Fresh Expressions1 Disciple Making in the Future Church +Graham Cray

Fresh Expressions 1

Disciple Making in the Future Church

+Graham Cray

• ‘It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians’.’

Acts 11:26

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• ‘One of the greatest contemporary barriers to meaningful spiritual formation in Christlikeness is overconfidence in the spiritual efficacy of regular church services.’

Dallas Willard

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FRESH EXPRESSIONS OF CHURCH

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• ‘Start with the Church and the mission will probably get lost.

• Start with mission and it is likely that the Church will be found.’ MSC P116

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A missionary church is transformational

• A missionary church exists for the transformation of the community that it serves, through the power of the gospel and the Holy Spirit. It is not self-serving, self-seeking or self-focused. The kingdom of God is its goal, and church is understood as a servant and sign of God’s kingdom in its community.

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A missionary church makes disciples

• A missionary church is active in calling people to faith in Jesus Christ, and it is equally committed to the development of a consistent Christian lifestyle appropriate to, but not withdrawn from, the culture or cultures in which it operates.

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A missionary church makes disciples

• It engages with culture, but also presents a counter-cultural challenge by its corporate life based on the world view and values of the gospel. It is concerned for the transformation of individuals, as well as the transformation of communities.

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A process of discernment

loving and serving

buildingcommunity

exploringdiscipleship

churchtakingshape

underpinned by prayer, ongoing listening and relationship with the wider church

listening do itagain

DISCIPLE

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Apprenticed to Jesus

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Apprenticed to Jesus• It is enough for the disciple to be

like the teacher. Mt.10.25


Apprenticed to Jesus• It is enough for the disciple to be

like the teacher. Mt.10.25

• ‘If I am to be Jesus’ disciple that means I am with him to learn from him how to be like him.’

• Or ‘how he would live my life if he were me.’ Dallas Willard


Apprenticed to Jesus• ‘you are the salt of the earth

and the life of the world.’ Mt.6 • 'The church is for discipleship,

and discipleship is for the world, as God's place.' Dallas Willard


A biblical metaphor for the future church

• Jesus on mission with his disciples.


A biblical metaphor for the future church

• Jesus on mission with his disciples.

• Church is ‘people on the move with Jesus, going wherever Jesus leads them.’ Church Without Walls


Disciples make disciples

• 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always … Mt. 28Fresh Expressions 17

A CHURCH OF MISSIONAL DISCIPLES - OPEN TO ALL?


Bounded set or centred set?


Sorted

• contact work• club night• praise service• peer-led

discipleship groups

Moot

Staging posts - Moot

Continuing the journey 23

Staging posts Sorted

PRAXIS


One to one

One to one• The founding of the whole

Christian movement was initiated through the simple acts of Jesus investing his life and embedding his teachings in his followers and developing them into authentic disciples’. Alan Hirsch

Small groups

A way of life worthy of the gospel

“Christian community is not primarily about togetherness… togetherness happens but only as a by-product of the main project of trying to be faithful to Jesus.Hauerwas and Willimon

Courses

http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/glad

Serving teams

Start as you mean to go on!

• build sacrifice and service into the culture of the fresh expression from the beginning

• don’t create an environment so comfortable that it gives no hint of the cost of discipleship or the call to serve

•There is no formation for discipleship apart from the practice of mission.

•There is no formation for discipleship apart from the practice of mission.

•‘Discipleship emerges out of prayer, study, dialogue, and worship by a community learning to ask the questions of obedience, as they are engaged directly in mission.’ Alan Roxburgh


• Disciples are formed by learning through doing.

• A more captivating motive for daily choices

• A more powerful set of character forming habits

• A proactive supportive community –

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Formation for Christlikeness

That men and women may• be in Christ• be transformed to be like Christ• participate in Christ’s mission

“Becoming like Jesus is a work of the Spirit in our lives.Lucy Peppiatt

• The key to planting a fresh expression is local context.

• What forces shape a locality, whether neighbourhood or network or a combination of the two? Disciple-making is a process of inculturation, involving the reading of a local culture


• ‘The character of the local church will not be determined primarily by the character, tastes, dispositions, etc., of its members, but by those of the secular society in which and for which it lives - seen in the light of God‘s redemptive purpose revealed in Jesus Christ for all.’ Lesslie NewbiginFresh Expressions 38

Church is• … a sign, planted in the midst of

the present realities of the place but pointing beyond them to the future which God has promised; an instrument available for God’s use in the doing of his will for that place; and a genuine foretaste of the peace and joy of God‘s reign.’ Lesslie Newbigin



Disciple Making in the Future Church

+Graham Cray

Documents

Fresh Expressions1 Disciple Making in the Future Church +Graham Cray