Living Missionally 1/4

I looked back over my notes that I kept having read Michael Frost's Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture. It was a good read and one that I enjoyed; his style remains as fluid and narrative as "The Shaping of Things to Come" - that he co-authored with Alan Hirsch - and so is easy to engage with.

Clearly influenced by Bruggemann he constantly points us to the dangers of preoccupation and calls us to engage in a process of rethinking, re-imagining and re-describing.

Community is a strong theme throughout - here is what he says about the journey to authentic community.
"To achieve community in the truest sense, it must undertake a journey that involves four stages:

pseudo-community where false niceness reigns, fake community
chaos - when skeletons come out of the closet
emptiness - a time of quiet and transition
true community - marked by both deep honesty and deep caring (Frost 2006:1070
Frost, M. (2006). Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture.

Perhaps authentic community is not so much about the destination but the journey and the lessons we learn together as we create space for each other to rethink, re-imagine and re-describe.

Comments

Anonymous said…
"Perhaps authentic community is not so much about the destination but the journey and the lessons we learn together as we create space for each other to rethink, re-imagine and re-describe."

your words - make me think Faith House Gordon, especially the journey and the space creation!

Thanks again for the challenge!
7:25 AM
Johnny said…
Hi Gordon

The writing of Mike & Alan is just about the most compelling stuff I've read in the last couple of years. The number of times they get a mention on my blog is almost becoming embarrassing! ;-)

Michael has developed a small group resource based on the EXILES book which is well worth checking out:

http://johnnylaird.blogspot.com/2008/04/exilio.html
9:17 AM
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