Short term catechism urban missional order

By Jason Clark

7 Oct 2008

In my church community, as we have sought to facilitate the formation of Christian identity in our consumer and secular culture, one thing we have done is embrace the church calendar.

Retelling the Christ event, of advent, passion, restoration and exaltation, together, as we seek a cruciform identity in a world that says just pick whatever identity you want for now.

We’re trying to take that process deeper in catechism, and I’ve read and pondered for some time the notion of a ‘rule of faith’ based around St Benedict, a kind of urban monasticism

Immediate problems have been how to do that without producing an exclusive group, that doesn’t want a connection to our wider church, and is something others can’t access, as it has too many hurdles.

So we are going to try out catechism as a short term mission. For 40 days, you don’t get on a plane to somewhere else, but engage in mission where you live, and work, with extreme intentionality. In a world where we are forced to fit Christianity in the private, and when we have attended to everyone elses demands including our own, what would happen if we reversed that.

What if we eliminated some of the banality of consumer life, as training for the good life of the Kingdom? Could we develop habits that would stay with us, and life changing missional experiences?

I’ll be logging more about this, the reasons behind it, the nature of it, and how it goes as we engage in it. We’re hoping people will do it at least once, and have successive versions, and that a long term urban monastic community evolves that resources the lager life of our church.

So here is the video of the powerpoint and my explanation to our church community.


Flow from Jason Clark on Vimeo.

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  1. Comment by brett jordan

    1.44 pm on 7 Oct 2008

    hi jason, the link seems to be dead

  2. Comment by Jason

    2.01 pm on 7 Oct 2008

    Seems youtube haven’t finished encoding it, I thought it was done…try later…sorry mate and anyone else trying

  3. Comment by jonny

    4.23 pm on 7 Oct 2008

    sounds great Jason.
    I’m looking forward to finding out more… and I’m wondering if we could do something like this with our smallgroup.

    1. Comment by Jason

      4.28 pm on 7 Oct 2008

      Thanks Jonny, everything we produce will be open source and available here for download.

  4. Comment by rodney neill

    10.00 pm on 7 Oct 2008

    Sounds good Jason,

    I

    have just started doing the office 3 times a day with the Nothumbrian CDP and am thinking/wrestling with the role of consumerism, living in the kingdom in my home town, a rule of faith etc – at times it feels like a lonely tough uphill struggle but something draws me on

    I would be interested in hearing after the 40 day period some of your peoples reflections about their experiences and what your experimental rule of faith consists of

    all the best,

    Rodney

    1. Comment by Jason

      6.08 am on 8 Oct 2008

      I’l be posting some of their stories and interviews with them.

  5. Comment by marc

    10.06 am on 8 Oct 2008

    This is a great way to help people grow in their faith.

  6. Comment by john chandler

    2.54 pm on 8 Oct 2008

    Jason,
    Beautiful thinking here…looking forward to hearing the stories that come out of this…

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