Mission Summer School

12 - 16 July 2021

Engage more deeply with the theology of mission and explore how it relates to your own practice.

Register at https://bit.ly/3pHkwWE

Programme

• Input structured around the four Cs of Commerce, Culture, Congregation and Compassion.
• A mix of teaching and conversation with leading scholars and practitioners including Dupe Adefala, James Butler, Andrea Campanale, Revd Heather Cracknell, Professor Maggi Dawn, Revd Jonathan Evens, Rev Richard Frazer, Shannon Hopkins, Revd James Hughesdon, Zaza Lima, The Ven. Rosemarie Mallett, Professor Anthony Reddie, Dr Cathy Ross, Rachel Summers, Revd Dr Sam Wells, and Revd Erica Wooff, among others.
• Workshops to engage with the themes and issues presented.
• Encounters with churches, organisations and projects (HeartEdge and Fresh Expressions) to get a hands-on feel for how it works out in practice including: American International Church, Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, Forest Church, Notre Dame de France, Sacred Space Kingston, St Barnabas Ealing, St John’s Waterloo, St Martin-in-the-Fields, St Paul’s Marylebone, and The Table Southall, among others.

A week aimed at practitioners wanting to engage more deeply with the theology of mission and explore how it relates to their own practice. Also for those already studying providing an opportunity to be immersed in the theology and practice of mission.

Structured around the four Cs of Commerce, Culture, Congregation and Compassion from the book ‘A Future Bigger than the Past’ by Sam Wells, each morning Sam will teach on each of those areas providing the framework for the day. Participants will encounter churches/groups/organisations with a particular focus on the day’s theme. This might include viewing activities, meeting people involved, hearing testimonies from the work, and engaging with some of the challenges and complexities involved.

Each evening we will invite to people to be part of a conversation about the theme of the day. We will open-up these conversations about practice and theology to include participants in discussion. The evening programme is also offered as a stand-alone strand for those unable to join the main summer school.

The mission summer school comes from partnership between HeartEdge and St Augustine’s College which provides in-depth and experiential engagement with the theology and practice of mission.

Covid restrictions

Due to current Covid restrictions the week will be delivered online.

Registration

£70 – Mission summer school (Monday – Thursday, 9.30am-12.30pm, a variety of afternoon tasks taking a couple of hours, 7.30pm-9.00pm, and Friday, 9.30am-4.00pm).

£10 – Evening programme only (Monday – Thursday, 7.30pm-9.00pm).

Register at https://bit.ly/3pHkwWE.

OPEN again

Photos from last Sunday's OPEN session at St George's Barkingside which included some magical music making by Simon and Edna plus projected meditations. The next session will be in four weeks time - Sunday 10th February, 4.00 - 5.30pm.

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Paul Johnson - Every Kind Of People.

OPEN for music

OPEN is a fresh expression of church in Gants Hill (St George’s Barkingside). Today's OPEN session featured Tom and Simon on lead guitar and bass playing rock and blues, ably supplemented on a couple of tunes by our resident jazz pianist Keith. OPEN sessions regularly feature art, conversation, games, meditations (projected), music, poetry, photography and refreshments. They are generally as interactive as we can make them, although with the fine music Tom and Simon were making this session was more of an extended and intimate jam session.

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Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love.

An attitude of openness

Jesus said that he had come that we may have life, and have it to the full (John 10. 10). Jesus is able to give fullness of life because “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (Colossians 1. 19). It is out of that fullness that we receive grace upon grace” (John 1. 16).

This is why we are told to pray that we might “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge,” so that we may be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3. 18 & 19). We receive this fullness when, out of love, we don’t judge and don’t condemn but do forgive and give to others. As Jesus said in the Sermon of the Mount:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6. 37 & 38)

In other words, fullness comes from openness. Think for a moment of a cup or a glass or a chalice or any other container or receptacle that can hold a fluid. Each of these are specifically made to be open. They are designed to be open to receive.

If we place a lid on the container – if it is closed rather than open - then it cannot receive the water. The bottle can only be filled when it is open. Jesus’ image of “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over” is of more than simply being filled. When we forgive and are forgiven, when we give and are given to, then we are receiving a constant flow of love which not only fills us but constantly spills over to others around us. That is what is promised to us, through Jesus, in scripture but it only occurs as we are open.

OPEN is the name of the fresh expression of church that you have begun here on Sunday afternoons. It is about the church being open for all who wish to come and open to a wide range of activities and creativity. The openness that OPEN is supposed to signify, though, is not simply about the practicalities of opening the church doors. Instead, it is much more about an attitude of mind; an attitude of openness to God, to others, to change and difference and newness.

It is an attitude of mind that, as Jesus said, we will not and cannot experience when we are judgemental, when we are condemning, when we are unforgiving or when we are not giving. Openness is demonstrated, Jesus said, through welcome, through acceptance, through forgiveness, and through giving. It is when we are open in these ways that we receive the fullness that God has been pleased to give to Jesus and that fullness spills over from us to those we meet.

We might think about OPEN as something for others – as a way of opening the church to connect with people who haven’t ordinarily come. If we are thinking that way, then we are saying it is not for me. We might even have already tried OPEN and decided that it isn’t for us. If so, we are closed rather than open. OPEN is not just an event or activities or outreach or a fresh expression, more importantly it is an opportunity to be open; to cultivate that attitude of openness through which we are able to receive God’s fullness and share it with others.

OPEN is an opportunity to be open to church looking and feeling different, open to those who don’t come to the usual church services, open to the creativity or conversation of those that we wouldn’t otherwise meet, and by meeting and greeting, welcoming and accepting all this, cultivating that attitude of openness through which we are able to receive God’s fullness and share it with others.

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Eric Bibb - Forgiveness Is Gold.

OPEN (2)

The first OPEN session at St George's Barkingside had spaces for art, conversation, meditation, music, refreshments, snooker and table tennis. After its successful start, OPEN will happen on a fortnightly basis (4.00 - 5.30pm).

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Elbow - One Day Like This.

OPEN

All are welcome to the first OPEN session at St George's Barkingside, from 4pm on Sunday 30 October.

  

OPEN is a fresh expression for Gants Hill and beyond which aims to OPEN the church space, welcoming people into that space to engage with a range of social and creative activities such as art, conversation, dance, games, meditations, music, photography, prayer and refreshments.

In this way, not simply to OPEN the doors of the church to all who come but also to be OPEN and responsive to the interests and abilities of people in what happens within the space. OPEN will be an opportunity to welcome people in Christ’s name and with his free undirecting Spirit, into sacred space but on an OPEN basis without making specific demands or holding specific agendas.

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Elbow - Open Arms.