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Discipleship processes review

1/12/2017

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Having recently started in a new ministry possition, I'm reviewing my chruch's discipleship processes (including evangelism). The "web-diagram" below represents not a thorough analysis, but rather, three lenses to focus my understanding of how discipleship functions in my new "household of faith".
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Note* this is not a strategy FOR discipleship - it is a tool to asses the way people see themselves relating to this particular church that they attend, visit, or identify with: a way of identifying contexts within which discipleship might best occur.

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Preaching Modus Operandi

8/1/2016

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Having recently finished the City to City "incubator" program, my group is continuing to meet as a preaching discussion and development group.

We recently agreed to sketch out our preaching "modus operandi" - how we go about the process of preparing to preach.

The file posted below sketches the basic pattern of reading and reflection that I go through in preparation to write a sermon. I wouldn't yet use this sketch as a method to teach others preaching.

However, it was a really useful exercise to reflect on how my personal method of putting a sermon together has developed and morphed over the years:   an opportunity to revist a few things...

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preaching_mo_-_note_29_jul_2016__1_.pdf
File Size: 7502 kb
File Type: pdf
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Does having "a sense of duty" imprison us?

5/28/2016

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"A sense of duty imprisons you" says NY artist Jenny Holzer.
That is certainly what many of us most fear.

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However, the role of DUTY is not to restrict or limit our relationships as Nietzsche supposed.
Nor is a sense of DUTY doomed to suffocate the authenticity of our feelings, as many of us instinctively fear.

Rather DUTY acts as a "shorthand" description of what kind of GOOD we are trying to achieve for others, within each specific kind of RELATIONSHIP  (Romans 15:1-2).

Still, for all the help that Duty can give us in directing our relationships for the good of others,  DUTY by itself is never enough to guarantee the health of our relationships, nor their full flourishing.

We can just as easily use the idea of Duty as a justification to AVOID seeking the good of others (Luke 10:29). Love alone can free Duty to exceed the limits of demand (Romans 13:8).
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Social Lift?  - Ministry outside the middle  (pt.4)

5/17/2016

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‘Social-lift’ – the tendency of new “non-middle class” Christians to begin aspiring towards the middle-class social values of the church they have recently joined. Where is the harm in that!?
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Morality & Mission - Ministry outside the "middle"  (pt.3)

5/17/2016

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Different social classes manage their social & moral disfunctions in quite unique and different ways. The middle classes tend to carefully regulate how public their social/moral disfunctions become. This allows for at least the appearance of stable and predictable church life, discipleship & ministry patterns. However, the open and unvarnished manner in which moral/social disfunction is often displayed in communities of social disadvantage, can easily hijack the focus of churches in unhelpful ways.
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Social Networks   -   Ministry outside the "middle"  (pt2)

3/29/2016

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One of the key factors that cripples ministry within socially disadvantaged areas, is an ingrained failure to understand how social networks operate outside the middle classes. It's a failure I often unfortunately replicate in my own precious relationships. Tim Chester describes the "blind-spot" of middle class social networks this way:

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Ministry outside the "middle-class"  (pt1)

3/29/2016

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Aren't we all middle class now? We're a nation that proudly self-identifies as egalitarian.   It is no longer self-evident where "Blue-collar" and "working-class",  part company with "middle-class".  It feels somehow un-Australian to even acknowledge the existence of social class.
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An Evangelical Theology of Work

5/27/2014

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Work.
It forms such a big part of our lives.
We desperately long for it to have meaning.
But what meaning?

In the paper linked below, I compare/contrast how O’Donovan and Volf explain the relationship between our creational and evangelical work. The introductory section briefly reviews reformed thinking on vocation, before moving on to Moltmann’s,  Volf’s and then  O’Donovan’s proposals.

Evangelical Theology of Work
File Size: 361 kb
File Type: pdf
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This paper was originally posted at:
https://graceinvader.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/volf-odonovan-an-evangelical-theology-of-work/
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My finest moments

9/23/2011

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I’m currently working on a talk reflecting on Genesis 4.  Specifically I’ve been wrestling with how to make sense of the “reguard” that God shows to Abel and his offering, but not to Cain and his offering. To many people, God appears to be playing favourites  It seems completely arbitrary as to why God accepts one sacrifice and not the other.
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    I'm Steve. Anglican Presbyter, Practical Theology Enthusiast, and Graphic Design Hobbyist in Sydney, Australia

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