“Grace shows up in all of us asking the hard questions to break new ground. Grace is generous and, when we lean into it, we can’t help but extend it to others.”[1] Benbow goes on to explore what it looks like to see through the lens of grace to recognise the brokenness of others and self. Session, quoting Stacy, a stripper, “This is the first time I’ve ever felt seen.”[2] in a sermon from 2020 brings grace into the room for everyone.
The church and church leaders are struggling post Christendom, they are struggling in this postmodern society that on the surface appears to have no room for God. Ordinary people do not have time in that busy schedule of surviving to contemplate on a piece of doctrine or the latest theological slant on how to live a life well lived. They need to pay the bills, feed the family, keep a roof over the family’s head, perhaps, even keeping a car on the road. If they have time, it is spent doing the extras of ironing, washing, cleaning and washing up. When they have even more time it is spent playing with their children, chatting with their partner and maybe binge watching something new on Netflix. The people on fixed income where every penny is accounted for is a place. It is where I dwelt for most of my adulthood. I would bring those people into projects and events to help because the need for them, is community and belonging to something that makes this whole mess of life worthwhile. Along the way they might hear something of God that brings them onto another journey. For some just being part of something is enough, and the grace we have should be enough to allow those relationships to develop.
‘Breathe,’ the first fresh expression of church or pioneer ministry that I researched gets this part correct. ‘Breathe’ was conceived when two Christian workers who worked on the same street or area asked the question, “where is God at work and how do we join in?” The buzzword at the time was dwell, and in 2012 ‘Breathe’ was conceived. Looking in from the outside it looks a lot like youth club for grownups and families. During the pandemic possibly the key reason it was started in the first place became the main thing, dwelling together. There was no gathering so the focus on what each person could bring and bringing the best and all of those things that happen in gatherings was gone. So, what was left? Prayer meetings increased, there was a focus on the Lord’s prayer and the Fruit of the Spirit, monthly dinners became weekly because no one had to leave home to have the dinner, sharing and testimonies increased. This new commitment level has now peaked and as the long drawn out COVID-19-19 pandemic continues there has been a revaluation. One person is now holding ‘Breathe’ together and if that person were to leave it is possible that only the friendships will remain and not a sense of church or Christian gathering. From this I learned that when you take out the doing, being becomes a priority and the things of God become the main thing.
The second is an expression from Xxx family church and it began because one person did a module in IBI auditing the ministry needs in the local community. Poverty and hunger were found to be prevalent, and this one person started something.
The needs were great I heard of a family of six who were starved, emaciated, and stank. A girl whose dinner every night was a happy meal and whose breakfast/lunch was a chicken roll. This girl did not know you could cook from scratch, she was seven years old and she’d never had a home cooked meal. One in three children go to bed hungry in xxx. There was a food bank but food was thrown out because people didn’t know how to cook it or how to use it or it wasn’t instant enough. So, packets of rice, pasta and tinned tomatoes with thrown away. The usual signs of poverty were seen in the Sunday school where children would hoard, gorge, steal biscuits and any food that was available. Stories like this horrify congregations in areas outside of Xxx or places like that. They find it hard to comprehend that children are geographically neglected. These are not the ordinary people spoken of in the first paragraph, the people in this neighborhood are broken by addiction, unbroken cycles of abuse, lack of aspiration and vision, poor education and lack of hope. More money is spent by central government in this area than anywhere else in the country but throwing money at a place is not going to solve the problem. This pioneer ministry in Xxx focused on food. Soup available all day for adults to drop in at any time. Somewhere that children could come after school. Alongside this Christian sessions; freedom in Christ, Alpha and Nua were offered. The big picture was to travel with people, develop relationships, share the gospel, love people and for it not just to be a kindness project but to bring Christ into the room.[3]
Both of these expressions of pioneer ministry have one key person, a lot of the momentum comes from them, and it is them that keep the whole thing going. ‘Breathe’ still exists but the second expression does not. The difference in how much work is there is involved in keeping it going. For ‘Breathe’, during COVID-19 keeping it going meant having zoom meetings and there was less doing. The second expression stooped during the same period for many reasons but talking to the initiator of the expression it was lack of support, lack of trained staff, lack of vision expressed by all and rushing into doing before being.
Bosch[4] indicates how difficult it is to define mission and further goes on to say that the early church made no conscious attempts to do it in any explicit way. He says that the writers Matthew, Luke, and Paul were defining and redefining what the church was called to do in the church of their day, sort of theology on the fly. Willis Horst et al state that religious self-determination presupposes that every person [has the capacity] and each people [grouping] has the capacity as well as the right to negotiate and pursue. [5] In the context of inner-city Dublin and xxx has this happened in these two pioneer ministries? Have the ministries themselves been shaped by the outside looking in or has the shaping occurred as the ministry developed? One of the fresh expressions of church that I was involved with in Lisburn with shaped by non-Christians and Christians not attending church, it was led by somebody who was able to let go enough of the leadership to allow this to happen. Volunteers were sought from the local area because they knew the local area and cared deeply about the local area. The local area was their mission field they just didn’t know it. Conversely, many Christians don’t know what they’re capable of doing with regards living missionally and beginning a pioneer ministry because they think that’s for somebody else.
There is a rope bridge somewhere in Northern Ireland and I traversed this rope bridge on my own and was scared but I did it. There were people around me who did not do it because they were scared and watching me do it did not make them try it for themselves. What they needed was an interjection of hope. My son was with me and he traversed the rope bridge on his own and when he was coming back again suddenly all these people wanted to try the rope bridge experience if he can do it, we could try. My son is blind.
“Each person and every culture has something of God within,”[6] In church circles we talk about everybody having a God shaped hole or that from our very core being we are built; we are created to worship and so no matter what the culture or the person, there is something of God deep down within everyone no matter how dormant it may appear. “Indigenous wisdom, like all human wisdom, becomes hope only when it reflects divine truth.”[7] Partnering with non-Christians who live in the local area to bring the gospel to people is wise because they know the territory, the terrain, the people and the culture. Watching non-Christians partner with Christians is a beautiful thing to as each person unfolds the layers of mistrust, bitterness, perhaps even a hatred and the grace of God is exposed and seen by all.
For me practicing the presence of God both in a church setting and outside the church setting is unsettling for all and helping people to see that it is a little piece of God Shalom is equally beautiful. Francis, in describing their journey with practicing the presence of God says this, “Each prayer is often written to be slowly and repeatedly said as we go about mundane and everyday tasks, whether it is lighting the wood stove, milking the cow or preparing food to share … What are you doing?, Why?”[8] are questions that are asked when we take our practicing the presence of God into the presence of others. When we are clear on our identity, who we are and who we belong to, being rooted and established in his love we can then share that love unconditionally and that gives us freedom in mission. The Prayer that Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus brings us to the fulfillment of knowing that love well so that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God because it is for his glory that we are who we are and we do what we do. Our church no matter how we express it, where it is belongs to Jesus and if we keep him the main thing and his love, He will do a immeasurably more then we could ever ask or imagine.[9]
How do we share what we are being without appearing to be too different from the culture? When Jesus was teaching, he “relied on the realities of poverty, blindness, captivity and oppression to describe people in need of salvation”[10] Jesus used the stories available to him to explain his teaching. Sharing my story that is infused with God’s story and inviting the story of the other begins to weave together a new story for that particular place and time. This can only happen with local knowledge.
When I lived in xxx I worked with young girls and some of them were in need of sanitary products and so I went off and I bought some Tampax. My response was incorrect for the culture of xxx in 1990. These girls, some of them still at school and working part time had been taught to use sanitary towels, it was the pure thing to do. I made many cultural blunders back then but with each new place that I moved to I knew I learned something more about reading the neighborhood, the people, the culture and the prevailing doctrine[11].
When the missionaries stopped going abroad to find people to mission to they began a missions or a particular target audience somewhere on the island of Ireland. They parachuted in and did child Bible weeks, beach mission, park mission, school mission and then left. Lovely projects, lovely people but traction wasn’t gained locally. One pioneer mission I know of spent quite a lot of money making attractional events, creating mission for. In a particular area nothing happened but when a person from that locality approached a church to meet in a very low key manner it worked, mission with. Smith, points out the different approaches to mission as this: “one a hit and run strategy from a safe and unengaged distance and the other a positive witness built up in a natural and relational way through a contrasting attitude and practice in context of working alongside others”[12]
Jones, declares that “Our churches… They are holy places where the spirit blows – but outside, there is a Holy Spirit who blows in all places.” [13] He goes on to say “[churches] say we are welcoming and inclusive but are unwilling to go … [to] leave our services and buildings and cross the neighborhood to say hello and invite people to join us is a hollow claim”[14] Jones advocates we invite and welcome, whereas in post modern Ireland that has removed the shackles of an entwined church & state model the notion of a person turning up to church no matter what the invitation is old school.
As pioneers, if we are to see and imagine different opportunities, finding a new path or finding a new way on an old path, making a better world by responding to injustice (whether locally or globally), building something new or even growing a new way of church where there is no church at all, then we need to leave the old behind. Doing this to such an extent that we stop talking about it, because even the first early church described in Acts got it wrong every day. As the God of love and grace and mercy was displayed in the communities, people were getting it wrong.[15] There is something simple and beautiful in sitting with someone in need for however long it takes, as their brokenness is revealed and their story told, the mission of God unfolds, mistakes will be made however God’s grace covers it all.
Finally, I was at a funeral two days before writing this, the research was complete, the theological reflection had been completed but as I sat at the funeral, I felt compelled to more. Gavin Mart, interviewed in the book Pioneer Practice says this “I think of pioneering as a farm … There can be a season where the ground won’t yield anymore. Those times are liminal – unknown – and the pioneer needs to be able to hold the ground in those times and be faithful trusting that the land will recover. The giver of life will do the restorative work.” The two fresh expressions talk about making space for God, but they were fueled by human endeavour that landed on two individual people. At the funeral a reference was made to Ecclesiastes 3 and as I listened to the words I transposed it into a pioneer setting. There is a time for Stacy to explore being seen for the first time as a human being and not an object to be played with; for Benbow to enter, as I do, the church of the beauty salon, and engage with painted nails and faces while sharing Christ in that space; hungry children to be loved, cared for and fed (Xxx Family Church) without souperism (proselytization); for people of different socio-economic backgrounds to express faith together, (‘Breathe’).
[1] Candice Marie Benbow, Red Lip Theology (2022)
[2] Rev. Dr. Irie Lynne Session, The Gathering, A Womanist Church: Origins, Stories, Sermons, and Litanies (2020) p.143
[3] One of the stories I remember hearing from this place in 2020 was about a small Bible study group with young men who had been through a recovery centre, who were beginning their journey with Jesus and in the session explored what it would look like if they didn’t retaliate how they had always done so, stopping the cycle and living in freedom of Christ. The person delivering that Bible study left the building got into their car and drove and two streets away so one of the participants punching a Garda. The leader in that moment realized it would be a long journey.
[4] Davis Bosch, Transforming mission
[5] Willis Horst, Ute & Frank Paul, Mission without conquest; an alternative missionary practice (2015) p. 27
[6] Willis Horst, Ute & Frank Paul, Mission without conquest; an alternative missionary practice (2015) p. 29
[7] ibid (2015) p. 82
[8] Andrew Francis, Eat, pray, tell: a relational approach to 21st century mission (2018) pp. 75-76
[9] Ephesians 3:14-21
[10] Steve Addison, What Jesus started, 2012, p. 37
[11] This is not really in a theological context, so in xxx the doctrine was never ever tell the police anything, in rural xxx the doctrine was to fit in you must play GAA, in xxx it was how I pronounced my letters H and A, the street defined the doctrine, in xxx, faith mission provides the doctrine.
[12] Paul Keeble, mission with: something out of the ordinary [2017] location 598
[13] Glyn Jones. The peg and the pumice stone, (2019) p 87. A translation and rewording of Madeleine Delbrêl’s Nous autres, gens des rues, 1995 p. 63
[14] Glyn Jones. The peg and the pumice stone, (2019) p 92
[15] Acts 5:1-3, Acts 6:1, Galatians 2, Revelation 2 & 3
I write about Stuff 
You must be logged in to post a comment.