God's Tent Pitched Among Us: A New Pattern for Rural Church Mission
You may also like…
-
Mission From Below: Growing a Kingdom Community
Paperback £14.99
ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-910519-77-6A radical and controversial challenge to the top-down leadership models that are so widespread in the church, instead making the case for a new model of people-driven servant leadership, guided by the Holy Spirit towards kingdom growth rather than church growth.
-
Leading a Church to Maturity in Love: A Theological and Practical Guide to Church Leadership
Paperback £12.99
ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-78959-023-4Church leaders frequently encounter tensions and conflict, especially when facing change. Building on extensive experience of leading churches at times of change, David Robert Tomlinson shows how through critical theological reflection and modelling good practice church leaders can facilitate church life that is grounded and transformed by the love of God.
-
The Beginning of Tomorrow: Call to the North – Churches Working Together in Mission
Paperback £14.99
ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-78959-029-6A unique account of a little-known yet momentous effort to join forces in proclaiming the gospel in a society shaped by increasing decline in church attendance and major social challenges.
Buy this book!
Price: £12.99
E-Book Availability
Using a Windows or Android device? Download the Kindle or Kobo app to enjoy our e-books!
Share
Book Details
Format: Paperback (125 pages)
Publisher: Sacristy Press
Date of Publication: 20th April 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78959-097-5
Synopsis
At 3 p.m. on the third Sunday of the month, if you are out and about in Tynedale in West Northumberland, you might see a six-metre bell tent pitched in a field, by a river or on a hilltop. This is God’s Tent. Gathered there you will find a mixed group of children, parents and young adults exploring stories of faith and God’s love for us in the landscape of Northumberland.
This book tells the story of God’s Tent and offers an introduction and guide to how to begin to pitch God’s Tent in different contexts. It is also a reflection on the contemporary debates and conversations in the Church of England over the future mission and ministry of the Church. Beginning with the Mission-shaped Church report, and then coloured by the Renewal and Reform programme of recent years, the Church of England is going through a period of change which has not been seen in generations. God’s Tent has been born in the midst of these debates and so acts, in a small way, as a worked example of how we might begin to navigate the frontier between the inheritance of the Church and its call to innovation. The book explores the deep creative richness of the metaphor of our God who “pitches his tent among us”, found in the book of Exodus and particularly in the prologue to John’s Gospel.
The God who pitches his tent among us is not only a defining picture for how we can understand who God is through the imaginative remembering of the Old Testament. This picture was developed by the first Christians to understand who God is for us in Jesus. Through reflecting and improvising on this picture of a tent-pitching God we find a creative way to explore this story of who God is, and in it become a worshipping community formed and created in relationship to our tent-pitching God.
By the very nature of the Tent, worship and environment are brought together in natural and holistic ways. … The author is to be congratulated on his generous sharing of a range of creative ideas. If a rural church or group of churches is looking for a fresh, realistic initiative to develop mission, this book will serve very well.
James Francis, Rural Theology