I’m starting a blog conversation with Andrew, a fellow Adelaidean.  We’ve each got some similar things on our radars.  I’m preparing for parachurch ministry, so I need to figure out what ‘church’ is in order to ‘para’ it.  Meanwhile, Andrew runs a house church called Serpents and Doves.

We’ll pick some topics, trade posts, and see where it goes — it’s all pretty open-ended.  It’s a conversation, and it should go pretty much like a regular conversation.  We’ll be trying to relate to, listen to and understand each other.  Whatever might be happening with the topic and our opinions, we’ll just keep on conversing.  We hope to learn and encourage each other as we go.

Along the way, we’ll be pitching into the wider conversation about ecclesiology (church-ology).  Protestant Christians have a lot of great things in their heritage, but I’m pretty sure ecclesiology is not one of them.  Protestants will often say that ecclesiology is secondary to the gospel and that it’s something with which we can have freedom, but Protestant Christianity is a pretty confused beast.  This is a problem, especially when the New Testament writers are so concerned with the proper operation of the church.  We have some hard thinking to do.  How can Protestant Christians form faithful, Christ-focused communities without falling into a pick ‘n’ mix Choose Your Own Adventure?

You’re part of the blog convo too, dear reader, so fire up your commenting skills, numchuck skills, bo-hunting skills, computer hacking skills…  Stay tuned for the first topic: what are the non-negotiables of church?

Categories: Written by Arthur

Tagged as: Church dialogue ecclesiology Protestant Serpents and Doves The blog convo

Arthur Davis

Arthur Davis is an Aussie living in Tanzania, writing at meetjesusatuni.com.