What is Urban Mission?
Download Oct201UrbanMissionezine.pdf (1818.1K)
Urban mission is one of the headline themes of conversation around the world Church today. It is a huge subject with many and varied aspects. What contributors to the disscussion mean by urban mission often differs depending on the particular urban setting in which they are working. It is not easy to generalise about the characteristics of the urban challenge. Often when we enthusiastically import solutions to ministering in urban areas in Ireland from other parts of the world they fail to live up to the hype when we get them home and take them out of their packaging. Equally, working in a Presbyterian system with inherited models of church, what seem like the best ideas of entrepreneurial church planters often don’t seem to fit easily into the places in which we find ourselves. While others are designing, from scratch we find ourselves trying to refine what we are already doing and re-aligning congregational mission to meet the challenge of our rapidly changing urban settings.
So where are we to go to be challenged and stimulated by what God would have us to do to rise to the challenge of urban mission in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland at this time and in this place?
Perhaps we could do worse than to take a trip back in time to listen again to one of our Presbyterian fore-bearers and a great champion of urban mission at the time when urbanization was just beginning to impact on the landscape of 19th century Scotland. I’m speaking of Thomas Chalmers, famous as preacher, writer, theologian, church leader, social commentator, but also church planter and urban missiologist.
To read more click the link below
BMI October 2011 urban mission ezine
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