Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Asking The Right Questions: Moving From Church to Neighborhood To Find God and Church

From Missional: Joining God in the Neighborhood by Alan Roxburgh:

"The problem is that we won't address questions about the nature and function of the church by starting with questions about the church. [from RR: if you are at General Assembly or one of your church conferences notice how many issues, questions, concerns, conversations, lectures, workshops, etc. are all about the church]. In the changed contexts of our time, starting with church questions (whether multisite churches, the renaissance of the church, whole church, church morph, sticky church, or church turned inside out or whatever) takes us in all the wrong directions because they are the same old questions we have been asking since before the Reformation.

"On the other side are those who want to set aside the church as it exists (of course there is no other kind of church) as being irrelevant or past bothering with....Each of these is mentioned to make it clear that my argument of this book is not antichurch. In fact, my argument is born out of a passionate desire for local churches to embrace the missio Dei in their neighborhoods and communities.

"The heart of this book is to address these questions: What is God up to in our neighborhoods and communities? What is the nature of an engagement between the biblical imagination and this place where we find ourselves, at this time, among these people? What then will a local church look like when it responds to such questions?"

Pay attention to see where these questions are being asked, and where they aren't and why

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