Theology and church

Tim Chester and Steve Timmis offer suggestions on how applying our theology might impact the way we live our lives as a church. We may begin:seeing church as an identity instead of a responsibility to be juggled alongside other commitmentscelebrating ordinary life as the context in which the word of God is proclaimed with ‘God-talk’ a normal feature of everyday conversationrunning fewer evangelistic events, youth clubs and social projects, and spending more time sharing our lives with unbelieversstarting new congregations instead of growing existing onespreparing Bible talks with other people instead of just studying alone at a deskadopting a 24-7 approach to mission and pastoral care instead of starting ministry programmesswitching the emphasis from Bible teaching to Bible learning and actionspending more time with people on the margins of societylearning to disciple one another – and be discipled – day by dayhaving churches that are messy instead of churches that pretend.