We're busy working through some future shape issues for Highgate. What is so encouraging is the mess really! By that I mean we have a missionary calling that has been heard and liberated us in some respects. I never cease to be amazed at the ways in which poeple are so up for whatever it is lies ahead. Some hard and difficult questions lie ahead of us, but there is a real desire to be a whole with a smorgasbord of things happening and th4e opening up of some proximity spaces ie 'places or events where Christians and not-yet-Christians can interact meaningfully with each other.' (The Shaping of things to come, p24). Again for me there is something in this spatial aspect to do with the church embedded or immersed in the local context for mission by its presence.
Simon Fogg writes on his blog provising notes from the conference-
1. Think in terms of proximity. Worship is not a proximity space between Christians and non-Christians. Need to go to them rather than them coming to us. It is not about creating a sacred space. Do not just do the same as you do in church somewhere else.Be incarnational (cf Jesus)For periods of time abandon the sacred space to get that proximity for engagement[Story about the waterski-ing on a Sunday ending with “I think I may have accidentally planted a church”]Not setting up a programmeIf your sacred space is the sum of it all, it is not enough[Story about the model car club]
2. Practise the presence of Christ in proximity with non-believers. Christians work with people but have shallow relationships. Beware social relationships in church and nowhere elseSend people back into those contexts. Teach them how to do that: equip people to be little Jesuses where they live, work and play. Dualism is a key issue. Christians have difficulty comprehending Jesus outside the church[Shoe shop story]What percentage of time do you spend with non-Christians
I am challenged here by what they say, as I see on one hand what they are getting at with proximity and worship separation. In the book the challenge from them I think is to think beyond traditional worship changes and modes. This I agree with, yet I note too how much emerging church involves 'worship' formats of sorts. Maybe I'm missing some things here. Seems, at least from their book on this topic, that it has more to do with creating and establishing 'other' spaces, such as running cafe's etc and creating ambience and places to talk off the back of relationships and people growing familiar and comfortable with the place they are in and people they are among. This is proximity space!
Pete Philips also gives a very useful critique though of the conference stuff and I reckon that this will be fruitful. On comment I find especially interesting
But then there was the sneezing thing. I am afraid that I cannot cope with the idea of the Gospel spreading like a virus that has been sneezed out of God. Get a life. Jesus has a much better image which Richard Bauckham explores much better in his little book on mission – the parable of the sower. There we have the sheer wastefulness of grace; there we have the randomness; there we have the dependency on the soils; there we have the idea of the seed and the fruit. And all this without any need to reference virus replication science, complexity theory or any attempt to make the Gospel into a bogey...anyway aren’t most viruses self-limiting organisms? Great – we grow the church to a certain size and it dies!
What do you think?
I have slowly been picking my way through Frost and Hirsch's book The Shaping of Things to Come. On which note I have followed, with interest, some of the responses to their time over in the UK. You can also check out Jonny Baker on my links.(which appear to be way down just now for some reason sorry for that) I will maybe read on now and offer some thoughts as I go, especially as it relates to us on Highgate at the crucial juncture we are at and the future ahead of us.
