Comments on: What does deep church mean to you?

By: aABeckerkoo

aABeckerkoo — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 20:41:16 +0000

Just stopping in to say hi to y’all as a new member.

Aaron

By: oOgerryOo

oOgerryOo — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:25:02 +0000

Hello,
I’m Gerry.

Just saying hi - I’m new.

By: James Prescott

James Prescott — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 20:39:47 +0000

Sometimes I think there is a danger we can spend too much time discussing, and not enough taking action. Its important to debate stuff like this and work out solutions and formulate principles for deep church, but we then need to put them into practice. Church needs to be an instrument of action, a group of people that is known what it stands for and does something about it, not for what its against.

Deep Church is a way of figuring out how we can do church and live out our faith in a way that is relevant now, that takes the best of what was and reinterprets it, but also finds a way to put it into practice.

Lets make sure we don’t ignore that.

By: Jonathan Brink

Jonathan Brink — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:11:19 +0000

I wonder if Deep church is going to help us rediscover the traditions in a way that is fruitful. It reminds me of a boy who doesn’t want to do something the way his dad does it, simply because he wants to make it his own. But in testing all the potential options over time he comes to the same conclusion as his father and thus makes it his own.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:36:39 +0000

thanks Marc, i’d say one constructive path for emerging church is the reintergration of past, present and future offered by deep church.

However given the emerging conversation is not that monolithic I am sure that there will be other concrete forms emerging as well….

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:34:08 +0000

Thanks Luke, after celebrating All Saints day yesterday I find your comments very helpful in reminding myself that the traditions of our faith can be as helpful now as they have ever been. Increasingly I feel that without knowing something of these I am like a leaf who never kniew it was part of a tree.

By: Marc

Marc — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:32:56 +0000

To me, my definition of deep church is a hybrid of the traditonal church and the evangelical church.

A move for (and I think specifically) evangelicals from a consumer orientated modern christocaptialist faith towards a more pre-modern traditional spiritual calling.

I felt Modern Chritianity become shallow in many respects and many of us reached the ‘where do we go next on our journey’ with Christ.

We are striding past modernity and it’s limitations to embrace a seasonal Christian living, a spiritual calling from the earliest church days that we can embrace without the limitations of the traditional church.

We have been accused of turning to Rome, thats right, we turn to Canturbury and Moscow as well. The traditions of OUR church are OURS and I feel freed up enough to understand the signifigance and process of them and to use some of these with respect and thought.

Deep Church is in my opinionm the answer to this question.

What is the emerging church leading to?

By: Luke

Luke — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:33:26 +0000

This is a fascinating and very suggestive conversation about what is deep church and how does it link with the debates about emerging church. Many have articulated the basic vision/sensibility really well. This vision, as I understand, is that the broad and ancient tradition needs to mould and form the ground out of which the emerging shape of church, mission and discipleship comes and this ground provides a counter to being blown every which way by modernity/postmodernity, while at the same time the contemporary context can be generative and fecund for exploring what it means to follow Jesus Christ.

There can be no set pattern or blueprint but I do think the deep church vision is taking concrete form in all sorts of places - what it might mean in youth work will be different to what it means in running a local parish church. What it means in the Uk will be different to what it means in South Africa. It is more a question of orientation - do you take the Christian tradition seriously? While at the same time are you open to new work of Christ and the Spirit in creation? So it involves a kind of in-tensional living between past and future as one works out in particular settings what faithful witness consists of.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 07:41:11 +0000

Thanks lectio, great comment, that is deep church beautifully and challengingly expressed :)

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 07:39:31 +0000

thanks vapor, i think you pick up the two aspects, what are the marks of the ‘church’ that we want to live out and what does deep do with recontextulising the traditions and practices of the past in the present and those that are breaking in from the future.

How can we orientate ourselves so that are current consumer orientation is challenged by practices from an age where this was not the dominant orientation but also how can we live now and deal with those things that matter in a prophetic and challenging way…