Springdale College

Planting in hard soil – the Czech experience

Martin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:49:13 +0000

Show/Hide Café Vista

Article source: http://togetherinmission.co.uk/register

Halting decline through church planting

Martin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:28:12 +0000

Richard Hultmar is a passionate evangelist. As a teenager, he and a friend felt called to engage in evangelism in Russia. Just after the end of the communist era, he travelled to Moscow on a visitor visa and began preaching on the street with the aid of a translator. In those astonishing days, Richard and his friend saw around 2,000 people respond to Christ in just two weeks. Out of that number of commitments, they were able to plant two churches.
Having tasted the benefits of connecting evangelism and church planting, Richard worked with his own denomination in Sweden to see if they might be able to turn around the decline they had been experiencing for many years. They set a goal of 75 plants by 2010 – a very significant number for a declining group of 300 congregations.
In fact more than 70 attempts were made to plant churches and at least 50 have made the breakthrough to an established existence. That kind of growth has helped to contribute to a new mood of hope in that denomination. In this video clip, Richard describes that process.

New Channels of Communication

Martin — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:44:23 +0000

Paul Griffiths is a colleague, a good friend and an innovative communicator of the gospel. In days gone by and possibly still today, we would think of Paul as an itinerant evangelist. He certainly enjoys the opportunity of sharing the gospel message whether from a public platform or in a more informal setting.

Paul recognizes that the context in which we share the gospel is constantly changing and so he is always imagining fresh channels of communication for the gospel. Recently he has developed two new courses or tools for local churches, one called Puzzling Questions – rather like a pre Alpha course, and another called Table Talk which is almost pre pre Alpha course. Both of these courses or tools share the idea that getting people to talk, to share their questions and concerns is more important than attempting to answer all their questions.

Ruth Rice, a local Baptist minister shares her experience of using these courses in her local setting in a previous blog entry.

In addition to these resources Paul has also developed a course derived from a book that he and I wrote together some time ago called The Eight Secrets of Happiness. In this video clip Paul shares how he is experimenting with the course and gives some clues about how you might find this resource helpful.

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Article source: http://togetherinmission.co.uk/?p=1087

Opening up the conversation

Martin — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 10:12:59 +0000

Ruth Rice is a local Baptist minister and currently also a student on the MA in Missional Leadership. She is always looking for new ways to connect with the local community. Here she explains how she was able to use a new course, Puzzling Questions as a discussion starter with those who are interested in spiritual issues but do not normally connect with a church.

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Article source: http://togetherinmission.co.uk/?p=1085

Mission as the rebuilding of society

Martin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:19:07 +0000

In many ways mission means living in the kind of counter cultural way that will lead eventually to a new world, a new society. That always begins with the very local. Moving back into the neighbourhood therefore is not a tactic but an inevitable outcome of the gospel message itself. Alan Roxburgh explores that theme in a brief conversation with Martin Robinson.

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Article source: http://togetherinmission.co.uk/?p=1080

Addressing the Local

Martin — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:00:47 +0000

At a recent event in the UK Alan Roxburgh engaged in a conversation with Martin Robinson around the key question, “what would be the top priorities for the local congregation?” In other words, in the business of being missional what should the local church be attending to? This video clip offers some original reflections from Alan on these themes.

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Article source: http://togetherinmission.co.uk/?p=1076

Developing Public Theology

Martin — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:37:37 +0000

A number of years ago I worked at Bible Society as the Director for Mission and Theology. The task was to map a way to engage in public theology, to see how the Bible might be relevant in the context of a culture that is deeply suspicious of authority, religion and text. The main contours of that mapping exercise are documented in the book Metavista. Following that initial work Bible Society appointed a number of people to work in the areas that my team had identified as critical to the task. One of those was that of politics. David Landrum was appointed as the Senior Parliamentary Officer, seeking to work within parliament to develop the voice of the Bible. Recently David has accepted a new role with the Evangelical Alliance to develop advocacy – public theology – amongst the churches. In this video clip he describes the task as he sees it.

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Article source: http://togetherinmission.co.uk/?p=1071

Politics as Mission

Martin — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:50:40 +0000

Gavin Shuker was brought up in Luton and went to Cambridge University to study. Unlike many who go to university, Gavin returned to his home town and together with his wife (they met at Cambridge) helped to plant a new church in a deprived area of Luton. The constituency MP resigned in the wake of the expenses scandal and Gavin – already a member of the Labour Party, was asked to stand as the Labour candidate. He won the seat.

For Gavin this was a natural extension of his involvement in the community. It’s an intriguing story and a good example of the way in which evangelical/ charismatic churches are crossing the kind of boundaries that John Newton and William Wilberforce crossed in an early generation. I caught up with Gavin a few weeks ago and he told me a little of his story.

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Article source: http://togetherinmission.co.uk/?p=1067

Transition to Growth

Martin — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 09:49:51 +0000

Recently I was the guest of a Lutheran denomination in Norway – not the State church but an evangelical free Lutheran church. We were talking about mission within Norway at the conference which was for pastors and church workers. I was surprised to discover that this was a new conversation because for the last 10 years this has been a denomination undergoing significant renewal. Church planting and evangelism has been on the agenda.

The Chairman of Synod (their most senior position) throughout the last 10 years has been Arnfinn Loyning and in speaking with him I could see how and why the denomination has been experiencing growth and health. He is a delightful man and has succeeded in developing a very supportive atmosphere amongst the leadership of the denomination. This is indeed a healthy church with a good feel to the fellowship around the leaders.

However, health is not mission and while it may be a good platform from which to engage in mission, actual engagement in mission requires a different mindset. During the conference I took a few moments to ask Arnfinn about recent developments in the denomination.

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Article source: http://togetherinmission.co.uk/?p=1062

Declaring faith in the palace of atheism

Martin — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:00:50 +0000

At the conclusion of the Second World War, Joseph Stalin gave a “gift to Poland” in the form of the Palace of Culture and Science. If you have been to Warsaw you will know that the building – half palace, half cathedral, dominates the Warsaw skyline as a symbol of Communism. It was intended to say, “we are in charge – you are in subjection to our will and rule”. It declares that past reality very eloquently indeed.

However, times change. Today the palace of culture and science has been refurbished and it has a wider range of uses. Just recently one particular denomination – The Fellowship of Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, held a celebration of 90 years of witness in that land. They decided to use the Palace of Science and Culture as a location for their worship and celebration. As nearly 2,000 Christians gathered to worship in that temple to secularism and atheism one could only wonder at how faith in Christ is continually resurrected, renewed and refreshed.

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Article source: http://togetherinmission.co.uk/?p=1059