Final Class Reflection, December 3, 2009

Sad to see the last of this class. It has been enriching and stimulating. This last week was closing the conversation on participatory culture and once again this was interesting and challenging. We finished with a little more on group work and this has been a really good way to put into practice the stuff we've been talking about in class. A great ten weeks. Ryan is very good at facilitating great class discussion with lots of input from him, but freedom for all to share. I'll miss this.

Class Reflection December 1, 2009

Today was a very enlightening discussion on "Participatory Culture". I remember way back in 1995 when we had a meeting with our mission organization before going out to India about this thing called the internet and how it was going to revolutionize our lives. I don't thnk we had any idea way back then!
We definitely need to embrace this aspect of today's culture but it brings up so many issues for education and boundaries etc. One of my biggest concerns about it is in the way it divides society very distinctly. Those that cannot afford it for whatever reason are even more marginalized. We need to address that in this discussion somehow but I'm not sure how. Also it will be interesting to see research done in the future on the effect socially of so much online community and/or virtual community.

November 24, 2009

Great discussion in our small group about what we felt was behind all of our core values. hard to put it into succinct words. My favorite was "our DNA is Christ's love" but most felt that wasn't enough to convey what we meant to people. We were trying to get to the root - that we wanted what we did in the street community (church planting) to come out of who we are because of Jesus - that we are so full of him that transformation occurs- in ourselves first and in the community. Not that we have an agenda to convert people but that our love for them is so much Jesus' love that natural transformation occurs. Another phrase that came out of it was "unconditional love interacting in holistic relationships".

Class Reflection Nov 19, 2009

Wonderful to hear from Pascal and K about the work they have been doing in the Philippines. They have been looking at ways to be church in street communities there and have inspiring stories of how their engaged, intentional, but inactive presence in the community for several months, led to relationships developing with people in the community. These people gradually started to ask for spiritual activities and guidance. All the time, Pascal and his wife and the team they were with maintained a non-leadership profile, but supported the initiatives that the community started. It ended up with regular prayer meetings, Bible studies, baby dedications, transformation of people in the community and more of an obvious presence of the Holy Spirit. Anything that happened in that way was led by people in that street community.
We ended the class by looking at the core concepts we had all decided on last week. Very fun to see the different groups and how their lists corresponded with who they were and who they were trying to reach.

Class Reflection Nov 17, 2009

We talked a little about HUP's which was useful but the best part was a great discussion on the divide between emerging church and more traditional church. It seems like the context of the Anglican church has managed it pretty well - at least as far as we have heard. Clearly there is much written about this but it seems that the main message of Bishop Cray about dying to ourselves and the ways we think are right is key. Then we divided into our church planting groups and had a really good brainstorming session about the key components we wanted in our church. Good stuff. I love it.

Class Reflection Nov 12, 2009

Today these issues of church and state came up again, and also the one that was touched on in our first class this week - namely, is using networks to plant churches no more than setting up HUP's? This is clearly a huge issue for many and yet i think the Anglican church has dealt with it well - they recognize that cultural diversity is a given and that to start communities within different cultures is appropriate - their main point is that this is within the context of a larger whole - the rest of the church. Another question that came up - can the UK be as post-Christendom as it is said to be if there is still an established church? Too many good questions and not enough time or space to give them justice!

Class Reflection Nov 11, 2009

The buzz increased today after we heard Graham Cray speak in chapel. His bottom line seems to me to be humility and learning from each other. This was reinforced later in the seminar. To be honest - the seminar was long and I didn't get out as much as I had hoped from what the responses and questions were. But my impression is that some people are struggling to apply what has been learnt in a UK setting to the North American situation. It seems that church and state issues are getting in the way. My question (which i got to ask the next day) was: clearly the anglican church has got it right in terms of working together with others within their own denomination. Graham Cray said himself that within the emerging churches in the US there is a lot of vitriolic reaction. We saw the same in the UK outside of the Anglican church. What can we learn from them to avoid this?

Class Reflection Nov 10, 2009

There was a buzz of excitement in class (at least for me!) in anticipation of Graham Cray's visit. The main questions that came up were those relating to the social networks and the idea that this was too restrictive a way to be focussing on church planting. It seems to me that this is not where that idea stays - that this is a starting point for our focus - I don't think the Anglican church is saying that they are planning churches that are only specific to specific groups. Definitely looking forward to the talks for the rest of the week. (written retrospectively at the end of the week but it's true to what I thought and felt).

Class Reflection Nov 4, 2009

As always an interesting discussion. I find in these classes that a list of questions keeps growing to the side of my class notes. After class on Thursday I asked Ryan if a few of us could meet to talk about questions that come up. I enjoyed the discussion about globalization and fundamentalism and how they relate - ie how as the one increases so does the other. We also talked about secularization in the UK and how that had affected the church, compared to the US.

Class Reflection Nov 2, 2009

It seems to me that the class is pretty divided - some who are passionate about the discussion of new ways, some who struggle and some who couldn't care less. I am one of the first and my struggle is keeping my passion in check to allow others to express themselves. Passion is such an interesting word - so much motivation for good and so much potential for bad. As a newcomer to the US 5 years ago I struggled with the polarization that I saw here. But I am beginning to undertand it more as I see myself wanting desperately for people to see the good in all that we are discussing. As a friend of mine once said: "There are too many empty baths and babies flying around the Christian world." I do not want to be one that throws out the baby from the bath of all that we have come from, but neither do I want others to throw out the baby that is in our bath!

Class Reflection Oct 29, 2009

Class on Thursday - in our groups we tried to share our dreams and then our hearts. It was harder than I thought it would be. My dreams are more knowing what I don't want. I am realising more and more that my own christian culture still makes me look at things in a certain way, and it is way harder to train myself to think differently than I thought. As they say, old habits die hard - too many decades of not knowing there was any other way and yet being dissatisfied with that way. These mindsets are hard to deconstruct! I had wanted to call this blog "Church Undressed" but decided it might attract some attention I didn't want, but even that word "undressed" is too easy. I need a word that reflects the difficulty involved with taking something apart lovingly, and then trying to work out how to put it together.

Class Reflection Oct 27, 2009

What an interesting and informative class. We started with another lectio divina which as always was fun and deep. Then we talked around several issues including Constantine's legalization of church and Celtic Christianity. My brain felt full and stimulated and ready to spill over with information and thoughts if anyone knocked into me.

Class Reflection Oct 22, 2009

The lectio divina at the start of the class was extremely helpful. I have only done that in a personal setting and I was amazed at how effective it was in a group listening to God for guiding. Very exciting. The speaker on church planting was interesting in terms of hearing about the process for PCUSA but not relevant for me. And I did feel he was a little down on emerging church! I long for the day when all types of church can express what we feel about our own methodology without putting down another. I did not challenge him as he was a guest speaker - probably a wrong judgement on my part. But I am also aware that I also come across critically of other ways of doing church so feel a little like the pot calling the kettle black!

During the class on Tuesday we broke into groups as if we were a church planting team. Just listening to each other and hearing all our stories was fascinating. One thing that really struck me as we talked about our experiences in third world situations, and applying what we are learning in this class about modern and postmodern thinking is: what we observe in many third world church situations are churches that are modern in their thinking but within a holistic non-modern culture. They are that way because of the western missionaries who started them. So we almost have to do a two-level stripping away of the cultural barriers in order to find out what the true culture is.

Class reflection for Tuesday, Oct 13, 2009
Once again some really interesting concepts that I can relate to vividly. One of my reasons for coming to Fuller was to formulate a framework for all the questions i had after many years of cross-cultural mission and developing churches. Church the way we are discussing it here is so much more radical. Faith lived out in a people movement rather than a mission station has to be invasive of every aspect of our lives. I love it. But it's challenging. My only complaint is that I'm getting more questions to put into my framework!

Class Reflection Oct 8, 2009

I enjoy the class discussions on culture and would like to understand modern/post-modern issues more clearly. Again, some really interesting class discussion on indigenous church and what it looks like. It seems to me that there are some deeper post-modern issues that we need to cover such as its approach to right and wrong and if anything is absolute. My experience in emerging church (3 years on a leadership team of the Refuge in Denver) showed me that these are some of the really hard questions. As a church attracts more post-modern people more of these types of questions will come up.