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Towards Intentional Missional Communities
Towards Intentional Missional Communities - a study workbook
Available for free download from this website. Use the links on the right hand side of this page to download the workbook in full (1.7MB) or in 4 smaller sections.
The workbook is also available in hard copy from the CFM (cost is $10 plus postage and handling).
Call 9251 5255 to order your copy.
Welcome to this workbook
The purpose of this Towards Intentional Missional Communities workbook is to assist congregations, various Church Councils’, their commissions and agencies, to move towards becoming intentional missional communities.
1. ‘intentional’ – our purpose lived out
2. ‘missional’ - our vocation in arising from God’s particular calling to partnership in God’s mission
3. ‘communities’ - discovering our life grounded in human relationships, defined by God’s presence.
What’s inside the workbook?
The workbook explores moving towards intentional missional communities, informed by the Basis of Union; the Bible; contemporary theology; and up-to-date community development, organizational and change theory. The workbook includes text for reading, discussion questions and activities to guide reflection, and diagrams and pictures to illustrate ideas.
This workbook introduces a framework for exploring some elements of wholeness. The framework is referred to as SPN – Strengths, Practices and Networks. This concept shows how the church can work out its calling in God’s mission in the world through harnessing strengths, developing Christian practices and enabling networks.
Summary of concepts presented
•The goal, or ‘promised end’ of God’s mission, is the wholeness of all creation.
•The Church’s purpose is to be a partner to God’s mission in the world.
•To respond to the Spirit’s call to God’s mission in the world, churches and Christians must make the ministry of Jesus Christ central and real today. We do so through pursing liberating, reconciling and restorative relationships with our neighbours. This is our Christian vocation.
•Churches will be critically informed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. They give particular attention to their context. They take serious notice of the cultures and peoples with whom they seek to engage.
•Every church is unique. An authentic expression of the gospel proclaims the authentic Gospel of Jesus Christ, grounded in the realities of the particular context and culture of the local church’s neighbours. When the disciples of Jesus walk worthily of his calling, their lives are a sign, a foretaste of the Kingdom of God. A church walking worthily becomes an instrument of the mission of God.
•Wholeness has at least three constituent elements: strengths, practices and networks. These can be seen in at least nine practical expressions.
•On the Way Together, the UCA Synod of Victoria and Tasmania’s journey of discovery for the future directions of the Church, connects strongly with the concepts above.
•It takes time! To implement the learning that this workbook promotes about participating in God’s mission requires both imagination and innovation.
•Change is essential. To innovate requires that the church and / or community intentionally embark on a journey through change.
•Sustaining our relationship with God in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit is critical to faithfully participating in the mission of God.
