'Enabling Christians to act like Christians'

In her introduction to Beyond the Good Samaritan Ann Morisy talks about community ministry in terms of enabling Christians to act like Christians and of feeding people’s imaginations so that the significance of the gospel can be sensed. I think this happens when we encourage people to use action to change their thinking. 

Enabling Christians to act like Christians is what I have seen happening with the women in our 3 meetings so far. I believe we are also communally discovering how to act as Church. The excitement of coming together and successfully sharing an aspect of our lives resonates with the ‘glad and sincere hearts’ of Acts 2:46-7. 

When the women shared their experience with the whole Christian community I sensed a reversal -  Thursday’s community WAS Church and Sunday was a fragment of Church.

The beauty of what I have seen is that it is just happening. If I had asked these women to engage in a study of missional ecclesiology they would have withdrawn. Discipling is also happening through the process, although neither knitting or jam making has involved conscious reference to it. The group has shone with God’s abundant life as we have worked together. 

However this ‘just happening’ is problematic for me in seeing a way forward. Is this just a joyous interlude, or could this be a sustainable way forward for these women and part of God’s ongoing mission here?

I’m left with questions:

• How can I (or indeed, should I) make the discipling a conscious part of what is happening?
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• How can I give intentionality to learning to be Church - linking the joy and excitement etc. with Church and faith?
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• How might we continue to meet in this way given the restarting of Women’s Fellowship? Is this part of WF or something different? Is this a remodelling of WF?
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• Apt liturgy..... and jam making?........knitting? What about participation? Is there a simple approachable way forward here? Some symbolism.... candle...bread...scone?

I see so much potential in these women for their own growth as individuals and as a group. I see a church constrained but that could break out if they caught a vision for what God can do through them.

The Sunday after the Thursday before!

The women brought the jam we made to Sunday worship today. It was a rather spontaneous happening born largely, I think, out of their joy, and sense of achievement. It was as if Sunday's worship had become subsidiary to the women acting as Christians during the time of meeting to make the jam. The excitement of being active Christians overtook the routine aspect of Sunday worship, and generated spontaneous worship of God in praise of his creativity and creation as seen in the gift of creativity.

It was a 'we can DO this' moment with a felt sense of being the Body of Christ and the fruits of God's creation. The energy was palpable.

We experienced a joining together of ourselves, a moment of wholeness and healing, as we talked of the jam and the process of making it. The women laughed as they told the story to their wider Christian community.

We then completed our spontaneous task - bringing the jam physically to the centre of the worship, being intentional about our plan to share the gift we had been given. We prayed in thanks for our experience, and in dedication of ourselves and of the jam as it is given to ourselves and others.