Mission Shaped Big E: June 3-5, 2008
About 17 people gathered at Vaughan Park, Long Bay in Auckland from June 3-5 to discuss Mission-Shaped Youth Ministry. This phrase has come out of the Church of England, and in particular, from a report published in 2005 exploring church planting and fresh expressions of church in a changing context. The basic idea is that we are increasingly in a non-Christian context in New Zealand, where a very large proportion of young people in particular know nothing of the gospel. Mission-shaped church suggests that we need to seek ways to plant the gospel in this context with no expectation of what shape the church those who respond might develop. This is very different from nearly all our models currently used which aim at brining young people into existing church structures. The point of the Big E was to offer a place where key figures in the Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian churches could have a conversation about what if anything this might offer our understanding and practice of youth