On the streets of Sheffield

The teaching at St. Thomas is so clear and so powerful. Mike Breen is the former vicar who now lives in South Carolina and works with pastors and church leaders. He does a kind of devotional in the morning. On Tuesday, he summed up 28 years of my life in a single sentence. St. Thomas' ministry is built around the twin themes of Covenant (relationship) and Kingdom (action.) Mike was saying that Jesus came to make disciples and calls his disciples to make disciples. That's what the church is for. 'We can't make disciples if what we're doing is trying to build a church. But make disciples and you will have a church.' It hit me square between the eyes -- I've spent 28 years trying to build the church. What I need to begin doing is discipling people -- which is a whole new territory.

In the afternoon, we went out with some of the leaders who are engaged in building mission in the neighborhoods of Sheffield. Diane went with Danny Wilson who was on the streets at one time himself and ministers with the really marginalized. They went to the city centre and were sent out to meet people and talk to people.

I went to the Fir Vale area where people from St. Thomas have planted a church for Roma (gypsy) migrants from Slovakia. We are sent out in 3's and 4's and told to simply find people to talk to. We met a really bizarre guy, an Englishman who has converted to Sufi Islam. He talked our ear off for about 30 minutes.

St Thomas has three levels of church -- the gathered church which is their Sunday services (about 700 at each campus), the missional church, about 90 mid-sized groups who support each other and engage in mission together, and the emerging church, which are communities with marginalized and alienated groups, such as street youth.