Chick Yuill's New Book Released Jan 2011

Too many people find their experience as Christians incomplete and unsatisfactory...

Jamal enjoys his voluntary work with down-and-outs but finds church irrelevant.

Jack believes he's going to heaven but isn't sure what difference Jesus makes to him now.

Aimee loves being part of a lively church but at work no-one would know she was a Christian.

They're all missing something. But life with Jesus is meant to be an all-encompassing adventure. In this dynamic and punchy book Chick Yuill explores the four concentric circles that make up the authentic Christian life:

• walking in the company of Jesus
• growing in the community of believers
• engaging with the culture of the times
• looking to the coming of the King

Moving in the Right Circles is published by IVP in January, 2011. Read the prologue here... or order a copy here...

Location, Location, Location - Tracy Cotterell

Tracy was recently asked to write an article for the CPAS Church Leadership magazine and they have given us permission to reproduce the article here.
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Baptist Times: Whole-life Discipleship

LICC has been asked to contribute a series of articles to the Baptist Times exploring themes in whole-life discipleship. In the first of the series Mark Greene looks at a surprising example of faith in action on the Frontline...

Where you are, as in heaven?
Imagine you are a ten year old in a primary school, specifically at Holy Trinity C of E Primary School in Northwood where I live. Imagine that your whole school is going to be discussing what its values should be and voting for them. Now, although the school is a Church of England school there are lots of Muslims and Hindus and people with no particular faith at all.

How in a multicultural context can you inject some overtly Christian component without imposing on others in your community who don’t share that faith perspective?

How do you influence corporate culture – when you are ten years old?

So you get together with two or three other Christians and you think about it and pray about it. And you summon up your courage and you go to the head teacher and say “We think one of our values should be, ‘What would Jesus do.’” And so the head talks to the Muslims. And they don’t mind because for them Jesus is a prophet and she talks to the Hindus and they decide that it’s Ok because after all this is a Christian school. And then the whole school votes and it’s agree that WWJD should become one of the school’s values, one of the criteria by which everything that happens in that school should be evaluated… And they are 10 years old.

Was it easier, I wonder, or more difficult for Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Babylon to make an impact on their bit of God’s world? Is it easier or more difficult for you or me in our workplaces, clubs, towns, villages? Or have you or I perhaps already done it?

Is this too small a tale to tell, I wonder, of how the life of Jesus so courses through a ten year old that they want to see his name high and lifted up… as indeed it then was, for all to see, on a paper elephant head on the walls of their school hall?

Those children understood something very simple. This was the place that God had put them, these were the people he’d placed them amongst, this was the place to bring his love. This was where his name was to be hallowed, this was where his will should be done, this was where his kingdom should come…

The question for us is this: can we too discover the radical possibility of the authentic, adventurous, awe-inspired, agape fuelled ordinary Christian life? In a time when evangelical Christians across the denominations are struggling to see how the Gospel of the crucified and risen Lord really makes a difference in everyday life, can we, like these schoolchildren, be clear on our calling in the places we are called to live and work?

We think that Christians can. In this series we’ll be telling you more stories about what happens when people realise that they are called to make a difference where they are; we’ll be exploring the kind of church that inspires and trains people like this and the kind of full-orbed biblical understanding of God that shapes, inspires and sustains such actions.

Indeed, this vision springs directly from the Gospel, from an understanding that Jesus is creator of all, owner of all, reconciler of all, Lord of all and that therefore there is no aspect of our being, no context we find ourselves in, no task we undertake that is not of interest to him. So the new life we have in him is intended to flow out beyond our Sunday services and our midweek meetings into the whole of life, the whole of our ordinary life - our life at work, our life at home and our life in the neighbourhood, our life in the playground and our life in the classroom.

May the Lord indeed be with you this week wherever you are.

The Great Divide - Mark Greene

A brand new resource from LICC, in which Mark Greene, outlines the greatest challenge to the Church today and what we can do about it.

In this essay, Mark explores the stifling, pervasive, life-denying impact of the sacred-secular divide on Christian mission and living, and reveals how overcoming it can expand our vision, inspire our mission, release our churches, broaden our minds, enlarge our hearts, nourish our souls, thrill our spirits, free our imaginations for faithful following and fruitful living in all of life.

Read a short extract from The Great Divide.

To order copies from the online LICC bookshop click here or call 020 7399 9555.

Imagine Project: Next Steps

In this short new video, Neil Hudson outlines some of the next steps for the Imagine project over the coming months. Now that the Pilot Project is finished, how is the work developing?

Lausanne 2010: People at Work

LICC's Executive Director, Mark Greene's address to the Lausanne Conference this week was very warmly received. His talk 'The Theology of Work - Creation, Cross and Conusmation' is now available to watch online. In the allotted 15 minutes, Mark manages to cover a lot of ground exploring the impact of the Sacred-Secular Divide and underlining the place of work in God's purposes in time and eternity.

Gospel Shaped Discipleship - Antony Billington Mp3 (1)

The first of LICC's Head of Theology Antony Billington's lectures on Gospel Shaped Discipleship is now available to listen to and download here.

In this talk, entitled 'Beginning with the Gospel', Antony sets out the shape and scope of the series and explores the implications for discipleship through our understanding of the gospel in four areas:

1. Good News from God
2. Good News about Jesus
3. Good News of Salvation
4. Good News for Life

Download the lecture outline and PowerPoint slides.

Lecture Programme
20th October - Engaging with the Word
3rd November - Belonging to the Church
10th November - Walking with the Lord
24th November - Living in the World
1st December - Standing in God's Grace

Lectures run 1.00pm-1.50pm, with the option to stay on for discussion afterwards. For more details and to book a place click here.

Lausanne 2010: Christian Discipleship and Mission in the Age of Globalisation

The Lausanne Conference on World Evangelisation begins in Cape Town next week, gathering 4,000 leaders from over 200 countries and LICC's Director Mark Greene will be attending on behalf of the organisation.  This promises to be an important moment and it has been interesting reading a number of the advance papers leading up to the event. 

Particularly stimulating from our point of view is the article by Os Guinness and David Wells, 'Global Gospel, Global Era: Christian Discipleship and Mission in the Age of Globalisation'. The article explores the challenges and opportunities for mission and discipleship in our globalised world and in a clear and succinct manner, outlining a range of cultural forces and challenges to mission in both the micro and macro spheres:

• The Political Temptation
• Plausibility Crisis
• The Downsides of the Age of Communication
• The Lethal Effect of Secularization
• The Midas Touch of Consumerism
• The Idol of Chronological Timeliness
• The Pressure of the Movement of Movements
• Creating and Contributing rather than Critiquing and Complaining

The article draws to its conclusion with the noteworthy comment (at least from Imagine's perspective) that: 

Evangelism in the global era appears easier, and in many ways it truly is, but discipleship is unquestionably harder, and so too is costly incarnational evangelism that is patterned on the life and death of Jesus rather than on the brilliance of modern insights and techniques.

Tracy Cotterell - CPAS Leadership Insights

Tracy Cotterell, LICC's Chief Operating Officer was recently interviewed by James Lawrence from the leadership organisation CPAS. The interview explored discipleship, leadership and the significance of high-quality tea-brewing! 

CPAS has made this interview available as a free podcast which you can listen to or download here.

Imagine Videos

One of the resources on the Imagine section of the website are a series of short (and rough) videos which introduce core ideas from the project. As they are somewhat buried within our current website we thought it might be useful to post them here as well.

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Circles of Life


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View the videos on the website here...

Celebrating Vocation in Worship

It's great when you know there are allies in the cause of wholelife discipleship. The Alban Institute in the States has proven itself to be one such ally.

This is well worth a read - we'd want to say, 'Amen, amen, amen'!

http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=9254

Jonathan Lunde on Following Jesus

Jonathan Lunde, Following Jesus, the Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship, Biblical Theology for Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, forthcoming 2010), 320pp., ISBN 9780310286165.

Lunde’s book will be the second volume released in Zondervan’s ‘Biblical Theology for Life’ series (the first by Chris Wright on The Mission of God’s People is already out).

A short excerpt of this one is available here, which includes the table of contents. It looks as if the main theological drivers in Lunde’s discussion of discipleship are covenant (its grace and its demands) and christology (Jesus as the Servant King).

Equip to Disciple

Equip to Disciple is a useful quarterly publication, produced by CEP (Christian Education and Publications), an agency of the Presbyterian Church in America.

CEP describes itself as seeking ‘to glorify God by equipping, training, and encouraging believers, particularly leaders and teachers to make a difference by proactively living redemptive Christian lives and making disciples in the Kingdom of God by:

1. knowing the Lord,

2. knowing and obeying the Word,

3. knowing the world,

4. knowing themselves,

with a commitment to understand and interpret the truth in different cultural settings from a biblically reformed worldview that enables them to serve the Lord with a global vision by: penetrating this generation with the prophetic presentation of the Gospel, building strong relationships through which Christ builds His church, extending the Kingdom of God in every area of life and equipping people for actual ministry.’

Archived copies of Equip to Disciple are available here.

Whole Life Discipleship is not new!

A recent article by Gene Veith recalls us to the Reformation concept of vocation. Interesting that the emphases on scripture and justification by faith became so central for Protestants, whereas the equally significant call for people to recognise their whole lives as vocational got lost, or at least limited to the church ministry or the caring and teaching professions. The article has some great quotable sections: 'Vocation is nothing less than the theology of the Christian life. It provides the blueprint for how Christians are to live in the world and to influence their cultures. It is the key to strong marriages and effective parenting. According to the classic Protestant theologians, our multiple vocations—in the family, the culture, and the workplace—are where sanctification and discipleship happen.' Yes, yes, yes

WITH vs FOR God

This short but thought provoking video by Skye Jethani, editor of Leadership Journal and the Out of Ur blog, was posted last week. Jethani looks at the difference between a faith that is lived FOR God and a faith that is lived WITH God. It is a subtle but crucial difference and as I was watching it I wondered if what Jethani is giving is a descriptor of whole-life discipleship that avoids a works-based activism. Living as whole-life disciples, we seek to consciously live our lives with and before God in all we do.

How do you respond to what he is sharing?

Keys to Success and Barriers to Growth (3 of 3)

After a short break for the summer holiday, we return with the third in our series exploring learnings for churches from the Imagine Pilot Project. Here we summarize a number of issues that churches we have worked with have faced that are around the question of process.

We have always sought to be clear with churches that Imagine outlines a process for churches to follow rather than a programme. In other words, this is not a tightly defined, one size fits all approach, but churches can follow a series of steps at their own pace and employing their own creativity.

Briefly outlined there are three phases to the process that we have walked through with churches:

1. Discover a new way of looking at the church – spend time considering the connection between the gathered and the scattered modes of the church. To support this and stimulate imagination we have provided the two Imagine magazines and the Imagine DVD.
2. Engage in active listening – for this we have given churches a survey which allows them to hear the issues their members on the Frontline and begins a dialogue in the congregation around this question.
3. Make a number of simple actions (one degree shifts) that signal a new way of being as a congregation and that seek to honour the Frontline and enhance the connections.

Simple as this process is, in practice the churches we have worked with have encountered a number of natural challenges which means that this process isn’t necessarily as smooth or as easy as it may appear. The most common of these have been:

Losing momentum
Changing too much too quickly is not often a problem for churches! No, the challenge has often been to implement changes clearly, regularly and tangibly enough for people to see the difference that is being made and to ensure that momentum is not lost.

Chris Wright on the Mission of God’s People

Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission, Biblical Theology for Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 304pp., ISBN 9780310291121.

Zondervan provide a pdf excerpt (here) of Chris Wright’s latest book. The chapter titles are below, but the excerpt includes a detailed table of contents (as well as the first chapter) which whets the appetite for what is clearly going to be an excellent book.

Queuing the Questions

1. Who Are We and What Are We Here For?

Arriving at Answers

2. People Who Know the Story They Are Part Of
3. People Who Care for Creation
4. People Who Are a Blessing to the Nations
5. People Who Walk in God’s Way
6. People Who Are Redeemed for Redemptive Living
7. People Who Represent God to the World
8. People Who Attract Others to God

Interlude – Pause for Thought

9. People Who Know the One Living God and Saviour
10. People Who Bear Witness to the Living God
11. People Who Proclaim the Gospel of Christ
12. People Who Send and Are Sent
13. People Who Live and Work in the Public Square
14. People Who Praise and Pray

Reflecting on Relevance

15. The Journey So Far and the Journey Ahead

Event: Antony Billington on Gospel-Shaped Discipleship

LICC's Head of Theology, Antony Billington, will be delivering a six lecture series on 'Gospel Shaped Discipleship' at LICC this autumn.

This series explores key facets of what this looks like for Christians and churches today - introducing some core theological themes at the heart of a gospel-shaped perspective on discipleship.

Lectures run 1.00pm-1.50pm, with the option to stay on for discussion afterwards.

Wednesday 13 October 2010: Beginning with the Gospel

Wednesday 20 October 2010: Engaging with the Word
Wednesday 3 November 2010: Belonging to the Church
Wednesday 10 November 2010: Walking with the Lord
Wednesday 24 November 2010: Living in the World
Wednesday 1 December 2010: Standing in God's Grace


Single lectures cost £5, or pay £10 for three, or £18 for the series of six.

Book here.

Keys to Success and Barriers to Growth (2 of 3)

In this series we are exploring some of the learnings for churches from the Imagine Pilot Project. In the first post we looked at a number of problems with perspective. Here we explore a second dimension:

Problems with Participation
Addressing the issue of participation we look at a set of issues encountered by churches around who should be involved in the process of becoming a whole-life disciplemaking community. Often this means changing a number of our preconceptions about who should be involved and how to go about it.

1) Thinking we know the solution
Old and established methods will not enable us to resolve the question of how to release people as whole-life disciples. Few leaders have received the appropriate training that leads to the effective release of people into their callings and we must recognise that much of what we have been taught emerges out of a church-centric rather than a mission-centric mindset. Further, we cannot depend upon a pastoral response to the issues people face on the Frontline, as Hendrik Kraemer put it:

…the laity should not be seen primarily as the needy, ignorant and helpless, but as that part of the Church that has to carry the brunt of the burden of encounter with the world in and around themselves, and to voice and incarnate the Church’s or better, Christ’s relevance to the whole range of human life.

So as leaders, we must begin by acknowledging that we don’t have all the answers. We have to begin by respecting the wisdom of the body and recognising that we are not the experts about problems faced on the Frontline. This leads to a redefinition of the role of the leader. As Mark Gibbs and Ralph Morton put it in their book God’s Frozen People:

The Missional Church...Simple

There are some ideas you just whish you'd had first, like this excellent 2 minute introduction to the missional church...enjoy!

Baptism and the Whole-life Disciple

When do we become a whole-life disciple? What fuels our discipleship? I'd like to suggest that our identity and comissioning as a disciple is firmly rooted in our baptism. There is much more to say about this and hopefully we will explore it further elsewhere, but I recently came across this quote by the Swiss theologian Hans-Ruedi Weber from his article The Ministry of the Laity - Reconsidered from an Old Testament Perspective that helpfully encapsulates this idea. He writes:

a) Baptism is the ordination of the laity which authorises them to participate in Christ’s ministry in and for the world. Baptism is therefore the starting point for a theology on the laity.

b) Baptism introduces each church member into a basic apostolic succession. Just as each apostle is called, so each member of the apostolic Church is called to discipleship and mission.

c) In baptism each Christian becomes the responsible steward of the gifts of grace, the ‘charismata’ which have been given to him. These ‘charismata’ have to be used both for the up-building of the Church and for Christian service in and through the ‘secular’ jobs of the church members.

d) In baptism, each member of the Church is introduced into the dying and uprising with Christ, who, as the eternal High Priest, offered himself to become the victim for the salvation of the world.

From their baptism onwards, all Christians are therefore called to share in Christ’s priestly work by offering themselves in love and obedience to God and in love and service of men.

Keys to Success and Barriers to Growth (1 of 3)

In an earlier series we explored 5 values for a whole-life disciplemaking church. Now, based on our experience with the Imagine Pilot Project, I’d like to give space to exploring some of the keys to success and barriers to growth in becoming a whole-life community. We start by exploring the barriers.

From experience we know the sobering reality:

• In some places whole-life discipleship will flourish
• In many places it will not flourish as much as it could do

This is not easy work. Becoming a church that seeks to equip its members for the whole of life is a slow, long term process. Often it takes a long time of concerted effort to begin to see green shoots of change and churches encounter many challenges and distractions as they make the journey.

So, can we identify the barriers that get in the way?

The Evangelisation of the UK: LICC/Imagine Research (3 of 3)

This is the third in a series summarising the findings of LICC Imagine research 2003-2010. In this post we look at research conducted amongst leaders identifying the key issues they are facing as they look to equip the people for mission. Read the first and second posts.

Leadership toward Evangelisation
Connected to the question of the equipping of the people, explored in the last post, is the question of the equipping of the leaders, those who release the people into evangelism. A number of issues emerged from What the Leaders Said (2004) a consultation event with 150 Christian leaders, the Spring Harvest Apprentice ’09 survey (2009) and the Imagine Pilot Project (2007-10).

Overall, it is clear that: 1) leaders are struggling as much, if not in some cases more than, as their congregations to discover a way of living that manifests the difference the gospel can make, 2) the ‘pastor’-centric model of church actively mitigates against an equipping for mission (the role of leaders is limited to that of care-provider rather than equipper), 3) there is a perceived tension between the demands of keeping the church running and releasing members into life.

William Diehl - Seven Suggestions for Pastors

I've recently been reading William E. Diehl's book Ministry in Daily Life: A Practical Guide for Congregations (New York: Alban, 1996). Diehl worked as a management consultant and became a key figure in the workplace and ministry in daily life movement in America during the 80s/90s. He wrote prolifically in this period, even producing a book called Thank God It's Monday! (good title for a book!). Most of Diehl's books are now out of print but you can still find them if you search on Amazon.

The book Ministry in Daily Life is an important one for us as it tells the story of how the congregation of which Diehl was a part, the Lutheran Church of the Holy Spirit in Emmaus, Pennsylvania made the transition to supporting its members for ministry in the places they spent the majority of their time. (For those of you interested in seeing how sustainable this work of culture shift is over the long term, it is well worth checking out the Lutheran Church of the Holy Spirit website to see what has become of that work today.)

Jesus the Discernment Artist

We are convinced that discernment is a crucial skill for disciples on the Frontline, it was therefore with great interest that I read these posts on John Frye's blog Jesus the Radical Pastor. In his most recent series he is exploring some of the dimensions of discernment from a New Testament perspective:

1. Jesus the Discernment Artist
2. Apostle Paul: The Discernment Challenge
3. The Spirit of God: Discernment Energy

Assumptions Behind the Movement for MDL

The excellent Urbana website, produced by the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, has a fascinating list of 15 Assumptions Behind the Movement for Ministry in Daily Life or Whole-life Discipleship as we would term it:

1. God has a purpose for the life of each human being.
2. The primary "calling" or ministry for most laity is in the world not in the church.
3. Many laity are undeveloped in relating their faith to daily life.
4. The primary task of the congregation is to develop mature disciples for ministry in the world.
5. For the most part, congregations do not take seriously the worldly vocation of their members.

Pastors, go to work

There might be some translation needed from the different context, but this post about church leaders visiting people at work strikes me as good advice. Particularly the advice not to introduce yourself as a church leader - let people find out that you're a normal human and a church leader. Come to think of it there's a few assumptions there as well ;)

But worth a look: www.buzzardblog.com/2010/07/14/go-to-where-your-men-work/

Who's Shaping You? 21st Century Disciples

The prolific Bishop Graham Cray's latest book Who's Shaping You: 21st Century Disciples has just been published by Cell UK priced at a very reasonable £4.25. An edited version of the talks Graham Cray has been delivering in partnership with LICC across the UK, the book explores 4 foundational issues for disciples of Christ.

The publisher writes:

Graham gives us an exciting theological vision to help us work out our foundations for living this life. He describes a radical way of life, based on blblical thinking which he sees is necessary if we are to impact our world. He encourages us to allow Jesus to infect the whole of our lives and to live those lives openly in front of those we come across day by day.

Order a copy of the book from Cell UK here.

The CD version of the talks is available here.

Update from the North-West - Chick Yuill

Some of my best friends - the kind who know me well enough to tell me what they really think - have sometimes suggested to me that I might occasionally suffer from delusions of grandeur! I’d always thought they were joking until I took up the post of - wait for it - North West Regional Church Life Consultant for the Imagine Project. It’s worth getting out of bed in the morning for a title like that! My mates might have been right after all...

Seriously, it’s a great job which requires me to get involved with individual local congregations, clusters of churches in the same geographical area, and denominational groupings. And my role is simply to help them make the transition to Whole-Life Disciple-Making communities. It’s fascinating to see the range of churches who are either showing real interest or who have actually come on board with the Imagine Project here in the North West - a long-established Anglican church, a non-denominational new plant, a large Black-majority congregation, a lively Church of the Nazarene congregation, a URC church, a relatively new church in the Oasis network...

Work in Progress

At the moment I’m working on a publication that I hope will see the light of day in the autumn this year. It’ll reflect the work I’ve been engaged in with the churches that linked themselves into the Imagine project. This is a short excerpt from the introduction….

For three years we worked with churches up and down the country, getting to know them well, trying to understand their particular challenges and opportunities, encouraging them to become whole-life disciple-making communities. From this experience we have been reminded that there are no silver bullets, no ‘off the peg’ resources that will change everything. Over three years later, we have learnt from our work with these partner churches.

What we have found is that there is a clear process that can be used by any church, regardless of their denominational stream, their age profile or their geographical location. Of course, what they end up doing will be unique to them in each situation. Each church is local and unique, and God has a way of dealing with each of them according to his plans and purposes.

But the simple process can be summarised in three points:

The Evangelisation of the UK: LICC/Imagine Research (2 of 3)

This is the second in a series summarising the findings of LICC Imagine research 2003-2010. In this post we look at research conducted amongst Christians identifying the key issues they are facing. Read the first of the series here...

Fit for Mission? Equipping the Church
Non-Christians are asking many fundamental questions about meaning, purpose and identity. The problem that occurs is that the Christian narrative is not seen as relevant to a response. Of further concern is that, as our research among Christians highlights, many believers, despite professing faith, are asking exactly the same questions. Despite discovering a ‘fundamental’ meaning to life, they struggle to connect this with a lived reality that fuels purpose and identity in the everyday. In other words, it seems many Christians ‘still haven’t found what they’re looking for.’

Talk: Whole Loaf & Whole-Life Disciples (MP3)

Neil Hudson, the Imagine Project Director, recently introduced the ideas behind the Imagine project to a group from Crofton Parish Church, Stubbington. The talk was recorded and has been made available on their website. For those interested in hearing more about whole-life discipleship this talk may provide a useful way in.

To hear or download Neil's talk click here...

Crafting Conversation

The following article was written as part of LICC's weekly Connecting with Culture email series last November. I am reposting it here as we believe that the question it addresses is of fundamental significance for disciplemaking communities. We would love to hear your responses and ideas for how we might creatively address this issue...

Bernard Cribbins, familiar to generations of children as the voice of Jackanory and the Wombles, receives a special award at the Children's Baftas this weekend. Interviewed recently, he was asked the secret to good storytelling. He replied, 'to concentrate on one child, look them directly in the eye, and make them listen to every single thing I say.'

Yet in our world of hyper-communication, myriad means of contact (texts, blogs and tweets) provide an ever-greater choice of options for avoiding eye contact. The art of storytelling - even the art of conversation itself - are under threat as the quality of our interactions is reduced and ever more functionalised.

The Evangelisation of the UK: LICC/Imagine Research (1 of 3)

Over the past seven years LICC has conducted a number of pieces of research exploring the question of the evangelisation of the UK. We have looked at this question from a number of angles:

1. What are the barriers and bridges to belief today for non-Christians? What has proved to be key for people coming to faith?
2. What do Christians think about the question of mission? Are we fit for purpose?
3. What is the role of leaders in equipping people for mission?

Over this next series of posts we will attempt to synthesise some of the most important findings from our research. More depth can be found by clicking on the links and exploring the research findings in full.

The Power of Story

One of the central emphases of the Imagine Project has been in helping churches rediscover the power of stories and testimonies. Testimonies are of course an old, old idea…but at the same time they remain powerful. Although many churches still use testimonies we have tried to help them reflect on their function and content. In addition, we try to underline the significance of a number of elements to testimony that have often been missed or ignored and emphasise the power of stories from the Frontline. Here we identify a number of key elements...

Stories reveal significance
Take a moment to think about the life stories that you hear at a church service on a typical Sunday. What are they about? Who are they about? Who shares those stories? In which settings do the stories take place? What do they concern - are they primarily about church activities or the activities of people’s lives? Finally, what was the conclusion and explanation of the story?

Giving Church Another Chance, Todd Hunter

Why read this book
At a time when many people are re-thinking the value of the gathered church as a place of spiritual formation, Todd Hunter writes to encourage us to connect all we do in gathered worship with our everyday life.

About the author
Previously he was the national director of both the Vineyard Churches USA and Alpha USA. He’s now a bishop for the Anglican Mission in the Americas. He has a website where you can read more about his work and other books.

Graham Cray - Discerning Leadership

In a warmly received event, Bishop Graham Cray launched the new leadership series of Grove booklets at LICC last week, speaking on Discerning Leadership: Co-operating with the Spirit of God.

You can listen to and download Bishop Graham's talk and the following panel discussion here. Download the accompanying PowerPoint slide set here.

Order a copy of the booklet from the Grove Books website.

This event was hosted in partnership with CPAS.

Biblical Theology for Life Series

I’ve been interested to see that Zondervan have plans to publish a ‘Biblical Theology for Life’ series. Two volumes have been announced as forthcoming later this year, and both of them look excellent:

Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, forthcoming 2010).

In The Mission of God’s People, part of the Biblical Theology for Life series, author Chris Wright offers a sweeping biblical survey of the holistic mission of the church, providing practical insight for today’s church leaders. Wright gives special emphasis to theological trajectories of the Old Testament that not only illuminate God’s mission but also suggest priorities for Christians engaged in God’s world-changing work.

Description:
In The Mission of God’s People, Chris Wright shows how God’s big-picture plan directs the purpose of God’s people, the church. Wright’s pioneering 2006 book, The Mission of God, revealed that the typical Christian understanding of ‘missions’ encompasses only a small part of God’s overarching mission for the world. God is relentlessly reclaiming the entire world for himself. Wright emphasizes what the Old Testament teaches Christians about being the people of God. He addresses questions of both ecclesiology and missiology with topics like ‘called to care for creation,’ ‘called to bless the nations,’ ‘sending and being sent,’ and ‘rejecting false gods.’ As part of the Biblical Theology for Life Series, this book provides you – whether you’re a pastor, teacher, or lay learner – with first-rate biblical study while at the same time addressing the practical concerns of contemporary ministry. The Mission of God’s People promises to enliven and refocus the study, teaching, and ministry of those truly committed to joining God’s work in the world.

Jonathan Lunde, Following Jesus, the Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, forthcoming 2010).

In Following Jesus, the Servant King, Jonathan Lunde presents a biblical theology of discipleship that gives the ‘big picture’ of God’s relationship with humanity. In biblical terms, Jesus is the King who demands righteous obedience from his followers, and Jesus is the Servant who provides the grace that enables this obedience. Lunde presents a view of Christian discipleship that is grounded in an informed Christology of Jesus, the Servant King.

Description:
Throughout the Old Testament and into the New, God not only demands righteousness from his people but also showers on grace that enables them to act. Jesus, of course, provides the ultimate fulfillment of these twin aspects of God’s relationship to humanity. In biblical terms, Jesus is the King who demands righteous obedience from his followers, and Jesus is the Servant who provides the grace that enables this obedience. So what does it mean to follow Jesus? What does God expect from his followers, and how can they be and do what is required? Jonathan Lunde answers these and other questions in his sweeping biblical study on discipleship. He surveys God’s interaction with his people from Eden to Jesus, paying special attention to the biblical covenants that illuminate the character and plans of God. He offers Bible students and teachers – such as pastors, missionaries, and lay leaders – the gift of practical biblical teaching rooted in the Bible’s witness on the vital topic of discipleship.

Michael J. Wilkins on Discipleship 1

Michael J. Wilkins has published a few books on the topic of discipleship, from the focused and academic…

Michael J. Wilkins, The Concept of Disciple in Matthew’s Gospel As Reflected in the Use of the Term Μαθητής, Supplements to Novum Testamentum LIX (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988), republished with an additional chapter as Discipleship in the Ancient World and Matthew’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1995).

… to the bigger and broader overview…

Michael J. Wilkins, Following the Master: Discipleship in the Steps of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992).

… to the more popular and practical…

Michael J. Wilkins, In His Image: Reflecting Christ in Everyday Life (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1997).

More concise and accessible are a pair of articles he has published, which are available online:

Michael J. Wilkins, ‘Disciple, Discipleship’, in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 175-77.

Michael J. Wilkins, ‘Disciple-Making for Changing Times and Changing Churches’, Enrichment (Winter 2008), 41-46.

I’ll summarise the thrust of each of these in a further two posts.

Imagine: The Story So Far...

As the Imagine project is now seven years old, for those new to what the project is doing we thought it might help to recap how the project has developed, the progression of our thinking and how we hope to see the project developing over the next period of time.

2003: Publication of Imagine
Imagine began with Mark Greene’s essay Imagine: How we can reach the UK. The central thesis argued for a recovery of whole-life disciplemaking as key to mission in the 21st century. With a copy distributed to every person receiving the Evangelical Alliance’s Idea magazine, Imagine struck a chord with many who read it. As Joel Edwards, the EA General Director commented, ‘The response by our readers was extraordinary. Never before have we received such a wave of positive affirmation from a publication.’

2004: Imagine Project
With the unexpected scale of the response to the Imagine essay, the question began to be asked, ‘so, how do we respond to the issues raised?’ Consequently in May 2004 the Imagine Project was launched, led by Tracy Cotterell, as a grassroots pilot learning and experimentation project with local churches. The project began by focussing on research and consultation. The first step of which was to engage in a listening exercise, leading to two reports What the People Said and What the Leaders Said that identified the issues and barriers to whole-life discipleship capturing the perspectives of both church leaders and members.

5 Values: 5 - We Commit To Growth As Whole-life Disciples

This is the last in a series of posts on 5 Values for a Whole-life Disciplemaking Church. Read the inroduction to the series.

As our lives develop, we are faced with the challenges of new transitional moments, situations that are new to us, challenges and opportunities that we couldn’t have imagined. And in each situation we are given the chance to grow or to retreat to familiar practices.

This commitment to ongoing learning on everyone’s part, can make some feel vulnerable. We have been happier when we have felt that we have known everything and can teach everyone else. This has been a false confidence.

Holy Spirit in the World Today Conference

Last week I was privileged to attend the Holy Spirit in the World Today Conference at Holy Trinity Brompton. Amongst others speaking were Jürgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, David Ford, Tom Smail and Rowan Williams – quite a line up!

The conference was significant for a number of reasons: firstly, it was determinedly church centric. Few academic conferences would be hosted in a church context, yet on a number of occasions participants explicitly noted that academia has lagged behind the church in exploring pneumatology. Jürgen Moltmann in particular reflected on his experiences in his church in Tübingen, echoing the cry of the ecological movement that we ‘think global, but act local.’ Secondly and strikingly, explicit connection was made with the Frontline. The second speaker on the Thursday was Ken Costa, Chairman of Lazard International Bank and creator of the God at Work course, speaking about the need for a pneumatology that embraces the workplace and the home.

Connecting Sunday With Monday

Dave Gooderidge, minister at Lymington Baptist for the past 10 years, has been seeking to create a whole-life disciplemaking culture in his church. Here he shares something of their experiences...

The conviction that God is interested in the whole of life was rooted into me primarily as a student under Mark Greene at London School of Theology. So as a minister, the Sunday has always connected with Monday. I didn’t know anything different!

I think this is crucial to our understanding of the church. There is a big thing in the Baptist understanding of church about ‘walking together in ways known and ways to be made known; watching over and being watched over,’ what that means is, if we are going to grow as whole-life disciples we need to band together. We need to watch over and look out for one another and ask questions, about how you are getting on with your boss, for example, creating mutual care and accountability.

5 Values: 4 - We Are Active Listeners

This is part of a series of posts on 5 Values for a Whole-life Disciplemaking Church. Read the introduction to the series.

‘Our task is the opposite of distraction. It's to help people concentrate on the real, but often hidden, event of God's active presence in our lives.’ Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart

Clearly, Christians need to learn to listen to one another, to understand the pressures that they face and the opportunities that are available. But listening goes further than this. We need to be able to discern the forces that are work in our culture which may be a challenge to our discipleship, or may encourage us to think more deeply about our relationship with God. We need to hear the cries of the world to know how best to begin the dialogue that might enable us to offer the good news to people. We need to develop attentive hearing to the promptings of God, who we believe is at work in his world, bringing new creation out of the spaces where previously there were only signs of despair. And we need to encourage people to be able to understand what is happening in their own lives so that they can grow in self-awareness, moving away from the temptation of self-deception towards the liberation of authentic honesty.

One Degree Shift Ideas

Small changes are helpful in a culture shift programme, because they are visible, create little sense of anxiety, operate as powerful symbols for the overall change that is hoped for, can easily be reversed or adapted if they are not working well, do not have to be defended to the death.

We have already put together a list of one degree shift ideas on the Imagine website.

However, we recently came across a list of 23 ideas from Nelvin Vos and Melvin George for Equipping and Encouraging the Laity on the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America website that you may be interested to explore as well.

We'd love to hear any ideas you've tried. What has worked? What didn't?

5 Values: 3 - We Connect The 10 To The 110

This is part of a series of posts on 5 Values for a Whole-life Disciplemaking Church. Read the introduction to the series here...

‘We are gathered into communion so as to be sent our again. We are sent so as to come back. This…is the breathing of the Church ... this rhythm of gathering the community around the altar and then sending it away belongs to the oxygenation of the Church's life blood. Without it, the Church would stop breathing and die.’ Timothy Radcliffe, Why Go to Church?

There are 168 hours in the week.
Take away 48 hours for sleep and 120 remain.
Of those 120 even the most committed member of the church will probably only spend 10 hours in church activities.
That leaves 110 hours.

Centered Life Website

Sometimes it feels a little chaotic how connections are made between people exploring similar ideas, but thank God that he helps us connect the dots!

We recently stumbled across the brilliant Centered Life website and it turns out their concerns are very similar to those of the Imagine project in equipping churches to equip their members to follow Christ in the whole of life. They put it this way:

Your calling is your life, it's in the work you do every day - as a parent,
child, neighbour, caregiver, volunteer, worker, or however you spend your time.
To know your calling is to know:

• meaning and purpose
• identity and belonging
• freedom and hope

Connected with the Luther Seminary they have produced a number of interesting resources and a process for churches to begin to explore and nurture calling amongst their members. It is well worth taking a look around their website.

In particular, watch the You! video (I tried to get this to play here but couldn't get it across) a brilliant 3 1/2 minute video exploring whole-life discipleship that could be used in sermons. (You can request a free copy on DVD.)

Changing the Culture

In this article, Alasdair Macleod, shares his thoughts on disciplemaking and his involvement with the Imagine Project. Alasdair is now the Senior Minister at Billericay Baptist Church, however, until a few months ago he was leader of Bushey Baptist Church which was part of the first Imagine pilot project. This article was previously published in the Baptist Times 'Crossing Places' Special Edition published 30th April 2010.

We are all longing to see the church in the UK grow. All too often we place the emphasis on adding converts to our churches without adding depth. Yet for growth to be sustained we must equip believers to live well for Christ in their frontlines of mission. This vision has been recognised by the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity (LICC) in their Imagine report, “The UK will never be reached until we create open, authentic, learning and praying communities that are focussed on making whole-life disciples who live and share the Gospel wherever they relate to people in their daily lives.”

5 Values: 2 - We Value Everyone's Frontlines

This is part of a series of posts on 5 Values for a Whole-life Disciplemaking Church. Read the introduction to the series here...

‘For Christian faith not to be idle in the world, the work of doctors and garbage collectors, business executives and artists, stay-at-home moms or dads and scientists needs to be inserted into God's story with the world. That story needs to provide the most basic rules by which the game in all these spheres is played. And that story needs to shape the character of the players.’ Miroslav Volf

Over the past twenty years, the church has become better at recognising the significance of many people’s vocations. Years ago, many evangelicals assumed that the top job for a Christian to have in God’s eyes was to be an overseas missionary living by faith. This was clearly sacrificial, often challenging and occasionally there would be no awareness of the fruitfulness of the work for many years, if ever. Below this in the assumed godly career ladder were ministers and church workers. If you weren’t able to be employed directly in these tasks, there was always your voluntary time that could be used for the important work.

North-West Pilot Project Video

We posted this video on our website before, but thought we would put it up here again as in it Chick outlines some of the thinking behind the North-West pilot project...

EVENT: Graham Cray on Discerning Leadership

Grove Books are launching a new Leadership series at LICC on 8th June, 6:15-8:30pm. Bishop Graham Cray, who has written the first booklet of the series, will be speaking on Discerning Leadership: Co-operating with the Spirit of God.

Tickets are £7 (£5 for concessions) including refreshments and a copy of the first booklet. Bookings of 4 from one church get an additional place free.

To book your place call LICC on 020 7399 9555. More information is available here.

5 Values: 1 - We Submit To The Lordship Of Christ In All Things

This is part of a series of posts on 5 values for a Whole-life Disciplemaking Church. Read the introduction to the series here.

Here is a conversation Neil had not so long ago with a group of students at a university Christian Union:

Neil: ‘Who is the Lord of all things?’
Students (Without missing a beat): ‘Jesus’
Neil: ‘Who is the Lord of the University?’
Students (Again in unison): ‘The Chancellor.’
Neil (Becoming somewhat more emphatic): ‘Ok, one more time. Who is the Lord of all things?’
Students: ‘Jesus’
Neil: ‘Right, so who is the Lord of the University?’
Students: ‘The Chancellor’

At which point we leave Neil to reflect on the current state of university education and his own teaching techniques…

A Theology of the Laity (1)

…the laity, generally speaking, feels itself spiritually powerless and illiterate as to its witness in that sector, which is the very place where most of its life is spent. This is the appalling problem, hidden by the fact that this laity, impotent and paralysed in the most strategic region of their life, are often faithful worshippers and do all kinds of service in the ordinary run of church life. The problem is still more appalling because the relevancy of the Church, and what she represents in the modern world, is dependent on the conversion of this impotence and paralysis into a manifestation of power and spirit. (37-8)

Sounds like an extract from an LICC publication? These words were written in 1958 by Hendrik Kraemer in his Theology of the Laity. I stumbled across this book while we were in the process of clearing the LICC library and began to flick through it. It only took a few glances to realise that Kraemer's words (sadly) remain as potent and relevant today as when they were first published. (For those interested, the book is still in print and available from Amazon)

5 Values For A Whole-life Disciplemaking Church: Intro

How do you tell a whole-life disciplemaking church when you’ve got one? What should you look for? If you are a church leader, how do you tell when your work in shifting the culture is making a positive difference?

These are questions we frequently ask ourselves as a team. Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to tell when a culture shift has begun to gain traction in the life of the church and to articulate what differences it is making. However, as our work in the church pilot project progressed it became increasingly clear that there are 5 core values that are central to a whole-life disciplemaking church that we believe provide a good guide to when a culture shift has begun:

Value 1: We submit to the Lordship of Christ in all things
Christ is Lord of All is a fundamental scriptural tenet (Col 1:16-17; Eph 1:22). As a community we are committed to exploring what ‘all things’ mean, recognising that no area of existence is excluded from God’s interest, purpose and redemptive power.

NEW Imagine DVD Small Group Resource

This new resource guides a small group through the themes, ideas and questions raised by the Imagine DVD. Over the course of 6 weeks, groups will grapple with the material and discover new ways of supporting and equipping one another as whole-life disciples.

To download this free new resource click here...

Conversations Journal: How We Change

Conversations journal, published twice a year in the US, has devoted its latest issue to the question of How We Change.

As the editorial puts it:

...it has become commonplace to live as though what Jesus meant to be Christianity 101 - learning to live our lives with supernatural abilities - has become Christianity 401, a curriculum most reserve now for the saints.

So, they have devoted the latest issue to exploring the dimensions of change and growth. Coming out of the spiritual formation school it provides a certain take on the question and there is little on the role of the church in the transformation of the individual but with contributions from Dallas Willard, Larry Crabb, David Kinnaman and Ruth Haley Barton there is much for reflection.

To explore the contents and purchase a copy go to the Conversations website.

Gospel in Life: Grace Changes Everything

The new DVD course Gospel in Life: Grace Changes Everything presented by Tim Keller from Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Manhatten is now available. Having watched the course DVD (in Black & White as the DVD is in NTSC format rather than PAL), we think it is an excellent resource for churches and small groups. The DVD features eight 10 minute films featuring Keller and is accompanied by a very thorough Participants Guide that contains session outlines and preparatory reading.

The DVD explores the gospel and how it is lived out in all of life. Bookended by a theology of the city, Keller, with typical clarity and depth, explores how Christians work out life and community in that context, remaining faithful whilst resisting the temptations of assimilation. As he says, "you work out the gospel in the city, in order to work the gospel into your own heart."

The 8 Sessions are:

1. City: The World That Is


2. Heart: Three Ways To Live


3. Idolatory: The Sin Behind The Sin


4. Community: The Context For Change
   
5. Witness: An Alternate City


6. Work: Cultivating The Garden


7. Justice: A People For Others


8. Eternity: The World That Is To Come

For more information and to purchase go to the Gospel in Life website.