unichurch update
We’re halfway through our six-week trial plant of a church amongst and targeting the students at Emalus. As I mentioned in the last post, we founded the church on the three ideas of (1) the centrality of robust biblical teaching; (2) focussed and thought-through engagement with the sub-cultures, ‘unchurched,’ and ‘badly-churched’ students around us; and (3) conscious and specific training of students to develop their gifts especially in leading and teaching.
(1) has progressed well with three expository talks from 2 Timothy, weekly discussion groups after the talk, and an open question time. The latter has had the slowest start due to the timidity of many of the students but has begun to gather momentum after some strategic question-plants and the more outspoken students speaking out – terrifying for the speakers though!!
(2) requires the most work at this early stage in re-training the established CFers out of a fairly insular mindset and discerning the most effective methods of reaching the ‘badly-churched.’ The most novel turn so far has been in singing almost entirely older hymns – initially chosen to suit the first week’s talk, but striking a chord amongst the boys in particular in ‘reminding them of home.’ Whilst I find this a little bizarre, it seems to have worked with a new CF record of 12 non-regular boys coming to our second unichurch and bringing a wonderful bottom-end to the singing!
(3) is struggling due to our timing – the end of semester is rarely a time where students want to take on extra duties – but has not been unsuccessful. Our new executive were voted in last week (more to come on that after our official handover this Sunday) and have fearfully taken the reins. They’re understandable intimidated after a year of much change in CF, but have begun to grasp the ideas behind the changes, especially the mindset behind (2).
One aspect of Pacific churches that I’ve become increasingly aware of is a love of liturgy. I don’t mean necessarily the ‘statement and response’ liturgy of the 1662 or anything, but a tendency to whittle things down to a repeatable pattern that can be passed on. This has its strengths, but particularly for what we are seeking to do in unichurch is a liability: we are seeking to have a church that is constantly adapting to reach our transitory mission field. Even in these three weeks I’ve seen little variation upon the programme I led on the first week, it has simply become a ‘new liturgy’ for CF to run by. In an effort to combat this, the next three unichurch gatherings I’m going to be working closely with the student leaders to make completely different – partly to train them to think outside of the box, but also (for reasons I don’t think I have space to enumerate there) to minimise sentimentality amongst our congregation – my ideal would be for them to come knowing only that they will hear heavily from God’s Word, pray together, and be built up…and surprised by everything else that happens!
Posted: Nov 5, 07:13 PM Category: CF weekly meetings
Tags for this article: cf, preaching, unichurch
M · Nov 11, 07:06 PM
Awesome! It is great read this sort of stuff… avoiding a new liturgy… nice. be assured of our thoughts and prayers at LR.
Phone · Nov 19, 05:43 PM
Its interesting to hear that its the old hymns that are bringing in the un/badly churched – it almost the exact opposite of what we would do in sydney!
Good to hear unichurch is developing
Daniel · Nov 24, 04:02 PM
hey Joel, I wasn’t sure how to e-mail you, so i thought i’d just comment on a post. You don’t know me at all, but I’m going to be in Vanuatu in Jan, doing the Island Impact with YWAM; It’s in Nth Efate. I was just wondering if you were having anything to do with that?
Lukem Yu,
dan
J · Dec 14, 09:25 PM
hey dan,
i’m afraid not – the extent of my work with ywam includes having an occasional coffee with ben and anna, two of their workers…