Found this while clearing out a USB key
Committed at the Core and Open at the Edges
Written for Scottish Baptist Magazine: Jan. 2000
Stuart Blythe
Not many Baptist Ministers begin their first day having lunch in public with a prostitute. This, however, is how Baptist Minister, Tim Costello began his ministry as the pastor of St Kilda, a waterfront suburb of Melbourne as famous for its sex and drugs and 'no-hopers' as for its ethnic mix and cosmopolitan culture. Costello's own story is a fascinating one. Having just graduated from the International Baptist Seminary in Rueschlikon and working part time out of the Church building as a lawyer to finance his ministry (the prostitute was someone that he had just successfully defended) Costello went on to be elected mayor of St Kilda. He is now nationally known and widely consulted in Australia on matters of public morality. The Church at St Kilda, when he arrived in 1985 had fifteen elderly members. Today it has approximately 180. To be sure, this is not a Willow Creek or Saddleback mega Church growth story. The Church does not run seminars that you can attend and Costello does not offer neat and ready to utilise Church growth principles. Instead, he offers honesty and struggle. Yet, if there is a principle to be drawn from the story, yes the success story of small Baptist Church at St Kilda, it is to be found in their self- understanding and attitude as a Church. Costello says that their motto was "committed at the core and open at the edges". Indeed, my own conviction is that this "motto" or "attitude" captures the sort of self-understanding that local Churches can have and need to cultivate in order to be "missionary congregations". Let me put forward a number of reasons for this assertion.
Firstly, to become "committed at the core and open at the edges" offers an alternative to the attitudes and actions of denial and retreat. Mike Riddell, in Threshold of the Future (1998), says that the Christian Church in the West is not declining it is dying. In response to this, however, using the language of pastoral counselling, Christians are, says Riddell, in denial. He is surely right in so far that frequently the Christian response to the present day situation is to carry on like before, doing more of the same, even although the same has not been working for some time. It also seems to me, that when and where Churches do become aware of the situation that they are facing that they can yield to the temptation to retreat into themselves, praising their purity and lamenting the sinfulness of society around them, rather than actually engaging with it. "committed at the core and open at the edges", in contrast to either denial or retreat, is a mission orientated understanding. As such, it appreciates that something of the very essence of the Church is its task to bring others into the orbit of influence of Jesus Christ through the people of Jesus Christ.
Secondly, this attitude and self understanding is something that all Churches whatever their size or location can adopt. It appears at times according to the advice that we are often given about the Church of the future, that the only Churches that will survive let alone succeed are those which have the wealth, technology, accommodation and skills to provide professional, multi media presentations. This being the case, there would seem to be little hope for many of our smaller Churches and certainly no hope for poorer congregations. I for one would certainly argue that there is a real place for the effective presentation and communication of the Christian message through multi media presentation. Again, attention to such things as the environment in which worship takes place is important. I would also argue, however, that the effectiveness of any local Church will stem first of all from its self-understanding and attitude to others. This slogan "committed at the core and open at the edges" will mean in practice different things for different Churches depending upon their size, their location, their resources, and their gifts. Indeed, what it means for each local Church will be for each local Church to work out. It will then be in the working out of this and the application of such that each Church will become a missionary congregation in a way accessible and appropriate to them.
Thirdly, the understanding of the nature of the Church as "committed at the core and open at the edges" can be seen to reflect the mission activity of Jesus himself and his understanding of the nature of the Church. The late Atholl Gill, who like Costello was an Australian Baptist and former student of Rueschlikon, in his book, The Fringes of Freedom (1990) gives a Christ centred biblical theological basis to the understanding of the Church I have been describing. Gill focuses on the calling of "Levi" in Mark 2:13-17. There, Jesus calls Levi to follow him (2:14). This invitation is a call to radical discipleship because for Levi it meant leaving one way of life to adopt another "Levi got up and followed him" (2:14). The parallel passage in the gospel of Luke actually emphasises the concrete cost to Levi, "Levi got up, left everything and followed him" (Luke 5:28). Discipleship meant commitment. Yet, we then find this committed Levi, back with Jesus at a "banquet" with the "tax collectors" and "notorious sinners" who were the friends of Levi (2:15). Here therefore we see both commitment and openness. Gill writes: "The story of Jesus with Levi and his disreputable friends is one of the most profound pictures of the church to be found anywhere in the New Testament. It is to our peril if we neglect it in our discussions about the character of the church today".
Following on from the above, this understanding of the Church can satisfy in a unity our twin need. Our need on the one hand to guard the radical nature of being a disciple of Jesus. Our need on the other hand to engage with people not yet committed to Jesus in a real, a human, a humble, and a relevant way. To understand the Church as simultaneously "committed at the core" and "open at the edges" unites both our understanding of the committed nature of the Church as a local community of believers and the missionary nature of the Church living, serving and witnessing among communities of non-believers. Within our Baptist context, local churches could have very open relationships and activities contacting many people in their orbit of influence in a whole variety of situations both in, through and out with our buildings. In such a interactive lifestyle believers baptism and Church membership would become all the more important and meaningful serving in a real sense as the outward signs and concrete response of people moving from the fringes of contact to the core of commitment.
A fifth and final observation is that this understanding of "committed at the core and open at the edges" allows people to take risks. Mike Riddell, says about our present day situation of a "Sickness Unto death" - "This is a time which calls for courage and experimentation". A few months ago I wrote about the "Fat Bob's Dance Café" which we run once a month in our Church hall attracting some 120 non-churched young people. A number of people have in response expressed some surprise that we would run such an event in the "Church". Several months ago, the young people in our Church youth fellowships organised, planned, and led a communion service which saw members of the congregation coming forward in a candle lit building to be served bread and wine from teenage girls at the communion table! Again, more recently we put on a presentation about Jesus in the open lounge bar of a local pub, an event that over one hundred people attended. Every time one of these events are planned I get worried. I get worried because they involve risk. I can only be amazed, however, at the support that the people of our Church give in supporting and praying for these events. They are not events that everyone likes. They are not events that everyone would come to. They are not always events that work. They are not always events that I feel comfortable in and with. Yet we can take the risk and I think are allowed to take the risks and in fact need to take the risks because we are committed to Jesus, to following him and to making him known. You see, the more committed you are at the core, the more open you can be at the edges, because at the centre no matter what else happens who you believe in and what you believe is clear and strong. If our Scottish Baptist Churches have a strength of conviction and belief about important truths, these truths should free us to be open, they should not force us to be closed.
Well worth a repriese... thank you
Posted by: Catriona | 12/23/2013 at 10:50 AM