Filed under: Book Review, Missional Church | Tags: Christianity, God, gospel, Jesus, Missional, Missional Church
Don’t know why this didn’t publish, but I just found it in my draft file.
I’ve been devouring Darrell Guder’s (and others) foundational book, Missional Church:A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. First published in 1998 this prophetic call for change is both affirming and wrecking many of my ideas and convictions of living as an incarnational community. Two things amaze me. First, is the fact that I am just reading this book now, and second is that, for the most part, this book seems to be completely ignored by most church leaders. I’ve found myself getting so into reading that I actually have to go back and re-read whole sections because there is so much good stuff in here. The writers do a great job of pointing out the fact that the church must be open to change in order to respond not only to the culture surrounding it, but also to what God is doing in that culture. Followers of Jesus must recapture the idea that living as a “church” is not about a building, or offering programs, or even having a weekly time of worship and teaching (as good as those things may or may not be). Following Jesus is, first and foremost, about living together as a sent people: a people on mission to proclaim and demonstrate the in-breaking of the reign (kingdom) of God.
Guder writes (you may have to read this a few times to get the full effect of it):
“It is not hard to see that at many times in the church’s history this central affirmation of good
news [the kingdom of God is at hand] has suffered a pattern of omission or ‘eclipse’. Two tendencies
in the long history of Christendom help to explain this troublesome pattern. First, the church has
tended to separate the news of the reign of God from God’s provision for humanity’s salvation. This
separation has made salvation a private event by dividing ‘my personal salvation’ from the advent of
God’s healing reign over all the world. Second, the church has also tended to envision itself in a
variety of ways unconnected to what must be fundamental for it–its relation to the reign of God.
If it was Jesus’ announcement of the reign of God that first gathered the fledgling church into a
community, and if that church grew and matured around the way that reign found meaning and hope
in His death and resurrection, then the church must always seek its definition with the reign of God
in Jesus as its crucial reference point.”
The question then becomes, what does it mean for a community of God’s people (the local church) to be defined by the fact that “the Kingdom (reign) of God is at hand. How does one as an individual and as part of an intimate community live that out so it is “good news” for the actual community that we live in? I’d love to hear your thoughts and answers, and maybe I’ll post some of mine later.
Filed under: Bio, Missional Church, Missional Living | Tags: convictions, disciple, Following God, God, Incarnational Living, Jesus, Jesus-followers, Spirituality
I spent a lot of time the last few weeks thinking about living as a part of a missional community. How is that began, how is it done, and maybe most importantly, how is it sustained? I was really challenged to get my personal convictions set down so that I can filter my life through them. I know for myself, I have been defined more by institutional (church) convictions then what God has placed in my own heart. In order for me to really live, I need to strive after being the person God calling me to be.
After sharing these with my wife, it was really good to hear that she really liked them and felt she could share them with me (good thing for our future happiness and our marriage 
). I though I would share them here and then develop them over the next few weeks with you. Hopefully this will do 2 things. One, help me flesh this out in my own life, and Two, challenge others (you) to think through your own personal convictions. I’m beginning to believe more and more, that until individuals really have a handle on their own personal calling, we are unable to live missionally either as individuals or as a community.
All of these come from the context of desiring to put the reality of the Kingdom of God on display for others around me to see and experience. Also, I want to be known more and more for what I am for and what I give to others, and less for what I am against or what I desire from others. So having said all that, here you go:
1. The world doesn’t understand grace, I need to live it out for them to see.
2. Church is who we are and what we do together, not where we go or how we gather.
3. I’m blessed to bless others. I need to constantly be looking to give something back especially to the community I live in.
4. Loving my wife and kids takes priority over everything else and shows off Jesus in the process.
5. Following Jesus is meant to be done together. We need others to walk with us on the journey.
6. Injustice and oppression breaks God’s heart and it needs to break mine as well. When I see it (locally or globally) I need to respond.
I really appreciate whatever feedback you can give me on these, wether you agree or disagree with them. And perhaps even more, I’d love to hear what convictions you come up with to guide your life. I’m looking forward to developing each these in the next week or so. Stay tuned…
Filed under: Bio, Missional Church, Missional Living | Tags: Christianity, God, incarnate, Incarnational Living, Jesus, Love, loving others, Messy people, Missional, serve, Spirituality, toxic people
We all have “those” kind of people in our lives. Wether they are friends, family members, or ex’s, there is always that one person who has made bad choice after bad choice to the point that their lives are in ruin. Many times we label them with words like leeches, losers, or just plain toxic, And if “yours” is like “mine”, then you know that when they call you, their life is in a state of crisis, and more often then not they need some kind of help. To be totally honest, I hate answering those phone calls, I dread returning those messages, and I make excuse after excuse to put it off. Yesterday I got one of those calls…
He needed a ride to get some money or he were going to be kick out of his one room studio. It was an emergency. I had things to do, I had to go to work in a few hours, and I really had no desire to again enter into his life and be confronted with all of the chaos and hurt. I really just wanted to say I was too busy to help.
So, at 8:30 in the morning, I drove downtown to pick him up and hear the whole story. He had gone on a drinking binge (again), got in a fight with his girlfriend, and she left, taking what little they had. This caused a downward spiral into a deeper multi-day drinking binge, and now he was broke, lonely, and on the verge of being homeless. I had already resolved not to allow myself to believe his excuses, or to lend any money, but there was something about the way he kept telling me, “I really f-ed this up”, that made me realize that God was already working here.
I wish I could say that in our brief time together in the car he surrendered to the way of Jesus, miraculously was healed of his alcohol addiction, turned his life around, and found a few thousand dollars on the street. Instead, we found a way to get him enough money to pay this months rent (he even offered gas money to me), and we had a few disjointed conversations about God and His love for all people. He gave me the classic line that he was already on his way to hell, but he didn’t understand why bad things happened to the “good” people he knew. He’d given up on God but he didn’t understand why God had given up on others. Amid his ramblings I tried to share that God did care about him, and that He wanted the best for him, to experience real life. It was in the middle of this that he uttered these words that nearly brought me to tears, “I know that, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
Wow, are you serious! Really. I didn’t want to be there. I really didn’t have any hope for him, and would have done anything to avoid being there. And yet, in spite of myself, God allowed his love to be incarnated in me! To this hopeless man, I appeared as the love of God. What an honor.
I dropped him of at his apartment, told him I loved him, and that he would be in my prayers, and that was the end of it. I don’t know what will happen next, I don’t even know how much of his story was true. But I do know that God’s love showed up in my car yesterday, without me even really wanting it to, and it got me thinking. How many other people in my life are searching desperately for the love of God, but no one is showing up to revel it to them? How many of us miss out on chances to be Jesus to others because we’re to busy, or because it is too mess?. And how many people are just waiting to be able to say to us,
“I know that God loves me, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
Filed under: Bible, Missional Living | Tags: Bible, Christianity, Christians, God, Grace, James 2, Jesus, Judgement, Love, mercy, Post-Christian, Spirituality
This might be beating a dead (or dying) horse, but here goes anyway.
As I was writing in my last post, I want to be known by what I do and what I am for. To often our society stereotypes and categorizes people and beliefs by what they are against: Republicans are against big government, Democrats are against the wealthy, Christians are against homosexuals, and reasonable people should be against any coffee shop with stores on every corner. OK maybe not that last one, but I think you get the point. Perhaps we define ourselves and other by what we are not because its easier to see what we hate in others then in ourselves, and by extension can say “I’ll never be/do that.” Yet the reality is, that all of us, when faced with the right circumstances are capable of the darkest evil. In my reading today I came across this thought in James 2.
“Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!”
Wow, mercy triumphs over judgement. I may be reading too much into that, but is it saying that rather then judging people by what they do or think, we are called to speak and act out of mercy?
And what is the law that gives freedom? As I understand scripture, it’s grace. The new law of Jesus is based on the fact that all of us are offered forgiveness that we do not deserve. That we all blow it and fall way short of what God created us to be. James seems to be reminding followers of Jesus that, as those who have been forgiven solely because of God’s love, we need to treat others the same way. How quickly do I forget. If anyone in the world should be agents of forgiveness, love, and reconciliation, it should be Christians who rest their entire faith and eternity on these things.
Perhaps that is what is bothering me the most. Rather then being know for what we (Christians) are against, we need to stand for what we are for. How much different would our world be, if, when people thought of Christians, they thought of the most loving, forgiving, inclusive, and creative people they knew. Maybe, it’s time for us to reframe our culture’s view of Christians. Maybe it’s time we take a stand for who we are. It can be done, but it can only be done by each of us living it out. What are we waiting for?
Filed under: Missional Living, Quotes | Tags: Busyness, God, Pleasure, Quiet Time, Spirituality, Worship
I’ve been thinking a lot the last couple days about about how I worship God in the midst of my busyness. How do I, as a lover of Him, bring Him glory and pleasure when I don’t really have time to breathe let alone go to a worship gathering, remember to pray, or spend some time reading my Bible. Sure I have time in the evenings after work, dinner, and getting the kids to bed, but then I am so freaking tired all I want to is veg out. I’ve heard the old, “wake up earlier”, “if you really wanted to you’d make it a priority”, and “do it anyway till you like it” theories, and there is probably truth to them, but things just don’t seem to work that way in my world. Can anyone else relate to this busyness dilemma? Am I suddenly a second class follower of Jesus? Is God frustrated at me just as I am frustrated with my schedule? I think part of the guilt/conviction I am feeling is do to all the “spiritual success” stories I hear about “Super-Christians” and their awesome 3 hour quiet time, but another part is do to my limited (and incorrect) view of what worship and connecting with God really is. Spend some time to read this quote from Michael Frost’s book Exiles:Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture a couple times:
“G.K. Chesterton was noted as having quipped, ‘I think God is the only child left in the universe, and all the rest of us have grown old and cynical because of sin.’ Like a child giggling with the attention paid by its parents, God derives enormous pleasure from receiving attention. The Scottish athlete and missionary Eric Liddell, portrayed by Ian Charleson in the film Chariots of Fire, is quoted as having said, ‘I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.”With this kind of faith exiles should be able to acknowledge that the whole of our lives can be God-directed and therefore God-glorifying. When our chief end is to please God, running fast isn’t about personal glory or being the best in the world; it is about giving pleasure to God. Likewise, a life lived in order to give God pleasure will mean that our choices, our preferences, our desires become subservient to our greater end.
Thus, loving the Lord, or enjoying the Lord, or obeying the Lord, or even accepting the Lord’s salvation in the first place–all these are means of serving the chief end, which is to please the Lord. Nurses please God when they perform the Gold-glorifying work of healing the sick. Teachers do it when telling the truth to students. Runners do it when running fast. And as we cooperate more and more with God’s unstoppable goal of self-glorifying, we bring increased pleasure to God and to ourselves. Like Jesus, we will literally glow.
Why is it that many worship pastors seem to suggest that the primary way we give God pleasure is through sung worship? Was Liddell worshipping God on the track at the Paris Olympics? Do I worship God when I meet with my local politician to raise his or her awareness of global poverty? Do we worship God when we choose to protect the environment over which we’ve been granted stewardship? I think so. Our whole lives are to be lived in praise of God, as expressions of God’s glory, adding to the enjoyment that God has in God’s self and in the outworking of the divine purposes on this planet.”
Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, and whatever you find yourself busily doing this week, may you do it all well, to the pleasure of God. And in that, may you find great pleasure in spite of the busyness. Much grace to you.
Filed under: Missional Church, Quotes | Tags: Christianity, Church, Faith, God, Jesus, Religion
I ran across this quote the other day and thought it was interesting enough to write it down. Let me know what you think.
“The religious suppose that only the religious know about God or care about God, and that God cares only for the religious. Characteristically, religion is precious and possessive toward God, and institutes and conducts itself as if God really needs religion, as if His existence depends on the recognition of religion. Religion considers that God is a secret disclosed only in the discipline and practice of religion. But all this is most offensive to the Word of God. The best news of God is that He is no secret. The news of God embodied in Jesus Christ is that God is openly and notoriously active in the world. In this news the Christian Church is constituted; it is this news which the Christian Church exists to spread…The Church, unlike any religion, exists to present to the world and to celebrate in the world, and on behalf of the world, God’s presence and power and utterance and action in the on-going life of the world.”
From 1962; “A Private and Public Faith”, by William Stringfellow
Filed under: Bible, Missional Church | Tags: Bible, God, Jesus, Missional Living, Spirituality
Each week I hope to post the Scriptures we will be discussing on Sunday evenings. Please feel free (or even obligated) to post some of your own thoughts here. If you are unable to be a part of our gathering on Sunday evenings please consider including your insights, questions, and comments here. Think of it as a virtual invitation into our discussion. All are welcome, and no point of view is excluded.
This past weekend we looked at the first part of what I think is one of the most interesting parts of Scripture, Jesus’ prayer in John 17. This week we are continuing that process as we discuss Jesus praying for His followers:
John 17:13-26
“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
A few observations and questions jump out to me. Obviously, Jesus’ desire is that His followers remain in the world, but He makes a very interesting statement when He says “As You sent me into the world, I have sent them”. How was Jesus sent? And what the heck does it mean to be sanctified and why/how did Jesus do that to Himself?
Jesus also makes it pretty clear how His followers are to be know. How are we (His followers) doing with that? What can we do differently to be more know by our love, unity, and connection with Jesus?
Here are some additional Scriptures that really got me thinking about those questions (and a whole lot more). I’d love to read your comments on how they intersect (if at all) with Jesus’ prayer and how His followers are called to live. Don’t be shy, post a comment.
John 3:16-21
Matthew 5:13-16
John 12:44-50
Matthew 13:24-43
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Filed under: Bio, Institutional Church | Tags: Fired, God, Institutional Church, Life After Church, Missional, Spirituality
The next day the senior pastor asked to speak with me. The elders had held a meeting the night before where they discussed vision, so I was excited to hear about what happened, and the next steps of discussing our mission to the community. The conversation didn’t go the way I had thought it would. To make a long story short I was basically told (I still remember the exact words), “That left the question of whether there was a place for you…and the answer was no.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This was so not the way I envisioned getting fired. I wanted to make a big splash, and yet I suddenly felt so free. Everything changed in that instant. My life as I knew it, comfortable, safe, frustrated–was done. I went home and told Liza the news. We just sat and looked at each other not knowing really what the hell we were going to do, and yet really knowing that God brought us to this place.
It was almost as if He was saying “You didn’t give up, you didn’t burn bridges, you didn’t leave when I wanted you to, when I stirred your heart, and you weren’t going to leave now, but I took care of it anyway” God worked in a way that both of us could undoubtedly see His hand, and know or sure that we were where he wanted us. So we started to dream again…
Filed under: Bio, Institutional Church | Tags: Dysfunctional Church, God, Institutional Church, Jesus, Life After Church, Vision
Over that next month I met with three of the six elders. I expressed my concerns, the lack of mission and direction, and some of my dreams. To my surprise they all agreed. Each of them suggested that they were feeling the same way, and that they were working toward change. I actually found myself optimistic again when talking to them, but back in the day to day grind of “church work” felt the same intense pressure to run and hide. Depending on the day, I was cautiously optimistic or utterly depressed. I kept asking God for direction, for Him to show me what I was supposed to do, and for Him to do it so I would know it was Him working and not my own arrogance or pride.
The day after a very positive meeting with an elder the senior pastor began our staff meeting by saying “We need to talk about direction and what we as a church want to focus on.”
Are you kidding me! I almost jumped out of my chair I was so excited! We proceeded to listen to him lay out what he thought the vision of the church should be, and while I didn’t agree 100% with it, I was so excited to be talking about practical issues of change and movement that I didn’t really care. I remember going down to get soda for lunch and telling the person with me (who knew all about my struggles) that “I think I can actually stay here if we are going to start talking like this”. Looking back at it even now I can see the same old pattern of dysfunction, but at the time everything seemed new. We finished the meeting and I went home and told Liza how optimistic I was feeling. She smiled at me knowingly…
