Missional Church, Ch. 1

I have recently began reading Missional Church:  A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America that was written by several authors.  I decided to start blogging about write I read as a sort of journal because I feel that I read a lot of books but don’t retain very much of it, so maybe this will help.  I thought I would at least give it a try with this book.

Chapter 1 “Missional Church - From Sending to Being Sent” - gives an overview for the rest of the book but also lays down the basic assumptions, bias, and perspectives that the authors are coming from.  They don’t pretend to offer an objective study of how to fix the church and the church’s relationship with American culture.  Rather, they start from a profound belief in Missio Dei (mission of God) and influenced by British missionary/theologian Leslie Newbigin (p.3).  Missio Dei means that from the start mission is God’s mission, it is His activity in the world.  That from the beginning God has been restoring and healing creation.  It began with His call of Israel and reached a climax in the incarnation and ensuing life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  It continues today through the work of the church and the Holy Spirit.

They argue that this simple shift in thinking creates an enormous shift in our theology and ecclesiology because we now see God as a “missionary God” and the church as a “sent people” (p.4).  Darrell Guder, the author of this chapter, quotes David Bosch:  “Mission (is)understood as being derived from the very nature of God.  It (is) thus put in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity, not of ecclesiology or soteriology.  The classical doctrine of the missio Dei as God the Father sending the Son, and God the Father and the Son sending the Spirit (is) expanded to include yet another “movement”:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sending the church into the world.”

Guder argues that the church in America today is not missional and must be transformed to become missional.  Today’s churches are based in Christendom, a time period where the church was shaped because of its dominant role in a society that considered itself officially Christian.  This is no longer the case as the church now exists in a postmodern, multicultural context.  So the basic question no becomes:  “What would an understanding of the church (an ecclesiology) look like if it were truly missional in design and definition.”  Thus the basic question of the book.

They also lay out five characteristics of a faithfully missional ecclesiology (11-12):

• A missional ecclesiology is biblical…
• A missional ecclesiology is historical…
• A missional ecclesiology is contextual…
• A missional ecclesiology is eschatological…
• A missional ecclesiology can be practiced, that is, it can be translated into practice…

The rest of the chapter is a sort of overview of the rest of the book, chapter by chapter.  I am excited after the first chapter because I agree with Guder when he states that we need to read the Scriptures through a missional hermeneutic.  Which means to read and interpret scripture from the position that God deeply loves all of creation and wants to heal and restore that creation.  From this basic understanding we must agree that mission can no longer be just a program of the church, in the form of outreach or foreign missions.  Instead, mission “defines the church as God’s sent people” and “either we are defined by mission, or we reduce the scope of the gospel and the mandate of the church” (6).  “Thus our challenge today is to move from church with mission to missional church” (6).

July 4th

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July!  Amber and I really wish we could have spent the holiday back in Mountain Home with our families (even though there were some pretty bigs storms over the weekend), but we had a lot of fun here.  First, Amber had to work in the morning but it wasn’t bad because she was in a local parade.  She works as a marketing assistant at Chick-fil-a, so she handles most of the community events that Chick-fil-a is involved in, including parades.  I drove the truck while she assisted another employee in the back that was dressed up as the cow.  It was a lot of fun and a great start to the morning. 

Later in the afternoon we decided to take our scooter to the beach.  We didn’t think that we would get in because it was a holiday but there was plenty of parking, and the tide was up!  Once we got down to the water we were warned that there were jellyfish in the water and several kids were coming out saying they were stung.  But we went in anyway because the lifeguard and others were telling us that we would easily see them before we get stung.  We didn’t see anything for awhile but then some others found one and we went over to see it.  The guy picked it up from the top so the tentacles were in the air and he didn’t get stung.  Later Amber and I saw another one and this time I picked it up!  The other guy made it look easy and I wasn’t really worried about being stung anyway because everyone else who was stung looked fine after about 30 minutes.  The thing was actually heavier than I imagined and slimy like a fish!  But don’t worry, I wasn’t stung.  Amber didn’t want to hold it but she was brave enough to touch the top!

We did shoot any fireworks off that evening because we live in an apartment complex.  Instead, we hopped on our scooter and rode around the neighborhood and watched everyone else’s show!  Finally, we settled in and watched a movie with a couple friends.

What’s Going On

Here is a short list of cool things/posts I have found this week:

• David Fitch on Five Reasons He Would Claim to Leave a Church - June 19th post.
• Missional has been a buzz word lately and some people are worried that it is being used too loosely.  So in response Rick Meigs organized a Missional Synchroblog to try to define what it means to be missional.  There are roughly 50 contributions to the synchroblog and the links can be found below Rick’s post.
• Rays took a 3.5 game lead in the AL East after a big sweep of the Red Sox!  (Hey, my Pads are doing terrible this year, so I had to find someone to cheer for.)

Questions and Faith

Over the weekend I received a call from a friend of mine back in Arkansas.  I hadn’t talked to him in awhile so it was great to hear from him and we talked for over an hour.  We have always had an interesting relationship because while I have always “had” faith, he hasn’t.  In high school and into our early twenties he was an agnostic and would tell me about his desire for faith, he just had a lot of questions.  After a lot of prayer and a lot of conversations over a couple of years and his girlfriend’s persistence, he finally started attending church.  It is amazing and beautiful to see how far he has come in his journey.  He is at a point where he believes in God and enjoys going to church.  The problem is he is afraid that many at his church resent him.  You see, there is something special about him…he asks questions!  He doesn’t take churchy answers for granted and won’t accept the easy answers and I pray that never changes.  What is sad is that the church (most modern churches) is not a place where he is welcomed to explore his questions, and that is tragic.  What safer place should there be?  Especially when it comes to questions about God.  Anyways the conversation made me think of a paper I wrote in college about interpretation (hermeneutics) and discipleship, so here are a couple paragraphs of it:

(Jacques) Derrida also warns about the dangers of exhausting a text.  In his interview with Evelyne Grossman he states “Imagine that someone claimed to have said everything that needed to be said on the subject of this poem or that line of Celan, that someone claimed to have exhausted the subject.  That would be terrifying; it would be the destruction of the poem.”  Does this not ring true of the state of Christianity today?  Has the text not in some way been exhausted?  Is this why (G.K.) Chesterton complains that Christianity has some how lost its wonder?  Take for instance a child growing up in Sunday School.  The modern church structure is one of “yes, but” discipleship that stifles creativity and individuality.  Rather than empowering people in a way that will allow them to grow spiritually on their own or from each other, the current system makes them look only to a pastor, priest, or Sunday school teacher for guidance (or answers).  Such a system seems to work to cultivate a spiritual life in a child or an adolescent; however, this becomes problematic when they become young adults and enter the university.  On the one hand the student has professors that encourage critical thinking, something that the Church never encouraged when it came to faith, while at the same time the student no longer has the spiritual guidance of their former pastor or priest.  This more than anything else is the reason why many conservatives fear the so called “liberal” agenda of American universities.  It is not because the student is being force fed liberal values, but the students are learning ways of becoming independent and begin to question these former institutions that in a sense suppressed their intellectual faculty.

This circles back to Chesterton’s need for both a feeling of security and wonder.  On page 166 Derrida simplifies the way in which he reads a poem, “Here is what I believe on can reconstitute, what that could mean, why it is captivating and beautiful and strong, while leaving the unsaid intact, inaudible.  That will, moreover, authorize other readings.”  If the Church would instead teach the Bible in just such a way then they will have the opportunity to still guide participants in a “sound” or “good” theology, but at the same time empower them and give them the freedom to figure out for themselves what the “unsaid intact, inaudible” is.  This, I think, will create a faith or spirituality that can survive and contribute to the life of an individual because it is his/her own personal faith, rather than something that was fed to them in a building with a steeple.  So in this sense Derrida’s form of postmodern hermeneutics offers religion, specifically Christianity, a way to rekindle wonder back into the tradition and empower the people which it serves.

All of this is to say that Church should be a safe place.  A place where people can come with questions and find a warm, loving environment in which to explore faith and Jesus.  We should never be afraid of questions and never offer shallow answers to deep questions.  Rather than love that conveys a level of disrespect both ways.

My prayer is that my friend will never stop asking questions and never accept the easy answers.  I hope he wrestles with faith and in doing so fall ever deeper in love with God.  I believe that God is pursuing him and that he is much closer than he thinks to finding Him.

The Weak Witness

From everything I have been reading and hearing lately I am beginning to learn the importance of being weak/humble when serving or being the messenger of God.  A couple Sundays ago Pastor Brad began a series about grace and used this passage at some point in the message:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I once read a history of the early church in which they described what they believed Paul may have looked like.  Now growing up in church I had always heard about Paul and the great missionary that he was.  Since he was such a great man I naturally imagined him as very charismatic, tall, and handsome.  In much the same way that the western world has depicted Jesus in many films…that is, very western.  But I remember being shocked at what I read in that book.  They said that he was more than likely short, bald, and not so charming.  I was amazed!  Here was this great man that had changed the world but was never blessed with the physical characteristics of a great leader!  So to me, this passage from Corinthians has a whole new meaning when I think of Paul.  I think his physical attributes were probably one of his weaknesses (not to sound to shallow).  But think about it, in our churches, as sad as it is, we know when beautiful people come in the door.  They are usually greeted a little more and by more people than the not-so-pretty newcomers.  I can just imagine that his physical stature did not help him much when he went to the synagogues to preach.  He was probably largely ignored when he entered but God used him anyway!  God could have used a beautiful tall person who attracted attention as soon as s/he walked into a building, but he didn’t.  He would of appeared very weak in a room full of priests, but it was at those moments he was strong!

You do it everyday anyway…

You use a search engine, right?  Then try this… searchkindly.org.  It is a search engine through Google (meaning that when you hit search your results are on a Google page) but it donates all advertisement revenue to charities!  Now it is probably less than a penny every time you visit but I remember reading on there that if they can generate 1,000,000 page views a day that translates to $12,000 a day!  The other great thing is that you can vote for which charity gets the money each month.  I know in the past Compassion and Blood Water Mission (a Christian development organization affiliated with Jars of Clay) have won.  This is just a really simple way to leverage technology for good, especially since it is something you do everyday anyway.  So just check it out and see what you think.

One Year at Crosspoint!

Wow! I cannot believe we have been here a year already!  Yet, when I slow down and think about everything that has happened it seems hard to believe that it has only been 12 months.  I have learned so much about what it means to do outreach in a community that you truly believe God wants to be a part of.  For anyone not familiar with how we impact our community here in Spring Hill then I recommend reading the book Conspiracy of Kindness by Steve Sjogren.  It is a paradigm shift in the way we approach evangelism and the community around us.

In honor of our year of service, Crosspoint is sending Amber and I to Disney for two days!  We are excited and have already started planning out what we want to do.  I think we narrowed it down to Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney one day, and Magic Kingdom and Epcot the next!  With plenty of time in between to laze around the resort and pool. Thank you so much to Crosspoint and the staff for this surprise!

So as we enter our second year here in Florida, I will be signing on for another year as an intern.  I will have more of a leadership role within the Outreach ministry and teach alongside Wayne during Outreach meetings.  Amber has completed her intern service and is instead going to volunteer a few hour a week to help Wayne out in the office.

We are very thankful for everything God has shown us here so far and we look forward to everything He has for us this next year!

Who are we reaching?

About a week ago I read an excellent post by David Fitch on his blog.  It was titled “The Emerging/Missional Church - ‘They don’t have converts’ Why Mark Driscoll misses the point”.

He was responding to the criticism of Driscoll that emerging and missional churches do not have converts, or they have very few.  As many people know, emerging/Emergent/missional are all buzz words floating around the blogosphere, books, conferences and many other places.  So if his critique is correct then there needs to be some serious reflections about the effectiveness of these movements/conversations.

David Fitch takes this up, along with Brother Maynard, and analyzes and compares the missional church movement, Emergent, and the “Drisconian megachurch.”  He does an excellent job pointing out the differences between the three and where Driscoll “misses the point.”  Here is a short synopsis:

1.  Emergent is not looking for converts.  That is not to say there aren’t any, but he points out that Emergent is more of a reform movement.

2.  Missional churches are incarnational.  Meaning it takes a long time living among people before there are converts, much like a missionary in a foreign country.  Many of these converts have no church background and did not grow up in church.  They also tend to be small.  Driscoll’s church, however, is a mega church and attracts many people who grew up in church and fell away or former Catholics.  Fitch argues that converts in terms of percentages, rather than numbers, is a much more accurate measurement (if it must be measured).  Therefore, neither approach is necessarily wrong, they are just reaching different people.

I highly recommend checking out Fitch’s post and the ensuing conversation in the comments, especially if anything I said was unclear.

Small Group

On Thursday nights Amber and I have been leading a young twentysomethings small group.  This past week was probably one of our best discussions/studies/whatever you want to call it.  It was wonderful to have Brad, our SG pastor, and so many new friends there!  They all really brought a lot to the table!  The lesson was on substitutionary atonement (sa) and it quickly traced the beginnings of it in the Garden to the ultimate sa in Jesus.  What was so great about it was that we kept questioning/exploring things that we would normally take for granted.  Stuff like “What does justice really mean?.”  Wasn’t what Jesus did more than justice?  Something beyond and greater than justice?  We ended up agreeing that grace and mercy is more than justice.  Therefore, Jesus sacrifice cannot simply be categorized as only/just an act of justice, but is much more than that.  Since that night the words of Donald Miller in Searching for God Knows What keep whispering to me, “Christ’s death, again, was not a technicality by which we are covered with grace, but rather a passionate and inconceivable act of kindness and altruism and love stemming from God’s desire to be reunited with His creation.”

NieuCommunities: Vancouver!

This fall Amber and I are going on a Road Trip with NieuCommunities to Vancouver, BC!  We are really excited because it is a step in seeking out what God has for us down the road.  The Road Trip is a week long and is a gateway to a larger program with NieuCommunities called an Apprenticeship.  After reading a lot of their information and a couple of conversations with them over the phone and through email, Amber and I feel that God may be leading us there to further prepare us for ministry.  We believe that Vancouver will be an excellent place for God to grow us both as a couple and as individuals.  For me, I would learn to do ministry in an urban, postmodern culture.  For Amber, she would be able to develop her natural ability speaking the Chinese language and work among other cultures.  So the Road Trip is a step in the process of discerning whether or not the Apprenticeship is for us.  Please visit their website and check out the two programs for yourself.