Ministries Council
Mission and Discipleship Council
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EMERGING CHURCH, EMERGING MINISTRIES
On this page you can find out about:
Background and aims
Emerging church, Emerging ministries leaflet
Pioneer ministries
Mission Shaped Ministry courses
Contact details
Background and aims
If we are to fulfil the church's mission in sharing the gospel, we need to be a people who are prepared to incarnate the gospel in the many and various expressions of contemporary culture.
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Such adaptation and innovative risk-taking finds roots in our Reformed tradition – "reformed and always reforming" (reformata semper reformanda). Most people are familiar with the traditional Parish model of church life, but there is no single model of church and Christian communities have always taken a variety of forms. |
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"As we enter the 21st century, the emerging pattern for mission strategy must be
much more diverse to permeate the fragmented nature of our society: ministry teams
operating in a variety of community bases to be incarnate in a network of communities."
Church Without Walls report, 2001 |
Priority of prayer
This is a call for prayerful "double listening" rather than hasty action :
listening to what God is saying to the church through biblical and theological
reflection, and listening to the cultures of the day. What are the issues we face? What are the real needs of our communities? How are we to respond to them? What kind of expressions of church speak to today's Scotland?
| To fulfil our mission to Scotland, there is a need for both "inherited" modes of church and "emerging" modes of church. Each must relate to the other - informing each other, praying for each other, supporting each other. |
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You can download a copy of the leaflet, Emerging Church Emerging Ministries, in PDF format below.
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Preparing people to serve in pioneer ministries
Those who will feel a sense of call to pioneer ministries are those who will need to be prepared to "build church from the bottom up". These skills may be quite different to the pastoral and teaching gifts necessary for what we've come to know as Church of Scotland ministry today in many parishes.
Parish ministers already have a building and a leadership team. Those involved in pioneer ministries are called to the ministry of church planting - in different sub-cultures and networks as well as different geographical areas.
The scriptural basis for this comes from the book of Acts itself, where there seems to be a constant call to take the good news beyond the present boundaries and limits; where churches were planted all over the Roman Empire; where Christians were prepared to go beyond their own land and people group to incarnate the gospel in groups and networks sometimes very different to their own, moving them well beyond their comfort zones.
Where is the movement of God's Spirit today? In what people groups and networks not presently being touched by church do we once again need to incarnate the gospel?
To find out more about training opportunities for pioneer ministry, visit these websites (please note these links will take you out of the Church of Scotland site).
Invest - a programme based at Whiteinch Church of Scotland for creating new expressions of church.
Fresh Expressions - a Church of England and Methodist Church initiative to help Christians think about ways of growing fresh expressions of church.
Resource - an initiative to create churches in the emerging culture supported by an inter-denominational partnership of organisations and churches
Urban Expression - an organisation committed to planting Christian communities in the poorest parts of the UK.
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Mission Shaped Ministry courses
For those interested in alternative ministry and church, we are delighted that Mission Shaped Ministry courses have been set up following fruitful discussions with our colleagues in the Church of England and representatives from other Scottish denominations.
A 6 week introduction to a year-long Mission Shaped Ministry Course was held in January 2010, with 2 year-long 'pilots' starting from January 2010. Both of these
are designed for laity, clergy and all trained church leaders.
For more information about future courses, contact MSM Administrator, Catherine Mcintosh at cmcintosh@cofscotland.org.uk
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Contacts
If you would like to find out more, please get in touch with one of the contacts below:
David E.P. Currie
Development Worker
Emerging Church and New and Emerging Ministries
Tel 0131 225 5722 ext 383
Email dcurrie@cofscotland.org.uk
Ron Clarke
Ministries Support Officer
Emerging Ministries Fund
Tel 0131 225 5722 ext 242
Email rclarke@cofscotland.org.uk
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