The “magic” formula

I can tell you exactly where I was when it happened: driving down Peer St, just past the New World.

I had been mulling over the formula for a while. It was tantalisingly close... but just out of reach. 

Suddenly, there it was! “Awesome!” I said out loud (which is kiwi-speak for eureka!).[i]

M = EC2

We love a formula, don’t we? Just tell us what to do. Give us the answer, the steps, the blueprint. It is especially helpful in the church environment. The way we have always done things doesn't seem to work anymore, so we need a silver bullet.

Well, here is the formula. It is simple.

M = Method (what do we do and how do we do it?)

E = Essence (of the area we are exploring)

C2 = Context (1. the community of faith we are part of, and 2. The community we find ourselves placed in.

I wonder if we have made church more complicated than it needs to be. What does a simple expression of church look like?  

So what? I hear you ask. 

Ok, let’s land this thing and give some practical ideas.



M - method. What do we do? Reflect on this last. Leave this as long as possible, don’t even worry about it. Trust the work of the Spirit among you that you will know what to do (or who to ask) once you are down the track.



E - essence. Go deep into God’s story, listen to it, and reflect theologically to discover the true nature and essence of the area you are exploring. Ask around if you need help in theological reflection. For example; what is the essence of church? Why does it exist? Or of worship? Or of any other area that you are trying to figure out what you need to do? A simple way to achieve this is to describe in simple terms what it is. For example, finish the sentence – “The church is….”[ii]

C – context. At the same time as ‘E’, simply listen. Listen to your context, your congregation, your community, and to God; Notice where God is.

For example, you are thinking about church and what to do, and you decide after some time reflecting on the big story of God from Genesis to Revelation that the church is “God and people in community with each other.”  

Then you listen to your people and those in your town, and you realise that a deep human need is to know and be known, to love and be loved. And to simply belong.

Then your method – what you should do, is there anything that will nurture a relationship between God, people and each other? Do you feel like you belong? No? Let us talk about why that might be and attend to it together. 

Simple.

But I’m not saying it’s easy. 

Darryl Tempero

Sept 2021

After thought. Maybe it is obvious, but I believe the opposite is also true. If our method, or practice, does not express the essence of the area we are exploring, or relate to the context we find ourselves in, maybe we should stop doing it? I’ll tease this out more in a future blog. 

[i] Funny story, when I told my friends and colleagues about my Eureka moment, they politely pointed out to me (while sniggering) that it was Archimedes that said “eureka,” not Einstein when he developed his theory of relativity. That’s why I studied theology, not chemistry. 

[ii] Craig Van Gelder provides this wonderful framework when he argues that most of the time we stress over what we should “do,” but we need to spend time on the nature and essence of church. It is not that talking about what we do, or how we organise ourselves is not important, but we need to do them in the right order:  . . . three aspects of church life must be defined and related to one another: what the church is—its nature; what the church does—its ministry; and how the church is to structure its work—its organization. The interrelationship of the three aspects is clear. The church is. The church does what it is. The church organizes what it does. The nature of the church is based on God’s presence through the Spirit. The ministry of the church flows out of the church’s nature. The organization of the church is designed to support the ministry of the church. Keeping these three aspects in the right sequence is important when considering the development of a missiological ecclesiology. Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (Baker Books, 2000), loc 596.