Missional Church DNA

What does it look like to create church where it does not exist? What makes a missional church?

In the post "Shaping of Things to Come" - 3 from John we see the three aspects of what Forst and Hirsch are saying makes the missional church different from traditional church. SOOOOO the question comes to my mind:

How do we live those things out in a practical on the ground kind of way?

In dialoging with some incredible guys in my area from the missio ministry (www.missio.us) I have heard some awesome ideas. There are three priorities that I want to be the foundational DNA of any missional community I am a part of. They are:

1. Engaging Culture
2. Living life together
3. Growing Spiritually

I think if we actively engage in those priorities we will be incarnational, Holistic, and Missional. So lets take a moment and look at each of these in a bit more detail:

1. Engaging Culture-
This is where incarnational really takes on it's meat. We will engage those around us in loving relationship and love them as Christ loves, with out strings. This should flow naturally from each of our lives as we live out our passion for Christ allowing God to use our likes, passions, and personalities to develop relationships with the non-followers around us.

2. Living life together-
This is true community. A "Do you have any eggs?" life friend. These people have refrigerator rights... they know were the food, plates, forks etc. are and help themselves. This can't happen overnight and demands proximity. To live 30 - 40 minutes away and try to spend the time together needed to "Live life together" is nearly impossible. Just for logistical reasons.

3. Growing Spiritually-
I like how Forst and Hirsch have said that if no faith community comes from our engaging culture can we really say we are building the church? Growing spiritually is always a needed priority of a church. Otherwise there really is no church. Notice what I did not say. I didn't say bible study, or discussion series. To often I think we program the spirit out of our Spiritual development. On the other end of the spectrum, who are we kidding if we think their could be spiritual growth with out God's word. ? It will always be the ultimate authority in faith and in life!

Whisper

Matt 28:19 "Go therefore"

The one verb in the great commission that is a Greek imperative (command) is matheteusate--make disciples. This is preceded by one participle--having gone--and followed by two participles--baptizing and teaching.

Did you catch that "Having gone"

Our World is gong to Hell in a hand basket but the way to counteract this tragedy is not to shout loudly at the world and point out it's faults. Nor is it to live a life that is so similar no one can really tell the difference. In both cases we become irrelevant and out of touch totally negating our witness to the amazing truth of the gospel.

We must instead engage real people in real life and earn the right to whisper into their lives. This is hard work and means we need to leave behind our unreal, fake, facade of a life and begin to engage those around us in authentic relationships. Get out of our safe Christian la la land.

Many of us have become so appalled by sin that we can't even stand the sinner! That's a problem not a virtue. We are so shocked by sin and work so hard to cover it up that we can't be real with our self much less others, Christian or not. The world looks at that and sees nothing different. In fact they pity us. How is that, "they will know you are my disciples by your love for one another." Love not congenial potlucks where fun is not allowed because it looks an awful lot like it might be sin.

So as you are going (having gone) be real, live real life along with all your faults. Share life with your friends and neighbors, Christian or not and whisper all the time about the amazing, true beauty that is all around. Be a people whisperer!

Posture

What is our posture toward the world?

Holier than thou?

Just do it, right along with the rest?

Or is there a way that would better shine Jesus to the world. I have been challenged to posture myself with those around me who are not followers of Jesus differently. I want to love them unconditionally as Jesus would and not make them conform to my way of life just to be around me. I want to become a part of their life and have the right to show them the sacred that is a part of their life, the God that has been there all along. To insist that they must act a certain way, look a certain way, or talk a certain way just to be around me is no way to share the all loving God with them. The act, look, talk comes later and is called discipleship. But even then I think I have gone overboard because if we become so different from those around us they will not want to be around us at all. Totally quelling our attempts to love them and reach out to them in true community. This is a huge challenge because I also want to stand for what IS right and what IS true. But love seems to be impossible with out grace AND truth.

As I remember it is commanded we be "in" the world but not "of" the world.

What a layered and complicated command!

Stringy Love

As the church we tend to give love, but only love with strings attached. We don't normally just LOVE. We will feed the homeless if they sit through a gospel message. Why can't feeding them BE the gospel and then when THEY ask share the rest of the story. We will reach out to our neighbors, but with an ulterior motive. I don't think that is love at all. At least not Christ like love! He loved because he IS love and nothing more. I often wonder if I am even capable of love like that. Can I truly love my neighbor without wanting something in return? Only through the Spirit working in me. I am, at my core, selfish in my flesh. Only as I become more and more the new creature God created can I come close to loving as He loves. At the very least I am a bit closer to that kind of love now because I am aware of my inadequacy. I want desperately to love those around me without strings. With out treating people as projects to be won for Christ. Just loving them becaus I am filled with God's love and find them lovely.

Just Love.

Love

De-construction or De-struction

What is your attitude when it comes to the traditional church vs the missional church? I found another article called Demolition or Renovation by Andrew Hamilton. (Click on the title to view) It has really challenged me to check my attitude more often when I think about my current setting. I will not complain and only say something when it might help rather than hurt! NO matter the context those in any church if they are true believers are my brothers and sisters and most I know are very Godly people trying the best they know how. Most are also very wise and loving people who, even if they don't see what I do, are people I can learn from.

Missional Church in suburbia???

What would a missional church look like in suburbia?

Phil Parshall is well known for his C1-C6 contextualisation spectrum and its application to an Islamic context. However what would it mean for us to think in those terms for western communities?

Click on the title to be re-directed to a great articl titled C1-C6 in Suburbia by Andrew Hamilton.

Andrew Hamilton is the FORGE Director in Western Australia . He is involved in the planting and developing of a new missional community in Brighton ( Perth ). He was formerly senior pastor at Lesmurdie Baptist Church in Perth.

Let me know what you think!!

The Will of God

Is there one person who is the only person who is right for you?

Is there only one job or path in life that is right and if we some how miss it we are not in God's will?

I think no to these questions and many more like them. I believe that there are may choices with in God's sovereign will. Above you see a good illustration about the will of God and making decisions from Stand to Reason. In the bible we fine that God has a clear Moral will, a Sovereign will but never a specific personal will for each of us. Thus, factors like wisdom and our own personal likes, dislikes and desires interplay to help us make good decisions. I need to use these ideas more when I make decisions. How about you?

Stop and Reflect

I just finished teaching a lesson to a # of 8th grade students on a retreat about stopping long enough to reflect on the past and plan for the future. To NOT repeat the mistakes of the past and be all that God has intended us to be in the future. To work our salvation with fear and trembling, to build on the foundation of Christ with Gold, Silver, and Precious Stones. I need to stop more and be silent and reflect.

One Dimensional Salvation

I have recently been challenged with how one-dimensional I tend to see and therefore share Salvation. I have been taught to see salvations mainly in terms of a legal transaction. It is about me and the debt I have owed and what God has done to pardon freely that debt through Jesus. All of this is true and good, not just good but amazing.

But, that is not the whole story. Salvation in Jesus is so much more! It is God ransoming back the entire universe. God saving me to make me into what He originally intended at the creation of me. Redeeming me and making me whole in all of life, NOW! Not just after this life. God is working in and on me now, right now, even as I type and this is salvation. It is not about me and my eternal state, as much as it is about joining God and His ransoming back of the entire universe. Joining the empire of God and His amazing work in this world.

Lord, forgive me for missing this so often in the past and continuing these thoughts of shallowness as I have taught many others. Please, continue to grow my so limited view or YOU!

Those Darn Canadians!!

I did the Ski Mag Reader Resort Survey this year and entered in the Sweepstakes for the ski trip for two. On the "Official Rules" letter they sent with the entry form there is something REALLY FUNNY!

In the paragraph explaining how the drawing will be conducted is this sentence:

"Canadian winner will be required to correctly answer, unaided, a time-limited mathematical skill-testing question in order to receive the prize."

"If a train was heading from Boston to Denver at ...
And another Heades from Denver to Boston at...
OK 30 Seconds, GO!"

Man I am glad I'm not Canadian! I stink at math!

I sent it to Leno for his Headlines bit!

I felt old for a minute

For the first time I can remember I really felt old the other day. Even though I'm NOT! I was at a carnival for our oldest at the Elementary school she will be attending next year. I was looking around at all the people there with their kids playing the games and such. As I people watched (one of the greatest sports ever) I was noticing how old everyone seemed. Then the though accrued to me that I belonged here with all these old people! Freakey!

Just a small taste of what happens at the dreaded mid life crisis. O' it's coming! But not YETTTTT!

Be Careful what you Blog, I am pretty sure God Reads it!

So the day after I post "Freedom in Christ" God shows me how un-free I still am even thought I have come a long way.

ARE YOU BOTHERD BY "IT"?

By it I mean sin, any sin. The answer is most likely yes. But, how are we "bothered"? Yesterday I went to the Denver campus of CU to talk to a professor about some schooling I am looking into. I needed to go to the student union and purchase a catalog from the bookstore. As I walked through the union I was excited to be there and looking forward to engaging culture. Then I happened to walk by the Gay, Lesbian, and alternative life style office in the union. It bothered me! But not the bothered me like “there is a bunch of people who really need love”. It was the bothered that “I can't believe an office like that is allowed in a student union”, condemning bothered. Definitely the WRONG kind of bothered! God new I would be walking there that day and knew what I just wrote (freedom in Christ) and I am sure He thinks it is funny! And it is funny! He really knows how to reopen our eyes to our shortcomings and I am sure He is amused as He does it. I like a God like that and I am happy to admit that He is still working hard on me to be like Him each and every day. I want to be bothered by "IT” what ever it is. But bothered as God is, not as I can be in my self-righteous little world!!

Freedom in Christ

My faith has changed a lot in the past couple of years. With my very conservative background the world and the people immersed in it used to almost scare me. Today God has given me a newfound desire to love and interact with all those not-yet-Christians in my life. I also want desperately to get out of my naive Christian bubble and get to love many more of them. I am not content simply ministering to those in the church and in my ministry. In fact I tend to grow tired of the monotony of it all. I feel free to love and care for those around me who once just bothered me. And many who now bother me do so because they are just sitting on their duffs and content with their safe, Christian, Suburban bubbles. God has really been changing me to be more like Him. The God who ate with tax collectors and sinners and truly loved them. To me this is a new understanding of freedom in Christ. I can be free to dance with the Spirit, to be “in tune” with the God song going on all around me and not be hindered by my naive Christian surroundings.

By clicking on Freedom in Christ you will be directed to a Nooma video called "Rythem" I would highly sugest purchasing and watching.

Revival, from an easy chair???

Can there be true revival if there is not a willingness to really change? Can revival happen when we plan for it?

I think NO, to both!

I don't see a real attitude of surrender to God's leading. We all want to see God work but it feels like there is an attitude that if God were to radically change our directions we would not be willing to go there. Our mission never changes but how that mission is accomplished constantly changes. It seems our bigger, Suburban churches are just not willing to go there. We spend time in prayer asking God for wisdom but already have a plan. We are so concerned with us and are so comfortable that we can't even think radically. I am sick of it! In myself! In those around me!

Lord help us all change and be ok with change because everything changes even when we don't see it over the edge of the easy chair!

Jump! ...?

Have you ever had that feeling when you are standing on the edge of a cliff or the edge of a tall building that you just wanted to jump? I think there is some sociological term for it and that it is a common feeling.

How about with your faith? Have you ever been prompted by the Lord to do something and you just needed to jump? I feel that way now! God is doing something but I really am unsure as to what. There are signs, little things really, all around me that seem to be saying "JUMP"! But, I seem to respond more often that not with, "jump"??? I would like to jump but I am just not sure how!! I have that feeling like God has me on the top of some crazy high cliff and I want to jump. I would like to jump! but I just am not sure where or how. I don't think it is my faith, or lack their of, that is holding me back because I am excited as to what God is doing. I just don't know what it even looks like right now to jump. I am having a hard time even coming up with options. So for now I keep praying, mostly for direction but also for patience, and wait!

A challenge from Ecclesiastes

Eccl. 7: 16-18 says: "Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise - why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool - why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes."

To me this has been fairly challenging in the way I view and judge myself and often feel judge by others. The key is, do I fear God, not am I living up to the status of those around me. I find myself being overrighteous and thinking to highly of myself. I am often overwicked as well. It is a challenge to not live in the extremes and to simply fear and follow God. O, to just live this life for the audience of one and to not get all caught up in myself and to not worry about what others think.