Winning or losing a city (pt.2)
following on from part 1.
Sydney is an interesting example of church, diocese and bible college working together. The story is somewhat different in Adelaide! Generally there is little or no cohesion between a denomination’s Churches/Diocese/Bible Colleges. Or where there is cohesion it is around a different gospel. This has set churches in the ‘city of churches’ toward serious decline and unfaithfulness.
Losing the city
The church is best evidence of Jesus’ saving work in a city (it’s what he’s building after all), and the best way to kill it is to lose the other members of the church/diocese/bible college ‘trinity’.
Teach liberal theology in the Bible college and in a generation churches will no longer be shepherded by faithful men. People in those churches, like their leaders won’t know their right hand and from their left. The city will not hear the call to salvation since there will be no call!
Lose the Diocese to inept leaders or again liberalism and even if churches desire to advance the gospel, their efforts will be divided – always battling to be supported and resourced by a body which does not see the need for the gospel to be advanced. Each dances to the beat of a different drum…(which is not a good thing, in case you are wondering)
This inevitably leads to the loss of christian witness in a city. Jesus’ sheep are not cared for and many remain unsaved.
My experience of being in Sydney has been both exciting and frustrating when I think about church ‘back home’. On the one hand I’m pumped that there are churches in Adelaide who are praying and working with all they’ve got to turn the ‘ship around’ and win the city back. On the other i’m frustrated at the current weak state of the church knowing that it need not be as it is!
My time in Sydney has gotten me dreaming up ideas and with it enthusiasm to go about ‘fixing’ the problem. I’m an engineer at heart after all!
I just hope and pray that God will have compassion on people in Adelaide and bring fruit from the work of his laborers there.
Thanks heaps for posting on this! Love hearing your thinking.
In talking about the Diocese, what you’re talking about is obviously centered around a denomination. So does winning the city boil down to winning the denomination? (And has the way you think about denominations changed?)
As another parachurch area along with theological training, where does uni ministry fit in with this trinity?
Reply to ArthurHey Arthur,
Yeah i chose ‘dicoese’ for simplicity of explanation even though its pretty much particular to the anglican denomination. I guess ‘organisation resourcing and administering an association of local churches’ is what i have in mind and you find that sort of body in every established denomination.
individual house church start-ups are a bit different then i guess.
I plan to come back to your last two questions in later posts…so can i take a pass on answering them here? love to have your comments + input as the conversation progresses!(interested others welcome too!)
Reply to reuben