The third instalment in a series on doctrine in the context of Pacific Parks, the house church I meet with each week.
Pacific Parks for four years has worked around the three core values of being relaxed, relational and relevant.
Founding members of Pacific Parks were aware of the difficulty many Australians have when first attending traditional worship. We identified cultural cringe factors for most Australians of our age and younger and undertook to develop a culture of gathering that did not feature ceremonial vestments, long sermons and hymn singing accompanied by organs. However our understanding of ‘relevance’ hopefully goes deeper than cultural preferences.
When we say ‘relevant’ we mean:
“We seek to make Jesus accessible to people, and seek to break down any barriers that might prevent people from knowing him personally. We value people, wanting them to discover and exercise their unique giftedness.”
As we developed our approach to being church in a number of new housing areas, we were deeply aware of the diversity we faced. There is no one culture on the north Gold Coast. Even though we had ‘postmodern’ and ’emerging generations’ in our received mandate, we were very much aware that it would take several different approaches to connect people with the good news of Jesus.
Take music, for example. A number of our original members were embedded in the country music scene. Others were more into electronica and ambient music. Some enjoy singing praise and worship songs. Others don’t like singing in public at all. We have been tempted to develop formulas that will attract people from each of these cultures. What we’ve ended up doing though is focusing less on marketing, entertainment and ‘ambience’, and focusing more on relationship building that is uncluttered by programming.
We seek to make Jesus accessible to people, and seek to break down any barriers that might prevent people from knowing him personally.
Our value of accessibility is grounded in the doctrine of incarnation. We believe that God was in Christ, reconciling the world with Godself. As the Uniting Church Basis of Union says, our call is to be a fellowship of reconciliation, a body within which the diverse gifts of its members are used for the building up of the whole, an instrument through which Christ may work and bear witness to himself.
We believe Jesus to have lived as “God in the flesh” in the context of Roman-occupied Palestine. Looking at Jesus’ ministry we see a range of relationships. Jesus camped out and went fishing with the disciples. He dined in with wealthy society leaders. He took part in public expressions of worship in synagogues and in the temple. In all of these situations the focus was not on form. The focus was on accessibility.
With accessibility in mind we have let go our preoccupation with purpose-built church buildings, choosing instead to meet in places where people naturally gather. We meet in parks, homes, cafes and taverns, and at times in church buildings.
The doctrine of the incarnation tells us that God was prepared to become embedded in a small backwater local culture, without expecting instant success.
As frustrating as this has turned out to be, we have made a commitment to growing a relationship at a time.
One of the temptations of working with a commitment to accessibility is “fear of offending”. We have the challenge of presenting the good news of reconciliation in a way that leads to people living lives in harmony with the values of the Kingdom of God. We ourselves are confronted by the priorities of Jesus. We shouldn’t be surprised when others take offence at Jesus’ teaching. However we want to avoid offending people with cultural insensitivity or arrogance.
We value people, wanting them to discover and exercise their unique giftedness.
Our valuing of people is founded in a Christian doctrine of the human person, traditionally referred to as “Doctrine of Man”.
Most approaches to the Christian doctrine of the human person begin with creation – the belief that the human is created by God to be an expression of God’s character earthed in a environment of fragility and uncertainty. The inherent value of each person is grounded in the value given by God’s gift of life. As a community of faith we are challenged to see each person in our wider community as an expression of the image of God.
We believe that God has given us the capacity to continue discerning the depths of God’s call as a community, and also as persons in community. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, “Now I see in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” In our shared life-transforming interaction with God’s Spirit, we are equipped to recognise what it means to be truly human in our own context.
As we connect with Jesus, God’s character in each person emerges. We are gifted with the opportunity to participate in God’s ongoing act of creation. We can become tempted to interpret this challenge by filling out skills inventories to determine our contribution to weekly church life. The deeper challenge is to daily discern the ways in which we are called to live out an incarnational presence in our unique sphere of influence.