Sharpening the Edge

The Baptist Union in NZ is hosting a conference in late July on emerging churches. It will feature stories and happenings in eight different spheres of church planting around the country. It's called Sharpening the Edge.

Lindsay Jones, spokesman for the Baptist National Resource Centre told Challenge Weekly (Christian paper in NZ) that participants will learn that church planting has moved out of the traditional model of establishing clones of the parent church. It is no longer about land and buildings - that is only one way to grow a church.*

Oxygen really came out of this idea - that the traditional (or 'modern') model of church is no longer working for some Christians. 'Post-moderns' are getting bored, tired and skeptical of the way Jesus is being presented.

I love this new attitude by my church, the Baptist movement in general and many other denominations - that really recognizes the existence of post-modernity and the fact that some Christians (maybe many) are no longer engaged by traditional church. There is a sense of excitement about trying new things, about risking it all to try and find out how to capture this new generation.

Oxygen embraces the concept of not cloning what we've already got (the traditional morning service). So we took it out of the church building and into a back hall. We took it away from Sunday, and moved it to Friday nights. We're playing meaningful secular music, and got rid of the singing. These are all deliberate attempts at creating something really new.

*From Challenge Weekly, Vol 65 Iss 24