Agents of Social Transformation
We will be a diocese in
which we are agents of
social transformation
using our influence as a
Diocese to transform
public and personal life.
We will demonstrate
loving faith at work in
local communities and
across the globe bringing
healing, restoration and
reconciliation.
Prophetic global citizens
The church participates in God’s
transformation of the world:
By what it is
By what it prays
By what it does
By what it hopes for
What the Church hopes for
What the Church hopes for
 But, in accordance with his promise,
we wait for new heavens and a new
earth, where righteousness is at
home. 2Peter 3:13
 Then I saw a new heaven and a new
earth … And the one who was seated
on the throne said, ‘See, I am making
all things new.’ Rev.21v1+5
What the world waits for
 For the creation waits with eager longing
for the revealing of the children of God;
20for the creation was subjected to
futility, not of its own will but by the will
of the one who subjected it, in hope
21that the creation itself will be set free
from its bondage to decay and will
obtain the freedom of the glory of the
children of God. Romans 8:19-21
 ‘to gather up all things in Christ,
things in heaven and things on earth’
Ephesians 1:10
 ‘to reconcile to himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven.’
 ‘all authority in heaven and earth has
been given to me’
The basis of Christian moral
discernment
Whatever could have no place in
God’s future creation - cannot be
acceptable now.
Already and not yet
‘Christ has cleft the future in two,
and part of it is already present.’
David Bosch
First fruits
 RESURRECTION
 Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy
he has given us a new birth into a
living hope through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead. 1Peter 1:3
Resurrection
‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the
dead, the first fruits of those who have died.
…. Then at his coming …. God has put all
things in subjection under his feet.’
 'To be a Christian might be defined as
living in the light cast by the
resurrection; living, that is to say, as
those who insist on interpreting this
world in terms of its (surprising and
unexpected) future as made known to
us in the resurrection of Jesus by his
Father in the power of the Holy
Spirit.’ Richard Bauckham + Trevor
Hart
Resurrection
1Cor. 15:58 Therefore, my beloved, be
steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the
work of the Lord, because you know that in
the Lord your labour is not in vain.
First fruits
 THE HOLY SPIRIT
 'The action of the Spirit is to
anticipate, in the present and by
means of the finite and contingent,
the things of the age to come.' Colin
Gunton
First fruits
 THE CHURCH
 ‘But we must always give thanks to
God for you, brothers and sisters
beloved by the Lord, because God
chose you as the first fruits for
salvation through sanctification by the
Spirit and through belief in the truth.’
2 Thessalonians 2.13:
What the church is
“The first task of the church is to
be the church.” Stanley Hauerwas
‘The only hermeneutic of the
gospel, is a congregation of men
and women who believe it and
live by it’. Lesslie Newbigin
‘Ultimately the evidence for the
credibility of the gospel in the
eyes of the world must be a
quality of life, manifested in the
Church, which the world cannot
find elsewhere.’ Towards the
Conversion of England 1945
Modeling a believable future
Living as a visible alternative
community
Providing an alternative
plausibility, and a basis for hope.
Corinth
 Involved distinctiveness
 A countercultural community which seeks
common ground with its society whenever
possible. It is to be involved rather than
withdrawn.
Corinth
 Involved distinctiveness: A countercultural community which seeks
common ground with its society whenever
possible. It is to be involved rather than
withdrawn.
 Subversive engagement: A proactive community actively doing good
in its society (because it can last), while
subverting many of its societies key social
values (because they cannot last).
What the church prays
What the church prays
When they heard it, they raised
their voices together to God and
said, ‘Sovereign Lord …’ Acts 4:24
While Peter was kept in prison,
the church prayed fervently to
God for him. Acts 12:5
What the church prays
 The Berlin Wall
 Apartheid
 Street Pastors
Why intercession?
 'God was seen to have a preference
for working with a human partner,
and this was for an educational
purpose;
 God's human partners were to be like
apprentices who learn their master's
ways and come to reflect their
master's character by working with
him’. John V.Taylor
Prayer and the ‘not yet’
How the church prays is directly related
to where it is located.
Three ‘groanings’
 22 We know that the whole creation
has been groaning in labour pains until
now
 26 that very Spirit intercedes with
sighs too deep for words
 23 we ourselves, who have the first
fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly
Bringing hope
 'The Church is not insulated from the
pain of the world, but is to become
for the world what Jesus was for the
world, the place where its pain and
grief may be focused and
concentrated, and so healed.' Tom
Wright
 ‘We human beings are far too frail and
tiny to bear all this pain. ... We need to
experience it: it is a part of our reality.
 Our task in praying is precisely that of
giving speech to the Spirit's groanings
within us. but we must not try to bear
the sufferings of the creation ourselves
...
 Only the heart at the centre of the
universe can endure such a weight of
suffering. ... so the Holy Spirit helps us
in our weakness' Walter Wink
What the church does
Located incarnationally
 for local change
 for glocal questions
 for national / international issues
Reconciliation
Reconciliation
Reconciliation
 'Forgiveness does not
mean condoning what
has been done. It
means taking what
has happened
seriously and not
minimizing it; drawing
out the sting in the
memory that
threatens to poison
our entire existence.'
'Forgiveness
means abandoning
the right to pay
back the
perpetrator in his
own coin.'
Desmond Tutu
Climate change
Climate change
South Sudan
Our children and grandchildren
‘The year 2050 – when the
impacts of climate change will be
strongly felt – may seem like the
distant future for politicians, but
it’s our children’s future and they
have a right to have it protected.’
Save the Children
 ‘The predicted extent of climate change
is a novel moral problem. … Most people
in British Empire did not own slaves,
even though an important proportion of
the wealth of the Empire was built on
the profits from slave labour plantations.
 But every individual who has driven a
car, or flown in an aeroplane, lived in an
energy hungry modern house, bought
clothes or computers made 10,000 miles
away, or bought shares in a large
corporation, is fractionally involved in
global warming.’ Michael Northcott
Social transformation
Personal
Global
Generat
ional
Local
Glocal
43
Social transformation
In
Personal
Global
Him
Local
made
new
Generat
ional
Glocal
all
things
44
The church participates in God’s
transformation of the world
By what it
hopes for
By what it is
By what it
prays
By what it does
Agents of Social Transformation
We will be a diocese in
which we are agents of
social transformation
using our influence as a
Diocese to transform
public and personal life.
We will demonstrate
loving faith at work in
local communities and
across the globe bringing
healing, restoration and
reconciliation.