Strange New Worlds
My life seems strangely surreal at the moment, I feel like I'm floating between worlds. The Church of England seems to be a universe with many different planets, and sometimes I'm not quite sure which planet I'm on!
This last week has included taking a funeral for an 86 year old who'd been married for 65 years, attending a consultation about the need to attract younger leaders to the church and attending a study day with the Archbishop of Canterbury for the London Clergy (which highlighted the need for younger leaders...I was one of the younger ones there which is great for making me feel young, but not so great for the future of the C of E).
At the same time I'm getting quite excited by some of the Church planting opportunities and ideas being thrown up by Mission Shaped Church I'm beginning (with the full encouragement and support of my boss) to gather a team who are seriously considering planting with me, and I'm struggling to work out how that plant might take shape. Should it be a network model or a renewal model, how does it begin and maintain as a truly missional and incarnational community and not just become attractional? Questions, questions...
From that statement some of you may have spotted the book I'm reading at the moment which is The Shaping of Things to Come in preparation for the conference of the same name next month. It should be good.
In the midst of all of this we've begun the hunt for a secondary school for our oldest son, this is proving to us that parental choice is not much choice at all!
It's a funny old world.
My life seems strangely surreal at the moment, I feel like I'm floating between worlds. The Church of England seems to be a universe with many different planets, and sometimes I'm not quite sure which planet I'm on!
This last week has included taking a funeral for an 86 year old who'd been married for 65 years, attending a consultation about the need to attract younger leaders to the church and attending a study day with the Archbishop of Canterbury for the London Clergy (which highlighted the need for younger leaders...I was one of the younger ones there which is great for making me feel young, but not so great for the future of the C of E).
At the same time I'm getting quite excited by some of the Church planting opportunities and ideas being thrown up by Mission Shaped Church I'm beginning (with the full encouragement and support of my boss) to gather a team who are seriously considering planting with me, and I'm struggling to work out how that plant might take shape. Should it be a network model or a renewal model, how does it begin and maintain as a truly missional and incarnational community and not just become attractional? Questions, questions...
From that statement some of you may have spotted the book I'm reading at the moment which is The Shaping of Things to Come in preparation for the conference of the same name next month. It should be good.
In the midst of all of this we've begun the hunt for a secondary school for our oldest son, this is proving to us that parental choice is not much choice at all!
It's a funny old world.
1 Comments:
Hi Simon, that's really exciting. Looking forward to learning with you at the mission shaped church day. Jase.
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