Filed under: discipleship

More on Christians and Work



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In the middle of December I was on a bit of a rant tweeting about how Christians so often misunderstand work and vocation. I find myself returning to this topic more and more because I think it is so important. Browse through the gallery to see the tweets:

Then Steve Bishop posted this cartoon the other day and I thought that it did a good job illustrating the way the church often adds to the problem.

A-hierarchy-of-vocations

It's my hope that in 2012 churches will do a lot more to help believers think about their work from a Christian perspective.

Willimon on Recovering the Classical Shape of Ministry



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Small-plants-growing

Over the past month, I have (very) slowly been making my way through William Willimon's book, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry. In a section discussing different images and models of pastoral ministry, Willimon suggests the recovery of a classical form of Christian ministry:

There is much to be said for the pastor being educated in the classical forms of Christian ministry. The church has much experience as a minority movement. We need to draw from that experience today. In that regard, I predict a recovery of the classical shape of ministry: to teach, to preach, and to evangelize through the ministries of the Word, sacrament, and order. I sense the end of a proliferation of ministerial duties and a reclamation of the essential classical tasks of Christian ministry. Because so many of our people have not been well formed in the faith, pastors must now stress doctrine, the classical texts of our faith, our master narratives, the great themes. The culture is no longer a prop for the church. If we are going to make Christians, we must have a new determination to inculcate the faith. In some ways our age parallels that of the Reformation, in which the church was faced with a vast undereducated, uninformed, unformed laity and clergy. Pastors need to be prepared to lead in catechesis, moral formation, and the regeneration of God's people.

He argues that we no longer live in a culture where Christianity holds a prominent place. As Christians, we are now living in a context in which the idea of being aliens and strangers in the land must be recovered. This was the situation of the early church, and it shaped the way they carried out their ministry. In particular, they invested a great deal of time and energy into the formation of believers. As we now find ourselves in a similar context, Willimon suggests that

more of our pastoral time, in this missionary situation, will be spent in catechesis, the formation of Christians who have the equipment they need to survive as Christians.

I often hear people react against the idea of catechesis because of an assumption that it is mere indoctrination, drilling purely intellectual and academic theological propositions into the heads of children. This, unfortunately, may have been the experience of some – to be honest, this was partly my own experience – but Willimon helpfully points out that catechesis instead is about the holistic formation of believers, equipping them with the tools necessary not only to think rightly, but to live rightly in the world.

In order to understand more fully what catechesis is supposed to entail, it is helpful first to have a well-rounded definition of the practice. The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides one such definition:

Catechesis...[includes] especially the teaching of Christian doctrine imparted, generally speaking, in an organic and systematic way, with a view to initiating the hearers into the fullness of Christian life....catechesis is built on a certain number of elements of the Church's pastoral mission...[including] the initial proclamation of the Gospel or missionary preaching to arouse faith; examination of the reasons for belief; experience of Christian living; celebration of the sacraments; integration into the ecclesial community; and apostolic and missionary witness (II, 5-6).

Catechesis is not just about intellectual matters, but it is about the whole of the Christian life. Recovering this sort of ministry is crucial for discipleship, and thus of great importance for pastoral ministry.

Facilitating Conversations on Faith and Science



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Recently, I came across something called The Colossian Forum, a new initiative to designed to facilitate conversations on the relationship of faith and science, especially for those who are preparing young students to go to university and out into the world. One of the people behind the project is James K.A. Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

What I find most encouraging about their work is that they are not attempting to hold one position above another, or to take sides on different points of contention, but they are giving people the tools to think about the often controversial relationship of faith and science and how Christ can be exalted as Lord in the midst of differences of opinions on this matter.

Here's an 8-minute clip in which members of the Forum talk a bit more about their work.

Stefan Paas on European Church Planting



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Update: Stefan Paas has produced a transcript of his lecture in PDF form, which is available for download here. The paper also clarifies some points and addresses some of the questions that were raised by his talk.

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Stefan Paas is a professor at the Free University of Amsterdam, holding the J.H. Bavinck Chair for Church Planting and Church Renewal. He was at the recent Redeemer City to City Europe conference in Berlin where he gave a talk entitled "A European Perspective on Church Planting." If you're involved in ministry in the UK or Europe, I think you'll find this to be very interesting. He raises a lot of important questions to consider about the nature of ministry here and the vision and aims of the church on this continent.

Below is the audio of his session as well as the slides he used during the presentation, which he has now made available.

If you are interested in the rest of the audio sessions of the conference, including some by Tim Keller, they can be found here. Do note that you need to register in order to be able to get access to all of them.