Tuesday 17 July 2012

Changing church for changed times

We are about to begin a new series in the book of Daniel .As a part of the preparation for that I have been reading Gerard Kelly's stretch" Lessons in faith from the life of Daniel,"which I have found helpful and at points even inspiring. The book contains some great quotes like " The ultimate triumph of Daniel is that he does better in Babylon ,than many of his fellow Jews had done in Jerusalem" and Daniel's God is not too small for Babylon,he is too big for Babylon"
As you may guess from the quotes Kelly draws a convincing comparison between where Daniel was in exile and where the church today is in a post Christendom age and suggests that while there are differences between his time and this time, there are also similarities and therefore important  lessons we can learn in not so much surviving but thriving in this new exciting time when the church is in transition
Kelly helpfully quotes Stuart Murray seven key points of transition
Stuart Murray, (cited on p.21) mentions seven transitions for the church as it moves into post-Christendom:

from being at the centre to being on the margins;
from majority to minority;
from settlers to sojourners;
from having a privileged place to being part of a plurality;
from controlling to being a witness in a culture controlled by others;
from maintenance to mission;
and from institution to movement.



While reading this I also came across a post in  Simon Jones blog a sideways glance which struck me as both provocative and containing some important truths for our age about living in exile

1 comment:

  1. great book, would love to hear how the sessions go!

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