Hope from The Margins

"... we should watch the margins and discover the activity of God in the inner city, on the housing estates, in the prisons, amongst refugee groups... the (-se) movements (anabaptists, waldensians, the celtic churches etc... my addition!) that were marginalized by the prevailing powers of their time that seem to offer alternative perspectives for a post-christendom society.

Similarly, we may need to look less to North America and more to the Two-Thirds world for partners, who have already moved out from under colonial patterns, and who can help us understand our own culture and discover more fitting patterns for our society.

The emphasis in the coming years must be on contextual missiology and ecclesiology, whisch involves careful listening to those beyond the church walls, and to those prophetic voices on the margins of church life.

Above all, regardless of the shape of new forms of church, we need to refocus on centring the life of the Christian community on Christ.

Jesus was born in poverty and obscurity, and spent much of his life challenging the social pressures to use existing power structures. His way challenges the focus of our attention... we live in a society that is heartily sick of Christianity and the institutional chrurch but that has yet to encounter the radical Jesus. New ways of being church need also to be new ways of telling the story of Jesus and helping people to encounter him...

... It may be that the teaching, relationships, values and character of the Jesus of the gospels will be the crucial point of contact with contemporary culture.

What way of being church will reveal this Jesus to our society?"



Stuart Murray and Anne Wilkinson-Hayes in the closing notes of "Hope from the margins". Find it here or here (in swedish).