Conversations

Conversations is a new expression of Church. We are a congregation of St Michael le Belfrey Church in York, England. We meet in Revolution Bar (upstairs), Coney St, York every Wednesday from 715pm-845pm. We hope to be relevant to 18-35 year olds and the weekly gathering is 18+. Come along and say hello. dave.magill@cnvrstns.co.uk

Here’s a little bit of our vision

Why?

There are a significant number of the “post-modern” generation who are completely or partially disengaged with church. For many of these people the Bible has lost all its authority and the church is either invisible or irrelevant. In York alone there are around 30,000-40,000 18-35 year olds who fit into this un-churched / de-churched demographic.

We are faced with two responses, we can continue to present the gospel and “do church” in a way that feels culturally detached from these people and continue to reach a modernist demographic or we can re-present Christ and his message in the words and images of their culture.

The tendency can so often be to retreat into our camp and blame rebellion or corruption in society on the depleting church numbers, but if we believe in the potency, power and authority of the gospel this cannot be the case. It is all too easy to rest on the achievements and successes of the past and expect old methodology and presentation to continue to succeed. This is both unwise and ineffective. If the church has a future with this missing generation then we must engage with it in a fresh, culturally relevant, expression of our faith.

Any missionary spends time learning and researching the culture that they are seeking to reach. So if we are choosing to reach a post-modern culture we must learn the rhythms and values of it. How does the post-modern world communicate? How do they make decisions? How is truth discovered and expressed?

Any service that attempts to reach this group of people must have these sorts of questions at its heart.

Re-telling Ancient Truth to a Post-modern Culture. – Teaching Style.

The post-modern generation has given birth to reality TV, celebrity obsession and video / networking websites. The great causes of this generation are born out of story telling, the biggest selling books are autobiographies, or novels. By looking at the badges of the culture we can learn how we can best communicate with this generation. This is a culture obsessed with the story of others, shows like Big Brother show an interest in being involved in and having some impact in the story of others.

I suggest then, that much of the teaching of this service takes a narrative form both theologically and presentationally. By presenting the ancient truths of the Bible as the story of God’s relationship with humanity rather than a guide for life I believe that this culture will engage more with God’s story. Perhaps this culture will respond if they can see their story woven into the story of God both in the Bible and today.

Experiential Truth

Many people within the Christian Church describe those who seek experience as weak theologically. Perhaps a post-modern mindset would suggest the opposite. Perhaps a theology that is not in some way tangible is a weaker theology.

If we are to engage this culture we should not claim something we are not willing to demonstrate. If we claim that our God loves the poor and yet we do not, then we misrepresent our God and our belief appears flawed. If we teach on a Christian view of poverty we must provide and initiate a definite response to meet the needs of the poor. If we teach on healing we must pray for the sick, if we teach on the forgiveness of God we must display forgiving lifestyles.

This culture doesn’t need a church that is clever in it’s presentation, it needs a church that is authentic in it’s living out of it’s claims of a loving, personal, self sacrificing God who reaches and transforms those in the darkest parts of society.

I suggest that whenever possible a physical, emotional or spiritual response should be available to every teaching. Teaching should be practical; filled with how tos and whys?

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