Sermon Cloud

I planted a Presbyterian (PCA) church in the Toronto area and pastored that church for seven years in the early 1980s at the beginning of my ministry. After writing a Ph.D. dissertation on the nature of the missionary church, I sketched out twelve things I would pursue as priorities if I were to plant a church or pastor again. They arose in a course I taught while on sabbatical at Calvin Theological Seminary (1998-1999) on the missionary church in western culture. A student asked how I would make a missionary ecclesiology concrete; these priorities were the answer. These would not be things I would only want to teach to the congregation (although I would want to do that!) but ministry or structural goals I would want to implement. In other words, I would want to pursue ways to equip the church so that these twelve things might become a reality. Subsequent to teaching at Calvin I took a part-time position as minister of preaching in an urban congregation (First CRC, 1999-2005) and, along with the senior pastor (Andrew Zantingh) and minister of outreach (Tim Sheridan), worked toward these goals as part of a long-term strategy to nurture a missional church. I have recently taken another part-time minister of preaching position with senior pastor Peter Sinia at New Westminster CRC, Burnaby, B.C. Here are twelve (of the background) goals that continue to shape my ministry. Some have gone well, some not so well, but here they are.

1. Church with faithful and relevant worship

2. A church immersed in the biblical story

3. Church devoted to communal prayer

4. A church with well-trained leaders

5. Church with parents trained to take up task of nurturing children in faith

6. A church with small groups that nurture for mission in the world

7. A church that seeks and expresses the unity of the body of Christ

8. Church that understands its cultural context

9. Church trained for a missionary encounter in their callings in the world

10. Church that is deeply involved in the needs of their neighbourhood and world

11. Church trained to do evangelism in an organic (not methodological) way

12. Church committed to missions