Archive for the ‘Church’ Category
Posted on August 27, 2008 - by ray
A Tiny Rant
I don’t personally know Perry Noble. I’ve never met the man. But I’ve listened to some of his messages as the pastor of NewSpring Church in South Carolina (go gamecocks). He seems like a nice enough guy, his sermons are relevant, hip, and the church service seems to be the event of the week. I subscribe to his blog and a recent post caught my attention, but for the wrong reason.
Perry wrote about a person called “Bob”. Perry met Bob over a year ago at the gym and in Perry’s words “I invited him to church…and he came! (it’s amazing what a personal invite will do!)”. So Bob’s been coming to church the last year or so but as of yet has not become of follower of Jesus. Now I could go on and continue to give you the bullet points of his post, but it might be better for you to read it for yourself. After you’ve read it you’ll be better able to see where I’m coming from…and this is it: inviting someone to church is not missional living. It’s not incarnational living. It’s not the way Jesus did it. It’s not the answer for the overwhelming majority of people that want nothing to do with the church. It’s not going to reach those with a truly postmodern worldview.
I can give you countless examples of how I’ve invited people to a church service or an event the church was putting on and they never came. And they never will. Inviting someone to church is not living on the edge, it’s not radical christianity. It’s a twentieth century method for reaching a modern thinker. And please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not railing on Perry. I’m expressing my thoughts on the idea that is so entrenched in us as christians: if we’ll just invite them to church then the pastor and Jesus will do the rest. And don’t miss this either: I’m not against bringing people along to a church event/service. I’m against making that the way we try and reach those that don’t yet follow Jesus.
The point of Perry’s post was find your “Bob” and reach them by inviting them to church. I would say, find your “Bob”, and invest personally in them. Be a friend. Be real. Become a part of his/her life. Be Jesus in the simple things. And when, or even if, the time comes invite him to be a part of the church, not just the church you happen to attend.
Posted on July 14, 2008 - by ray
Brad Brisco and Missional
Another post about the missional church. This time it’s Brad Brisco over at Missional Church Network. His recent post quotes Albert Curry Winn from A Sense of Mission: Guidance From the Gospel of John. Head to Brad’s site to read the entire quote. Here’s my favorite part:
We can preach the word and celebrate the sacraments in all solemnity, propriety, and purity, but if we are doing nothing to speak the words of God and to do the works of God in the world, if we have no concern for liberation, justice, compassion, and peace, can we claim the name of church? I think not.
Thanks for the post Brad.
Posted on July 14, 2008 - by ray
Joe Thorn and Missional
Joe Thorn has written a great article about the missional church. It’s well worth your read. Linky.
Posted on May 21, 2008 - by ray
Missional Rhythms (or Frosty, Part III)
The last thing I want to mention about the Frost conference I attended was a brief synopsis of something he called missional rhythms. Michael is one of the founding members of Small Boat Big Sea. There were core values that the founding group wanted to pass on to it’s new members, something they wanted to be a part of the DNA of the church. But they also knew that just teaching values wouldn’t work, especially with new followers and not-yet followers.
So, Michael and his group came up with the following (with the corresponding value in parenthesis):
If you are a part of SBBS you will -
- Bless 3 people a week - 1 from the faith community, a believer, 1 from the community, and 1 from either group. (generosity)
- Eat with 3 people a week - same breakdown as above. (hospitality)
- Listen to God. (spirit filled life)
- Learn the Bible, especially the Gospels. (Christ like life)
- Sentness - journal ways in which you sense that you are being sent out. (missional)
Frost reasons that if you give the values, people won’t work out the practices. But if you give the practices, the values become part of the individual and therefore part of the faith community. Some might argue that this seems a little too “catholic”…that it’s a list of things to do, instead of a way to live. The argument would follow that if we’re dealing with new believers why would we want to put on them a list of things they have to do. It’s a decent argument, but one that I don’t adhere to.
As Frost said, I think people have a hard time taking a set of values or a mission statement and coming up with tangible ways to live it out. This seems to help in that process.
By the way, these rhythms spell out BELLS. Michael said this happened by chance, and wasn’t planned. He also made a point to say that these are the missional rhythms for SBBS, and don’t have to be the rhythms for your group. The challenge should be to come up with tangible ways to live out the values that are a part of the DNA of your church.
You can read more about BELLS at SBBS here.
-shorty
Posted on May 15, 2008 - by ray
An Invitation
My friend, Mentanna, has started a new series on her blog entitled an invitation to the table. I like where she’s going with this. It’s worth a read.
Here are direct links to the first 2 posts.
http://mentanna.blogspot.com/2008/05/invitation-to-table-part-one.html
http://mentanna.blogspot.com/2008/05/invitation-to-table-part-two.html
-shorty
