I am currently reading Mission Shaped Questions: Defining Issues for Today's Church ed. Steven Croft, London, Church House Publishing, 2008, which is proving interesting and helpful as well as annoying in thought provoking ways (which I think means it's worth reading).  Part of my annoyance is the assumption of paedo-baptising fairly hierarchical traditions, and the fact that credo-baptising congregationally organised traditions aren't mentioned much and seemingly aren't writing or thinking so much in this area.  I am finding little links with my interest in denominational history and church health (woo hoo, or words to that effect) and enjoying their making - but then based on one of the quotes below, that makes me the right kind of person for this kind of emergent/fresh expression/practical theology type of thinking, so maybe it's inevitable.

Anyway, here are my fave four so far...

John Drane, p 96

Frustrated clergy find themselves running a spiritual hospice while all the time God is moving the waters in the birthing pool

John Drane, citing Daniel Pink, p 99

what we need today are 'creators and empathisers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers... artists, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers'

[I'd like to think I'm a 'pattern recognizer' and one who endeavours to be a 'meaning maker']

John Drane (again!) on history, p 95

As part of his discussion on maturity (now there's a good sign of a 'healthy church'):

From a purist historical perspective, I can sympathize with those scholars who argue that what we know about such ancient times [Celtic] is too insubstantial to bear the weighty reconstructions of Christian spirituality that are now being placed upon it.  But from a missiological point of view, these arguments entirely miss the point.  For when a culture finds that the meta-narrative that it one took for granted is either untrue, or merely unserviceable in changed circumstances, it is natural that we look back into our own story in the effort to find new paradigms that might inspire us for the future.  Faced with the diminishing prospects of the people of God, the Hebrew prophets repeatedly looked back to more ancient times and reinterpreted an old story (usually the exodus narrative) for new circumstances. The historical knowledge of the exodus available to Isaiah or Jeremiah must have been just as flimsy as our certain knowledge of the Celtic era, but that never stopped them reshaping the story.  In a different way, and on the basis of more certain historical knowledge, the New Testament evangelists did something similar with the stories of Jesus.  When the emerging Church looks to ancient times for patterns of organic spirituality and then remodels them in the light of new circumstances, this is just the latest phase in a very old story.

(Emphasis mine)

Angela Tilby, p 79

Also on history and adding a note of caution

I want to argue against the idea that history exists for us as a kind of simultaneous present from which we can construct whatever patterns we like or find meaningful.  My key point is that the identity of the Church is constituted by the fact that it lives in time.  In a very real sense the Church is its history.

(Emphasis original)

I think that maybe there's a kind of both/and here - the Church is its history (a bit like that mobile phone advertisement that says 'I am...' all the people I've encountered) but it can and, I'd argue, should also reinterpret its history for new circumstances and new, Godly, purposes.  Simply knowing our past does not give us maturity any more than knowing Bible stories; only by making connections, engaging creatively and seeing patterns with the bigger picture can we grow and mature.  Or so ends my sermon to myself for today!