Contextually Responsive
Acts 16:6-10
Introduction
Over the past number of weeks we have been going over the markers of a mission edge church. Remember what we meant by a mission edge church: a church that gets onboard with the mission Jesus is already on. While we may not know what that is exactly at the beginning, we know that it has something to do with love. As we have been going through this series and looking at each of the markers, you may have felt a bit of anxiety. It seems like there is so much to do. The needs out there are great and the resources that we have are limited. At times, the mission can seem so big that we wonder where we should start or even if it’s worth starting at all. As we looked at these markers, as intimidating as some of them may have been, I have been keeping the final marker in that back of my mind.
The final marker is contextual responsiveness. While I did not come up with this term, when I first heard it, I recognized a more thoughtful description of what I knew in my heart to be the best model of ministry. Although this concept needs to be unpacked, we instinctively already have some idea of what it means to respond to our culture. Think of the way we do ministry in the Village of Brookfield. Now think of a church that is in downtown Toronto. Could we just transplant one church onto another and expect that ministry would work just the same. Now compare how we do ministry in our Canadian context to how a church might operate in Brazil or China. There are going to be principles that remain the same, as the gospel never changes, but how we communicate and live out the gospel might look different from culture to culture. Culture changes both geographically and chronologically. So we know culture might be different between Cape Breton Island and Vancouver Island. But culture changes over time as well. A couple of years ago a pastor started at a new church. The pastor said to a colleague that his goal was to bring the church into the 20th century. The friend said: “Don’t you mean the 21st century?” The pastor responded: “One century at a time, one century at a time.”
I have been part of churches that have nostalgically looked at the past. They remember a particular ministry or program that was extremely successful forty years ago and inevitably someone will suggest that if reproduce the strategy from back then, we might reproduce the results. I’m not suggesting that we ignore the past, but our context has changed significantly in the last forty years. We can learn from the principles of what was successful in the past but that does not mean that we should seek to repeat the past.
Contextual responsiveness is about living out the Jesus way and inviting others to join us in a way that makes sense to the time and place that we are at and in a way that recognizes where Jesus is already at work.
Vision of the Man of Macedonia
Throughout this series, I have tried to ground each marker in Scripture. The concepts were are looking at are not just good ideas for church growth, nor are they the most recent fad. They are concepts that are found in Scripture and are consistent with the way the Church is designed to operate.
In the passage we are looking at, we come across the Apostle Paul in his ministry. Much have Paul’s ministry has been taking place in a section of the Roman Empire that was known as Asia Minor. It is the place that today we call Turkey. Some of the most prominent cities were found in Asia Minor, including all seven of the cities that the book of Revelations was addressed to. While Paul had a good amount of success, there was still much work to do. Paul was determined to continue in his ministry, business as usual. There was nothing wrong with that plan, except God had other ideas. They tried to do what made the most sense to them but in some way, the Spirit prevented them. We do not know exactly what this looked like, but Paul recognized this not as encountering difficulty but God actively closing doors.
It was at that time that Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia calling him to come and minister in that place. Why is that significant? Macedonia was in Europe. And while there likely were some Christians in the city of Rome, in general the church had not spread to Europe.If Paul accepted this call, this would be a turning point for the church. I suppose Paul could have insisted that they continue ministry the way they had always done it, that is in Asia. Because moving into Europe was much more than an imaginary border. The farther west you travelled, the more the culture would change. The number of Jewish synagogues would begin to diminish, and it was at these synagogues that Paul usually began his preaching in a community. In addition, as you moved west, even the language would change. Eventually Greek would be replaced by Latin. Did Paul want so much change? Whether he wanted it or not, he was obedient and he came to Macedonia and planted a church in Philippi, a church, based on his epistles, which he was especially fond of. Paul did ministry, not just where it made sense to him, but where Jesus was pointing him.
Vision of the Man of Brookfield
Wouldn’t be nice if we received a vision of a man from Brookfield who would explain exactly what Jesus wanted us to do here? While it is not likely to literally happen, in a way it does happen. This is the idea of contextual responsiveness.
Responsiveness is adjusting what we do according to what we see Jesus doing. This sounds good but it can also include some grieving due to giving up of the old ways. Let me be clear, this is not about change for the sake of change, but responding to our context as led by Jesus.
One of my first ministries was as a youth pastor at a church in Ontario. There was a busy youth ministry but not an effective one. There was youth Sunday school, a leftover from a time when each age group had a Sunday school time before the service. There was also a Wednesday night Bible study, also a leftover from a time when Wednesday nights was the focus of ministry for the entire church and the whole family would show up for programming. Then there was a monthly Sunday night fun event. Each of these things had different leadership and only a few youth would come to each part of the ministry. We sensed it was time for a change but I didn’t want to impose my ideas. Instead, with the leaders and the youth, we discerned what we thought God was leading us to do. We moved to having all of our youth ministry on Sunday nights, with a Bible study followed by a fun event. The change in that ministry was incredible, even though we had to say goodbye to some of the past expressions.
I was at another church as a solo pastor. It was a small church, smaller than Brookfield Baptist Church. Traditionally, they had done a VBS during the summer with great success. However, as we were approaching the summer, we realized that all of the children that had normally participated had aged out into their teens with no younger children known in our community. There was grieving at the loss of a beloved VBS ministry. But at the same time we recognized that there were now a group of teens that were familiar with our church. They may be too old for VBS but they were exactly the age for a youth group. We invited them out for a youth event and before we knew it, we had a youth group the size of our Sunday morning congregation.
What does it mean for Brookfield Baptist Church? It means that we open our eyes to the things that Jesus is doing around us. We don’t start with the list of ministries that we would love to have because we identify them with a successful church. We do not start by trying to do what another church is doing or what we heard about at a conference. We start with what Jesus is doing here. It can be challenging to figure that out but it is worth the effort. For starters, we have returned to offering KD Lunches to high school students. Is that the right thing? We have a good representation from our congregation who are willing to volunteer and we have seen the number of students growing. Something is happening here. There are other things that we are trying and are in the process of discerning God’s leading. We don’t have to do everything, but we do need to join in with the mission that Jesus is on in our community.
Conclusion
We have a choice to make as a church. It is the same choice this congregation has had since the first Sunday Baptists gathered in this village. Do we just sit in our building and hope that God will bless us? Or do we look for what Jesus is doing among us and get onboard with that? Every generation has to wrestle with this. We have been looking at what it means to be a mission edge church. “Mission Edge Churches are communities of Jesus followers who align themselves around his continuing mission of sacrificial love – starting right within their neighbourhoods, and from there radiating his love to neighbourhoods all around the world.” Is that the kind of church we want to be? It is the kind of church I want to be part of. It is also the kind of church that I see in Brookfield Baptist Church. We are neither the biggest nor the richest church in the world. But we are doing kingdom work and are showing love to our community. Let us remain living on the edge of Jesus’ mission, following his leading in all that we do.
