sentness

This video is a wonderful picture of two things:...

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:32:53 -0500

This video is a wonderful picture of two things: Gospel-centered communities living on mission together and church as family. May God multiply these kinds of communities exponentially, for his Glory, and may it happen in my lifetime. Live sent!

Understanding the Missional Church

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:23:00 -0500

Understanding the Missional Church:

The link above contains a very concise explanation and history of the term “missional” from someone in my tribe, the EFCA.

Reactions? Is this assessment correct? What’s missing, if anything, from the author’s take on missional?

Personally, I’m thankful for the article and especially the following paragraph. “The missional conversation goes much deeper than strategy. In fact, most advocates of the missional church idea are opposed to programmatic or formulaic approaches. Rather, the core concern and motivation is a rediscovery of the biblical teaching of the Church as a missionary people.”

Amen and amen. Shout it from the rooftops. Too many people peg missional as strategy alone. It’s not. It’s an identity. I am missional because God is a missionary God. Through the redeeming work of Christ every believer is, de facto, a missionary like God himself and Christ his sent one. And what is this mission of ours? It’s the Holy Spirit directed spontaneous expansion of the Church among the nations, to the glory of God and the joy of His people.

I just wish more churches would contemplate the Bible’s theology of “sentness” instead of casually going about business as usual. Much is at stake. The fields are ripe for harvest. What we believe matters greatly and deeply affects how we express this cherished entity called the Church.

I believe the default posture of the believer (therefore the church too) is one of being centered on Christ and sent by him. If we lack sentness about our lives we just might lack the fullness of Jesus in our lives. Jesus on tap yields sentness. May Christ reign supreme so that his church lives sent!

"The evangelical church will not survive unless it aggressively pursues unchurched lost people..."

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:35:48 -0500

“The evangelical church will not survive unless it aggressively pursues unchurched lost people outside its ‘four walls.’ It must adopt an ‘invasion’ or ‘penetration’ mentality. The days have long passed when the church could sit back and wait for lost people to come to it.”

- Aubrey Malphurs, Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992), 117.

On Your Face Before God, On Your Feet for His Mission

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:37:00 -0500

On Your Face Before God, On Your Feet for His Mission:

I love this blog post from Trevin Wax. He’s right on. Thought I’d share this.

Cancer, A Theology of Suffering, and Missional Living-Part 2

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:29:00 -0600

Recently, Miriam and I have been reading the Metaxas biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy together. Early in the book Metaxas writes about the death of Dietrich’s older brother Walter during World War I and the effect it had on the Bonhoeffer family. The legacy of faith passed on to Bonhoeffer by his godly mother, Paula, can be seen by her choice of Walter’s funeral hymn Was Gott tut, das ist Wohlgetan (What God Ordains is Always Good) by Samuel Rodigast. One stanza says this,

What God has done, it is well done. His will is always just. Whatever He will do to me, In Him I’ll ever place my trust.

As Miriam was reading these words an email arrived from my mother. A couple of weeks back I wrote about my mother’s ongoing battle with cancer and how her cancer has made her more missional. (You can read that first post here.) This second letter builds upon the first and further elaborates what God has been teaching her through her trial. Her words are eerily similar to the truth that Rodigast’s hymn proclaims. Below is the transcript; she’s granted me permission to share this.

Dear Eric and Miriam,

A year and a half ago I was beginning to sense an unsettling presence of discontentment in my spiritual life. While studying the life of King David I was totally awe struck at his GREAT FAITH and how God displayed His awesome POWER. I seriously searched my heart: Lord, I am afraid I have little faith! Although not consciously aware, wasn’t this in fact a prayer for trials. How will I ever know I have faith unless my faith is tested.

This is what I am learning: you can depend on the fact that God often sends trials in order for us to discover our gifts. His goal for me is not merely discovering them, but the real growth is understanding and experiencing the comforts of His divine grace in the midst of my Holy trial. I call this a Holy trial because my cancer is God’s perfect design for me. He designed this test/trial to suit me. Something had to challenge me to trust Him and so it is with certain assurance that the Lord will either deliver me quickly or He will sustain me through this trial for as long as He desires to test me. The supernatural confidence, patience, and perseverance He has given me PROVES the power of Divine Grace. “I have tried you in the furnace of affliction,” Isaiah 48:10. I can confidently say; let affliction come, God has chosen me. Sickness may intrude my life, but I have a remedy close at hand: God has chosen me. Whatever may come my way, I know: He has chosen me.

This is what I have learned: If it were not for experiencing the storms in life I would never know for sure that His work was true and strong. If the powerful winds never blew I would not know how firm and secure the Holy Spirit’s work. Therefore I choose to remain steadfast and immovable even in the midst of my difficulty. C.H. Spurgeon said, “I truly believe if one desires to glorify God, one has to be prepared to come to terms with the fact he will face many trials.”

Thank you Lord, may my momentary light affliction bring great honor to the gospel and be a testimony to your word. And so “great faith” will venture ahead. I choose to keep my eye continually focused on Him, to let my heart be full of Him and to let my lips speak of His great worth. He is infinitely worthy, infinitely good, and infinitely just. When I pillow my head at night I give thanks for what He is going to do and I rest in perfect peace, perfect joy, and unwavering faith because my hope and expectation is in Him. As my sovereign Lord awakens me morning by morning may I not leave His presence until I thank Him for His new and fresh mercies. “Great is your faithfulness” to me, Lamentations 3:21-23.

Growing in Him,

Mom

Mom, thanks for modeling a life of faith for the next generation. You are a living example of Paul’s words in Romans 5:3-5.

Rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Your hope will not put you to shame! May you know more of Christ today than yesterday. Love you Mom! Continue to live sent!

"We affirm that Christ sends his redeemed people into the world as the Father sent him, and that this..."

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:43:50 -0600

“We affirm that Christ sends his redeemed people into the world as the Father sent him, and that this calls for a similar deep and costly penetration of the world. We need to break out of our ecclesiastical ghettos and permeate non-Christian society. In the Church’s mission of sacrificial service evangelism is primary. World evangelization requires the whole Church to take the whole gospel to the whole world…. The goal should be, by all available means and at the earliest possible time, that every person will have the opportunity to hear, understand, and to receive the good news.”

- The Lausanne Covenant

The Choice Before Us

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:41:45 -0600

“There exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. So we must strive very hard, by the grace of God, to keep the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it.”

~ C.S. Lewis

I want to begin with a story. It’s the story of the Church. Once upon a time, and for almost two thousand years, the Church enjoyed a prominent and important place in society, America included. The Church was a culturally significant and respected institution. In this period of time called Christendom the Church stood at the epicenter of culture.

As the center of society, the Church had tremendous authority and influence. Like E.F. Hutton, when the Church spoke, people listened. Universities listened. The Media listened. Businesses listened. Governments listened. These institutions were guided by the wisdom dispensed by the Church. And in many cases, people sought out the Church to find the answers to the big questions of life. And it was the happiest of days for this thing called the Church.

But in the United States, as had already happened in Western Europe, something changed. A seismic shift occurred. The nature of that shift can be illustrated by a seemingly innocuous event one sleepy Sunday evening in Greenville, South Carolina, 1963. That night the Fox Theater defied the state’s time-honored blue laws and opened for business. Unbeknownst to most, Christendom in America was mortally wounded.

In the words of Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon,

“That evening has come to represent a watershed in the history of Christendom…On that night, Greenville, South Carolina—the last pocket of resistance to secularity in the Western world—served notice it would no longer be a prop for the Church. There would be no more free passes for the Church, no more free rides. The Fox Theater went head to head with the Church over who would provide the world view for the young. That night in 1963, the Fox Theater won the opening skirmish.”

Ever since, the cultural landscape in America has changed dramatically.The Church is no longer the central institution in Western society. It’s been dethroned—marginalized by an increasingly secularized culture. With its influence diminished the Church has now become just one of any number of different places that people go to find Truth and Meaning. Optimistically, a few might still look to the Church for answers. The reality, however, is that the Church has become culturally insignificant.

Even though these seismic changes have radically altered the way our culture relates to the Church, the Church has not adapted in response. Consequently, the Church finds itself in a precarious position. Consider the following statistics from a previous post.

34% of the U.S. adult population has not attended any type of church service during the past 6 months

6 out of 10 unchurched people consider themselves to be Christian

1 out of every 3 is unchurched (73 million adults)

Since 1991, the adult population in the US has grown by 15%, and during the same period the number of adults who do not attend church has nearly doubled (39 million to 75 million)

Roughly half of all churches in America didn’t add one new person through conversion growth last year

These numbers are dated, conservative, and the trend is accelerating the Church toward precipitous decline. Without massive change, might the Church’s lampstand in the West be removed? What should be done? How should the Church seek to reach a culture that continually pays less and less attention to it? What are the churches options? They are twofold. The choice is before us.

The first option is attractional in nature and consumeristic at heart. It says this, “we the Church must out-compete the other influences vying for people’s attention.” Over the last fifty years Evangelicals have believed that if we could get people to come through the front doors of a building we might be able to win people over with good coffee and a smorgasbord of relevant, felt-need related programs. Many churches have become, as Alan Hirsch puts it, expert “vendors of religious goods and services.”

In fact, you name it and the Church has tried it in order to get people through its doors. In many ways, we’ve adopted a Field of Dreams mindset. “If you build it (attractive facilities, programs, preaching center, etc.) they will come.” Sometimes it has worked. On occasion, people have stayed and found Christ. But most churches simply don’t have the kind of resources to out-compete a Disneyland and grab people’s attention long enough to hold them. A select few churches, those with a plentitude of resources, have often grown very large ministering this way. The mega-church movement is proof positive of this. Sadly enough, one of the unintended results of the mega-church movement has been the cannibalization of under-resourced churches that simply can’t compete. With the residue of Christendom not wholly washed away churches may continue to see modest success ministering this way, but not enough to fully reverse the decline.

And yet, Christians continue to think that this strategy will work; that the decline might be reversed. But it won’t. Eventually the final residue of Christendom will wear off and the Church will exist in a fully post-Christendom society. While we wait to get our act together the darkness over the land continues to creep and spread.

There is, however, an alternative; a second, better, and forgotten way. In this second option the church responds to this seismic cultural shift, decentralizes and sends itself. The culture won’t come to us so we must go to it. I want to suggest to you that unless we adopt this second way of doing church, we will continue to grow increasingly irrelevant to the culture around us.

The exciting thing is this model of ministry is nothing new or even all that radical. I think Jesus intended this decentralized way of life in mind from the very beginning. John 20:19-21 says,

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

Our job as followers of the Way is to send ourselves in response to Jesus’ command. We have to take the light of Christ to the darkness. Empowered by the Holy Spirit we must send ourselves in obedience to Jesus. This posture is what I call “sentness” and it is critically important for the future health and well-being of God’s church.

So, the Church in the West is at a crossroads with a choice. M. Scott Boren eloquently summarizes this choice when he says,

“We can fight to reestablish the church as a physical place where certain things happen. We can work harder to compete with society, to out-entertain and lure people in with as much pomp and circumstance as a church can afford. Or, we can become a church on a mission.”

For the glory of God and the health of his Church, I choose the latter. Live sent!

"It is surely a fact of inexhaustible significance that what our Lord left behind Him was not a book,..."

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 08:50:00 -0600

“It is surely a fact of inexhaustible significance that what our Lord left behind Him was not a book, nor a creed, nor a system of thought, nor a rule of life, but a visible community. He committed the entire work of salvation to that community. It was not that a community gathered round an idea, so that the idea was primary and the community secondary. It was that a community called together by the deliberate choice of the Lord Himself, and re-created in Him, gradually sought - and is seeking - to make explicit who He is and what He has done. The actual community is primary; the understanding of what it is comes second.”

- Lesslie Newbigin

Cancer, A Theology of Suffering, and Missional Living

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:27:00 -0600

Our living on mission with Jesus shouldn’t grind to a halt due to illness or difficulty or pain. However, most of us do not have an adequate understanding of the sovereignty of God or a theology of suffering that is robust enough to see how our pain, weakness and brokenness can further the mission of Christ and God’s glory. Our bodies are jars of clay (2 Cor. 4:7). It is precisely those times of weakness and brokenness that God wants to use to shine the light of Christ to a world in need of light and hope. Those fissures and cracks in the jar, they’re meant to further the mission of Christ—if we would only let God work through us.

Below is the transcript of an email from my mother that I received last week. She’s granted me permission to share this note. Presently, she’s facing a second round of cancer. She believes, and I concur, her cancer is God’s gift to her right now for the benefit of others. She writes,

Dear Family,

I have just completed my first chemo treatment, but what made it an exceptionally good day was to be able to share about our Lord. He provides so many of these opportunities if only we just walk across the room. I also want to express my deepest gratitude for everyone of you and especially your faithful prayers on my behalf. Thank you! Upon receiving my current diagnosis I have soberly sought the Lord through self examination. My life is willingly open and laid bare before His word, open to His eyes, and open with whom I must give an account.

THIS IS WHAT I HAVE LEARNED. We can go a long time thinking that we are just fine, spiritually great, and spiritually healthy. We have become experts in self deception and projecting images of ourselves that are far from reality. But life continues to go on. A little slumber a little sleep. When will we WAKE UP? That wake up call for me was the second diagnosis of cancer. I am so thankful that I can rest in God’s sovereignty that what He permits, He permits for a reason, and that reason is His design. How can I not embrace His perfect design for my life without wholehearted gratitude and devotion to Him? No cross, no crown. This truth has totally anchored and sustained me and has given me a boldness and confidence in my spirit that I can go forward with great faith and expectation because He is in control. I am driven to His Word and like a skillful surgeon so His Word begins to cut to the bone.

THIS IS WHAT I AM HEARING! Do we belong to God? Do we live to glorify Jesus? Are we willing to be reproached for Christ’s glory? Oh how I pray this is true for all of us. I am confronted by Him and His standards not by my standards. His motives not my hidden motives. As He exposes pride, complacency, selfishness, critical spirit, impatience, bitterness, unforgiveness, comparisonitis, procrastination, jealousy, greed, self-centeredness, he is exposing the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack. These are deadly sins and cancers of the heart. How this must grieve a Holy God. Can we say like Paul that nothing good dwells in us. John Piper has said ” the aim of God in your cancer is to knock out the props from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on Him.” May God cut these sins out of our hearts. I don’t want to waste my cancer but I receive it as a gift that God will be glorified in this cancer.

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS! Heb.4:16. His word heals, restores, strengthens and forgives, therefore, we can come boldly with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive grace and mercy to help in time of need. Hallelujah! I am learning to let the Word reign in my life so that God can reign in my life. Our Lord wants a penitent revived people for His own possession. May His name be highly exalted because He is infinitely worthy. Let us go forth in obedience and bring glory to His name.

God be praised
His Word believed
His name be trusted

Christ’s love to all,

Sue Hesse

Very few people I know have lived life with as great a passion for disciple-making as my mother. She eats, sleeps, and breathes making disciples who make disciples. Here’s the beautiful thing about my mother’s life right now. If she were perfectly healed this instant, that wouldn’t be the real miracle. What you’ve just read, the work God’s doing on the inside, that’s the real miracle. Without a doubt cancer has made my mother more missional than before. Please pray for her health like I do. But please know this, restored health is not my mother’s greatest desire. She’s already been promised restored health in Christ—it will happen either in this life or the next. That’s a given. Cancer cannot win. More importantly, pray that the transforming grace of Christ, which is so powerfully at work in my mother’s life right now, might be multiplied to others through her cancer. Pray that the divine odor of Christ would spread everywhere the fragrant knowledge of him.

Mom, I love you! Continue to live sent!

Be Missional, Not Superficially Contextual

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:08:35 -0600

Be Missional, Not Superficially Contextual:

Check out this excellent blog post by Jonathan Dodson on contextualization and the missional church. Good stuff!

"Mission is not primarily concerned with church growth. It is primarily concerned with the reign and..."

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:04:28 -0600

“Mission is not primarily concerned with church growth. It is primarily concerned with the reign and rule of the Triune God.”

- David Bosch

Year in Review

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:43:00 -0600

A hearty thank you to everyone who’s read and followed the blog this year. As a noob to blogging this whole endeavor has been quite the learning experience for me. Consistent, thoughtful, original blogging is extremely rewarding but also hard work and quite rare. I have a few resolutions and goals in mind for 2012 to make the blog better, the first of which is more consistent posting. I welcome your input and suggestions too. How can I make this blog better? How can I best serve you?

Happy New Year. May you know more of Christ in 2012 than in all previous years combined. Live sent!

PS The most popular post of 2011 was one entitled Where does ‘sentness’ come from?

Occupy Bethlehem

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:24:00 -0600

For the past four months we’ve been inundated with images and stories of protesters occupying Wall Street. Lest we become shortsighted and forget, the first occupy movement began 2000 years ago. Occupy Bethlehem.

The Christmas story is the story of God’s invasion of Bethlehem. To occupy it. Christmas is the story of God’s dissatisfaction with our status quo and his protestation of our condition.

Motivated by love, Christmas is the story of God taking action through Christ to redistribute heavenly riches to the 99%.

You waste Christmas if you reject God’s occupy movement.

Christmas is not about what you offer to God or what you offer to others. It’s not about your occupation of Bethlehem. Christmas is about what God offers to you. To quote my friend, “the incarnation is God’s claim on us, not ours on him. He is the invader.” It’s his occupation. It’s his plan to redistribute the riches of his grace to the oppressed 99%, to you and to me.

The reason this first occupation was so significant, significant enough that the ripples are still being felt today, is because the infinite God, the one who laid the earth’s foundation, who marked of its dimensions, who laid its cornerstone, this God took on flesh. The [eternal] Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. God occupied humanity in the person of Jesus.

This wedding of the infinite and the finite in the person of Christ doesn’t mean that God changed into flesh but simply that God, the infinite and unchangeable, took on humanity without changing his original nature. In other words, “remaining what he was, he became what he was not.” This occupation, God with us in the person of Christ, is God’s radical protestation of our condition. It’s the start of his unfathomably beautiful plan through Christ to redistribute heavenly riches to the 99%.

For God was God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Do you realize how much God the Father has loved you? Have you comprehended the extraordinary lengths he has taken to reconcile you to himself? Spiritually speaking, do you recognize that you are part of the oppressed 99%? Without hope, destitute and spiritually bankrupt? This Christmas can you affirm the hope of Incarnation as expressed in the Nicene Creed?

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

You waste Christmas if you reject God’s occupy movement, the incarnation of Christ for you.

This Christmas you too have been invited to come to the Bethlehem stable. A place as far from Wall Street as you can get. You come, not to occupy it, but to be occupied. Christmas is not about what you offer to God or what you offer to others. It’s not about your occupation of Bethlehem. Christmas is about what God offers to you. God is the invader. It’s his occupation.

The hope of Christmas is that if God can take on flesh and occupy humanity he can occupy your life. Through Christ his plan is to distribute the riches of his grace and mercy and love and forgiveness to the oppressed 99%, to you. All that God asks is that you join his protest movement, that you too protest your condition and welcome his occupation receiving the one he has sent. This Christmas, through faith in the one God has sent, may the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace occupy your heart and mind multiplying your joy and delight. Merry Christmas.

Why corporate church won’t work

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:58:39 -0600

Why corporate church won’t work:

Really interesting blog post by Breen. What do you think?

Disciples or Consumers? I’ve been contemplating...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:59:19 -0600

Disciples or Consumers?

I’ve been contemplating disciple-making quite a bit recently and I remembered this video put out last year by the Verge Network. Thought it was worth looking at again.

"It seems we work very hard to insulate ourselves from the very world Jesus says we should be focused..."

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 11:27:30 -0500

“It seems we work very hard to insulate ourselves from the very world Jesus says we should be focused on. It seems we have created, without malicious design, a Christian bubble—an evangelical subculture—where Christians live surrounded only by other Christians, and as a result, there are few among the lost whom we get to know intimately. Christian experts tell us how to raise our kids, how to handle our finances, what music to buy, what movies to see, and which books to read. The bubble is complete. But God is on a mission outside the bubble.”

- Ed Stetzer & Philip Nation, Compelled by Love, p.33.

A Second Reformation

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 07:08:38 -0500

This coming Monday marks the anniversary of one of the world’s most famous, unintentional protests. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther sent a letter to Albert of Mainz which contained a document entitled, “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences.” More famously known as The Ninety-Five Theses, this disputation, or protest, sparked the Protestant Reformation.

Since everybody, from Wall Street to California, is protesting and since the anniversary of the Ninety-Five Theses is coming up, I thought I’d get in on the action too.

Below is a list, the product of a prayer retreat with my EFCA Missional Architect peeps earlier this year in Estes, CO. The list is not meant to be incendiary; it’s motivated by love. We are not anti-Church. We love our tribe, the EFCA. And we love the Church, the bride of Christ. However, the Church in the West needs a Second Reformation. If there was some central door to the “Institutional Church” I’d nail this list there.

Every believer is a residential missionary. The church does not send missionaries, rather, sent ones are the church and God has sent already sent her.

We believe in missional partnership rather than church membership.

Sentness must be in every church activity or program. We believe that God, starting with Abraham, has always sent his people to accomplish his purposes in the world. If the church lacks sentness it is not functioning as the people of God should.

The Irreducible Core of the Christian life: Love God, love others and make disciples is the DNA for disciple making and organizational structures rather than the institutional church serving itself (e.g., how do we make budget and grow and keep the consumer Christians happy).

Being missional is not an evangelistic strategy, nor a program, or an appendage of the church. Rather, living missionally needs to be in every disciple and every process by which we make disciples.

We believe a missional movement will not take lightly the issues of injustice in the world.

If the Holy Spirit does not direct, the church has no hope. Too many church strategies are based upon resources, or good wisdom or a “hunch” about the future. We do not ask the Spirit of God to bless our ministry, rather we ask the Spirit how to join him in the ministry he already is blessing.

God is at work in the world as much as he is at work in the church. Missional disciples experience a fullness of Jesus because we live with him in both spaces.

Doing always flows out of being. Churches with staff must have regular communal practices to hear from the Father. If not, ministry flows from human giftedness and effort, not God.

Authentic community is ‘family on mission.’ And churches need both community and mission. We cannot be solely focused on tasks which mirror the corporate church nor can we just focus on the inter-personal relationships which neglect the needs of the world.

We believe that our Lord intended his followers to live his way of life, not merely believe the propositions that he has taught. Disciple making must be more than a Western educational experience where we download mere information. Rather, we must teach and pass down a lifestyle. “That’s why I have sent Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. He will remind you of how I follow Christ Jesus, just as I teach in all the churches wherever I go.” 1 Corinthians 4:17.

Mission flows out of conversational intimacy with Jesus.

God is in the church as much as he is in the world. The church must be led together to see where he is already working in the world.

We believe that parents should be equipped to teach their kids how to live on holy mission more than how to avoid “PG-13” movies. Teenagers know about morality but their faith is boring because they lack mission. (1 Peter 2:9).

We need conversational intimacy with our great God –individually, in our families as well as our spiritual families.

We expect miracles and experiences which can only be explained by a transcendent God and thus the church can no longer be closed to the gifts of the Spirit.

Autonomous in governance, yet the local church should not be independent of each other. We need to be inter-connected (yes, financially) to love all people, especially the poor. Our current models of church favor the rich and our (EFCA) districts lack the unity to love all people. This autonomous ‘spirit’ needs to be crucified.

Starting churches is insufficient because we never assume Jesus or the Gospel when we speak of church or community. Followers of Jesus must precede a 501c3.

The most fruitful ministry is life on life –organic, not programmatic. As Jesus developed the three, the twelve, and the seventy-two, every shepherd must follow the Great Shepherd’s disciple making example.

We believe we must re-organize our lives and the passions of the church to take serious the command of Jesus to love “the least of these.”

The church decentralized for the purpose of mission is a major contributor to why many churches outside the western world are growing (and perhaps why the church in the western world is declining).

The mission that Jesus launched is different than the church.

We need to be more excited about making disciples than starting churches.

We believe we must be willing to re-think the busyness and activities of the church and if necessary, annihilate their existence if they do not have sentness. If these activities and programs lack sentness it’s proof they already are lacking the Gospel.

We want to see communities where those who are far from Christ can come to belong before they believe or behave. Churches need to re-learn how to have dinner with “tax collectors.”

We believe our church buildings should be missional training centers or missional outposts rather than containers of God’s people.

We believe we must repent of a church culture that has isolated itself from the broader culture.

We believe the church should exist as a missional community of hope that blesses the world around it. We are FOR the world, not AGAINST it.

Being missional means that we brag less about a spectacular ministry and brag more about a sincere heart (2 Cor. 5:12).

Preaching without the cross isn’t Christianity.

Incarnational ministry does not mean that we are merely a distributor of goods and services to the poor, but that we know the names, the faces, and the stories of those in need. We consider them to be friends.

Social justice needs reconciliation with God at its foundation or it is humanism.

Leadership is not about methods, models, styles or forms; it is about character and one’s calling from God. Qualifications for ministry come from God.

A seminary degree is not a requirement for leading a church –the character of Christ and the gifting/calling of the Spirit is.

Apostolic and prophetic ministry should have a customary place among us.

Gospel drift results from missional shift. Consumerism is the god of this church age and leaders are happy to keep feeding the monster if it means they still get a paycheck.

We have taught a Gospel which emphasizes being a good moral person rather than a dangerous disciple on the mission of Jesus.

Christians should be nourished by the Word of God and then act to obey. Christians today have more information from Bible studies than they can ever put into practice.

Never assume that when we speak among Christian leaders of multiplying churches or even the Gospel itself, that we are speaking about Jesus.

Being missional means that Jesus is Lord of all.

We seek out people of peace to open pockets of people to the Gospel (Luke 10:5-6).

We pray to the Lord of the Harvest for laborers of the harvest and EXPECT him to raise them up (Luke 10:2), both leaders for the harvest and leaders from the harvest.

We believe we are called to exegete our local context in the same way a missionary would in a foreign cross-cultural context.

Every believer is called to live on the mission that Jesus launched. Yet, that will often look different for each follower of Jesus.

We believe as Jesus followers that we must be committed to sharing life in a significant way with those who are far from Jesus.

As missional followers of Jesus we believe that we cannot expect people to live up to Biblical standards without the help of the Holy Spirit.

We believe that we must contextualize the message of Jesus for the local culture not the local church culture.

We believe we shall always be searching for intersections between the Gospel, the church and the local culture.

We believe that the discipleship process can occur before the conversion experience.

Here I stand!

A big thanks to Joe Schimmels, our Missional Architect Frontman, who tweaked and massaged this list.

A Luke 10 Way of Life | Part Two

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:18:44 -0500

Part Two of a Four-Part Series (Part One can be found here)

Luke 10:1-12 is a key text for those who want to live a sent life. Here are my presuppositions about this section. Living sent is not for a select few, for professional ministers only, for pastoral staff or missionaries or the extremely gifted. Jesus appointed seventy-two others, the laity, and sent them out to do what he did. With this passage Jesus is explaining how to go about finding the people that will become his disciples. I think this text is describing a way of life for every follower of Jesus.

In Luke 10:3-4 Jesus gives a second directive for how we are to make disciples who make disciples. Jesus simply says, “Go!” Why? Because the fields are ripe for harvest. The crop is dangerously close to rotting in the field. And as we go he sends us with a sense of vulnerability, dependency, and urgency.

Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.

Go Vulnerably

Jesus sends his followers out as vulnerable baby sheep (lambs) among savage wolves. He likens the task of finding and making disciples to a high stakes mission where the sent one might get eaten. Why? Because making disciples is a dangerous proposition. However, sheep in the pen are in no danger or threat of being eaten by our enemy. So Jesus pushes us out of the fold to where his lost sheep are. But our vulnerability in the field isn’t a liability. It’s an opportunity to depend upon Jesus, “that Great Shepherd of the sheep who will equip you with everything good for doing his will,” as Hebrews 13:21 says. We may be vulnerable and powerless, but he isn’t.

Frequently I hear pastors bemoaning the lack of involvement of the men in their congregations. Maybe John Eldredge was right with his book Wild at Heart? Maybe more men aren’t engaged in disciple making because we’ve bored them with our picture of Christianity. Could our desire for a safe, suburban Christian experience have undermined our disciple making mission more than we realize? I have a hunch; recapture the dangerous urgency of the disciple making mission and men will follow.

Go Dependently

Jesus also sends his followers out provisionless. “Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals.” Jesus stripped the seventy-two of the extra, ancillary things unnecessary to the disciple making task. In sending them out provisionless he was preparing them to be dependent on him.

Sometimes I think the wealth of resources available to us here in the West has hindered our disciple making more than it has helped. We’ve become dependent on our wealth, resources, curriculum, clever strategies, ministry fads and latest disciple making schemes so much so that we’ve forgotten how to depend upon the Great Shepherd himself. That Jesus sends his followers out provisionless, utterly dependent on Him for survival and success, tells us something about the disciple making task. He is the only provision we really need. Do you believe that? Does your disciple making activity prove that belief?

Go Urgently

The disciple making task is such an urgent task that Jesus instructs his followers to forgo the lengthy, customary greeting of the day to get on with the business at hand. “Greet no one on the road.” These words scream urgency. Time is of the essence. The harvest fields are white!

Most wide-spread, spontaneous disciple making movements that I can think of off the top of my head have operated with this sense of urgency. Maybe one of the reasons we haven’t seen a disciple making movement in the West is because our churches and families have become urgent about the wrong things. I can think of a hundred other good, church related activities that, frankly, have become more urgent than my calling as a disciple maker.

If you are a church leader here is where you can really model for your people the heart of Jesus. As much as you are able, prayerfully cultivate this sense of urgency. Help your people see what’s at stake. The Amber Alert has already been posted. Lost sheep are in danger of being eaten by wolves. So, sound the alarm but not in an alarmist kind of way. Rally the fold to the Shepherd who will then lead his sheep.

Go vulnerably. Go dependently. Go urgently. Does that describe how you go about making disciples? Live sent!

Coming soon…Part Three

(Part One can be found here)

"It is scarcely possible to overemphasize the centrality of the fame of God in motivating the mission..."

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 15:31:00 -0500

“It is scarcely possible to overemphasize the centrality of the fame of God in motivating the mission of the church.”

- John Piper, The Pleasures of God, Multnomah Publishers, p. 118.

A Luke 10 Way of Life | Part One

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:55:00 -0500

Part One of a Four-Part Series

Luke 10 is an incredibly important text for those who want to live a sent life.

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.

Here are my observations.

Living sent is not for a select few, for the inner circle of disciples or even just the twelve. Living sent is not just for professional ministers or pastoral staff or missionaries or the extremely gifted. Jesus appointed 72 others, the laity if you will. If you call yourself a Christian this mission charge is for you. This text is describing a way of life for every follower of Jesus.

Jesus first models this Kingdom Way of Life in his own ministry. Having modeled it he instructs the twelve to do the same things he did (Luke 9). And then, in a masterstroke that harbingers the promise of the priesthood of all believers, he sends out the Average Joe, seventy-two others. In doing so we must see that he’s also sending us.

In Luke 10:2 Jesus gives his first directive for how every believer is to go about making disciples who make disciples. We are sent to pray fervently.

He told them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’

This is how we are to go about ministry in Jesus’ name. This is the work of ministry. The church will rise or fall, the mission of making disciples who make disciples will either succeed or fail on the strength or feebleness of our prayer life.

Jesus explains why prayer is essential. We pray because the task ahead of us is immense, the harvest is plentiful.

Predisposed by God for the reception of the Gospel, men are likened to a crop of fully ripened grain ready for harvest.

We know the harvest is plentiful. That’s a given. How we go about harvesting is another matter. There are a gazillion books out there that will give you a technique or model to follow in order to see a disciple making movement. In opposition to most of those Jesus says we should pray. We pray because it’s His harvest. Not ours. He owns the fields. He’s the Lord of the Harvest.

If you are tired of trying to manufacture fruitfulness or going it alone then Jesus’ is commanding you to stop, repent of your hubris and self-importance, and begin by praying to him, the Lord of the Harvest. This is a command! Beg the Lord of the Harvest. Plead with him to raise up workers. This is not some weak, half-hearted milquetoast prayer. Nor is it a prayer to raise up workers in some other part of the world for the task of foreign missions. This prayer is a powerful, intense, passionate plea to the Lord of the Harvest concerning the fields right under our noses, the fields we have been sent into.

The unspoken consequences of not praying are clear. Without the hard work of prayer there will never be an adequate harvest, there will never be a sustained movement of reaping. The crop rots in the field. In other words, maybe the reason we haven’t seen a recent disciple-making movement here in the West is because we are trying to manufacture a work of God by means other than prayer.

Last week I had a conversation with a young missionary to France working with Agape Europe. He told me the story of how some from their team had recently traveled to India to observe a church planting movement. Their team longed to see a fresh work of God in Western Europe so they were open to learning something new. What they learned humbled them. Before going to a new village to plant the Gospel, prior to doing anything in Jesus’ name, these simple Indian believers prayed for three months. They simply asked God to show them who he was sending them to.

We have tried to do something similar in our missional community. Instead of wearing ourselves out with activities trying to draw people in we’ve begun to funnel that energy into praying to the Lord of the Harvest. We fully realize that we are the answer to our own prayers. God is sending us out as workers. And we believe he will show us who he is sending us to in our neighborhood when we pray.

Jesus says in John 6:29,

The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.

I’m starting to realize that it really is a work of God when a person, a pastor, a church rejects all the church growth models out there to simply take Jesus at his word and pray fervently. May we be a people of prayer for the sake of the Kingdom and the harvest. Live sent!

Coming soon…Part Two