TM Pastors & Leaders Consultation

The pivotal gathering for the future of the church in Melbourne - TM's Pastors & Leaders' Consultation "OUR CITY- OUR GENERATION-GOD'S HEART" happened on 1st April. There were about 200 pastors, leaders and practitioners who attended the conference, and many more bought the research reports since the consultation.

The day started off with the presentation of the compilation of the data through the "ALL MELBOURNE MATTERS" research, which gives a picture of the Church in Melbourne that has never been available before. The picture reveals the strengths of the Church, the great range of resources and the vital support provided for the people across Melbourne by local churches, Christian welfare agencies, Christian schools, health care and chaplaincies in many sectors of society. Although there are some encouraging aspects, the statistics and the current trends are a shock. The good news is the reports provide a basis for developing effective and strategic plans for collaborative and intentional mission and ministry to reverse these trends.

The KEY TOPICS of this consultation included: (1)Reaching Local Cities Together, (2)The Power of Praying Together, (3) Organic Church Growth incl. Discipleship, (4) Leadership Formation, (5) The City really needs the Church and (6) A snapshot of Y-Generation. These workshops all aim to facilitate a practical response to the picture of the Church revealed in the research statistics. Stories and ideas for some potential missional responses and resources for the Church at citywide, community and local church level were given in conjuction with the research reports.

Click here to order your own copies of the Research Project Reports Online.

THE FOLLOWINGS ARE SOME THE COMMENTS ON THE RESPONSE SHEETS FROM THE DAY:

Most significant feature of the consultation for you?

• The interest of so many pastors & leaders who desire to see the vision for Melbourne, fulfilled.
• The understanding that this affects the whole church and it takes the whole church to respond effectively. Unity is clearly difficult but necessary.
• Building up a prayer movement.
• The passion for God and His mission was so evident, esp. from Rob -that was inspiring & encouraging & trumped everything else.
• Confronting us with a clear picture of the need to reach Melbourne and the inadequate response we’ve had so far.
• The bringing together of so many passionate people with a heart of the wellbeing of Melbourne.
• The high value content and evangelistic passion evident in all the participants. Today was well above average in all aspects.
• Confronting research. Great messages from practitioners.
• The importance of the task before us. The only choice is to work together.
• Getting the greater vision for transforming the city.
• I’m 26. Was well impacted by the lack of young people/leaders. Really felt appreciative of the way the information was presented in an overview – not too much detail. The encouragement from the fact that even though we are not doing enough IT CAN BE DONE!
• Leaders from many churches gathered together as one church.

What is your reaction? What do you think God is saying to His Church?

• “Wake up” If you will listen to me, be humbled and are willing to lay down your lives, you can see my church renewed.
• Simplify, connect, act together, discipleship for every person, empower leaders especially young people, think and vision as the Church in the city and share resources
  To understand who the Church is intended to reach and to engage in His mission -focused outwards.
• He desires us to unite and move outside the Church in to the community.
• Connectedness, reconciliation, prayer focused relational focus will bring people into the kingdom.
• Seek His will, unite to do His will in your geographic area.
• The need to regain and reach out to the younger generation. The GenY material was excellent.
• The harvest is plentiful. The labourers are not united enough.
• “See how you can collaborate as distinct churches – in unity, harmony and trust – to accomplish this task.”
• I do believe that what we learn and know about God should not just be to make us feel better and happier but should flow out to those around us. God has been challenging me this year but also today to get out of my house and meet the people who don’t know Christ. WE ARE RELEVANT THROUGH RELATIONSHIP.
• Humble yourselves. Slow down and listen for my leading. Work together in unity.
  We don’t need more think-ers, strategists etc but we need praying thinkers, praying strategists etc.
• What is ACTS church ?– Apostles + Church->Transforming Society.
• Call to unity/cooperation in mission.
• Be of one mind; one purpose; one vision as we serve one God.
• it is important to pray and for that prayer to lead to fruit which changes people and changes communities. It is important to deconstruct today’s idols.
  

All Melbourne Matters Research of the Whole Church in Melbourne

The Research Vision is a detailed picture of the size, location and vitality of all churches across the City with the demographics of Greater Melbourne, to resource and inspire the whole Church towards a common vision and coordinated strategies for ministry and intentional mission to our city.

How can the Great Commission be fulfilled in Melbourne? Is anyone fulfilling the Great Commission?

With over 3.6 million people (2006 census) in Melbourne, it is unlikely that more than 400,000 are active members of local churches or Christian communities.

• How can "The Church" reach out to the other 3.3 million?

• Who are these 3.3 million? What areas and what people groups have little or no contact with the Church or opportunity to hear the Gospel?

• Where is the Church strong and where is it ineffective, dying or non-existent?

• How many "churches" are there? What about "ethnic" churches?

IS ANYONE FULFILLING THE GREAT COMMISSION?

There is a general belief in local churches and denominations that by doing a whole range of ministries, services, programmes, etc that somehow we are "fulfilling the Great Commission". But it seems that rarely is there serious thought given to what this would mean.

Any meaningful understanding of the Great Commission in a local community or across Melbourne calls us to reach out to (in fact to make disciples of) ALL people.

Clearly no one congregation or denomination can do this for the whole of Melbourne, no matter how big or active. There are few if any with a vision and strategy to reach out to all the people even in their local community.

To obey Jesus' call to take His mission to all people, we must at least ask "Who are all these people outside the Kingdom?", "where are they?" and "what would it take to reach out to them?".

This mission is so vast, it is clearly a job for the Whole Church working together. So then we must ask "What and where is the Body of Christ?", "What is the Church doing already?", "What are its strengths and weaknesses?". We also need to ask "Where the Church is NOT". Only when we have identified the "MISSION FIELD" and the 'MISSION FORCE" is it possible to be intentional about the Great Commission. It allows us to ask "What would it take to reach all these people?", "How will we work together to get it done?" and "How long will it take?". These are the bones or any strategy to fulfil the Great Commission.

We need to respond urgently to the call to intentional mission and reach our city together.

You can buy the research reports on line here.

All Melbourne Matters - SOME SIGNIFICANT DATA from the Research of the Church in Melbourne

MELBOURNE: 3.6 million people (2006), 248 Nationalities, 289 languages,128 religious faiths

THE CHURCH

• 300,000 people attend church weekly, another 300,000 attend about once a month.


• There are over 1700 local churches of more than 30 denominations and over 80 nationalities


• There are 60 Chinese, 52 Greek, 41 Italian, 35 Samoan, 30 Vietnamese, 24 Korean churches


• "NO RELIGION" up 20% in 10 years


• Under 34s: 1.2million (48%) in population BUT only 48,000 (4%) attend church(=16% of attenders)


• Over 55s: 819,000 (22%) of population and 20% (122,000) attend weekly (= 54% of attenders)


• About 5000 people come to faith each year, about 9000 people leave the Church

City population increasing at 90,000pa, here is a net loss of 4,800pa from church attendance.
The churches make a major contribution to the city in education, welfare, health and aged care
BUT without spiritual regeneration this support will not be sustainable.

Jesus weeps for our city…The All Melbourne Matters research gives us a glimpse of how God sees the Church and our city. He is urgently calling His people to cry out and join in intentional mission to claim the future of our city for Him. All Melbourne Matters to our Father.

Heads Of Churches & Colleges Meeting

The results of the research released to the Heads of Churches and Colleges last week are a wake-up for anyone who thinks the Church is reaching our city. They are a call for us to rise up together and claim the future:

3,600,000 people live in Melbourne (and growing about 80,000 a year).

300,000 at church weekly - 150,000 of these attend Catholic Churches·

65,000 of all attenders are aged over 75 (163,000 are over 55).

68,000 church attenders are under 34 years!!

Churches report about 5,000 come to faith each year.

There is a net loss of 4,800 from the church each year.

The Church, through local churches, and Christian welfare agencies, schools, aged care facilities and many other activities, provides enormous and irreplaceable support for our city which depends on these services. Few in our city are aware of how vital Church support is (even Christians) nor how much our society depends on our Christian heritage and values for its social stability and well-being. BUT without spiritual regeneration the Church will not be able to sustain this vital support. Likewise the current serious increases of crime, relationship failure, domestic abuse, self-harm and addictions will continue unabated.

AND – caring for people, having great meetings and even leading people to faith is not enough:

We are called to EXPECTANT PRAYER, believing the Lord will lead us far beyond what we can do.

We are called to MAKE DISCIPLES who will share their faith and lead others to be disciples (without this the Church will continue to decline. Making disciples who make disciples will reach the whole city).

We are called to LOVE ONE ANOTHER to reveal Jesus is in our midst, and to show the power of the Cross to reconcile.

If we don't respond now in intentional mission to reverse these trends can we expect anything different for future generations? Now is the time for church leaders to come together to seek God to lead us to fulfill His call on the church in Melbourne for the future.