Vol 2:38 The Soul of God: Living and Breathing the Mission of God – A Mission that is Personal

God’s mission is deeply personal.  This insight is expressed in Ray Anderson’s theological memoir, The Soul of God.        

In the fourth chapter of The Soul of God, Ray Anderson shares a perspective from this theological mentor Thomas F. Torrance “that God confronts humans as subjects” (p. 61). 

Anderson states that Torrance expressed “that God confronts humans as subjects ‘by addressing them personally and claiming from them personal responses’” (p. 61).  The implications of such an understanding, as Anderson reveals, is that God’s revelation and communication with humanity is deeply personal and rooted in the communities in which humans reside.  To speak of God’s encounter apart from a personal and communal understanding is to, in my words, to misunderstand the personal and communal nature of God’s redemptive mission.

Anderson expresses, that Torrance concluded, “Knowledge of God takes place not only within the rational structures, but also within the personal and social structures of human life, where the Spirit is at work as personalizing Spirit.  As the living presence of God who confronts us with His (sic) Being, addresses us in [God’s] Word, opens us out toward Himself, and calls forth from us the response of faith and love, [God] rehabilitates the human subject, sustaining [them] in [their] personal relationship with God and with [their] fellow creatures” (pp. 61, 62).

Mission can sometimes be seen as an impersonal task – it is something we do or are called to do – with the focus being on the something.  But this understanding of God and God’s nature as One who addresses us personally and claims from us personal responses – either a yes or no to God, which involves our hearts as well as our minds, leads me to regard mission as not something that is impersonal, but as an activity, an engagement that always embraces someone.  God’s mission, God’s acts of salvation, therefore, are not somethings, they are always personal acts engaging and embracing someones.

How can I say this in another way? 

Just as Jesus is the embodiment of God’s reign, Jesus is also the embodiment of God’s mission.  Jesus in his person lived out the mission of God – by bringing the presence of God to encounter the sinful brokenness of humanity.  God’s mission has a heart, God’s mission has a circulatory system, God’s mission has a nervous, muscular, and skeletal system, God’s mission has organs.  That is to say – God’s mission is lived through the thoughts, actions, relationships, dreams, sufferings, struggles, and hopes of people – most fully in Jesus Christ, but also now through us – as the people of God, as we are identified and rooted in Christ Jesus.

God’s mission is not something that happens outside of us, as it did not happen outside of Jesus – God’s mission happens in us, through us and engages others in their lives and through their lives.  God’s mission is deeply personal and not at all impersonal, not at all about something – it is always about someones – bringing about liberation, setting us free from what binds us, what binds others, bringing healing and wholeness, conquering sin and death – not just out there, but in us and the power it has in us.  God’s mission is deeply personal, because God is personal, because humanity is personal.  The power of sin and death would have us see humanity impersonally, but the grace of God gives us eyes and ears to notice that God intends us as human beings to be deeply personal – with one another and with God.

So, may we help each other live and breathe the mission of God in our lives.

Vol 2:37 The Soul of God: A Missional Credo – Living as Jesus

As I further explore insights from Ray Anderson’s theological memoir, The Soul of God, I continue to be deeply influenced in being shaped in living missionally.      

In the second chapter of The Soul of God, Ray Anderson shares regarding the humanity of Jesus as to what it meant that he was sent – as a way of shaping how we are sent.  I share his statement here without comment – it is for me a missional credo. 

“As Jesus was: In the midst of a religious culture that prized appearance and cultivated form, Jesus appeared clothed simply in grace and truth.  He refused to recognize as spiritual that which was artificial and affected.  He valued the truth of being and doing over the righteousness of words and prayers.  Both in the street and in the temple, he uses one language for both the saint and the sinner.  He stated divine realities in terms of human experience.  His life-style was that of a human person living among humans.  Because he was the truth, he had no fear of exposure, nothing to defend.

            Because he was human, he had no fear of humanness, in himself or others.  Because he came in love, he had no fear of love – he was open to all who were open to him.

So we should be: A real Christian must also be a genuine human being.  Spiritual growth is manifested in those who demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit in relationship with others (Gal. 5:22-23).  The Christian is to be related to one’s own society in the same way that Christ was related to the world (John 17:18).  The test for truth in a Christian is what the world sees of Jesus Christ in us, not what other Christians see of themselves in us.

            We are committed to live a transparent life, willing to be known for who we really are, not only by who we say we are.

            We are committed to live in openness toward others, accepting them as Christ has accepted us, having a spirit of tolerance toward others who do not share our concepts or convictions.  Yet we know that openness is not permissiveness, and tolerance is not compromise.

            We are committed to the fact that a Christian has anxieties, temptations, moods, doubts, frustrations and problems.  This is what it means to be human.

            We are committed to have no ulterior motive or religious device in our love for God or our love for our neighbor: that is, we are committed to authenticity” (Anderson, The Soul of God, 25).

Well, maybe one comment:  To seek to be authentic in this way is to seek to live missionally. 

And also a prayer: This I know I do not have within me, unless the Spirit of God enables me. 

Spirit of God take hold of me,

shape me, transform me,

so that I might live as Jesus

– authentically and missionally.

Vol 2:36 The Soul of God: Deconstructing an Abstract God

I am further exploring insights I have gained from reading Ray Anderson’s theological memoir, entitled, The Soul of God.  Ray Anderson.  As mentioned in last week’s blog, he has had a tremendous influence in my life, shaping much of my understanding and engagement of pastoral ministry.    

In the second chapter of The Soul of God, Ray Anderson expresses that “the abstract concepts of God which stirred my intellectual self now left my soul undernourished and unfulfilled.  I did not doubt that they were true, but they no longer satisfied my search for truth” (p. 23). 

He continues by saying that too many of us have abstract concepts of God, or we understand God as being distant from us, aloof from us.  Abstract concepts of God are “disconnected from people’s daily lives” (p, 23).

In response he presents Jesus as one who deconstructs God’s abstraction by being the very exegesis of God.  He states, “Jesus is not only one who touches our own human souls with grace and truth, he is the very soul of God in human form.  Theologians call it incarnation, which is the Latin translation of the Greek phrase, ‘became flesh’ (John 1:14).  John does not shrink from telling us that the one whom we call Jesus is identical in being with God and, in fact, the very exegesis of the Father.  When we use the term [exegesis], we refer to the discipline of expounding and explaining the exact meaning of a text of Scripture.  John uses the very Greek word when he says that God’s only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, ‘has made him known [exegeomai]’ (John 1:17)” (p. 23).

Anderson further expresses: “Jesus is literally the exegesis of the soul of God” (p. 23). 

The ministry of Jesus was connecting the heart and presence of God with the people whom God loves – which encompasses all humanity.  Jesus did this not merely as a representative, but as God in human flesh, exegeting the very soul of God, so that we might be in relationship with God up close and personal.  There is nothing aloof or distant about God’s encountering of us.

How is this significant in our being the missional people of God? 

In being the sign of God’s present and coming reign, we as God’s people are also to be about exegeting the presence of God – i.e., that we are so open to God’s life and presence within us that whomever we encounter and whomever encounters us can encounter God personally.  We are no mere representatives, carrying God as a name on our business cards; we are ones who are God-carriers, Christ-carriers, Spirit-carriers who bring the presence of God into every situation, every context, every encounter we find ourselves in.

Our being in mission – participating with God in God’s redemptive mission, is to make God known, not as ones who tell about God, but as ones who are indwellt by the presence of the Living God – indwellt by the Spirit of God.

We come to know the Living God through the Living Christ – and we share the Living Christ with others as we live our lives deeply rooted in Christ’s presence.

The way we live in Christ’s presence involves an intentionality in our living – we do not merely live for ourselves, but we come to the place of realizing that all our living is for the sake of God, every aspect of who we are is rooted in Christ, our identities find their fullest expression in being identified in Christ – so that we along with Paul, in Galatians 2:20, can express that “we have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us and through us.” 

I admit, more times than not, my life is a poor exegesis of Christ, but it is my prayer each and every day that my life indeed who be an exegesis of Jesus, who is the exegesis of the very soul of God.

Vol 2:35 The Soul of God: God Includes Us in God’s Missional Purpose

Over the next few weeks I will be exploring insights I have gained from reading Ray Anderson’s theological memoir, entitled, The Soul of God.  Ray Anderson, though I was never able to share it with him personally, had a tremendous influence in my life – he has shaped much of my understanding and engagement of pastoral ministry.  If you have not discovered his writing, I invite you to do so – particularly challenging is his, The Shape of Practical Theology – which is my estimation is a must read for every person desiring to serve in a pastoral role. 

In the first chapter of The Soul of God, Ray Anderson gives voice to his responding to God’s invitation to enter into pastoral ministry.  He draws on an example of how his father talked with him about involving him in ministry efforts while growing up – “Tomorrow, we will go to those who are like sheep without a shepherd and bring them to a safe place” (p. 17) – to describe how he sensed God’s call upon his life.

This “we” language of his dad’s, Anderson describes as “his language of love” (p. 14).  His dad was intensely relational and he would often speak in terms of “we” “when speaking of his life and tasks including [Ray] as a participant.  ‘We will plant corn in this field next year’” (p. 14).  Anderson expresses that this “we” enabled him to realize that in his father’s eyes he “was not just a boy who carried his [father’s] lunch, but a partner in the family enterprise” (p. 14). 

When Ray Anderson responded to God’s call upon his life, he came to realize that he was being included in the “we of God.”  The “‘we of God’ reached out and included me” (p. 17).  My notes in the margin express that this is what makes our callings intensely missional.

The “we of God” describes the perichoretic or relational understanding of Trinity.  God is in three persons, but not in a static hierarchical relationship – rather God is involved in a divine dance – which is what Eugene Peterson describes as what is being expressed by perichoresis (cf. Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, pp. 44, 344 n15) in which “the divine modes of existence condition and permeate one another mutually with such perfection, that one is as invariably in the other two as the other two are in the one” (Peterson, p. 44, citing Karl Barth in Church Dogmatics 1/1, 425).

God is a “we” as much as God is “I AM.”  And when God calls us to participate with God in the mission and ministry of God, we are invited into the “we” of God, invited into the “dance” of God.  God reaches out and includes us in what God is doing in the world – we are integrally involved with God in God’s redemptive mission of reconciling humanity to God through Jesus Christ and restoring creation. 

Ministry or mission is not a solitary venture, but inherently a deep participation with God and the purposes of God in the world.  As Jesus promised his disciples, and us as well in Matthew 28, “I am with you always to the very end of the age.”  We are included in the “we of God” as we respond to God’s invitation to participate with God in God’s mission!  I cannot think of any better way of being human making a difference in our broken and alienated world.

Missional Matters Now Integrated with www.iMissional.org

Thanks to a friend of mine, all of my missional related online materials are now integrated into one web presence. My blog Missional Matters is now integrated with online resource material found on my web site - www.imissional.org - where one can also find numerous missional-focused articles under A Missional Reader.  

So to keep following this weekly blog, you can directly connect to the Missional Matters page by linking to:  http://imissional.org/blog/missional-matters/ 

Thanks for reading - feel free to comment as well.

Vol 2:33 Mission and Evangelism: Living Life through “Gospel Filters”

Ben Campbell Johnson in Speaking of God: Evangelism as Initial Spiritual Guidance expresses the process of discernment as listening through “gospel filters” (cf. p. 121). 

I would like to take that a step further by asking the question as to how we live our lives through “gospel filters.”  This is not a way of seeing through “rosy tinted glasses” which causes us to see what we want to see, but seeing and living life through “gospel filters” is about living and doing life, all of life, in light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of the Reign of God.

This is a way of engaging life, engaging whomever we meet, through the eyes of Jesus.  How does Jesus look at, respond to what is going on in our lives, the relationships we have, the encounters we make, if he were living our lives.  In fact, as we confess that our life is hidden in Christ, that we have been baptized not only into his death, but also his resurrection, we can confess that Jesus is living our lives – or we are living Jesus’ life.  I am the first to admit that my life looks more like my own, my agendas, my passions, etc., but as a disciple of Jesus Christ, I commit myself each day to live my life rooted and grounded in Jesus – so that he might live in me and through me.

And in light of that confession, I realize that it is my desire to live my life through the eyes of Christ – through “gospel filters.” 

Campbell-Johnson gives voice to this by alluding to the “I am” sayings of Jesus and seeing the life we live through the gospel filter of these “I am” declarations (cf. pp. 123-127).  These statements by Jesus are: I am the bread of life (John 6:35); I am the light of the world (John 8:12); I am the door of the sheep (John 10: 7); I am the Good Shepherd (John 10: 11); I am the vine (John 15: 5); I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6); and one he misses, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).

So, for example, Campbell-Johnson states in relation to Jesus’ “I am the bread of life” that this “points to the nature of God as the one who nurtures and sustains us” (p. 123).  Or, in relation to Jesus’ “I am the light of the world” that this points to Christ as the one who “enables persons to understand the meaning of their lives and illumines the direction for them to take” (p. 124).

To live out lives with “gospel filters” means to immerse ourselves in Jesus Christ – to live into the way he sees the world, the way he regards people, the way he engages situations.  In essence, it is to continue the ministry of Jesus in the world, in the same way Jesus lived and ministered in light of God’s redemptive mission in the world.

This is not a mere adding of religion to our lives, it is rooting our whole being in the life of Jesus Christ – for us to more than become like him, for us to be shaped by him so that all our living grows (because we are developing into Christ-likeness) in being an expression of the gospel of God’s reign being lived out in the ordinary daily routines of our lives.

To live our lives with “gospel filters” means that we need to immerse ourselves in the Gospels, in God’s Story so that our minds and lives are transformed by the Spirit – so that we grow in seeing all of life through the Gospel – and more, living our lives through the Gospel.

May we encourage each other to live our lives through “Gospel filters.”

Vol 2: 32 Mission and Evangelism: Open to Seeing What God is Doing in Us

Ongoing reflections relating to Ben Campbell Johnson’s Speaking of God: Evangelism as Initial Spiritual Guidance, which focuses on reframing evangelism within a missional perspective.

We have been exploring what it means to reframe evangelism as a conversation involving giving initial spiritual guidance or direction to people with whom the Spirit connects us.  Yet, I realize that I often am more quickly ready to provide spiritual guidance to others than receiving spiritual guidance in my own life.  To be missional in evangelism, we need to be ones who are also open to have others name the way God is active within our lives. 

A missional approach to evangelism involves learning to hear what God is doing in our lives.

Spiritual conversation is a two-way street – it is not only about our talking with others, or actively listening to what is going on in others (see last week’s post); it also involves being open to listen to what God is doing in us.

How do we expect to be aware and sensitive to how God is at work in others if we are not aware and sensitive to how God is active in us?  In sharing or naming where God is active in others, the conversation will inevitably turn to others asking how God is active in us.  Will we be able to respond?

Engaging in evangelism through a missional perspective is not only about “doing evangelism” as if it is a task in which we “do something” in the presence of others, no, it is about being open to the good news of God in our lives as well – or perhaps first and foremost: transforming us, shaping us, challenging us, empowering and equipping us, sending us to participate with God in God’s mission. 

Our lives are a laboratory for exploring how God is active in the world – we discover God active as God is active in us.  In naming or giving words to God’s activity in us, we begin to share our story that is being shaped by God’s Story.  God’s Story gives us a vocabulary, a framework for shaping our story.  We find the Exodus event describing desert wanderings in our own lives in which we discover God, disobey God, and rediscover God.  The parable of the Prodigal, gives words and meaning to the times we run from God in our lives.  Reading the psalms gives prayers and praises to times of despair and rejoicing in our lives.

As we learn to listen, see, hear what God is doing in us – as we learn to share this story of God’s Story in our lives, we become persons who become more adept to seeing, hearing, noticing how God is at work in the lives of others with whom we live among day to day.

Listening, being aware of God being active in us, is not an act of selfishness, but rather an act of awareness that equips and enables us to be aware and help others be aware of how God is active in them.

Missional evangelism then is a communal activity – requiring our being open to God’s activity in us, as we seek to be aware and lead others to be open to God’s activity in them.  This is how we walk together opening up our lives to the re-creating and re-storying activity of God in our lives and in the world.

May we develop our awareness of God working in us – to give us eyes to see and ears to hear God at work in the all of humanity.