Reflections on Roxburgh and Boren’s Introducing the Missional Church (Baker, 2009).
Often Jesus’ kingdom-talk involved table talk. There is a rich theology of table in the New Testament. At table not only was food shared, but life was shared as well. When Jesus ate at with Matthew and his friends in his home, or at Zacchaeus’ home, or the numerous other times Jesus ate a meal with others, this was more than the intaking of nourishment, these became places in which life was shared, good news was shared. At table, when we really sit down at table enjoying the company of others over food, stories are shared, prayers are shared, fears and hopes are expressed – life is shared. In our fast-food world, we don’t take much time at table, sometimes we even eat in our cars as we rush from one place to the next.
As Roxburgh and Boren express:
“We think the New Testament has a whole lot to do with how people were trying to work out the meaning of God’s big story in the midst of all the local issues, tastes, and sounds of their neighborhoods and communities rather than principles and absolute propositions for all times and places. They understood themselves as sent to ‘gossip’ and communicate the Good News of Jesus in the midst of their neighborhoods and communities” (p. 97).
They go on:
“The New Testament is about ordinary men and women waking up to their neighborhoods and figuring out how to be the kind of cooks who set the gospel table using local ingredients” (p. 97).
There is a movement going on that is opposite to fast-food, its slow food – and I believe slow food gives us the opportunity to sit down with friends in local places over food, drinks, and conversation and begin to gossip about the Gospel. Sharing Jesus is not about sharing our religious points of view, entering into religious debate, rather it is sharing the life that we all crave, life that is a gift given by God to all those created in God’s image, life that is offered by God who has pitched his tent among us. Such conversations are not rehearsed, do not follow a script, but grow out of the stories of life shared around table.
I like to hang out in what Ray Oldenburg calls third places. These are places in local settings (cafés, pubs, coffee shops) where people hang out to connect, to unwind, to engage with and be enriched by others in their community (there are less and less of such places around). As I hang out in such places – primarily coffee shops for me – I begin to engage others in conversations, conversations where we talk about what is going on in our lives, conversations in which we share our days, our dreams, our struggles, our joys, our needs – and in the midst of such conversations I discover that my sharing is not just about me – but because the Gospel of the kingdom has taken hold of me – I also gossip about the kingdom, about life, about Jesus. All this happens at table, mixing gospel with local ingredients in order to share the life that God desires for all of us to embrace.
In our hectic-paced world, I invite you to slow down enough to be at table with others in your community – and as you do, you will discover that you will gossip about the Gospel as well.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Vol 1:27 Listening for the Spirit - part 2 (being incarnational)
[Continuing reflections on Roxburgh and Boren’s Introducing the Missional Church (Baker, 2009).]
Stopping to listen is an incarnational activity. This past week I was asked by a person in the church I serve what I meant by “incarnational” stating that many in the congregation are not quite sure what I mean by that term when I use it. Though I thought I explained what I mean by this term, apparently it has not been clear enough.
When Jesus as God became a human being, God was incarnated or enfleshed in human flesh – God became a human being! God did not just “seem” human, but God actually became human.
John expresses this in John 1:14 – “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Actually the phrase that John uses is the Word who became flesh pitched his tent among us. Pitching his tent among us is to say that God in Jesus came to live among us in the same way that we live with one another. God did not come and establish a mansion in our midst (to segregate himself from us), he came and pitched his tent, built a bungalow in our midst – to live like us, among us, to feel what we feel, to experience what we experience – God became one of us. And as one of us, God in Jesus living among us, spoke our language, embraced our customs and culture, and in the midst of embracing all that makes us human, engaged us in such a way so as to set us free – giving hope, healing, salvation (shalom and wholeness) to all who would open their lives to Christ.
Therefore, when we are incarnational, we are to be like Jesus Christ in the world – pitching our tents among those God has sent us to live among. We are not to be aloof, not to be superior, but we are called and sent to live among them like them. For us to become incarnational is to live in the same manner to those to whom we have been sent to represent the present and coming reign of God.
And as we began to focus on last week – this involves listening for the Spirit. Roxburgh and Boren relate that such listening has two parts (we’ll focus on the second part next week). “First, the church becomes attentive to what is happening through direct involvement with people in [their] location. The best way to do this is by entering the neighborhood and hanging out with people, joining community organizations, connecting with people across the street or at the local coffee shop, and taking walks and initiating conversations – doing a thousand little human things that make life rich” (p. 88).
This is the essence of being incarnational in which we are open to listen for the Spirit. The church in being incarnational is more than being able to confess the right doctrine, or offering a meaningful worship service; the church in being incarnational is evidenced by how we live within our communities where we pay our mortgages or our rent. We are the incarnational church of Jesus Christ when we engage the people all around us – and in developing relationships, real relationships with them, we are able through our living, our speech, our acts of kindness and compassion to represent the presence of Jesus Christ – who is the hope of the world, who alone can set humanity free from all that binds and enslaves us.
Being incarnational is more than holding to a theology of incarnation, it is living the way Jesus lived in the world – “pitching [our] tent in the community, gathering friends, praying with people, and asking what God wanted to do” (p. 88). It is about being present to those we connect with in our lives and neighborhoods demonstrating, in our connecting with them, a different way of being human that comes only through being in relationship with God through Jesus Christ and being wide open to God’s rule and reign in our lives.
Stopping to listen is an incarnational activity. This past week I was asked by a person in the church I serve what I meant by “incarnational” stating that many in the congregation are not quite sure what I mean by that term when I use it. Though I thought I explained what I mean by this term, apparently it has not been clear enough.
When Jesus as God became a human being, God was incarnated or enfleshed in human flesh – God became a human being! God did not just “seem” human, but God actually became human.
John expresses this in John 1:14 – “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Actually the phrase that John uses is the Word who became flesh pitched his tent among us. Pitching his tent among us is to say that God in Jesus came to live among us in the same way that we live with one another. God did not come and establish a mansion in our midst (to segregate himself from us), he came and pitched his tent, built a bungalow in our midst – to live like us, among us, to feel what we feel, to experience what we experience – God became one of us. And as one of us, God in Jesus living among us, spoke our language, embraced our customs and culture, and in the midst of embracing all that makes us human, engaged us in such a way so as to set us free – giving hope, healing, salvation (shalom and wholeness) to all who would open their lives to Christ.
Therefore, when we are incarnational, we are to be like Jesus Christ in the world – pitching our tents among those God has sent us to live among. We are not to be aloof, not to be superior, but we are called and sent to live among them like them. For us to become incarnational is to live in the same manner to those to whom we have been sent to represent the present and coming reign of God.
And as we began to focus on last week – this involves listening for the Spirit. Roxburgh and Boren relate that such listening has two parts (we’ll focus on the second part next week). “First, the church becomes attentive to what is happening through direct involvement with people in [their] location. The best way to do this is by entering the neighborhood and hanging out with people, joining community organizations, connecting with people across the street or at the local coffee shop, and taking walks and initiating conversations – doing a thousand little human things that make life rich” (p. 88).
This is the essence of being incarnational in which we are open to listen for the Spirit. The church in being incarnational is more than being able to confess the right doctrine, or offering a meaningful worship service; the church in being incarnational is evidenced by how we live within our communities where we pay our mortgages or our rent. We are the incarnational church of Jesus Christ when we engage the people all around us – and in developing relationships, real relationships with them, we are able through our living, our speech, our acts of kindness and compassion to represent the presence of Jesus Christ – who is the hope of the world, who alone can set humanity free from all that binds and enslaves us.
Being incarnational is more than holding to a theology of incarnation, it is living the way Jesus lived in the world – “pitching [our] tent in the community, gathering friends, praying with people, and asking what God wanted to do” (p. 88). It is about being present to those we connect with in our lives and neighborhoods demonstrating, in our connecting with them, a different way of being human that comes only through being in relationship with God through Jesus Christ and being wide open to God’s rule and reign in our lives.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Vol 1:26 Listening for the Spirit: Continuing Reflections on Introducing the Missional Church
These are continuing reflections on Roxburgh and Boren’s Introducing the Missional Church (Baker, 2009).
In focusing on moving back into the neighborhood (MBiN), one of the key insights that the authors share is that we need to “stop to listen” (p. 86). Unless we “stop to listen” our ears, eyes and hearts will be filled with our own agendas and we will miss out what is going on around us and noticing what the Spirit is up to in peoples’ lives.
Roxburgh and Boren express the importance of “stop to listen” as follows:
“One of the first things a missionary to our own culture does is stop to listen to and enter into the stories of the people in order to understand how the culture actually functions. He or she reads books, listens to and watches the local media, as well as looks at trends, priorities, and so forth. But to be perfectly honest, the real work involves sitting with people, listening to their stories, and entering their world with an open mind and heart – not bringing predetermined decisions and goals to the table. If we come to sit with them in this way, we replicate what John describes in his Gospel: Jesus came to pitch his tent beside ours (John 1:14). When we do this, we will be able to hear what is happening and discern what the Spirit is up to; we will read people through God’s lenses and see what he want to turn these people into” (p. 86).
This addresses how we are to be in the world as followers and disciples of Jesus Christ – in reality it is not about us. In one of the courses I teach, after a number of weeks, a student raised her hand and asked, “let me see if I got this right – it’s not about us – is that right?” She got it – and so must we if we are to participate with God in God’s redemptive mission.
If we make it about us, our focus is upon ourselves, our needs, “what am I to get out of this?” – our ears and eyes are attuned to our agendas and needs. Yes, we are people who have needs, but I have discovered that the best way to be the people of God caring for one another is not through focusing upon ourselves, but by attuning ourselves to what the Spirit is saying and doing amongst us and all around us. It is in living our lives in partnership with God and God’s mission that we begin to sense how the power of God flows into us and through us as we are incarnational amongst those with whom God is seeking to connect. It is amazing how such an outward , stopping to listen outlook refocuses how I think about my needs and my agenda.
We are a people called and set apart to participate with Christ Jesus in being incarnational in the world – to pitch our tent besides others in order to discover not only what the Spirit is up to, but how we can be a part of what the Spirit is up to. In this way, the creativity is the Spirit’s as we discover new ministry opportunities and possibilities because as we stop to listen to the stories and lives of people we will become more than aware of how the Spirit is leading us to respond. This is how true ministry develops.
I am discovering that this is the best way and only way for living out my discipleship. I wish I had learned to live in this way 20 or 30 years ago. I do not want to live in any other way but to be open to where the Spirit of God leads as I attune myself to what the Spirit is saying and doing by stopping to listen to the people I have been placed among. And as I attune myself to the actions of the Spirit I am discovering that I am growing spiritually, becoming more and more like Christ. All I can say is Praise God!
In focusing on moving back into the neighborhood (MBiN), one of the key insights that the authors share is that we need to “stop to listen” (p. 86). Unless we “stop to listen” our ears, eyes and hearts will be filled with our own agendas and we will miss out what is going on around us and noticing what the Spirit is up to in peoples’ lives.
Roxburgh and Boren express the importance of “stop to listen” as follows:
“One of the first things a missionary to our own culture does is stop to listen to and enter into the stories of the people in order to understand how the culture actually functions. He or she reads books, listens to and watches the local media, as well as looks at trends, priorities, and so forth. But to be perfectly honest, the real work involves sitting with people, listening to their stories, and entering their world with an open mind and heart – not bringing predetermined decisions and goals to the table. If we come to sit with them in this way, we replicate what John describes in his Gospel: Jesus came to pitch his tent beside ours (John 1:14). When we do this, we will be able to hear what is happening and discern what the Spirit is up to; we will read people through God’s lenses and see what he want to turn these people into” (p. 86).
This addresses how we are to be in the world as followers and disciples of Jesus Christ – in reality it is not about us. In one of the courses I teach, after a number of weeks, a student raised her hand and asked, “let me see if I got this right – it’s not about us – is that right?” She got it – and so must we if we are to participate with God in God’s redemptive mission.
If we make it about us, our focus is upon ourselves, our needs, “what am I to get out of this?” – our ears and eyes are attuned to our agendas and needs. Yes, we are people who have needs, but I have discovered that the best way to be the people of God caring for one another is not through focusing upon ourselves, but by attuning ourselves to what the Spirit is saying and doing amongst us and all around us. It is in living our lives in partnership with God and God’s mission that we begin to sense how the power of God flows into us and through us as we are incarnational amongst those with whom God is seeking to connect. It is amazing how such an outward , stopping to listen outlook refocuses how I think about my needs and my agenda.
We are a people called and set apart to participate with Christ Jesus in being incarnational in the world – to pitch our tent besides others in order to discover not only what the Spirit is up to, but how we can be a part of what the Spirit is up to. In this way, the creativity is the Spirit’s as we discover new ministry opportunities and possibilities because as we stop to listen to the stories and lives of people we will become more than aware of how the Spirit is leading us to respond. This is how true ministry develops.
I am discovering that this is the best way and only way for living out my discipleship. I wish I had learned to live in this way 20 or 30 years ago. I do not want to live in any other way but to be open to where the Spirit of God leads as I attune myself to what the Spirit is saying and doing by stopping to listen to the people I have been placed among. And as I attune myself to the actions of the Spirit I am discovering that I am growing spiritually, becoming more and more like Christ. All I can say is Praise God!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Vol 1:25 Place Spirituality: Continuing Reflections on Introducting the Missional Church
These are continuing reflections on Roxburgh and Boren’s Introducing the Missional Church (Baker, 2009).
Much of Alan’s recent work has been a focus on moving back into the neighborhood (MBiN) – and I am particularly intrigued by the insights shared in this book. One such insight is place spirituality.
Contrasted are space spirituality and place spirituality. Of space spirituality, Alan and Scott express: “We have been shaped by a space spirituality that is founded in the rootlessness of modernity and postmodernity. In that worldview, mobility and anonymity are essential so that individuals can recreate themselves in empty space without accountability or authority. In space spirituality there is little need to recognize anything concrete or historical. In this space we can have private, individualistic experiences with God, and the church’s primary job is to promote such experiences. . . . With space spirituality there is little need to understand our context” (p. 78).
It is obvious that there is nothing incarnational about this because we are simply living out our lives in a space, but not becoming connected to the place we are in. To understand Jesus and his incarnation – because God came in Jesus Christ to dwell among us, to set up his tent among us, to live rubbing shoulders, lives with us – we need to begin to understand the significance of place spirituality.
The authors continue: “Place spirituality, on the other hand, helps us recognize that we live in a territory that is full of history, meaning, heartache, and joy. Jesus was incarnate in a concrete time and place in history; he was not an abstract, cultureless being in some kind of spiritual space. And today the Spirit is leading the church back into the neighborhood, into concrete territories to recognize what God is doing there” (p. 78).
This place spirituality reframes how we think about ourselves as church. Church is more than our gathering on Sundays in a particular space – whether we own or rent the facilities in which we worship. Rather, we are called to be a people gathered in a particular place where we live out our following Christ, living as sign, foretaste and instrument of God’s present and coming reign. As such a gathered people, it is not just about our gathering for worship, but we are gathered to encourage and support one another in living in a particular place to see what God sees, to see what God is up to, to hear what God is saying – and the only way we can do that is to engage in the life of the place where we have been sent to be an incarnational community.
We have got to get away from merely thinking about our place in the world, and begin to discover why the Spirit of God has placed us where we have been placed.
It is not about us, but rather it is about being the people of God in a particular place to reveal the purposes and presence of God, to live out the will of God in the midst of the brokenness of our communities – by being in relationship with people, families, colleagues, political, educational, and economic structures – so that by our living and interacting we make visible the presence of God’s reign. Our living in relation with others as disciples of Jesus Christ is not to point to ourselves, but to make real the hope of true peace and true life that only comes through the working of God in the world. It is because God chooses to work through a people called to participate with God’s actions in the world – that we are called to indwell places, to become integrated with places, to know the people living in these places, namely a place spirituality.
Let us challenge ourselves to be open to the power of the Spirit in us – to live within a place spirituality!
Next Week: I am taking a break for a couple of weeks while I go camping with my nephews in northern Wisconsin.
Much of Alan’s recent work has been a focus on moving back into the neighborhood (MBiN) – and I am particularly intrigued by the insights shared in this book. One such insight is place spirituality.
Contrasted are space spirituality and place spirituality. Of space spirituality, Alan and Scott express: “We have been shaped by a space spirituality that is founded in the rootlessness of modernity and postmodernity. In that worldview, mobility and anonymity are essential so that individuals can recreate themselves in empty space without accountability or authority. In space spirituality there is little need to recognize anything concrete or historical. In this space we can have private, individualistic experiences with God, and the church’s primary job is to promote such experiences. . . . With space spirituality there is little need to understand our context” (p. 78).
It is obvious that there is nothing incarnational about this because we are simply living out our lives in a space, but not becoming connected to the place we are in. To understand Jesus and his incarnation – because God came in Jesus Christ to dwell among us, to set up his tent among us, to live rubbing shoulders, lives with us – we need to begin to understand the significance of place spirituality.
The authors continue: “Place spirituality, on the other hand, helps us recognize that we live in a territory that is full of history, meaning, heartache, and joy. Jesus was incarnate in a concrete time and place in history; he was not an abstract, cultureless being in some kind of spiritual space. And today the Spirit is leading the church back into the neighborhood, into concrete territories to recognize what God is doing there” (p. 78).
This place spirituality reframes how we think about ourselves as church. Church is more than our gathering on Sundays in a particular space – whether we own or rent the facilities in which we worship. Rather, we are called to be a people gathered in a particular place where we live out our following Christ, living as sign, foretaste and instrument of God’s present and coming reign. As such a gathered people, it is not just about our gathering for worship, but we are gathered to encourage and support one another in living in a particular place to see what God sees, to see what God is up to, to hear what God is saying – and the only way we can do that is to engage in the life of the place where we have been sent to be an incarnational community.
We have got to get away from merely thinking about our place in the world, and begin to discover why the Spirit of God has placed us where we have been placed.
It is not about us, but rather it is about being the people of God in a particular place to reveal the purposes and presence of God, to live out the will of God in the midst of the brokenness of our communities – by being in relationship with people, families, colleagues, political, educational, and economic structures – so that by our living and interacting we make visible the presence of God’s reign. Our living in relation with others as disciples of Jesus Christ is not to point to ourselves, but to make real the hope of true peace and true life that only comes through the working of God in the world. It is because God chooses to work through a people called to participate with God’s actions in the world – that we are called to indwell places, to become integrated with places, to know the people living in these places, namely a place spirituality.
Let us challenge ourselves to be open to the power of the Spirit in us – to live within a place spirituality!
Next Week: I am taking a break for a couple of weeks while I go camping with my nephews in northern Wisconsin.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Vol 1:24 Continuing Reflections on Introducing the Missional Church: Developing a Missional Awareness
These are continuing reflections on Roxburgh and Boren’s excellent fresh reintroduction of missional church in Introducing the Missional Church (Baker, 2009).
Being missional is all about reimagining life in relation to the ongoing presence and activity of God in the world. Many of us who are in the church manage to talk about life experiences in ways which may cause listeners to wonder to what extent God is integrated within our lives. It is not that we have to use theological language, but it does mean we need to be theological aware that God is active all around us – and so how we view life must somehow engage language which gives expression to our awareness of God being active in mission and our participating with God.
In the opening section of chapter 4, Alan and Scott reflect upon what several church leaders were experiencing in experimenting Missionally: “. . . they were telling stories of engaging people in their neighborhoods. They talked about listening to the ways God was already at work in their communities. They shared about inviting neighbors over for meals and talking together about life with new friends around them. They had discovered that missional wasn’t about a new program or project inside the church but entering their community to sit alongside others and engage in gospel conversations. It was changing the ways they were being the church” (p. 65).
I share this quotation in part to ask how much of our lives and experiences are shaped by seeing what God sees, or seeing and hearing where God is acting and speaking. This is an awareness that we develop, an awareness in which we depend upon the Spirit of God to develop within us – otherwise we will probably go through life living, looking, and experiencing largely with our own eyes and ears.
The joy of being part of what God is up to in the world, is not only about hearing and responding to God’s call; it’s also about being transformed by the Spirit of God to our seeing where Jesus is in the world and our being like Jesus in the world. Spirituality today is often about us and our experiences, but our participating with God is not so much about us as it is our being in partnership with God in bringing about what God is doing in the world to make all things and all people new.
I am reminded of Mother Teresa’s advice to the novice sisters who came to Calcutta to minister alongside her. She said that if they were there only to help people they would not last long – rather what makes the difference is seeing Jesus in people. It is about seeing Jesus who is suffering, Jesus who is living in the gutter – and seeing Jesus is what kept Mother Teresa doing what she did – because she was more than caring for people, she was caring for Jesus.
As we develop awareness – an inner language – of seeing what God sees, of seeing God active in the world, we too will begin seeing our lives, our circumstances and experiences, seeing people all around us as Jesus living in our midst. Seeing Jesus engaging the lives of people all around us can only change the whole way we live because we become like Jesus in ministering to all those to whom the Spirit leads us.
Do we dare live in light of seeing what God sees?
Being missional is all about reimagining life in relation to the ongoing presence and activity of God in the world. Many of us who are in the church manage to talk about life experiences in ways which may cause listeners to wonder to what extent God is integrated within our lives. It is not that we have to use theological language, but it does mean we need to be theological aware that God is active all around us – and so how we view life must somehow engage language which gives expression to our awareness of God being active in mission and our participating with God.
In the opening section of chapter 4, Alan and Scott reflect upon what several church leaders were experiencing in experimenting Missionally: “. . . they were telling stories of engaging people in their neighborhoods. They talked about listening to the ways God was already at work in their communities. They shared about inviting neighbors over for meals and talking together about life with new friends around them. They had discovered that missional wasn’t about a new program or project inside the church but entering their community to sit alongside others and engage in gospel conversations. It was changing the ways they were being the church” (p. 65).
I share this quotation in part to ask how much of our lives and experiences are shaped by seeing what God sees, or seeing and hearing where God is acting and speaking. This is an awareness that we develop, an awareness in which we depend upon the Spirit of God to develop within us – otherwise we will probably go through life living, looking, and experiencing largely with our own eyes and ears.
The joy of being part of what God is up to in the world, is not only about hearing and responding to God’s call; it’s also about being transformed by the Spirit of God to our seeing where Jesus is in the world and our being like Jesus in the world. Spirituality today is often about us and our experiences, but our participating with God is not so much about us as it is our being in partnership with God in bringing about what God is doing in the world to make all things and all people new.
I am reminded of Mother Teresa’s advice to the novice sisters who came to Calcutta to minister alongside her. She said that if they were there only to help people they would not last long – rather what makes the difference is seeing Jesus in people. It is about seeing Jesus who is suffering, Jesus who is living in the gutter – and seeing Jesus is what kept Mother Teresa doing what she did – because she was more than caring for people, she was caring for Jesus.
As we develop awareness – an inner language – of seeing what God sees, of seeing God active in the world, we too will begin seeing our lives, our circumstances and experiences, seeing people all around us as Jesus living in our midst. Seeing Jesus engaging the lives of people all around us can only change the whole way we live because we become like Jesus in ministering to all those to whom the Spirit leads us.
Do we dare live in light of seeing what God sees?
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Vol 1:23 Continuing Reflection on Introducing the Missional Church: Stepping Out into the Neighborhood
These are continuing reflections on Roxburgh and Boren’s excellent fresh reintroduction of missional church in Introducing the Missional Church (Baker, 2009).
Over the past number of weeks my reflections were on mystery, memory, and mission. Today, I move on reflection on the next chapter of Does Missional Fit?
Being missional is being about having our imagination being inspired by the Spirit of God – to have new eyes, ears, and hearts to notice what God notices, and to catch glimpse of what God is already doing all around us in the neighborhoods in which we live.
Alan and Scott express that: “A new imagination is being formed within [missional] people. They realize that simply calling something missional is not the point. They know that it is much more than church planting or some form of house church. They have opened themselves up and ventured out on an experimental journey into their neighborhoods to see what God is up to in this world” (p. 53).
I have experienced the adventure of discovering what God is up to in my neighborhood by walking around my neighborhood, by connecting with my neighbors, by hanging out in what Ray Oldenburg calls third places (places where people in the community hang out and connect). Discovering what God is up to in our neighborhoods is about our becoming neighbors to our neighbors, taking a real interest in them as people – not as “targets” we are attempting to get into our churches. By having a conversation over coffee in a local coffee shop, talking about what we are reading or what’s going on in our lives, by talking with a neighbor over the fence or in the grocery store, by walking my neighborhood with my dog Dakota, praying for my neighbors, stopping to say hi and see how they are doing – is all part of being open, having ears and eyes and hearts open to what God is up to in their lives. And as we begin to discern what God is doing in them, we begin to discover how God might want to use us to be a part of what God is doing in their lives.
This kind of approach does not seem all that driven – at times it seems downright slow, but by all means it is intentional in having ears and eyes that seek to hear and see what God is up to. Being missional is being aware that God’s Spirit is already at work – Spirit work to which we add our prayers, Spirit work to which we add our lives, Spirit work to which we add our voices.
One of the greatest things I am discovering in being missional in this way is that the Spirit fills me, a guy who is basically shy and somewhat reserved (some conclude that this is due to my Canadian heritage), with courage to be open to notice what God is up to in my neighbors’ lives – and with this courage, I begin to speak not just about me and them, but what God is up to in their lives, their situations – and what is amazing is that I am not the first voice, but add my voice to what the Spirit is already speaking in them. What is amazing is that I do not have to “make” an openness to God happen – the Spirit of God has already gone ahead of me to open lives to the working of God in them – I become one who gets to participate with what God is already doing by being the hands and feet of the Spirit, by “incarnating,” if you will, the presence of the Spirit.
Why would I want to minister in any other way?
Over the past number of weeks my reflections were on mystery, memory, and mission. Today, I move on reflection on the next chapter of Does Missional Fit?
Being missional is being about having our imagination being inspired by the Spirit of God – to have new eyes, ears, and hearts to notice what God notices, and to catch glimpse of what God is already doing all around us in the neighborhoods in which we live.
Alan and Scott express that: “A new imagination is being formed within [missional] people. They realize that simply calling something missional is not the point. They know that it is much more than church planting or some form of house church. They have opened themselves up and ventured out on an experimental journey into their neighborhoods to see what God is up to in this world” (p. 53).
I have experienced the adventure of discovering what God is up to in my neighborhood by walking around my neighborhood, by connecting with my neighbors, by hanging out in what Ray Oldenburg calls third places (places where people in the community hang out and connect). Discovering what God is up to in our neighborhoods is about our becoming neighbors to our neighbors, taking a real interest in them as people – not as “targets” we are attempting to get into our churches. By having a conversation over coffee in a local coffee shop, talking about what we are reading or what’s going on in our lives, by talking with a neighbor over the fence or in the grocery store, by walking my neighborhood with my dog Dakota, praying for my neighbors, stopping to say hi and see how they are doing – is all part of being open, having ears and eyes and hearts open to what God is up to in their lives. And as we begin to discern what God is doing in them, we begin to discover how God might want to use us to be a part of what God is doing in their lives.
This kind of approach does not seem all that driven – at times it seems downright slow, but by all means it is intentional in having ears and eyes that seek to hear and see what God is up to. Being missional is being aware that God’s Spirit is already at work – Spirit work to which we add our prayers, Spirit work to which we add our lives, Spirit work to which we add our voices.
One of the greatest things I am discovering in being missional in this way is that the Spirit fills me, a guy who is basically shy and somewhat reserved (some conclude that this is due to my Canadian heritage), with courage to be open to notice what God is up to in my neighbors’ lives – and with this courage, I begin to speak not just about me and them, but what God is up to in their lives, their situations – and what is amazing is that I am not the first voice, but add my voice to what the Spirit is already speaking in them. What is amazing is that I do not have to “make” an openness to God happen – the Spirit of God has already gone ahead of me to open lives to the working of God in them – I become one who gets to participate with what God is already doing by being the hands and feet of the Spirit, by “incarnating,” if you will, the presence of the Spirit.
Why would I want to minister in any other way?
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Vol 1:22 Continuing Reflections on Introducing the Missional Church: Rediscovering our Missional Calling
In Roxburgh and Boren’s Introducing the Missional Church (Baker, 2009) the metaphor of the missional life is expressed through being a “missional river.” The currents of this river are described as involving mystery, memory, and mission (p. 39).
Over the past two weeks my reflections were on mystery, and memory; today I focus upon mission.
Mission focuses upon making clear what our role is within the world as the church of Jesus Christ. Just as Abraham and Israel were called for the sake of the world – which means that God reveals and demonstrates God’s purpose for reconciling humanity and restoring the world through those whom God calls, likewise God has called the church “to be the demonstration of what all creation is to be” (p. 45).
This is a reframing of how we understand church, how we understand ourselves in relation to church. As North Americans much of our religious experience, much of our church life has been around self actualization. Spirituality is defined and experienced as what heals us as we do the inner work of becoming whole. “The church in North America to a large extent has lost this [missional] memory to the point that mission is but a single element in multifaceted, programmatic congregations serving the needs of its members. The gospel is now a religious message that meets the needs of self-actualizing individuals” (p. 45).
Though healing work is important work, it is not our primary calling or work. Roxburgh and Boren state that, “there is no participation in Christ without participation in God’s mission in the world” (p. 45). I agree with this statement – we are called first and foremost to participate with God in accomplishing the redemptive purpose of God in the world (and somehow in the midst of this giving of ourselves to God the Spirit brings healing to us as a gift, which we receive as a gift). The church’s calling is to be “God’s missionary people” (p. 45).
In coming to understand this, we come face to face with the Gospel which confronts our tendency to make God about us, rather than our being involved in life and ministry for God.
On numerous occasions Jesus declared that to follow him involves denying self, taking up the cross (dying) and following after him (cf. Matthew 16: 24ff, Mark 8: 34ff, Luke 9: 23ff). Being baptized – by either water or the Spirit, is not about becoming privileged, or aligned with the powers of the world, but dying with Christ, being raised with Christ, in order to live to God (cf. Romans 6: 5ff).
Unless we get this, unless we understand this, being Christian, living out the Gospel is always going to be about us, our self-actualization. God is merely an aspect of our life, but not the center or all of our life. But if I respond to God’s call – it is a giving of all who I am to God; all of who I am is placed at God’s disposal for God to do in me, through me, whatever God desires to do with my life. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (cf. Galatians 2:20).
If this cost is too great (cf. Luke 9: 57ff), then perhaps we need to reevaluate to what extent we can call ourselves followers and disciples of Jesus Christ. If God has a convenient place in our lives, rather than all of life being centered in God, then we may be religious folk, but we are not God’s people participating with God in making all things new.
I know we mess up more than we want to in life, and we do not always live exemplifying the purposes of God as God’s people, but is it our confession to be God’s people, a people who participate with God in living out God’s mission, to seek to be centered in God, to seek to love our neighbors as Christ loves us, to recognize we do not do this well alone but we need the Spirit of God to take hold of our lives? I pray that we who call ourselves Christian indeed do identify and center ourselves with and in Jesus Christ – in being rooted in Christ, only in this way are we empowered to be the people of God, accomplishing with God, God’s purpose for the redemption of the world.
Over the past two weeks my reflections were on mystery, and memory; today I focus upon mission.
Mission focuses upon making clear what our role is within the world as the church of Jesus Christ. Just as Abraham and Israel were called for the sake of the world – which means that God reveals and demonstrates God’s purpose for reconciling humanity and restoring the world through those whom God calls, likewise God has called the church “to be the demonstration of what all creation is to be” (p. 45).
This is a reframing of how we understand church, how we understand ourselves in relation to church. As North Americans much of our religious experience, much of our church life has been around self actualization. Spirituality is defined and experienced as what heals us as we do the inner work of becoming whole. “The church in North America to a large extent has lost this [missional] memory to the point that mission is but a single element in multifaceted, programmatic congregations serving the needs of its members. The gospel is now a religious message that meets the needs of self-actualizing individuals” (p. 45).
Though healing work is important work, it is not our primary calling or work. Roxburgh and Boren state that, “there is no participation in Christ without participation in God’s mission in the world” (p. 45). I agree with this statement – we are called first and foremost to participate with God in accomplishing the redemptive purpose of God in the world (and somehow in the midst of this giving of ourselves to God the Spirit brings healing to us as a gift, which we receive as a gift). The church’s calling is to be “God’s missionary people” (p. 45).
In coming to understand this, we come face to face with the Gospel which confronts our tendency to make God about us, rather than our being involved in life and ministry for God.
On numerous occasions Jesus declared that to follow him involves denying self, taking up the cross (dying) and following after him (cf. Matthew 16: 24ff, Mark 8: 34ff, Luke 9: 23ff). Being baptized – by either water or the Spirit, is not about becoming privileged, or aligned with the powers of the world, but dying with Christ, being raised with Christ, in order to live to God (cf. Romans 6: 5ff).
Unless we get this, unless we understand this, being Christian, living out the Gospel is always going to be about us, our self-actualization. God is merely an aspect of our life, but not the center or all of our life. But if I respond to God’s call – it is a giving of all who I am to God; all of who I am is placed at God’s disposal for God to do in me, through me, whatever God desires to do with my life. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (cf. Galatians 2:20).
If this cost is too great (cf. Luke 9: 57ff), then perhaps we need to reevaluate to what extent we can call ourselves followers and disciples of Jesus Christ. If God has a convenient place in our lives, rather than all of life being centered in God, then we may be religious folk, but we are not God’s people participating with God in making all things new.
I know we mess up more than we want to in life, and we do not always live exemplifying the purposes of God as God’s people, but is it our confession to be God’s people, a people who participate with God in living out God’s mission, to seek to be centered in God, to seek to love our neighbors as Christ loves us, to recognize we do not do this well alone but we need the Spirit of God to take hold of our lives? I pray that we who call ourselves Christian indeed do identify and center ourselves with and in Jesus Christ – in being rooted in Christ, only in this way are we empowered to be the people of God, accomplishing with God, God’s purpose for the redemption of the world.
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