Napier Baptist

Stu is currently on the prowl for a Baptist church and he described his vision for the church as messy and then felt it caused the people who he was talking to have their eyes glazed over. It reminded me of what I wrote on my personal ministry profile when my profile was being sent out to vacant churches. Under theological principles I wrote this:

THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES: The love of God for the whole of creation is revealed in Jesus Christ and is continually revealed to us by the Spirit. Salvation comes from the Father, in the Spirit and is in Christ alone. It is this love of God for the whole of creation, redeemed in Jesus that is good news for the whole world. The Bible is the Word of God and the primary source that witnesses to this good news. It is this good news that Christians are called to witness to. I understand mission not to be something that the Church does but rather the essence of what the Church is. Similarly, I believe worship is not something that Christians do but is something that Christians are. I understand mission and worship to be the Church following God in expressing and witnessing to the whole world about God’s coming Kingdom. In light of this I believe that mission must engage Christianly with our society that we are trying to reach. Such engagement is generally messy because people’s lives are messy, but messy mission is also deep mission. I will seek to not simply talk about such mission, but to model it as well. Similarly worship will give expression to the good parts and the difficult parts of our lives and bring it under the lordship of Jesus. The Church is a gathered people (for worship) and a scattered people (for mission). The gathered community has prayer and mutual encouragement and respect modelled on the Trinity as central to its being. The Church is an accepting and open community that allows the diversity of age, nationality, social status, gender and background to give richness to its expression of the redeeming grace of God. In its functions, such as expressions of worship, mission and discipleship, the Church will allow this principle of richness in diversity (based on the Trinity) to govern its actions. I believe that everyone is uniquely gifted by God and has an important contribution to make and unique experiences to share. I believe that opportunity must be given to people to express their unique gifts and experiences, so that the Church’s witness of God’s love is broad and rich and exciting.

I still stand by these principles. I remember Mick Duncan saying to a group of us students training for pastoral ministry that only 1% of the world ever get the chance to study at tertiary level and so we need to make sure we don't waste it. We need to come out of college with our 'Big Idea' not necessarily sorted but at least bubbling. Messy mission was my big idea. In Acts 15 we find God, through his Spirit, leading the early church into a much messier mission than it could dream or handle. God is at the forefront of leading the church into messy mission! I was warned off what I wrote by some in officialdom because it would be unimpressive to churches. However, it was exactly my convictions on messy mission that connected with the hearts of those on the Napier Baptist search committee. This was central to our sense of call and where God was leading us.

Stu, Jesus said don't fear! Be confident about your future because the future belongs to God...