spirituality and mission cms1 biblical foundations the hebrew scriptures creation the covenant moses...

Spirituality and Mission CMS1

Biblical Foundations

The Hebrew Scriptures

• Creation

• The covenant

• Moses

• The prophets.

• When Spirituality was lacking Moses, Saul


New Testament

Jesus

• 40 days desert

• Mark 1

• Gethsemane


The 1st Century Church

• The lesson between Acts 1 and 2

• Acts 4:13, 23ff

• Revelation

• Acts 1:8 the pneumenology


2. Prayer and Mission

Richard Foster

Establishing the link:“The purpose of the Disciplines is

liberation from the stifling slavery to self-interest and fear.” Celebration of Discipline p.2

But an inadequate link


Exploring The link in Prayer

• Inward / upward /outward

“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world” Karl Barth


“Prayer makes our love flow freely, both vertically and horizontally. As we pray, we are drawn into the love of God which irresistibly leads us to our neighbour” p. 273


Foster

Roman Catholicism (Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton two key 20th cent. Figures)


Failure of Foster’s books and the birth of Renovare

Foster a pioneer but arises out of a strong tradition is Roman Catholicism (Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton two key 20th cent. Figures)

That combines the spiritual traditions, actions, accountability.

The 5 Streams unites, interior, community, and action.

The MA dissertation that seeks to discover the link between prayer and evangelism.


The goal of Inspire is to promote Christian discipleship that combines growth in personal spirituality with a commitment to evangelistic mission. Our core vision is to encourage a way of life called 'mission spirituality' in the leadership and life of the church.


C. The act of worship and Mission

Worship as a potential distraction from mission… What do you think?

Worship as evangelism failing to be evangelism or worship

What do you think?


The act of worship and Mission

The linking of worship / spiritual disciplines in the OT and NT

Isaiah 1:10ff

Isaiah 58:3-9

Matthew 5:23 worship and reconciliation

Matthew 6: Lord’s Prayer

Acts 2:43 – worship and a community that cares for the poor.


Worship as a drama of God’s mission

Worship points to the reality of the world in God and our commitment to participating in that reality.

Worship seeks to unites Tom Driver,Liberating Rites

Ritual Mode (efficacious dimension is paramount)

Ethical mode (public and political mode is paramount)

Theatrical Mode (entertainment dimension is paramount)

Confessional Mode (personal mode is paramount)

Explanation of Worship and Ritual: Implications for Evangelism Tom Driver



D. The community as mission (community as a spiritual exercise)

The way the community of faith lives - that faith creates a plausibility and a lived narrative of the Gospel.

It is the crucial demonstration of the viability of the Gospel


a. Lived stories‘We discover our human self more effectively through stories, and so we use them in judging the adequacy of alternative schemes for human kind”. Hauerwas argues that it is the lived narrative of the church that will be the supreme witness to the faith. Hauerwas 1989: 190


Taize understands itself as a living parable of reconciliation


b. The mission of the churches symbolic and ritual dimension.

• Eucharist

• Baptism

• Silence

• Atmosphere

• Worship in general.


C. A third way in which the church is through living its love in mission.

• Grilled Cheese sandwiches


“We provide space for people to belong before they come to believe. We build real relationships with people, regardless of the end result. We want to be able to share life with people, whether or not they choose to follow Jesus. We have three houses of people who live on the south side. They invite people in. They are amazed at the variety of people who have said yes to Christ. People become interested in God because of how we live together.” (Holly Rankin Zaher – Three Nails Pittsburgh, in Gibbs 2006:120)


Movements and their connection to spirituality.

“Ask Jesus not to allow me to refuse Him anything however small. I [would] rather die.” Mother Teresa


William Wilberforce, the anti-slavery campaigner, played a foundational role in the establishment of Bible Society As a young MP, in the autumn of 1783, William Wilberforce read the New Testament on a journey to France. Afterwards he said he

‘became a new man’ as

a result.


“This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not in body. More solitude and earlier hours! I suspect I have been allotting habitually too little time to religious exercises, as private devotion and religious meditation, Scripture-reading, etc. Hence I am lean and cold and hard. I had better allot two hours or an hour and a half daily. I have been keeping too late hours, and hence have had but a hurried half hour in a morning to myself. Surely the experience of all good men confirms the proposition that without a due measure of private devotions the soul will grow lean. But all may be done through prayer — almighty prayer, I am ready to say — and why not? For that it is almighty is only through the gracious ordination of the God of love and truth. O then, pray, pray, pray!” – William Wilberforce


•John Wesley’s and George Whitfield and their linking spirituality and mission.

And while he this always exercises his love to God by prayer without ceasing, rejoicing evermore, and in everything giving thanks, this commandment is written in his heart, that "he that loveth God, loves his, brother also." And he accordingly "loves his, neighbour as himself;" he loves every man as his own soul J Wesley

spirituality and mission cms1 biblical foundations the hebrew scriptures creation the covenant moses...

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