What does a
Pioneer do?
“God grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the
things I can,
and the wisdom to know
the difference.”
Reinhold Niebuhr
Missional Map making
•Ancient paths
•Compass points
•Journey maps
‘Our truest life is when we are
in our dreams awake.’
and
evangelism
G.E.T.O.N.
Getting together
Exploring possibilities
Thinking ahead
Organising support
Nurturing community
6
You have been asked to
write a job description for a
Pioneer.
1. What principles would you want them to know ?
2. What skills would you want them to have ?
Possible principles
Half the picture
Jerusalem
Judea
Samaria
Ends of the Earth
The eccentric effects…
Samaria
The ends
of the earth
Judea
The centre and the Acts story shift
Samaria is not a return ticket
story moves from a focus on Peter to Paul
the Church goes west
church is done differently among Gentiles
A fresh expression
is a form of church for our changing culture
established primarily for the
benefit of people who are
not yet members of any church.
It will come into being through principles of listening, service,
incarnational mission and making disciples.
It will have the potential to become a mature expression of
church shaped by the gospel and the enduring marks of the church
and for its cultural context.
•Ecclesial
•Contextual
•Missional
•Formational
1. Be Trinitarian
Mission-shaped
Church DNA will ..
–
Understand Church primarily as communityin-mission
2. Be relational
–
Rather than see Church as structure, history
or external practices
3. Be Incarnational like Jesus
–
Laying aside our status and preferences [Phil
2]
4. Be disciplers, like Jesus
–
Growing communities of those who follow him
and draw others to him
5. Be Transformational, like the work of the
Trinity
–
Looking beyond themselves to a kingdom
centred, counter-cultural affect upon society
Maturity & the 3 “self” movement
Self-Financing
Self-Governing
SelfPropagating
Pastoral
Leaders
Structures Identity
•Visible
•Viable
becoming legal?
or not ?
•Churches
•Gifts
•Ministries
•Leaders
• Fruit
• Flow
• Wider Family
• Freedom
Moynagh, Church for every context. P406-7
Dying to live
“ I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat
falls to the ground and dies, it remains only
a single seed. But if it dies, it produces
many seeds.”
John 12; 23-6
Dying to Live
• The seed is the sent out incoming team
• They “die” to their previous identity
– No longer part of St Silas Somewhere
– No longer holding onto “how we did things
there”
• Remember Paul the apostle
– “To the Greeks I became as a Greek” [1 Cor9]
Thinking ahead
Action
Discernment
in context
Planning
6
Keep in the slipstream of God
Playing Away
Necessary skills
Ability to
• consider
• connect
• consolidate
• church
Consider
“Double listening”
To the Mission
Context
To the essence/core of
the Christian Inheritance
Mission in stereo, hears God better
MSC p 104-105 and Michael Nazir-Ali : Shapes of the Church to Come Chs 1-2
EXPLORING POSSIBILITIES
• Where do we see change happening?
• In which groups do we recognise significant need?
• Which groups are we most and least connected to?
• What resources do we have to share?
• Which groups are we best able to serve?
• What can we learn from other groups and other
churches?
• What promptings do we feel as we read Scripture and
pray together?
• Where do we see gospel connections?
MH p.9
“ Imagination is more important than
knowledge, knowledge is limited.”
Albert Einstein
Stephen Bevans & Roger Schroeder, Prophetic Dialogue
‘how did the Spirit lead them to
respond creatively & continually in
new and surprising situations
as they preached the gospel.’
Gerald Arbuckle, Refounding the Church
‘apostolic creativity
of quantum
leap proportions.’
“Creativity is no more
than looking at the same
thing as everyone else
and thinking something different.”
Albert Szent-Gyorgi
Know how to see
Henri Matisse
‘ To look at something as though we
have never seen it before requires
great courage.’
Mission-shaped: Whose out there ?
• What groups in society is your group/
church in contact with?
– Bearing in mind age, culture, area, socioeconomic group
• So who is not connecting with the
church locally?
• Whose is moving into your area/
network?
– Are there any discernible groups and
particular locations
Each church planted is a unique story
Principle
Process
Place
People
Prayer
Church ?
Good questions to ask
Mission dynamics
neighbourhood or network
same culture or cross culture
progression or pioneer
possible team sizes
mature church questions
6
TWO MISSION DIMENSIONS
Same culture
• Extension growth
Cross-culture
• Bridging growth
MH p.11
TWO MISSION DYNAMICS
Progression
Pioneer
• Moving to strength
• Moving in weakness
• Surveying the mission
field and...
• Surveying the mission
field and...
• Looking for
• Looking for
areas/networks where we
areas/networks where we
have few or no church
already have significant
members
numbers from church
MH p.11
TEAM SIZES
Individual pioneer
1 or couple
Small team
3 – 15
Larger group
15 – 45
Small congregation size
Over 45
MH p.12
Four good practice questions
• Who is the mission for?
mission goals questions
• Who is the mission by?
mission resource questions
• Who is the mission with?
mission partner questions
• What sort of resulting community?
mission outcome questions
7
FURTHER GOOD PRACTICES
• Keep the 4 questions separate
• Choose a way forward that suits the factors present
in the situation
• Ensure mission questions drive the church questions
not vice versa!
(MSC p.116)
MH p.21
Good questions
1. What are our specific mission tasks here and now?
2. What are our central convictions about everyday,
ordinary life in the light of the gospel?
3. Who are we now, in this new missionary place?
How do we start ?
1. Build in mission-centred values - in cooperation with the Spirit
2. Listen, pray, form vision – what calling emerges
3. Prune a little – how do we travel light?
4. Form a team – to learn the context & grow together
5. Feed your imagination – go visit other examples
6. Explore partnerships – and obtain permissions
7. Form community – serving, speaking worshipping
8. Allow growth to maturity – aim to raise further “adult” churches
9. Maintain Connection – with the wider church
10. Share what you are doing – lets all learn
A visual framework
Values: eg. hospitality, creativity, service, authenticity
Clouds
Your
context
Vision
Pioneers
Who is
with you?
Treasure
8-9
Questions for discussion?
• Is there anything else
that you would want to consider ?
•What are the dangers of
progressing too quickly or too slowly?
Connecting
What is community?
common interests, frequent
interaction and identification
Not aggregate of people but
the quality of communication
among them.
Relationship of community & mission
Telling the gospel creates community
but community is the main factor in
telling the gospel
Nurturing community
Team building
Close and
committed
relationships
Community and
loving service
Open and
welcoming
to outsiders
6
NURTURING COMMUNITY TEAM BUILDING
Community qualities
• Unite around core values (revisit and revise)
• Learn and appreciate differences (personalities, gifts,
roles)
• Openness, vulnerability & service (seed qualities for
the plant)
• Welcoming – ‘ripple out’ to others
MH p.18
“ The mission of God does not happen
unless we become community as God
intended it to be.”
“ God’s supreme achievement was not
the creation of a solitary person but the
creation of human community.”
Gilbert Bilezikian
Missionary
As for you, always be sober,
endure suffering,
do the work of an evangelist,
carry out your ministry fully.’
•Envision
•Encourage
•Equip
•Example
•Expectancy
Questions for discussion?
• In what ways and where practically
can connections be made?
•How much time do you think
should be given to this?
Consolidate
Christianity without discipleship
is always Christianity without Christ.
‘ It is Jesus we proclaim…..
so that we may present
everyone mature in Christ.’
Colossians 1 v28
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to
the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.
When they saw him, they worshipped him; but
some doubted.
Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority
in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
baptising them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have
commanded you. And surely I am with you
always, to the very end of the age.
•How we see God
•How we see ourselves and others
•How we see our community
•How we see creation and society
“ If not part of a mutually
discipling community the
culture will disciple you.”
Graham Cray
What kind of people are we called to be?
What kind of community is capable of
raising people like that?
“ transformational communities for the
wider community, rather than existing purely
for themselves or being inculturated into
an (for them) alien church culture.”
Graham Cray.
Questions for discussion
• What factors need to be in place
for discipleship to happen?
•What might mitigate against
discipleship?
Church
Enduring Marks
Jesus focus
Jesus followers
Holy
“UP”
Catholic “OF”
“OUT” Apostolic
“IN”
Four linked
Journeys
One
Church is any
expression of the life
of Jesus in
communal form
Long term issues
resources
•leadership
•mission
•community
•autonomy and accountability