Good things happen when good people are locked into a room for two days to pray and plan. It was a rewarding opportunity to see God at work in and through people I have grown to love and respect.
First, we heard from Craig Burton, the Superintendent of our Eastern Ontario District, who originally called for a national level discussion about why and how we do (and will do) church multiplication in our movement.
Next, we heard from our General Superintendent, Dave Wells, who spoke from his heart about finding ways to reach lost people. He revisited an image from several years ago when he described how he received his news. He uses both “Hard Copy”( printed media on paper) and wireless ( on the screen). He appreciates both. It is not a matter of either/or. The same is true for how people can receive and appreciate the Good News.
For years we have done “Hard Copy”, gathering people into “church”. We have learned to do this reasonably well. However, future success does not lie in simply trying to do this better, but in finding ways in which people are open to hearing and receiving the most amazing message ever given to our species. It is not about replacement. It is about augmenting what we do - adding to our tool box.
This certainly resonates with what we are about at Campus Mission Canada. We are on the cusp of the movement to both strengthen and improve what we have done before and to risk and innovate in finding ways to reach people who would otherwise never be able to hear or receive what it is we have to share.
So, facilitated by John Caplin, the former assistant superintendent of the BC/Yukon District and now the president of his own consulting/coaching company, the group was led through a series of questions and exercised in first framing the issues and then in determining how we would respond to them. It was stated from the outset that there was an allergy to the phrase “church planting” because for various reasons it has accumulated a considerable amount of baggage. So, we used the term Church Multiplication.
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| John Caplin coaching a discussion... |
More specifically, we wrestled with “ Why become a Church Multiplication Movement (CMM)? What barriers are there to our becoming a CMM? What would it look like if we really were a CMM? What strengths and liabilities do we bring to the table? What steps can we take , at all levels, to become a CMM? What steps will we take?
Leaders hashed through the questions at their tables , wrote them on large sheets of paper and then presented them to the larger group. As they did, there was the creation of a synergy where we were all able to see the issues from a variety of perspectives and to develop a larger picture. My role was to absorb and chronicle. I would have loved to have jumped in on the discussion, but Mission Canada was concerned to facilitate the discussion and not to skew it in any direction.
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| CMC's own Matt Glombick ( Epic @ U of Alberta ) presents... |
Having said that, I need to underline that I really believe that what we are doing on the campuses anticipates the direction of where the larger movement can go ( while I have banned the term “cutting edge” and “paradigm” from our CMC vocabulary, they might actually work here ;) ).
In the discussion, the term church was queried. I believe that there are biblical and historic markers for the term so we need to find other terms rather than bend this one out of shape. Given this, we have been talking about “missional communities” or “discipling communities”. I would also add “redemptive communities” which means that we are aligned with the big picture of God’s redemptive activity on this earth. It is not limited to reaching people ,but also transforming culture and affecting institutions. For me, properly understood, it combines the elements we are looking for. It can be applied to formal and informal groups. It can refer to clubs or churches. It works for us. Therefore, I would see us as a RCMM – if you will…
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