My friend Bob has been given a vision. God has led him to Huntington, Indiana to hang out with goth kids and skater kids. So that is what he does. He hopes that a community of believers will emerge from within this unique community of God's children and you can see the foundation of that community starting to form. It's quite wonderful. Bob is attached to this group called Missio that is passionate about birthing communities of faith where none exist right now. Not too unique an idea when you consider the popular world of church planting that has swept the nation, that is until you consider their "method." Most churches send small communities of people to a location that they are fairly unfamiliar with to start a new church. Sometimes these church plants don't work. Other times they grow quite rapidly but are mostly fed by transfer growth (people leaving churches for other, more cool, churches). Missio, on the other hand takes principles from missiology (the study of missions) and applies them to unchurched contexts. Novel idea, huh?
Really, Missio and it's participants desire to go into certain contexts and allow church to happen as a natural response to faith and relationship rather than bringing church into those contexts. They allow church to form within a community rather than taking a certain model of church and trying to get people from a unique culture to fit inside a church model made by people from another unique culture.
If you are unfamiliar with missiology or how it can be applied to western culture check out Alan Hirsch's website The Forgotten Ways or his book:
2 comments:
i think mustard is pretty darn interesting.
i can't make it through a full hirsch book, but i find his partner-in-crime, mike frost, a bit more readable.
have you read exiles? i've only been through snippets, but it's great!
hope you're well! like the pics, too.
xox
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