ll post it here as I go, but at the moment I’m trying to establish a framework. Here’s what I’m thinking at this point:

Jesus

• It all begins with Jesus
• How Jesus lived
• What Jesus taught
• Why Jesus died
• The meaning of Jesus’ new life

Mission

• Following the Spirit’s lead
• Incarnational/Attractional?invitational
• Redeeming the world
• Forming community

Church

• A community that gathers
• A community that nurtures
• A community that proclaims
• A community that worships
• A community that sends
• What makes a church a distinctive community

Lessons Learnt

• What is the EMC and how does it relate to MBC?
• The good stuff
• The hard stuff
• What I wish I knew before I started

Basically, each dot point will be no more than a page long but will hopefully be enough to clearly communicate the ideas we have been exploring for the last little while and generate copious amounts of healty questions.

As you read this, you may have thought of something I’ve left out. You may have some experience that you thing would be helpful to share. You may have other questions that you’d like to see an (attempted) answer for. Put them all down in the comments and we’ll see what happens.