Welcome to Ignition! We hope that Ignition will be a helpful, learning experience for you, teaching you more about the missional nature of God.
Ignition is For People
People who want to discover effective and biblical ways of sharing the gospel in a culture undergoing rapid change. It is for people who want to understand the missional nature of God and desire to move their faith to an 'action' footing. Ignition is for people, who want to live the message of Jesus outside the four walls of Sunday Christianity.
How Ignition Works
Ignition is a group action reflection learning experience. Participants gather in groups of no more than 10 people. The group then meets weekly for a little over one hour for a period of 12 weeks. In
each of these weekly meetings, participants will
Learn missional principles
Explore the book of Acts
Reflect upon last week's missional exploration action
Ignition is a 12 week learning experience that introduces Christians to mission in the place where we live - the emerging global culture. After each gathering, the group participants will select weekly missional tasks (approximately 1.5 hours per week) in a context chosen by you, the participant. This context is called a missional exploration.
A missional exploration can be;
Sharing the gospel with a friend
Studying a sub-culture/ethnic group/area of mission
Building relationship at your local sporting club
Volunteering at a soup kitchen
Starting a missional community or small group
anything in between
The missional exploration is about spending time listening to those who are yet to become followers of Jesus Christ and beginning a process of sharing God's love with them through actions and words.
Each Ignition meeting is based around the concept of action and reflection. Therefore for Ignition to work, the participants must come to the weekly meeting having already fulfilled their weekly task.
Acts - The Handbook for Mission
The bible is full of missionary theology, however it would be impossible to cover everything in just 12 weeks. So Ignition uses the story of the spread of the gospel, as told by Luke in the book of Acts, as a handbook, to understand key principles for mission. Acts helps us recognize our place in the ongoing story of God's amazing purpose for creation. Ignition participants will read though the book of Acts during the week and then come with their reflections to share and learn from each other during the weekly meeting.
Ignition strongly recommends participants do their weekly reading in a public place, if possible. We find reading the bible surrounded by people, who are yet to discover God's love, deeply affects how we understand what we are reading.
Participants will receive 'reading sheets' or journals. These sheets are a helpful tool for reading and reflecting upon the book of Acts, whist reflecting upon the book of Acts.
Missional Exploration
Your missional exploration is the central focus of the course. Your missional experiment is a chance to learn where the learning happens - on the job! It is best to start with something achievable, a mission that you feel passionate about.
What/What is God placing on your heart? Is there a people group or place that God would have you do mission in? Is there an issue that you would like to get involved in? Spend some time with God deciding what your missional project could be. You may decide to join forces with someone else doing OnEARTH or a friend.
OnEARTH will provide for participant 2 intentional experiences of mission to give participants a feel for other cultures as well as a diversity of missional encounters. One will be into another culture either overseas or an indigenous culture and secondly OnEARTH will include an inner city experience working amongst the marginalized living in that place.
[This was adapted from the introduction to week one of the Ignition study by Mark Sayers of Uber]
