Home  Missional Voice Magazine
Issue 6 - September 1st, 2009
| Forge Canada Update |
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The Wind Blows
This has been an incredible week.
Wednesday, I sat around a table in Vancouver with the elders of our church as we listened for the wind of the Spirit of God to lead us forward into our neighbourhoods. Thursday, I sat with leaders from Forge Ontario around a restaurant table in Toronto as tornadoes touched down not far away and the rain beat against the building. Saturday, I felt the swirling winds of secularism as I walked in Montreal on St. Catherine's street. Sunday, I strolled along the waterfront in Old Quebec City and experienced some of the history of our land. But it was Friday evening that blew me away the most.
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| Forming Leaders for the Future |
Reflections on the Mandate of FORGE Canada
Recently the editor of a popular Christian paper reflected on change, declining church attendance, and the attrition of Christian leaders. He asked, "What is the future of the local church?"
Jim Lehman in The Answering Stranger wrote, "The Twentieth Century is a train that no longer runs."
Whatever the future holds, we know it is different from the past we have known. Is that good or bad? Neither. It just is.
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| Interview with Howard Snyder - Wineskins |
FC: Your work has spanned renewal movements, Anabaptist history and Methodist history, and you have a special interest in Trinitarian theology and the relationship of structure and Spirit. Some of the large questions we are facing in Canada relate closely to these questions of renewal, structure and Spirit. What have you learned that would be helpful to Canadian churches and church leaders in transition?
HS: The church stands in perennial need of mining Scripture in light of its present realities and challenges. We of course learn from history, particularly the history of doctrine, the history of renewal movements, and the history of the church's interrelationships with culture. But one of the main things we learn from history is the centrality of Scripture and the importance of a return to the biblical story of God, God's people, and God's land, and the work of redemption and new creation through Jesus Christ by the Spirit. A fresh look at the meaning of Jesus Christ and his body, and the promise of the kingdom, as revealed in Scripture, for the contemporary Canadian context remains central, I think.
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| Equipping for the Missional Journey |
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Once there was "pop" culture.. now there is "peep" culture. Peep culture is Reality TV, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace and Facebook. According to Hal Niedzvicki, it's blogs, chat rooms, amateur porn sites, virally spread digital movies.. it's the backbone of Web 2.0. it's the rapidly emerging phenomenon, a cultural movement steeped in and enabled by technological change. And it's not just he tweenso r the twentysomethings any more than it's the millennials, the boomers, etc. We are all part of it, being conditioned to love watching ourselves and our neighbors. And curiously, it is much stronger in Canada than in the US, with fully 10% of Canadians on Facebook (compare to 3.5% of Americans)
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| What is Missional? |
The missional church vision is not a programmatic response to the crisis of relevance, purpose and identity that the church in the Western World is facing, but a recapturing of biblical views of the Church all too frequently abandoned, ignored, or obscured through long periods of church history. It is a renewed theological vision of the church in mission, which redefines the nature, the mission and the organization of the local church around Jesus' proclamation of the good news of the Kingdom. Missional Churches seek to respond to God's invitation to join Him in His mission in and for the world, as a sign, a servant and a foretaste of His Kingdom.
Charles Ringma...
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| Forge Hubs |
If you would like to express interest or find out more about our hubs, please contact the regional leader in your area.
If we do not have a regional leader in your area please contact us at
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| The Spirit of the Disciplines |
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