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A Call to a New Imagination for Church: The Church as ‘Demonstration Plot’ for His Kingdom- David Fitch

In the last 50 years, the magnitude of cultural change has decimated the place of church in our lives as Christians – and in our culture. In response, churches turned either defensive or accommodative, seeking after relevance. In the aftermath, we fight amongst ourselves, making enemies of the culture. As a result many have lost imagination for what the church is, what the church is called to be, what the church could be in God’s mission amidst the injustices, hopelessness and antagonisms of our society. We’ve lost imagination for the church. We need an ecclesiology – a new imagination for church – where church is not a set of programs but a whole way of life, where church is the fullness of His presence in the world amidst its antagonisms, where the church inhabits the world, not out of a posture of power, but as the space of His presence working in the world. But this imagination for church cannot come from our own dreams, our own work. It must be the work of the Spirit, a proclamation of the gospel, a birthing of a new counter social existence of His reign, a demonstration plot of His Kingdom. This plenary is about this call for this kind of re-imagination of church.