preaching – a “third way”

Posted by: len hjalmarson
Church: Aylmer, Ontario Aylmer
Date: July 13th, 2011

Scot McKnight advocates a genuine “third way” to spiritual formation that moves beyond a Sunday focus.

“A genuine Third Way will get beyond the Sunday morning sermon as the primary form of spiritual formation and education in a local church, and neither Belcher (Deep Church) nor Pagitt (Preaching Re-Imagined) seem to approach preaching through the lens of a larger formational program with clearly defined outcomes. A genuine Third Way will form a well-rounded and adaptable formation program that guides all sermons, all teaching, and all activities in the church. Sermons will be seen as one part of the formational ministry of the church. In other words, Third Way preaching is rooted in the overall outcomes of the church.

“If you want to read a book that will rock the pastor’s and church’s world, but which is very clear and will make all kinds of suggestions, I recommend Maryellen Weimer: Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. I have been suggesting for some time that the biggest shift will come in churches when they take education (especially for adults) seriously. We can tweak sermons and Sunday services all we want, but the only real substantive shift will occur when a larger vision for formation and education are shaped by outcomes.

“What is most needed is a complete spiritual formation approach to the entire church and for each person; outcomes need to be formulated by the leaders and the church so that the whole approach is embraced. Within the overall approach to realizing outcomes, which I would say are loving God, loving others and a life of holiness, sermons play a role and sometimes an important one. But serious formative changes occur when the individual and the group participate in, activate, and integrate what is being taught. (By the way, that last sentence requires pages of discussion.) And these formative changes take place within a set of outcomes. And, perhaps most importantly, they take place with spiritual directors, pastors, teachers and friends who come alongside to help a person.”

The Naked Anabaptist

Posted by: len hjalmarson
Church: Aylmer, Ontario Aylmer
Date: June 30th, 2011

Stuart Murray, one of the leaders of the UK based Anabaptist Network, has made some powerful contributions to Anabaptist thought in the past fifteen years. His book “Church After Christendom” was the first signal to many that something very different was occurring in Western culture. Last year he released a new book, “The Naked Anabaptist.”

A group of us have been talking about this book for some months on Facebook. If you search for the group you are welcome to join us. Meantime, a good review has just appeared in the Mars Hill based pub, The Other Journal.

IN order to communicate in a given culture, you need to understand the way the culture thinks, imagines, and speaks. You need to know the heart language. One of the best ways to learn the heart language of this new post-modern culture is to see movies. Well – I also happen to really enjoy movies, and one of the interesting releases of the summer is SUPER 8. Relevant Magazine offers a review HERE. Seeing movies like this one not only gets you into the minds of post-modern people, it also gives you a connecting point – something to talk about with images that they understand.

Caution Against Progressive Anabaptism

Posted by: admin
Church:
Date: June 7th, 2011

I became a member of the Hague Gospel Church (Saskatchewan) about four years ago and became part of the EMMC. Today I am a leader in HGC and also a board member with the General Board of the EMMC.  Before joining an EMMC church I was a member of an MB Church and still follow some of the debate and struggles, like what it means to be Anabaptist, within the EMMC and MB churches.  I consider myself to have been influenced by Anabaptist tradition but struggle to call myself an Anabaptist partly because of some of the more radical elements of Anabaptist thinking called “Progressive Anabaptism”.  I believe as EMMC churches we need to be cautious with buying into some of this kind of thinking and theology and there may be some hints of this within our draft “core values” and draft mission statements.  There are seven points within our core values called ‘Core Commitments’ that are quoted right out of the book “The Naked Anabaptist” that are to some degree problematic and have elements of Progressive Anabaptist thinking within them.  I am concerned that as I read and look at what is all being posted on our GoMission website, that we are rejecting the notion of absolute truth and this is affecting the way in which we interpret scripture.

I want to recommend an article written by Pierre Gilbert, Associate Professor of Bible and Theology at Canadian Mennonite University and Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary.  He does an excellent job of outlining concerns he has within the Mennonite Brethren Church and I believe these are very relevant to us within the EMMC church and I would submit this article as an expression of what I believe is a very balanced position and will draw us to remain true to the scriptures and not distort what the early Anabaptist leaders believed in.

http://www.mbconf.ca/index.cfm?pageID=3498&template

Respectfully submitted,
Mel Foth