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The Institute of Evangelism

Every Church an Evangelizing Community!

Religion - General

Engage Your Friends’ Spiritual Questions: Run Alpha in the Workplace

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Questions can be scary – particularly when they are asked of us and we feel as if we do not have an adequate answer. What is the last question someone asked you about God? More specifically, what is the last question someone asked you about God that you could not answer?

Questions can also be powerful – particularly in conversation, as a means of revealing our intentions, misconceptions, and desires. What is a significant question you find yourself asking God in the season you find yourself in today?

 

Questions about life, faith and God.

Questions also revealed an opportunity to run Alpha in my workplace. I found that many of my coworkers had questions about life, faith and God. While nearly everyone I work with was open to discussing these questions (or debating them, in a few cases), I found myself frustrated at the lack of opportunity to have these conversations. Many people work late and some commute in from far away, catching trains out of the city immediately after work. Most days, there was little time before or after working hours to meet with my coworkers.

Coming home from work one day, I went to God in prayer and asked what he was already doing in my workplace and how I could participate in his work. Over the course of the next few weeks, I received growing clarity about what God was doing. He was leading me to engage with my colleagues’ spiritual questions. I thought of The Alpha Course.

I was initially disappointed when I learned from our Human Resources representative that I would not be able to hold meetings for Alpha in the boardroom at work. Yet, shortly afterward, I was drawn into several fruitful conversations about faith at the staff Christmas party. Eventually, God made a space for me to host Alpha at St. Andrews Church, located next to my office. The group met weekly and consisted of, on average, six or seven people who work in and around the downtown area. We worked through the twelve sessions of Alpha, replacing the Alpha Weekend with an Alpha Lunch.

They actually came back.

What I learned throughout this experience is that questions can be left unanswered. In fact, having all the answers all of the time can be suspicious. How can we expect people to be open and vulnerable with us if we are not open and vulnerable about our own questions and doubts? Despite the many questions I did not answer (or could not answer), I found people coming back.

What came as no surprise, but is worth emphasizing here, is the absolute centrality of relationship when it comes to evangelism. Relationship with those we are reaching out to, yes, but even more importantly, our relationship with Jesus and his body, the Church. We will not be effective participants in God’s work in the world around us if we are not daily resting in our relationship with Jesus and persistently pursuing maturity in Christ through prayer, community and studying God’s Word. Notably, the further and more dependently I leaned into prayer, the more I saw God moving in people at our Alpha gatherings.

Two individuals stayed after the Holy Spirit session and expressed desires to be filled by the Holy Spirit. One individual, a good friend, had been slowly growing in his faith throughout Alpha. The other individual, a newer friend, was long familiar with the concept of Jesus but had no faith of his own.

While only time will tell how they move forward with this commitment, God certainly used this workplace Alpha course to begin stirring up faith in the people who attended. After Alpha, God brought together a group of about ten people working in the downtown area who expressed interest in meeting once a month to pray for our various workplaces. God is not done drawing people to himself and he invites us to partner with him in this work!

 

How well do you know the people around you?

How well do you know the people around you? Right now, select either your workplace or your neighbourhood before you continue reading. Think of the two or three coworkers or neighbours that are in closest proximity to you. Do you know their names? The name of their significant other or their children? Do you know a bit of their story or their interests? Are you regularly praying for them?

For those of you who were able to do this easily, praise God. You are loving your immediate neighbours well. Now try to do this for five or six of your closest neighbours or coworkers. For those who could not do this easily, praise God. He is working in the lives of these people and it is not too late to begin partnering with him.

In either case, in the next week put aside twenty minutes and make a map outlining what you do know about your coworkers or neighbours. Begin spending a few moments each day praying about each of these people, that God would reveal opportunities for you to begin getting to know them, loving them and bearing witness to the hope you have in Christ. Then, put this map somewhere you will see it each day. Update this map, add details, include more people. For those of us humans who are inclined to forgetfulness, this is a powerful way of reminding us to pray for those around us. It also has the encouraging effect of tracking what God has been doing in the lives of the people around us.

 

Speak up.

A tension in evangelism that I still wrestle with is how to balance between the extremes of living out our faith without words, so that others see genuine faith in action, versus only using words to express our faith. There is a saying I have heard several times while growing up in the church that says, “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” While I readily acknowledge the importance of having our lives align with the words we say and the centrality of loving our neighbours well, it is naïve to think that words are not necessary in preaching the Gospel. We know God through his words revealed to us through the Bible. God spoke the universe into creation. We as members of the church exist to know and enjoy God and to participate in his redeeming work in the world. This will require words. I would prefer the familiar statement be revised to read, “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words too, they’re necessary.” In fact, using words was crucial in getting to know my coworkers and answering their questions.

 

Ask.

So, what is God doing in your workplace? In your school? In your neighborhood? How can you participate in that? Ask. Seriously. Take a few minutes now and ask God what he is already doing in the people around you. Ask him how you can participate in his redeeming work in your spheres of influence. Then, ask again tomorrow, and the next day. Patiently and persistently pursue God in prayer. Ask him to make clear to you what he wants to do in and through you for the sake of the people around you. Get together with some others and ask, search Scripture for wisdom, and pray. Then take the bold step of asking your non-Christian coworkers to explore their spiritual questions and the answers offered by Christianity. I am not expecting that your next step will or even should be running Alpha (this may be inappropriate or ineffective in many contexts), but I do expect that God will use you to make the mystery of Christ known among the people you do life with. I felt God was asking me to trust him in this way, by running Alpha. When you sense something, faithfully try it, and watch for how God uses it. Take seriously God’s promise in John 14:14, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

How an Old Cathedral Has Been Reaching New Canadians

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The Cathedral Mandarin Ministry is a witness to God’s marvelous work in the mission field at our doorstep: secular urban Canadian society. But who knew he’d use an Anglican cathedral in the heart of downtown Toronto to reach these people?

I’d like to briefly introduce the history of the Cathedral Mandarin Ministry, which started in 2013. At its inception, there were no Mandarin parishioners at the Anglican cathedral of St. James. We tried many ways to invite Mandarin people to attend the Sunday services and other church events at the Cathedral. Thus, we started the evangelical mission to the Mandarin people.

 

Problems and solutions

Mandarin speakers felt that the most difficult part of the regular English Sunday services was not the language, but rather the liturgy. They were not sure when to stand, sit or kneel, how to sing the hymns, or how to respond. It was too hard and too confusing for them to follow. We saw this as a great opportunity to gradually teach them the Christian faith through the liturgy, which proved to be a key tool and conduit of our faith.

We wrote a series of lessons on liturgical responses in Anglican worship, from the entrance rite to the recession. More importantly, we taught why we were doing what we were doing, which is the content of our faith. These lessons evolved into a course, Basic Catechism. Each of the 25 lessons focuses on a different part of the liturgy. This course began to draw a lot of interest, connecting people to our Sunday Service, and helping them to better understand the theological significance of the liturgy.

 

A developing Mandarin ministry

Initially, we went to the nearby Tim Hortons to study after the English service and in 2014 welcomed our first baptism. Our Chinese Fellowship started with around five people in the second floor kitchen in the Cathedral Centre learning the Basic Catechism. In 2015, 10 people received baptism and confirmation, after which we started a Sunday Faith group meeting after we had all attended the 11 a.m. English service together. On the First Sunday of Advent that same year we started our Chinese Service of Morning Prayer in the Lecture room of the Cathedral Centre and in the following 3 years had an average of 15 people receiving baptism and confirmation each year.

September 2017 saw the first Chinese Sunday service in the Cathedral nave, and on February 18, 2018 we began a weekly Chinese Eucharistic Service at 1:30 p.m.. At the 2019 Great Easter Vigil, we joyfully baptized and confirmed 19 people. Gradually we developed other Chinese ministries, such as a children’s Sunday school, a choir, and a new Cathedral Chinese website.

 

The Anglican liturgy – the expression of our faith

One aspect of our ministry needs to be highlighted: our huge investment of effort in studying the Chinese liturgy. Since China is generally an atheistic country, most people do not have a background in the Christian faith. Even among the minority Christian population, there is little to no denominational teaching or background since the official Chinese Church has no denominational affiliation. This means that there is very little liturgical reference material in Mandarin. To fill this gap, we diligently researched the much earlier Chinese Anglican Missal Book and Prayer Book, and more contemporary Chinese prayer books. We compared and studied Chinese Anglican prayer books from all over the world. Finally, we edited and translated the most faithful Chinese Morning Prayer and Eucharistic service liturgy most like the Canadian Anglican prayer book, which we now use in our ministry. At the same time, it has become the core module of our Chinese ministry. We have clearly seen that the liturgy is the treasure of our Anglican church. It is an expression of our faith which needs to be treasured, as it leads people into faith in Christ.

  

The cathedral Model

Any process of any mission needs to be meticulously analyzed and strategically planned. So it is with the Cathedral Mandarin Ministry. We started with research and study, and this resulted in a practical report. This report was not only based on some digital figures, but gave an overview of current Gospel-sharing and disciple-making methods, reflecting upon, analyzing and summarizing them. The actual practice derived from this report has then been continuously adjusted. The whole system is designed for our liturgical church context. We call this method of ministry The Cathedral Model.

Despite its name, the Cathedral Model is not a ministry that has to be situated in a cathedral, but is suitable for any local church. In a nutshell, it is a system based on the liturgy that is composed of three interconnected parts that advance from Gospel sharing, to Disciple making, to Life nurturing. The liturgy threads through the whole course to lead a person, even without any Christian faith background, to clearly know his or her faith identity. This Cathedral Model draws non-Christians to the church, and cultivates them to become mature Christians, committing themselves to their local church, engaging in serving the church, and growing their spiritual life with God.

Just as liturgy is the expression of worshiping God, its essence has surpasses the limitation of language and culture, manifesting the sacraments, which happen in eternity. Therefore, the Cathedral Model has a very clear vision and message: that we are one ‘Family’ that transcends language and ethnic backgrounds, and extends across the centuries. “The Mandarin ministry is not a parallel church within a church; we are part of this local church, St. James Cathedral.

Many Anglican scholars agree that Anglican theology and the Anglican faith are expressed in the Anglican liturgy. It is not something that becomes out of date, nor is it a new method. Rather, the liturgy is an inheritance of our ancient faith. Through it, our Church can find new vitality, and become the conscience of our society and the light of the world; drawing more people to the table of the Lord, and growing in the Kingdom of Heaven.

An article about Rev. James Liu’s ministry during the pandemic was published in the Anglican Journal in April, 2020.

My Cycling Group and Communicating the Faith

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Being immersed in a strong Christian community, as I was during both seminary and doctoral work in theology, is simultaneously challenging, gut-wrenching, transformative, and joy-filled. It was the training, discipline, stripping, and rebuilding of both mind and character that happens when one commits to follow a particular vocational path as part of one’s life of faith. I was, and am, grateful for this experience. It truly is all one can really expect from a program that wants to rigorously train someone to proclaim the Gospel in a nation that does not know the triune God of our Scriptures. But as with any immersive program, it can also form a type of experiential bubble.

 

Other bubbles

Bubbles are not just found in Christian circles. Most companies have their bubbles. These bubbles occur simply because people within a given organization develop an ethos or way of life that is different from other organizations. There are distinct expectations about how one uses one’s time; how one behaves; how relationships work, their formality or informality; the ‘textbook way’ to do things and the way that organization does things. It includes language, often terms, phrases, words, descriptions, shortcuts, or subtext that one must know in order to participate and to ‘do well’.

The difficulty arises when people become so formed and shaped by the ethos of their organization that they become unable to empathize – to understand another’s perspective – with people outside their organization. This can be a particular problem for Christians and I would suggest that this is one of reasons that Christians either a) tend to alienate people outside the Church when they speak to them about the faith; or b) tend to be afraid to share their faith with those outside the Church and so compartmentalize ‘church stuff’, separating it from ‘life stuff’.

 

My sports bubbles

One of the best things I did during my seminary and doctoral training was to involve myself in communities where not only did I have an outlet from work and study, but I was also exposed to a diversity of belief frameworks. This pressed me to think constantly about how to communicate the faith to people who have no belief in the supernatural; who have been harmed by the Church, either by gossip, arrogance and envy, or by some form of abuse; those who are frankly indifferent to God, or who believe that while God might be great, his people are wicked, or potentially disprove God’s own words. These are all responses to the Christian faith that I have heard while being involved in university sports (rowing, rugby, cross-country skiing) and sports throughout the City of Toronto (track and cycling).

Whether they realize it or not, these teams and clubs actually form the foundation of community that carries with it the same potential for exclusivity (terms, phrases, fitness levels, equipment, financial capacity, talent capacity) that the Church does. However, this community also carries with it the capacity to gather others in – if it is willing to engage others with charity, love, peace, kindness, gentleness, self-control, discipline, focus, building others up, loving one’s neighbour, helping to nurture the other, and shunning bitterness, envy, prolonged anger, arrogance, and hatred – so they might learn how the particular sport is done. I have watched people go from novice cyclists (who would walk most of the obstacles on our local trails, were unsure of what to wear or what equipment to bring; how to get on and off the bike without falling over, used incorrect ways of speaking about training or equipment or totally failed in training for an event) to holding their own, setting both personal, and in some cases, community records. I have pointed out this analogy to team/clubmates who say that Christianity is exclusive and judgmental. This demonstrates that all humans have the propensity to indulge the sins that underlie exclusivity (acting out of fear, anger, bitterness, envy, arrogance, or evil inclinations) and it presses them to reconsider their own judgment of the Church.

 

Learning from my cycling group

My cycling group has taught me that every aspect of life belongs to God. Whether positive or negative witness to him, he takes all of it up. Having done this, he has set us free from the fear that God does not exist – is a figment of our collective anxiety – and the fear that we cannot accomplish our own salvation, or the salvation of others. And being set free from fear, we can actually step out of the ‘safety’ of the community in which we worship – the Church – into the world.

We can listen with the gifts of the Spirit that culminate in the concept of empathy (faith, hope and love). We can then find the common patterns of life, the common underpinning reasons – emotional, physical, experiential – that prevent people opening up to receive the grace of God that is there with them already, provident over all things. Thus, having travelled with God throughout our own experiences, we can share these in response to the particular issues of another person’s life.

In this way we communicate the faith not in propositions to be memorized or rules to be followed, but as a salve for suffering that is common to all, as an adventure of pursuing the universal origin, truth and order of all things; as a pursuit of love in hope and faith that casts out the fear that prevents us from receiving the fullness of who we are.

Church Redevelopment: What, Why, How?

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The following is not intended as a guide for churches that are already engaged in building redevelopment projects. It is meant instead as a tool to aid congregations who may be in the early stages of discernment and to help spark the imagination of churches who may not have considered redevelopment as a matter of mission and ministry. Redevelopment is a matter of mission and ministry!

 

What is Redevelopment?

There are many ways the built form of a church can be modified. Somewhere between renovation and conversion lies redevelopment. Renovation (like upgrading a worship space or creating an accessible entrance) usually does not involve a fundamental change of use or require significant investment from outside of the congregation or denomination. A conversion, on the other hand, implies a complete change of ownership and use. It is not uncommon for disestablished churches in urban centres to be converted into condos or pubs. Clearly, this is not the kind of religious conversion the church is meant to be about. Redevelopment, then, refers to a modification of the built form of the church which entails a partial change of use, while not ceasing to function as a place of worship, mission and ministry. Redevelopment will almost inevitably involve new partnerships with non-church operators, developers, and investors.

Why Redevelopment?

This will be a new paradigm for many within the church. But we are in a new era. The National Trust for Canada estimates that 9,000 church buildings will be converted over the next decade. This number is significant, but it shouldn’t be a surprise given the rapid decline in religious affiliation in Canada since the 1950s. Indeed, the fastest growing “religious” demographic in the country consists of those who identify as having “No Religion.” The so-called ‘nones’ made up 4% of the Canadian population in 1971 and jumped to nearly 25% in 2011. We might say that supply is outstripping demand when it comes to single-use church buildings. And there is little reason to assume this trend will change.

Lower attendance and decreased revenues in churches are compounded by increased expenses from deferred maintenance and aging infrastructures. These are sobering realities that should awaken us to a problem. But it is also an opportunity – an opportunity to reimagine ministry by reimaging what we do with our church buildings.

What if we thought of church buildings as key assets in a full and integrated vision of contextual ministry? What if we considered not just the financial, but also the ecological, social, and spiritual potential of our buildings?

 

How do churches redevelop?

By letting vision, not crisis, drive the process

Root the process in prayer and reflection on scripture. The church has an older, deeper, and more demanding call upon it than private landowners. Dig deep into the scriptures and the tradition to find these sources. Don’t just ask, but listen in your prayers to what the Spirit is calling you to.

Get to know your building. Understand the built form of your church and its role in your ministry and in your community. Is it helping you to accomplish your ministry goals (build on that!) is it hindering your ministry goals (problem solve from there!).

Consult. Ensure the process engages the full range of stakeholders from beginning to end. With such high-level and sometimes sensitive issues, experts and visionaries can often move quickly and leave important stakeholders behind.

By ruling out the non-starters

Engage the relevant stakeholders within the church: clergy, staff, lay leaders, opinion shapers. Become aware of the structures and policies that govern church properties. In particular, consult with your denominational leaders and relevant staff.

Learn about the redevelopment process. Connect with churches that have redeveloped their properties. Reach out to one of the many organizations engaging churches in this process. Just be “wise as serpents” (Matt 10:16) in the process. Do not commit to binding partnerships hastily!

Consult with the community. Local community partners may have a stake in your redevelopment project that you are not aware of. They may become your best ally in the process. But you also want to be aware of any potential NIMBYism. Further, if the church’s ministry is to the community, then the community is one of the best places to begin discerning a redevelopment project. You will also want to have your city counsellor on side as soon as possible.

By focusing on impact

Financial: Long-term sustainable ministry is the goal here. For that you need capital to begin the process and revenue to keep it going. Be prepared to talk numbers!

Spiritual: If church redevelopment is about diversifying the uses of church buildings while maintaining its use as a place of worship, mission and ministry, then any redevelopment will need to enable and enhance the capacity for Christian communities to worship, serve, and disciple.

Social: If your congregation is already having an impact in the neighbourhood, redevelopment can help to encourage that work. But this is also an opportunity to increase impact by adapting the built form to current needs and opportunities in the community.

Ecological: “The most environmentally sustainable building there is is the building we have,” an architect once told me. We can’t all build LEED certified churches. So think in terms of decreasing the carbon footprint of the buildings we have and increasing their resilience.

 

This is a unique and challenging moment for the church. In order not to be undone by the immensity of the challenge, we need to have a clear view of the situation and the courage to act. When it comes to the built form of the church it must be admitted: most of our buildings were constructed for a church that no longer exists. We need a new form of church: a new built-form for the church that does exist. The process, and its results, will look different for each congregation. But we need to begin re-thinking, re-imagining, and in many cases re-building.

The history and hope of LIFT Church

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LIFT Church was founded in 2006 by a small team at McMaster University. Simply put, our vision was to see students come to know Jesus. With the conviction that students on other campuses in Canada needed to hear the Gospel and be empowered to share it with others, the vision has since grown to include other campuses in Canada.

Currently, LIFT Church meets on four campuses in southern Ontario: McMaster University (2006), Brock University (2015), Mohawk College (2019) and the University of Guelph (2019). During the academic year approximately 600 students now gather for worship across these sites. Our best guess is that they are made up of roughly equal thirds: those with no prior church connection, those with some very nominal church connection, and already committed Christians. It makes for a fruitful mix, as we live out our mission to be sharing Jesus with those who do not know Him and equipping those who do, to do the same.

 

The university milieu

The universities and colleges of Canada are an enormously influential enterprise. More than 2 million students and tens of thousands of staff interact on our campuses every day. The nations of the world vie for attention at our universities, with 350,000 students from more than 150 nations currently enrolled. Our universities spend over 13 billion dollars on research in a single year and have generated over 1.5 million brand new jobs in the last 10 years – three times more than any other job creation vehicle.[1]

However, the most significant output of our universities is not their scientific discoveries, artistic work, or even their direct cultural impact. Rather, the most significant influence of our universities is found in the individual lives of those that comprise them. University drastically reshapes the relationships, purpose, and ultimately the identities of those who are within.

 

The question asked – who am I?

The underlying objective of the university experience has become answering the question “Who am I?” However, this question is not asked in isolation. Students often ask it in the context of tense financial realities and amid the pressure to succeed at their studies. There is also now the added pressure to discover a social belonging, achieve athletic success, and determine a sexual identity in an increasingly ambiguous landscape. To top it all off, there are a thousand voices screaming for attention and shouting, “We have the answer.”

The effects of this environment are telling. A recent study of 25,000 students at Ontario Universities found that 67% abused alcohol, and 19% participated in drug abuse of some sort. Perhaps more alarmingly, 65% feel overwhelming anxiety, and 13% have seriously considered suicide.[2]

 

 

Does the Church have an answer?

Christians often believe: (1) that the church cannot compete amidst the ever-mounting pressures and competing voices that university students face, and (2) that the content and culture of universities are one of the greatest threats to the faith of this generation. However, in our experience, we have found: (1) that universities create a most fertile ground for the Gospel, and (2) that the church cannot speak to a world in which we are not present. It is clear that students in this environment need Jesus, and at LIFT Church, we believe that it is our call to introduce them to Him.

From our perspective, the environment of the university or college is the perfect place to plant churches! As evidenced by the statistics cited earlier, students are naturally seeking for purpose, relationships and a mission for their life; in other words, they are looking to be whole. This is why LIFT Church exists: to see people made fully alive in the hope of Jesus by being the church on every campus. It is our prayer to see a discipleship movement that will result in churches being planted on ten major post-secondary campuses by 2026.

 

Disciple-making disciples

In the last thirteen years, we have seen thousands of people hear the Gospel preached weekly on university campuses, we have baptized hundreds of brand new followers of Jesus, and we have trained many hundreds to be disciple-making disciples.

It is out of the seeds of our discipleship emphasis that we arrive at our church planting strategy. Effective discipleship and effective evangelism should always go hand in hand. As we teach people to follow Jesus and be transformed in who they are, we equally call them to embrace the missional call on their lives to see others know Jesus as well. Mobilized-disciples that can effectively evangelize are the most basic and essential ingredients of church planting. Church planting is the natural and inevitable by-product of effective discipleship.

 

Simple Church – a church planting strategy

Discipleship at LIFT Church occurs through small missional communities called “Simple Churches.” Simple Churches are a vehicle to see the “priesthood of all believers” move from a theological construct into a lived reality; we work to take a student from no knowledge of Jesus to church-plant ready in just four years of university. If they have effectively been able to lead a Simple Church as a student in one location, then it is not a substantial stretch for them to do so in another location. In so doing, we mobilize the ordinary believer to become a church planter.

Every time we plant on a new campus, we start with Simple Churches. Our focus on Simple Church as a church planting strategy means that the basics of discipleship and evangelism are the foundation of the church. Through Simple Church we can provide a context to support many hundreds of people. However, the real benefit is that effective discipleship and evangelism, activated through the ordinary believer, means that we can also commission churches in new locations with low costs in both physical and human resources. While these churches start small, they can scale rapidly to have a substantial and multiplying Kingdom impact.

Through Simple Churches, we teach and empower all of our students to be disciple-making-disciples in their world. By encouraging students to form meaningful relationships with each other where they invest large amounts of time together and are by nature of the campus in close proximity to one another, genuine space for vulnerability is created. Time, proximity and vulnerability are the essential fuel for effective discipleship, and the university campus provides the context where they almost automatically exist. (See Acts 2:42-48.) The university context provides a natural context to plant churches that in turn plant churches by mobilizing ordinary believers to become disciple-making-disciples. It is really that simple.

 

Finally – a few figures

Here is a breakdown of the 600 that meet at the four campuses. There are 440 at McMaster, meeting for 13 years; 100 at Brock, meeting for 3 years; 50 at Mohawk, meeting for 6 months; and 15 at Guelph where they have only been going for 3 months and have not started meeting for worship services yet. Of that 600 we would say that 350 are consistently engaged, (roughly twice a month) and of the consistent attendees 70% are in a Simple Church and about 70% of those are serving in a leadership role, approximately 250 people.

[1] Universities Canada, Facts and Stats, https://www.univcan.ca/universities/facts-and-stats/

[2] College Health Association-National College Health Assessment II: Ontario Canada Reference Group Executive Summary Spring 2016. Hanover, MD

A Simple Framework for Sharing Your Faith

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Since taking on the leadership of the Institute of Evangelism, I’ve noticed that many churches continue to need help equipping Christians to share the faith with their family, friends, neighbours and colleagues. People often simply don’t know where to begin, and church leaders aren’t sure how to help them. This month I want to share a very practical and simple five-movement framework[1] that Christians can use to share their faith whenever opportunities arise.

An Equipping Event

Why not create an ‘equipping event’ this fall or winter during which you help your church members become more comfortable sharing their own story of faith with each other? Some people will already be comfortable doing this. For others it may be the first time they’ve shared their fair story with anyone. At the very least you’ll be strengthening people’s knowledge of each other, and hopefully, this exercise will also help them share the faith with unchurched and dechurched people they interact with in their everyday lives.

This simple equipping exercise is a way to get people thinking about, and then telling others, how they came to faith, and inviting others to explore the Christian faith for themselves. Please feel free to adapt it to the needs of your particular congregation.

Get Comfortable Telling Your Story of Faith

Sharing the story of how you came to faith is one of the best gifts you can give to someone. It’s often the most non-threatening way to help them take a step themselves towards becoming a Christian or renewing their faith as a Christian. You don’t need to know the answer to every philosophical, biblical or theological question. You just need to get comfortable telling your own story.

To pull your thoughts together, it may help you to jot down some points for each of the five ‘movements’ of the story of your journey with God. Take 10 minutes to do this. Don’t overthink it. Just tell it like it happened.

Once you’ve jotted down some key points, find a partner to share your story with. Describe your own story, in everyday language, using the following five movements.

The Five Movements of Your Story

  1. Before …

Describe a time when faith really wasn’t a part of your life.

(E.g. “Growing up . . . back in high school . . . university . . . after I started working . . . before my sister got sick . . . when our son died.)

  1. The problem …

Describe what was keeping you from having a close relationship with God.

(E.g. “I just thought religion was about following a lot of rules.” “I was looking for something spiritual but wanted to go it alone.” “I was living with this heavy burden …” “I really didn’t know who Jesus was.” “I was lacking any real meaning & purpose.” “I didn’t know what to do with the anger I felt.”, “I was afraid of . . .”, I was frankly too focused on myself and my career to care much about what I really believed.”)

  1. Then a change ….

Describe how you encountered the Living God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit.

(E.g. “I discovered this community of intriguing Christians . . . “I experienced God’s presence, although I couldn’t explain it . . . “I felt loved for the first time.”, “The message of Christianity seemed so deeply true.”, “I experienced forgiveness.”, “I let go of the anger.”, “I experienced healing.”, “I started thinking about who and what I really was, and felt God was trying to get my attention”, “I had a dream that got me thinking about Jesus”, “I realized my life was going in a bad direction and a friend pointed me towards faith.”)

  1. Now…

Describe what your life is like today. How has your faith shaped you? How does it continue to shape you?

(E.g. “My life is not perfect, but I am much less [fill in the blank] than I used to be.” “Jesus is teaching me to . . .”, “My faith has brought a new way of life”, “I am not as afraid of death now.”, “For the first time, I know I’m valued.”, “The more I learn about Jesus the more compelling I find him.”, “God now gives me the strength to get through all the stuff life throws at me.”)

  1. An invitation ….

What invitation can you suggest?

(E.g. “How about you – would you be interested in taking an adult look at Jesus for yourself? I’d love to explore that together.”, “How about you – have you ever simply asked God to reveal Himself to you? I’d love to ask Him about that with you.” “Have you ever thought about exploring the story of the Bible, or the accounts of Jesus’ life? I’d love to meet over coffee to do that together.”, “Have you ever thought about trying out church? I could pick you up this week and introduce you to some of my friends there.”)

After You Shared Your Story

Switch speaking/listening roles with your partner and hear how they came to faith. Then, team up with another pair of people and take turns hearing all four of your stories.

Conclude the equipping exercise by asking people to be quiet for a few moments and ask God to bring to mind people in their lives who need to know Him more personally. Perhaps a grandson, a neighbor, a colleague at work, a friend, or a daughter. Then lead the whole group in a prayer that God would open up opportunities during the coming weeks for them to share their story of faith with those people. Finally, encourage them to begin each day with a short prayer asking God to help them know who to share their story with and for the courage to do so.

Following Up

To further help your church become more comfortable sharing their stories of faith with each other and with people outside the church community, you could include some of these stories during your worship services. While not everyone will have the confidence to speak in front of a larger group, some will. This will demonstrate visibly to the whole church that talking about faith isn’t just something clergy do. Evangelism is the simple sharing of what we’ve come to know about the Living God, made known to us in Jesus Christ. To have people share that as part of worship of God normalizes that evangelism is not something for the few, but is for everyone.

 

[1] Based on a model by Shirley Kitchen, Integrative Assignment in the course Evangelism Remixed, Wycliffe College, April 2018.

How a dying church came back to life

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This is a good news story of a parish that turned around. But to begin, let’s travel back in time a few years.

The dying church – 2013

The Church of the Epiphany and St. Mark, Parkdale is an historic church (1884) situated in one of the most intriguing and diverse neighbourhoods in the City of Toronto. From hipsters to psychiatric patients; from West Indians to Tibetans; from a sizeable LGBTQ demographic to a small intentional urban Christian community, from bug infested boarding houses to multi-million dollar dwellings for Bay Street lawyers; Parkdale has it all.

The parish as it exists today was the amalgamation of two churches, which came together in 1984 and undertook a massive renovation. A beautiful Victorian nave that seats 120 was restored, and there were now two parish halls, two industrial kitchens (as well as a galley kitchen and two kitchenettes), four huge classrooms and three offices. If we build it, they will come, right?

But 29 years later this church, located in the centre of a high-density urban neighbourhood, was on the brink of collapse. On my first Sunday in February of 2013, you could see your breath in the Nave and there were 38 people present. These were mostly devout faithful Caribbean members, a couple of stalwart Newfoundlanders, and a retired archbishop and his wife. The organist played quite well from the Victorian hymnal ‘Hymns, Ancient and Modern’ (1865) but this was thwarted by an organ on which only one of the two manuals worked, and the pedalboard didn’t function at all.

I spent my first week in the building pretty much alone – obviously there were no staff. There were, however, creatures great and small: roaches, rumours of bedbugs, mice (living and dead, the petrified dead one being under the ancient couch in my office,) rats, squirrels, pigeons and raccoons. And, as I started cleaning I discovered that all the priest’s robes were at the bottom of a closet underneath boxes of saved contribution envelopes (going back to 1975), and tire chains. Really? Tire chains? Yes, tire chains.

Are you getting the picture? Clearly this was a dispirited, discouraged, even depressed congregation. And now they were getting me, a 50-something ‘seasoned’ priest. I had put my hand up for this (then) half-time position, but coming from a multi-staffed bustling congregation did I have the chops? The building was moldy, susceptible to flooding, and the chancel ceiling constantly dropped plaster dust onto the altar as a result of a decade old unfinished ceiling repair. I had chosen a path of downward mobility but . . . in prayer I opted for the Franciscan model: When St. Francis heard the call to “build My Church!” Francis literally started building the walls of the ruined San Domino in the Assisi countryside. If I had to change lightbulbs, paint the ceiling and call the exterminators, so be it.

I bumped into my MPP, Cheri DiNovo, (an ordained United Church minister) in the spring of 2013. I introduced myself as the new priest-in-charge of that church over there, as I pointed at Epiphany and St. Mark. “That church?” said Cheri as we stood on her doorstep where she could clearly see the east wall of the church. “That church? I thought it was closed!”

Alive again – 2019

Six years later, on any given day there are sixty or more people from Parkdale in the building: artists, environmentalists, students, community collectives, clergy (priest, a missioner-priest, a permanent deacon and a couple of honorary assistants), keen parishioners, theatre groups, women’s shelter residents, and musicians. The building is bright and clean, and very much open.

On Sundays there are two Anglican services (a 9:15 Contemplative Eucharist and a 10:30 Contemporary Eucharist). We’ll see a handful at the first, and on a good Sunday over sixty at the second. The organ has been retired in favour of a new baby grand (that frankly, God gave us) and the music director leads us in gospel hymns, spirituals, jazz and blues with an occasional historic hymn. I employ humour and live participation as I preach. We clap, we bless and we integrate, aiming to truly welcome everyone equally, from the schizophrenic, to the gay family, to the retired banker. We sing happy birthday and offer healing prayer. On Sunday afternoons a homeless ministry uses our space for further worship. On Sundays we have the church doors as wide open as long as we possibly can, depending on the weather and the season.

We now have (for the first time in living memory) a surplus budget. Our deacon Claudette has hit her stride in pastoral care, neighbourhood activities and intercession-writing. Our Sunday School teacher, Michael, is a community artist who has brought those talents into his ministry. There are always children present on Sundays. Our missioner-priest, Jason McKinney, is deeply imbedded in the community; serving on neighbourhood boards, think-tanks and steering committees. He marches in affordable housing demonstrations and hosts public lectures on issues such as food security and gentrification. He works outside the building, while I work inside. I am now three quarters time.

Most important of all, if the Church of the Epiphany and St. Mark closed tomorrow, Parkdale would really miss us.

So what happened?

Life, hope and a vision

First of all, the congregation wanted to live. Those who remained were deeply committed. I think too that they wanted clear leadership that, at least to begin with, made prayerful decisions on their behalf. But once we started moving forward my leadership transitioned to a collaborative style of decision-making, making use of the gifts of many.

We had hope and a vision. I came with hope and I had an inkling of a vision which was confirmed in my conversation with Cheri DiNovo: the church needed to get out on the street and see itself as the Kingdom in Parkdale.

Music and liturgy

We contextualized our music and liturgy. I remain convinced that music is the most important element of liturgy. By moving away from ancient hymns to sing-able and loved gospel songs and spirituals, as well as inviting guest musicians, the congregation began to sing lustily and with good cheer. By relaxing the Anglican formalism, getting creative, introducing a ‘meet and greet’ at the service beginning, giving direction through the service and being humorous, worship became friendly and accessible while remaining deeply spiritual. Sometimes worship just shimmers with the presence of Jesus Christ.

Prayer

We prayed. By re-establishing Morning Prayer two or three times a week and the introduction of a contemplative prayer service by Jason McKinney, our prayers in the building changed both us and the place itself.

Leadership

I kept regular office hours. I was the first priest in the last three that had my office in the building. Don’t underestimate the power of presence!

We focused on the development of lay leaders and church partnerships. We keenly observed who had gifts to be used in the recovery of Epiphany and St. Mark and we brought forth each other’s giftedness. But further we collaborated with the Scouts who happily cooked for our community meals while we met the neighbourhood and sat at the table with them.

Funding opportunities

Seventh, we discovered, and then unabashedly used, funding opportunities! We had little money, but what we had we used up in both ministry and building improvements. We used up all our reserve which gave us some tense moments! Also, within a year or so when things started to turn around, the Diocese was keen to support us. It helped immensely that we were then designated a strategic parish. We further found significant city funding to restore windows, and provincial funding to radically improve the lighting, which improved people’s mood and pride in the building and church as a whole.

Working with, and in, the local community

We contributed to the vitality of the neighbourhood through our community partnerships. Our tenants are partners and we work collaboratively with all of them to extend the reach of the church’s ministry. For example, we’re too small to run a women’s shelter, but we work with the city to make that happen and then welcome these residents into our community. So our partners help us meet our strategic and ministry goals.

Finally, what shifted us from a revitalizing to a sustainable church was the work of our missioner-priest. After Jason finished his curacy with us in 2016 he had the vision to be in the community as priest. The Bishop, wardens and I supported the extension of the original vision. But particularly in the last couple of years we have reaped the benefits of that ministry. There are now upwards of sixty people in the building on any given weekday and we have a healthy budget, primarily because of Jason’s missional work.

This is a good story of a parish that actually turned around. Now, what might God be calling you to do in your context?

Whatever happened to Fresh Expressions – and where is it now?

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It’s nice to be right, at least sometimes. Even partly right is an encouragement. 

The Beginning – in the UK

Way back in 2008, I wrote an article for Good Idea called “Is Fresh Expressions just the latest ‘Flavour of the Month’?” At that time, everyone seemed to be talking about Fresh Expressions.

The Church of England report, Mission-Shaped Church, had been published in 2004 to much fanfare, the (then) Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, having put his considerable authority, not to mention a lot of money, into encouraging the movement.

In Canada, the Church Planting Working Group of the Diocese of Toronto mysteriously morphed into the Fresh Expressions Working Group and Wycliffe College appointed Nick Brotherwood as Team Leader for Fresh Expressions Canada. Nick travelled the country (literally), teaching and spreading the vision at conferences and synods for mission and fresh expressions of church. His was only a half-time position but he filled it 110 per cent. And, for a number of years, Wycliffe’s Institute of Evangelism and the Diocese of Toronto partnered to host an annual Vital Church Planting Conference to which a succession of the Fresh Expressions leaders from the UK came and spoke.

 

Flavour of the month?

So was it just “the flavour of the month”? Yes and no. There certainly wasn’t the flurry of new forms of church reaching out to the non-churched that some of us had hoped for. Yes, there were some brave experiments in mainline churches, some of which continue today. (I will talk about evangelical churches in a minute.) But the UK experience was never replicated here. Why not?

I remember suggesting to Wycliffe faculty that the movement had shown such vibrancy in the UK because of the robust form of evangelicalism pioneered by John Stott and other leaders after the Second World War. When I had finished pontificating, Alan Hayes, the Church History professor, said casually, “Um, Thomas Cranmer? John Wycliffe?” And, of course, he was right: the roots of an outward-looking, evangelistically minded church in the UK go back not seventy-five years, but hundreds of years. The soil had been well-prepared.

 

Renewal before mission

In Canada, well, not so much. Not much depth of soil on the Canadian Shield. Maybe this is why I have heard some church leaders saying recently, “You know, mission flows out of spiritual renewal and formation. Maybe we have been trying to produce the fruit without the root.”

This, I suspect, this may explain why the small group resource Christian Foundations, written by Judy Paulsen, Patrick Paulsen and Susan Bell, has sold close to 2,000 copies in the past year and a half. Churches are once again seeking to better ground people in the basics of the Christian faith. Similarly, the program, Revive, put together by Dr. Dawn Davis, out of her experience of leading her church in Toronto, is being increasingly used in Canada and the US. Renewal first, mission second. That has been a sobering lesson.

 

So has Fresh Expressions died in Canada?

Chances are, you haven’t heard anything about it for a few years. Here the plot thickens. There have been four developments that seem to me significant:

In Evangelical churches

If mainline churches have not embraced a fresh expressions methodology (“new forms of church to engage the non-churched”), evangelical churches have. Not that they learned it from Fresh Expressions. They just did it intuitively. My guess is that a mission-minded leader, observing a post-Christian world, knows perfectly well that traditional forms of church, usually of European origin, are not going to be effective in reaching secular Canadians. And often evangelicals are nimbler and more flexible than mainline churches in changing their approach according to the needs of the mission field.

Looking back, I realise that, at the Vital Church Planting conferences, while many of the plenary speakers were from the UK, often the workshop leaders were from evangelical denominations. Why? Because they already understood what the conference was trying to achieve, and were happy to help.

In time, as we sought to add “Canadian content” to the line-up of plenary speakers, it was to the evangelical churches that we turned. Pernell Goodyear (Salvation Army and Baptist), Beth Fellinger (Pentecostal and Christian Reformed) and Joe Manafo (Free Methodist), stand out in my mind.

In other words, Fresh Expressions is flourishing, but not usually under that name. One organisation I appreciate and stay in touch with is New Leaf, an interdenominational ministry which serves and encourages church planters. They tell me that in the past year they have trained a hundred church planters, most of them employing a “Fresh Expressions methodology.”

Messy Church

Perhaps the most popular “brand” of fresh expressions of church, Messy Church, which came into Canada under the umbrella of Fresh Expressions, is thriving across the country, in a wide range of denominations. Indeed, Messy Church has now become an independent entity, which is a good thing. Messy Church Canada now boasts 275 known Messy Churches across Canada (you will realise the implication of the word “known”!), thanks in large part to the amazing energy and vision of Sue and Andy Kalbfleisch.

At Wycliffe College

Following the lead of many seminaries in the UK, in recent years Wycliffe College has modified its MDiv program. Instead of a generic one-size-fits-all form of ministry training, which is still what most seminaries offer, the MDiv now is designed to train specifically for the twin emphases of Fresh Expressions: helping existing churches make the turn to missional (the Missional Leadership track) and beginning new Christian communities (the Pioneering Ministry track).

 

Is there still an organization?

So what of Fresh Expressions, the Canadian organization, with capital letters, initiated by Anglicans? To some extent, it has done what missionaries are always supposed to do—worked itself out of a job. It has decreased and the things it sought to nurture have increased. That is as it should be. But as it happens there is more to report.

The Missional Leadership Cohort

Under the leadership of (now) Bishop Susan Bell, between 2017 and 2019, the focus shifted. Instead of seeking to help young church planters in mainline churches do their thing, which other churches were doing quite independently, a team came together with a different purpose: to help pastors in mid-career, leading traditional mainline churches, to reorient their churches to mission for a post-Christian world.

What does this look like? A Missional Leadership Cohort of 20 to 25 pastors meets for three weekends between October and April to learn the principles of mission (often not in the curriculum when they were at seminary). Then, in between, they meet in local clusters to discuss how to put into practice locally what they were learning centrally. There is support, prayer, and mutual accountability. The first Cohort of this kind was centred in Montreal between 2017 and 2018; the second in the Niagara region from 2018 to 2019. Already there is substantial interest in the third Cohort, starting in October.

And I find it heart-warming that the people in these Cohorts are, among other things, intentionally seeking to learn from the experience of their brothers and sisters in evangelical churches who are, I have to say, happy to share whatever they know, with delightful humility and great wisdom. The synergy is a joy to behold. Mission is too important to be the exclusive property of one tradition.

 

So what happened to “the flavour of the month”?

Back in 2008, I argued that the missional impulse behind Fresh Expressions is a timeless one. When Christians are grasped by the Gospel, and seek to incarnate it in a particular culture, a fresh expression of church will result. Lesslie Newbigin foresaw this as long ago as 1977:

There may be elements in the local reality which are so alien to the present membership of the local church—by reason of language, race, culture, occupation or other factors—that the existing church is incapable of functioning as sign, instrument and first-fruit of God’s purpose. . . . It is not enough in this situation for the Church to say “Come—all are welcome” . . . . The existing congregation must be willing also to go—to go outside the walls of the Church in order to become part of that other reality—in language, culture, style of life. Only so does there appear in the midst of that reality the sign and first-fruit of God’s all-embracing purpose.[1]

In that sense, fresh expressions of church are here to stay. Indeed, they have always been with us and will be as long as the mission of God continues! In that, I seem to have been right.

Secondly, in the 2008 article, I suggested that the name and organization of Fresh Expressions might not last. Steve Croft, the first Team Leader of Fresh Expressions in the UK, had told me he thought it might last ten years. By that time, the practices that Fresh Expressions taught and embodied would be so much part of the DNA of the church that it could close down with its mission accomplished. That made sense to me. Too many institutions, inside and outside the church, keep going far beyond their “best-before” date. In that, I was partly right, partly wrong.

 

Rearranging the jigsaw pieces

What I did not foresee was how the jigsaw pieces could be rearranged, with evangelical churches pioneering the nurturing of fresh expressions of church, without necessarily using that name. I did not foresee the success of Messy Church as an outreach in its own right. And I did not foresee the shift in training that might happen at seminary level—though I am delighted by all of these.

Finally, I didn’t foresee that Fresh Expressions the organization would reinvent itself to concentrate on the second half of the missional burden, helping existing churches make the turn to missional—in some ways the more demanding half. Both, of course, are expressions of the same impulse: to incarnate the Gospel in places and cultures where it is not known. Both are good, and both are needed.

 

Oh well, I guess I can live with being partly right. God will always surprise us.

(For more information about the upcoming Missional Leadership Cohort, see the Fresh Expressions website here.)

 

 

[1] Lesslie Newbigin, “What is ‘a local church truly united’?” The Ecumenical Review, Volume 29, Issue 2, April 1977, 123.

 

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