Beyond Total Church (Total Church Session 3)
Total Church Conference
Speaker: Tim Chester
Session 3: Beyond Total Church
QUOTES:
Planting new churches isn’t enough, we need to create church planting movements.
The model of mission is supernatural. Prayer is the primary missionary activity.
The model of living is martyrdom. From incremental discipleship to martyrdom. We are called to take up our cross daily. We can often feed people’s idolatry with religion.
The model of the church should be reproducible. Every Christian should say, “I can do this.” There should be rapid incorporation of new converts into the church. People should be put into leading sooner than we are used to.
Notes from Simply Missional.
Audio/video sessions coming soon…
Read MoreA Gospel Centered Community (Total Church Session 2)
Total Church Conference
Speaker: Steve Timmis
Session 2: A Gospel Community Centered
Total Church Session 2
QUOTES:
When we use the word ‘church’ we are almost always miscommunicating both to the Christian and non-Christian. It seems we’ve lost the battle with this word. Why should we use a term where we are almost always communicating the wrong thing?
Church is far more than a community of religious people, it is a whole new world order. In Jesus miracles he showed us what eternity is like.
How do we create a community where the gospel progressively permeates every part of it?
Q/A
Q: How do you avoid judgmentalism in a community? How do we not care about being judged?
Q: How do we live life in community if we don’t have the leadership to do this? One of the most common complaints of churches, but it’s not an issue found in the NT. (How our false view of leadership impacts our ability to be the church.)
Q: Is the gospel specific enough to address the complex political and economic of issues to life?
Q: How does the gospel impact stewardship, for example our retirement?
..amongst others.
Read MoreA Community Centered Gospel (Total Church Session 1)
Total Church Conference
Speaker: Steve Timmis
Session 1: A Community Centered Gospel
NOTES:
Church planters don’t need a new shtick or new things. What we need is the gospel.
What is the Gospel? (Col. 1:3-6) The gospel is the word of truth that works. What does it do? It is constantly bearing fruit. It is the good news, the arrival of the Kingdom because of the arrival of the King. The evangelical emphasis has been on the individual. But where we (evangelicals) miss it most is in view of community. The ultimate goal of the gospel is an exalted Christ with his people. Christ without his people is incomplete.
What is the Church? Communities of light in a dying decaying world. The prevailing view of church is an event. If you doubt this, how many people hours are invested in that meeting? (Planning, sermon prep, worship practice, etc.) We know what we believe by how we behave. It is a static view of church vs. a dynamic view. Most of the recent debates on church center around what happens in this meeting (worship wars, preaching styles).
The church is a life together under the reign of the King. It is this corporate life together as a redeemed people pointing to the future. By our life together we are telling people, “this is what the future will look like.” If the event is what is pointing to the future, “God help us!” We should reverse engineer the future and set things up to line up with that now.
There are 630 laws and 3 events given by God. God was more concerned with the nitty gritty of life together. (eg. to build a small wall around a flat roof, how to harvest). Our gospel needs to be community centered.
Q/A
Q: The Historical church has been defined by preaching, discipline & the Sacraments. Are you moving away from these positions? Small quote from Steve’s answer: The way the vast majority of Christians celebrate communion has no bearing at all on how the New Testament portrays it.
Q: How do we facilitate creating communities sent into the ‘city’ versus ‘small groups’?
Q: How do you view the tension of the focus on the community in the OT and the focus on the individual in the NT?
NOTE: These are the videos and the notes I took from the first sessions. The video recordings and q/a recordings for all the sessions and audio from the breakouts will be uploaded in the next couple weeks to Church Bootcamp.
Read MoreUpdate on Total Church Session Recordings
Our team is working on the 12 videos (6 main sessions and 6 main breakouts) and 10 audio sessions (breakouts) from the Total Church Conference. In the next few days I should be posting the first two main sessions for people to enjoy.
Read MoreMissional Leader Curriculum
This weekend David Fairchild, Tim Chester, Steve Timmis, Jeff Vanderstelt, Caesar Kalinowski & Mark Moore and I head out of town Friday – Sunday to work on the The Porterbrook Network Curriculum to develop missional leaders. Looking forward to spending some time with this international crew.
Read MoreTotal Church Conference – 5 Spots Left
There are only 5 spots left until the Total Church Conference is sold out. Register now if you plan on attending.
8/7 Update: CONFERENCE SOLD-OUT
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