I’ve just started out on a course in Pioneering Mission Leadership Training run by CMS At present it is all online and via Zoom, but hopefully that will change as the vaccine gets rolled out more widely and we can eventually meet in person. Following induction on 9th January our first full day of training took place on 16th January. Here are a few reflections from the first day.
For our worship at the start of the day we read Psalm 139 and listened to part of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. This was a great reminder of how God knows us and loves us in the deepest way possible. One of my passions is playing the violin and the last time I played together with others was on 14th March 2020 just before lockdown – a concert of music by Beethoven featuring Beethoven 5. Although aspects of our identity might seem dormant or hidden, especially at the moment in lockdown, God has not forgotten who he created us to be.
The gospels are a great place to start in seeing how Jesus pioneered (Hebrews 12:2) and to consider “how to prolong the logic of the ministry of Jesus in a new era” (Bosch, 1991, p.34). For our first activity we talked in breakout groups about Jesus’s example in the story of the Samaritan woman (John 4). We saw how Jesus crossed several boundaries – tribal, gender, geographical – in speaking to the woman. He made himself vulnerable by asking her for a drink and built a relationship of respect. We noted that the Samaritan woman is the first person with whom Jesus shares his identity as Messiah in John’s gospel (John 4:25-26). She then goes back to her city and shares Jesus with others and through the transformation Jesus brings about in her she attracts people to come and hear Jesus for themselves. The good news for the woman is that she was seen and heard by Jesus and this strikes me as one of the most valuable things we can do for people.
The next activity in our breakout groups was to add notes to the Google Jamboard (see picture below) on what Jesus’s life as a pioneer looked like. It was fun to see the board filling up really quickly. We noticed that although Jesus didn’t pick the obvious people to be his disciples, they became an amazing team. Jesus was loved by God but went through wilderness times and this is a common experience of pioneers. Mission can be scary and we noted Jesus’s incredible courage as well as the quiet generosity of people behind the scenes in supporting him.
We then talked about key themes in the video Jonny had shared earlier:
What is mission (we are doing God’s mission or Missio Dei)
What does pioneering mission look like? Jonny had referred to “the gift of not fitting in” and some of us could relate to that
The challenge of change in any new system with the tension of newness versus tradition. A lot of pioneering new things is about justifying it and building relationships.
What steps we might take to start on the journey. We were introduced to several tools to help us reflect where we are in relation to pioneering, including The founding story by Gerald Arbuckle, which gets us to think about the gap of dissatisfaction or frustration, from where the energy for pioneering change can come.
This was a good chance to stand back and reflect. It linked with the idea that our life’s work is coming home to who we truly are (a phrase used by my spiritual director too). If we pioneer out of our true selves we will be more fruitful.
We shared some of our stories with each other in pairs, before doing some further reflection on what makes us angry, what we are passionate about and what we are good at. Jonny wisely advised us to do some “soul work” to look after who we are and address those trickier aspects of our character.
Finally, we looked at the Pioneer Spectrum, with some useful examples (though sadly not all have been able to continue under lockdown) and a chance to think together about how we could Replicate, Adapt or Innovate in a physical space (which in this case was a pub, The Pioneer Arms). We noted that context is important, but we also need to be real about what we bring to the context. Jonny introduced us to an online interactive tool https://churchmissionsociety.org/files/cardgame/index.html?v9 which we can use to explore this further.
What I love about our training so far is how interactive and thought-provoking it is. I spend long hours in front of a screen for work and church activities at the moment, but the CMS training didn’t feel arduous. It would be wonderful to meet in person, but until we can, the online environment is being used imaginatively. I also really appreciated the way jargon was explained.
Oh yes, and what is a pioneer?
Beth Keith: “A pioneer is someone who sees future possibilities and works to bring them to reality.” The hashtag #DreamersWhoDo is a neat summary of the pioneer type.
References
Bosch, David (1991) Transforming mission: paradigm shifts in theology of mission, New York: Orbis.
On the journey 