The Stranger Finds One Who Moved into the Neighbourhood
In the few short years since Brian McLaren wrote ‘A New Kind of Christian’, I wonder if God has birthed the New New Kind of Christian. It may be so, for I think I found one in Nigel.
Nigel is the founder and creator of MoveIn – a movement of prayer and presence into communities of immense need that takes its name from that well known Message translation of John 1:14 about God moving into the neighbourhood (John 1. Its unique from other most other ‘moved-in’ expressions of the church in that its primary focus is people who come from unreached nations, which Nigel defines as missiologically unreached nations – people who have little or no ethic/cultural/national exposure to Christianity. The call to this demographic is not why I think Nigel is New New.
Nigel states that this is a population of two million, and that evangelicals in Canada are not having much of an impact on these people. What is having the impact? Pluralism, consumerism, materialism, self-centeredness. Stepping into this gap is not why I think Nigel is New New.
Nigel is bi-vocational – he has a small, online book business. ‘I managed to shrink that part of my life…’ This ministry lifestyle is not why I think Nigel is New New.
MoveIn is an expanding network, currently of 14 teams in three cities that has formed over the past eighteen months… teams of 5 to 10 people, who are committed to praying for the transformation of their neighbourhood ‘patch’ – an area that is typically no larger than 500 x 500 meters, and often smaller, but note that a patch of this small size might house up to 5000 people. This methodology is not why I think Nigel is New New.
I asked Nigel about process – hear! are my notes:
(i) finding a team – how do you find a team?
Answer: God sends them – they hear about us from twitter, facebook, website, friends – they hear what we are doing, they contact us…
This is why I think Nigel is New New.
(ii) Form and function of the community?
Answer: Team members are responsible to find their own housing within the patch that they commit to… and to pray as a group for an evening a week… to see what God wishes to birth in the neighbourhood. There is an expectation of action towards a realization of the Kingdom of God, but only propelled as made known – however he may be shaping it.
This is why I think Nigel is New New.
(iii)Progress measurement –
Nigel – you speak of ‘… the Kingdom of God, however he may be shaping it.’ How do you know when you are manifesting the kingdom when it is not defined?
Answer. “When the neighbourhood is transforming in ways that glorify God”.
This is why I think Nigel is New New.
John de Yepes (St. John of the Cross), as paraphrased by David Hazard in You Set My Spirit Free, p 82 – 83 joins our conversation:
The light of God goes beyond understanding scriptural doctrines. His light is meant to dawn within you, so that you can embrace with your heart the truth of God, and find it coming alive inside you. Then you will know how to shut out the voices of the world – keeping your eyes of faith focused on God, and keeping your inner ear tuned only to his voice. In this way, you will know that He is infusing you with spiritual sustenance that refreshes your innermost soul.
If you learn to walk this way of the Spirit, you will be flee of those soulish means of trying to ‘work up’ a spiritual feeling. For we must learn that the ‘works which were finished from the foundation of the world’. And ‘we which have believed do enter into rest’ (see Hebrews 4:1-6, KJV). In fact, it is by entering into this inward rest that we gain the strength to rule over all circumstances, whether good or bad…
fascinating.. God is up to something…