Help Wanted
Ok people, here is an offer too good/dangerous/exciting to refuse.
The house across the road is up for sale. You can see it here. The people who are selling have become good friends over the past few years – Bryce and Gail. I’ve played golf with Bryce and Gail, borrowed various bits of garden equipment and we’ve shared cups of tea and coffee with them Now they’re selling up because the house is too big for them.
Which got me thinking. We’re looking for missionaries to move into our area and help us in our task of planting a household congregation. If you’re interested there’s a house ready for sale right in our street (cul-de-sac with great city views especially from Bryce and Gail’s house)
Why am I putting this offer out there? Australia is in the middle of a skills shortage – and to some extent that is how it feels with our plans for church planting; we need a few missionaries to come and live in this direction.
Now, it’s apparent to me that there are quite a few people who want to do church a different way to the ways they have been doing church in the past (or haven’t been doing church in the past as the case may be). That’s fine, in one regard. But that’s not what I mean by a missionary. If a different way of doing church is driving your design to move on, then perhaps what we are doing isn’t what you are looking for.
We want to plant a team of missionaries into our area – the Swan View area – who are willing to allow the context to shape to some extent what our gatherings will look like. And having said that, it is not primarily about our church meeting gatherings – it is about bringing our non-Christian friends into our networks of Christian relationships. That means that first of all we have to be committed have meaningful relationships with other Christians – you know, the types of relationships that extend past Sunday and perhaps a midweek Bible study. Not that you have to live in each other’s pockets, but you could hardly accuse too many “brothers and sisters in Christ” of doing that.
Inevitably being a missionary means that you will have to do some contextualisation. It won’t just be a case of moving in. So for example, if you’re a bookish type (which I am), and you like to sit around local cafes talking about life (which I do), and if you are tertiary-educated (which I am) then Swan View is not the place for you. Or perhaps it is the place for you and you may have to make some cultural shifts. On the other hand you may like hot cars (I don’t), work in a trade (I don’t), and have left school in Year 10 (I didn’t). Whichever is you the real issue is whether you love God and love people. Contextualisation is something, but it’s not everything.
Any takers?
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