New resources: mission shaped vision for church schools and explaining trinity to youth

2 new resources have crossed my path which would be worth looking into.

The first is from Grove booklets (possibly the first word, never the last).  I always find that they are a great way of opening up the theological dialogue.  As part of mission shaped ministry schools are a vital place where we can develop a missional understanding, but keeping in mind the partnership ethos of how we approach our schools’ ministry.  So the book then…

Church schools: a mission shaped vision. This booklet, which launches a new series, serves as an introduction to church schools and their place in God’s mission. It argues that church schools are part of what the church is and reflects on theological models of mission and relationship. It includes also a wealth of introductory information, a succinct historical account of the church’s role in fashioning our schools system and reference material for further reflection.” (from Grove booklets site)  Don’t forget, you can also get the digital version, so you can read it right now if you really want to! Price for both download and hard copy, £3.50  (I recomend it for anyone doing the paper on primary schools for the Mission Shaped Ministry course!) Scripture Union Publication: explaining the Trininty to young people

Scripture Union book on explaining the trinity to young people.  From the website:

“This unique book helps youth workers explore the Bible’s teaching on God, the Trinity and Christian understanding of this mystery. Packed with practical ideas of pictures and images to aid understanding, the reader discovers how belief in the Trinity affects worship, mission and community.Top Tips booklets are designed for all those working with children and young people. Big on practical advice, but small enough to digest over a cup of coffee with encouragement and inspiration from experienced practitioners! “

Not as deep as the grove booklet series, but ideal to put into the hands of your church teams.  This book I suggest is one of a useful Top Tips set including Developing Partnerships Between Church and School, and Explaining the Cross.  Each booklet is £2.99, and available from the SU site or your local Christian bookshop (which deserves your support in these financially hard times!  nuff said)

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Could the equality bill affect Church schools employment policies? John Sentamu makes comment on equality bill

I don’t have enough brain to understand the arts of politics, though perhaps I should. Maybe I will as an older and (perhaps) wiser vicar, but for now I plead ignorance m’Lud. Our Archbishop of York has made two contributions to the house over the last couple of days which had some weight, and I applaud him for it. I did however spot a note a little lower down that relates more to our considerations of church school policies. Again, I make not comment, but it’s worth being aware of.

15 Dec 2009 : Column 1483

Baroness Turner of Camden:
…There are, however, some provisions in the Bill relating to religious organisations which may need further examination when the Bill is considered in Committee. The issue of employment in state-funded faith schools has recently been brought to my attention. It would appear that religious requirements can be imposed on teachers in such schools that would not otherwise be imposed without the need to establish that it is an occupational requirement.
Schedule 9 sets out a number of exceptions to the requirement not to discriminate. This would appear to permit discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation as a,

“proportionate means of complying with the doctrines of the religion”

That could leave the way open to discrimination against individuals doing teaching or administrative work, and I think that that would be unacceptable.

The Bill also has specific exceptions to allow religious organisations to discriminate in employment and in service provision on religious grounds when they are working under contract to provide public services or performing public functions. This was dealt with in more detail by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston. I say in passing that I am a vice-president of the Humanist Association.
To read John Sentamu’s contribution, the see the links

http://bit.ly/6GCP8a on protection of exemption for Christian charities and
http://bit.ly/5zVUap for the ordination of women Bishops

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Church schools and mission thinking

In the world of fresh expressions/mission shaped ministry/emerging church and all other such things that if you are part of the Church of England you will no doubt have heard about, there are a couple of key terms: 

Attractional
Engaged

 Attractional is not looked on with favour in the current mission thinking of the C of E.   Put crudely, it means ‘we put something on in our church that we hope people will come to if we do enough advertising, and when they arrive we will keep doing things our way because our way is right, and not really consider who they are or if they might have something to say about it.’

Engaged on the other hand considers that as a church after much thought and planning, possibly audits of skills, resources and local needs, we actually get stuck in and DO something to address local needs, spiritual and where appropriate physical too.  We meet people where they are and, in current trendy speak, we walk with them on their spiritual journey towards Christ. They will help us to think about issues of orthodoxy and orthopraxis appropriate in their community.

The issues are a lot broader than this, and the arguments are only in their infancy (see the footnote for further exploration), but it is sufficient for this article.  However you look at it, whilst attractional has it’s place, engaged is where the daily connection with those who are not yet part of church will happen.  And if you want evidence, consider Paul’s mission to the gentiles and his comments on becoming all things to all men.

I was speaking with my father in law last night about his church.  It is, after many years of stable or declining figures, seeing some quite remarkable growth that is at least approaching being more representative of the surrounding culture in terms of ethnicity.  This led to considering how many new church members there were who previously had not connected with church.  It is a very traditional church so what was going on.  And then the question arose: but are they engaged?

They put on coffee mornings, they have an ‘acceptable’ church service.  Nothing new.  Their church growth is coming from the insistence that the people who want to have their children attend the voluntary aided church school which is linked with the church, should come to church as a family for 12 months prior to acceptance in the school on a weekly basis unless they have a good reason (or a note from their mum?)  They even take a register!  Seems harsh, but they needed to find some criteria as the school was seriously oversubscribed, and previously it had been  the usual ‘come to church on a family service to put your name down for school’ situation. 

And from this, they are seeing people come…and stay!  That coffee morning has become a very real expression of faith.  They have a bible study in the mornings that is about to transfer leadership to an ‘indigenous’ person (more fresh expressions terminology). 

If Engaged (in missional language we are now using) means to connect with the needs of the people and get involved with them then surely we must consider this a very real connection?  The needs of the people are to get their children in to that particular school.  Through the technical process of admissions the church is connecting with that need, and then building trust and friendship with the result of transforming lives.  They are building community through it.  Through this they find other needs that are to be addressed.  They looked for an opportunity and saw it staring them in the face. 

We often look at being engaged as needing to do something really complicated, but this church has simply done what is natural for them, used the tools already available.  Of course, this would not be as successful were the church not willing to go beyond the initial contact and discover how to develop that connection in a responsible way.  Nor would it work for schools which are voluntary aided and do not set the selection criteria.  

Further details concerning this subject can be found on the fresh expressions website.

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