What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • The Five Marks of Mission (Useful or not?)

    Following on from my diatribe about the word Missional the other week, here’s another thing.

    Are the Five Marks of Mission which are so very often discussed in Anglican circles as useful as people presume?

    Here I would have to say that I believe in them all. I think they are all lovely, vital, necessary and holy and all the rest.

    However, the question that I find myself coming back to again and again is to ask whether the Five Marks of Mission somehow end up functioning as a buffer between good church people and any discussion of effective evangelism.

    It seems to me that there might be other marks of mission. Like conversion, for example, of oneself and others. Or growth, maybe, of some kind or another.

    Just wondering.

    In case you don’t know, the Five Marks of Mission are held to be these:

    To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
    To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
    To respond to human need by loving service
    To seek to transform unjust structures of society
    To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

    My hunch is that a tiny handful of the people in my home congregation would have heard about the five marks and maybe one or two would be able to name them.

    Once again, can I state that I’m not disagreeing with any of them. It is just that, notwithstanding the usefulness of the Marks as some kind of checklist, I fear greatly the idea that people might think they are a descriptor of mission.

    It would be good to hear testimony of souls being added to the kingdom by the naming of the five marks?

    Anyone?

    Anyone want to admit to sharing my questions?

    ,

8 responses to “What is a wiki?”

  1. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    I wanted to comment on your wiki post, but there is a gremlin preventing me – no box to write in, so no writing!
    [Comment now moved]

    This is what I’d have said:
    Great clip! A really clear description – can we get it incorporated into an educational package for the church? See http://scotedublogs.wikispaces.com/ for a good example of a wiki in use for over a year.

    Reply
  2. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Yeah. Wikis have huge potential. When I was setting up my church website I sat down and thought:
    a) lots of pages
    b) easy editing
    c) uniform appearance across pages
    d) ability to allow some people to (not) edit certain pages

    End result was dokuwiki.

    The real trouble is still persuading people that they’re capable of contributing…

    Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Yes, it is odd getting people to post on a wiki is very much harder than getting them to post a comment on a blog. Something about a fear of being the authorial voice.

    I think that it is fear of being contradicted and corrected, which is a shame, as whenever I post to a wiki, I’m hoping that someone can improve on what I’ve written.

    Reply
  4. Kimberly Avatar
    Kimberly

    Fabulous video. Thanks for linking it.

    I wonder if this is one of the ways we should be trying to respond to the Draft Anglican Covenant.

    Reply
  5. Stewart Avatar
    Stewart

    Wikis are great – look forward to seeing the St Mary’s Wiki developing (and adding to it!)

    Reply
  6. jimmux Avatar
    jimmux

    Thanks for a very clear explanation! Now that I understand how they work, I’ll be raising a discussion on how we might be able to use them on the National Postgraduate Committee of the United Kingdom. They seem a very useful tool for sub-committees which do a lot of work by e-mail.

    Reply
  7. Kennedy Avatar
    Kennedy

    I had a look at Tim’s church website and looked at the bit with the contributions from the congregation and saw this statement:

    ‘Please note: the content in this section is contributed by members of the congregation and should not be considered official statements by the Church.’

    I am a great fan of wikis for collaborative work, but I think this indicates one of the issues with ‘public’ wikis. These problems tend not occur when wikis are being used for internal usage or for a closed group. Open editing is very attractive but you need some form of management to ensure that defacement doesn’t occur or statements which might be damaging are published.

    Also, how do I tell the difference between ‘the Church’ and ‘ members of the congregation’? Are they not the same thing?

    Kennedy

    Reply
  8. Repeat post – wiki video | What’s in Kelvin’s Head

    […] First posted quite a while ago here. […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Sermon – 30 May 2004 – Pentecost

    One of the characteristics of heaven is the unity of all of God?s creatures around the throne. There is something deep in the guts of most Christians which tells them that ultimately we will all be together at the last, praising God. And knowledge and language will have passed away. The great hope is that…

  • Requiem

    To Dundee yesterday for the Requiem for Trevor Stephens, a friend and colleague who died a month ago. I had not been able to go to the funeral itself down in Newcastle and this was a special service one month on from Trevor’s death. It was good to be with others and to have the…

  • Links added

    I've added a link o­n the left to Dylan's lectionary blog – well worth checking out. (And thanks for the post further down the page, Dylan).I've also added o­ne to healyourchurchwebsite.com which is required reading.Talking of church websites, the o­ne for the diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney is worth checking out. The news is out…

  • Scottish Churches House

    I was at Scottish Churches House yesterday for a day conference for those who have been in their first ministry position for about five years. It was good to be with others from a variety of churches, though the two largest churches in Scotland were noticeably absent.We were asked to talk about some of the…