Collaboration and Interdependence for the sake of hope

Paul writes – I’ve always been interested in collaboration, collaboration between the established and the experimentation of the new. I’m a fan of multiple-congregations. I’m a teller of Rata tree stories, stories of hope and possibility. I’m an observer of what NZ historian Michael King (d. 2004) describes as “the deepest mystery and the most sustaining pattern in all of life, that of arrival and departure, of death and renewal.”

Here’s a hopeful story from Tim Mathis, a twenty-something youth worker up in Seattle: 

“…St. Margaret's [Episcopalian] is, honestly, the primary reason that I'm skeptical about all the suggestions that traditional and institutional churches are hopeless, and that we have to establish something new. History is a story of cultural drift, with only the occasional revolution. St. Marg's is evidence that cultural drift is still happening, and that institutions can transform rather rapidly to meet a changing set of circumstances--even when twenty-something leaders aren't given full reign. It's one of the key reasons that I'm committed to working in a missional direction in the institutional church, and evidence that established churches can use their significant resources to move in innovative directions…”

Read Tim’s full post here. Thanks to my good friend Maggi for directing me to it.

Opawa Baptist and Steve Taylor’s story (the move from Auckland to Christchurch) encourages me that a 96-year old Baptist church can seed, encourage, and nourish new congregations and ways of being church. I wonder if 143-year old Anglican churches in small town New Zealand can likewise become communities of innovation and creativity – missional pioneers like their forebears (who wanted somewhere to worship) – willing to seed and encourage new (and parallel) possibilities for those whose faith is “churchless” or for whom church (and thus the good news centered on Jesus) has become lifeless, meaningless and irrelevant… I wonder if the wind of the Spirit is blowing…?

I quietly wonder what wonderful, hope-filled and encouraging stories might be able to be told in a few years time…?

Comments

[Tim]

Thanks for the link, Prodigal Kiwis. I'm honored to have a link from a great blog that I've enjoyed for a while now. I actually did an M.Theol in New Zealand at the University of Otago, so Alan, I've read a lot of your stuff. I quite enjoyed "A Churchless Faith". I also count John Hebenton, from your Kiwi Voices section as a good friend, as I do Karen Ward from the global voices section. I feel like a bit of a prodigal myself, and frequently feel homesick for Sunny Dunedin.

Tim