Yeserday's sermon at D+1 got me thinking - and that's a good thing!  The preacher was focussing on the theme of reconciliation as the heart of the gospel, and using 2 Corinthians 5:17 as a central text which is, in Greek, ὥστε εἴ τις ἐν Χριστῷ, καινὴ κτίσις· τὰ ἀρχαῖα παρῆλθεν, ἰδοὺ γέγονεν καινά·

This is important, because the dear old NIV, like any Bible, uses interpretation alongside translation, in its rendering of these words.  The NIV version says 'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!'  The NIVi says 'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!'  This is a more precise translation of the Greek and has a very different meaning - which I was pondering long before the preacher got there!  This morning I was reminded that καινὴ κτίσις is actually feminine language but I won't pursue that one!!

So, a very literal translation would probably be 'if anyone (or anything) is in Christ, there is a new creation...' which is pretty mind blowing stuff.  It is as if each time someone comes to faith (by event or process) creation (all of it) is renewed and not just that person's immortal soul.  Wow!  That will keep me thinking for a very long time.

The sermon spoke of reconciliation in three directions - personal with God, corporate within the faith community, global/universal with the whole of creation.  That's worth a lot of pondering too.

Missiologists seem to like numbers - if counting derieres on chairs or how many pledge cards were signed are out of fashion, then we'll just squeeze lots of (albeit little) numbers into our writing.  Having read a bit of the stuff I bought before Christmas I now have a list of...

6 Christian constants, 5 marks of mission, 4 marks of the Church, 3 perspectives (2 turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree).  To be fair, the stuff they have is helpful in my thinking, but if you start playing with the concepts and combining them in varied permutations you can just end up tied in knots that achieve very little.  So, in case anyone reading this wants to ponder any of these themselves here they are...

Six Christian Constants

1. Christ
2. The Church
3. Eschatology
4. Salvation
5. Anthropology
6. Culture

Five Marks of Mission

1. To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
2. To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
3. To respond to human need by loving service
4. To transform unjust structures of society
5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

Four Marks of the Church

For this one, one of the books on Fresh Expressions (and fresh expressions) offers some interesting and helpful parallels for each of these which I see as 'both/and' rather than 'either/or' so what follows is very interpreted by me...

1. One (unity) and Diverse (many) -  'in' - a unity in diversity
   
2. Holy (set apart) and Charismatic (anointed) - 'up' - set apart and anointed by God
3. Catholic (universal) and Local (contextual) - 'of' -  reflecting global culture
4. Apostolic (authority) and Prophetic (sent) - 'out' - sent out in authority (Not sure I see 'prophetic' as 'sent' so much as 'speaking out' or 'apostolic' entirely as 'authority' but still...)

Three Perspectives

This one is quite complex but can be summarised by key words, early thinkers and contemporary thinkers ...

1. A - to save souls and extend the church: Law - Tertullian - John Paul II
2. B - a call to fulfil own potential, allowing Christ to be the answer: Truth - Origen - Rahner
3. C - liberation; Christ as transformer of culture: History - Irenaeus - Gutierrez

I think this is possibly the most helpful bit I've read thus far, even if what it says is hardly rocket -science: dependent on how one understands one faith, then one will understand and exercise mission accordingly.  Whilst I have an analytical mind, I am always a little wary of neat categories but from a practical perspective a few boxes can be helpful - just so long as they don't end up as a new set of labels that define themselves over against each other in the way that existing theological labels tend to.

What all this means, I think I already knew:

• That there are certain cores essential to being authentically Christian (even if people may vary over what they think those are and how they are understood!)
• That mission is diverse and complex, so that one size doesn't fit all and no one church can do everything

I also like the frequent mentions of the word 'history' and its links to liberation - freedom - within the context of mission.  But then Anglicans (who write most of this stuff) ostensibly value history and tradition more than your average Baptist