Sounds like a great course. Pity I'm in Oz and not a PHD student - yet.

Really, this needs to also be taught at the lower academic levels and layperson's levels as well. It is at those points of contact with the local community that the substance of what is being taught will become its most tested and organic missiologically.

How to get it there?

I for one agonize over that.

Today I have been thinking about how useful is knowing theoretically about so much stuff to do with missiology and theology if local congregations are not `re-tooled' about ways to take the gospel to the streets at the most basic grassroots levels of discipleship, when one is like myself, not just an ordained, charismatic (specially recognized as `gifted'), but `ordinary', `everyday' Christian who is not employed as a Church-professional expert of some sort.

I'm not saying this particularly as a criticism. More as a comment about how teaching of substance can be filtered down from those Christians deemed to be `of substance' as leaders, to those who as the `general ecclesia' need and appear to be starving for substance theologically and praxis-wise as `ordinary' disciples who are not of degreed status.  

Andrew Park 216 days ago

Some 30 years ago a bloke named John Smith - a preacher of great substance - gathered around him a small core group of mainly not-theologically-trained blokes and taught them, without financial cost to them, how to become disciples and missionaries of great substance. These men (and a few women) formed the basis of God's Squad Motor Cycle Club. 

Substance begat substance. Each one of these disciples were taught how to give an account from their own stories of personal encounter of Christ at a moment's notice during public meetings, on a one-to-one basis, in small groups, in a wide variety of situations and contexts.

Some went on from that and academically trained, became pastors of churches etc. Others didn't. Some dropped out of church and somehow later returned. But each developed high degrees of substance theologically and personally through their experiences and challenges as God Squad MC missionaries.

One of their best leaders was a chook farmer, motorcycle stuntman, and preacher, who was only educated to primary school level (Eddie Pye). Despite that he had some might say a `natural instinct' homegrown from personal exper4ience, bible study, questioning and simple faith in Christ, risk taking in faith etc. to become a highly significant and widely recognised spiritual elder in the Victorian Church. He was and to respects still is my own spiritual mentor. I think I learnt alot more from him about following Jesus than I did as a theological scholar and practitioner after 2 stints at theological college and working as a degreed status missionary for a few Church-based, incarnational mission organisations. I deeply miss my daily times of prayer and fellowship, and outreach work I did with him during the 90's, now that I live and work in the secular welfare industry in Sydney. Most of all, I miss the organic honesty and frankness, the loving challenges and wisdom which we mutually shared. How we need such elder statesmen who `adopted' us and discipled us for free (the cost to us) and yet at great cost sometimes (oftentimes) to themselves in terms of gifts of time, patience, prayerfulness for us, opening their personal lives and journeys to us etc.

So yes. I look forward to such courses being run one day in Australia.

But I also look forward to the sort of training in substance which only such elders like Eddie Pye, John Smith, Aunty Ella (deceased) and others could give to us through discipleship by journey's of sharing and relationship, and invitations into missionary dreaming and venturing at long-term relational mentoring levels. That sort of training for mission was more precious than gold.

Andrew Park 216 days ago

I guess what I am advocating through my above posts and in terms of the contaxt of the course mentioned above is a rebirthing of the concept of the elder Christian statesman/women in local situations of church.

Modrenist and Post-modern Society has spawned the death of the elderly wise mentor for what could be described as the degreed-younger-theologically developed-charismatic leader. In fact if we could talk about it as a `stolen generation' phenomenon, a whole generation of believers has been deprived from its traditionally spiritually wise-people due to over-emphasis of leadership as being characteristically youthful, trendy-contemporary-smart talking, intellectual and culturally syncronised.

Many of our elder Christian statesmen are either regarded as `past it' due to ageing or are dead. For instance, Athol Gill - deceased, Watchman Nee- deceased, John Stott - very elderly, John Smith - ageing etc.

Where are elder statesmen - our Wise Papas of today? And how do they fit into our post-modern church situations? In OT (especially) and NT and post NT times, elder Christian statesmen were always a feature of and high-contributors to the collective Church wisdom.

Has pop-culture Christianity killed off the phenomenon of the elder Christian statesman/woman?

Has post-modern Christianity forgotten the importance to organic and incarnational Christianity of the tribal elder-wiseman and wisewoman?

Are our new `disciples-children' being deprived at the most basic ecclesial levels of their spiritual grandpapas and grandmas due to an overemphasis on youthfulness in leadership roles in today's general and emergent-church picture?

Is there a need to rebirth the phenomenon of elder Christian statesman/woman/ship in the interests of organically healthy missiology and pastoral leadership on local, regional and international levels of Church?

Anyway, I for one would hope that these questions would be considered at some near future stages in considering what sort of missional outposts we develop in localities as Church of the future? 

Andrew Park 216 days ago

Hullo-o-o Andrew...

I'm all for what you're proposing, just give it a wee bit of time... in 10... 15... 20 years all these young dudes who are "youthful, trendy-contemporary-smart talking, intellectual and culturally syncronised." will be the elder statesmen!! What age are dudes like Tim Keller, Reggie McNeal, Brian McLaren how long till they qualify?

I think we ought to take it further. I encounter God as the Father of generations... consequently I'm left to consider a "generation gap" as a figment of a devlish imagination. I don't think it's enough to just restore the concept of elder statespeople, the church needs to restore authentic community. Youth groups, Mums groups and other demographically defined events may have their place, but we need to be clear that they are secondary to valuing the community as a whole. What other environment is there in western culture where people of different generations can possibly get together and share with equal value, unless it's at a community gathering of Jesus' followers... lets have the elder voices and the simplicity of children... and bring on the Mamas and the Papas I say... are they on the bill in Hawaii??

Slainte from a wandering (wandered?) Celt

Celtic Son 216 days ago

Hi Celtic Son

Been a long time between blogs.

I guess I've been absent a while too with our 4 week long stint in the UK, Holland, USA and Canada.

Yeah. I agree quite a bit with what you're saying about Brian McLaren and some of the older Christian statesmen you mentioned. They are elder statesmen figures of international notoriety.

What I'd love to do is see that occur on national, state, city and LGA levels right down to the local church levels.

One of the reasons that the localised elder statesmen mentor, wise-person figure seems to have become somewhat of a distant memory today is a sort of over-emphasis of the dashing, trendy, young-ish, charismatic leader sort of figure in popularised church stuff.

I benefited greatly in my growing up in Christ during my youth from a wealth of access to spiritual father figures such as Eddie Pye and John Smith, John Uren and others. They were generous people with their time, hospitality, partnering and in sharing their wisdom with youths like me.

I'm not longer a youth (56 yrs old). So in saying what I said, I also accept that I need to become available - free of charge - to up-and-coming Christian youths, new Christians to share my experience as an older and more travelled Christian as the need arises. That means also being proactive in offering myself and being available.

I'm also open to the fact that there are some pretty spiritually grown-up youthful Christians whose wisdom and journeying with Christ may be more developed than mine.

I guess I'm trying to tease out what it means to be an authentic, organic and nurturing local missional community which values the wisdom of its more longer travelled and older Christians in the Way as an ongoing part of that community development process as a countercultural activity that rejects cultural trends such as ageism, but values whole of life/lengthy discipleship in the Body of Christ. I'm also aware that we need as a church to place that on the agenda at both academic and non-academic levels in ways that configure it meaningfully and practically into the praxis of the base line of the localised congregational church. It then becomes a beautifully organic feature of the local missional outpost which Al's course is about.

By raising it as an activist, I am trying to put it on the agenda for possible consideration as an important issue for the church today. It is also an organic missions issue.

Andrew Park 216 days ago