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Posts Tagged ‘ministry’

Posted on August 6, 2008 - by ray

Multiple Choice

Question: You live in suburbia. Your neighbor is similar to you in age and family structure. You don’t know much about your neighbor but feel that God is wanting you to invest in him. Do you…

A) invite him and his family to come to church with you and yours.
B) invite him to a special men’s event your church is hosting.
C) invite him and his family over for dinner, fully expecting to talk about spiritual things. You prepare yourself by reviewing the 2 spiritual diagnostic questions, the Romans Road, and the 4 Spiritual Laws.
D) get to know him over the course of several weeks through numerous conversations. After finding out his likes/dislikes/interests you ask if you can come along to his next _______ (you fill in the blank).
E) None of the above (had to add this as no good multiple choice question leaves this answer out).

Be honest with yourself as you think through how you would “witness” to your neighbor. Don’t be too quick to dismiss how entrenched we all our in our consumeristic christian sub-culture and how that influences how you become Jesus to those around you.

Posted on June 2, 2008 - by ray

The Speed of the Kingdom

Does the Kingdom of God have a speed? I understand this sounds like an unbelievably illogical question, but follow me for just a second. If my job (don’t know that “job” is a good word, but we’ll go with it) is to help usher in, or facilitate growth in, or be a catalyst for, the Kingdom of God here on earth and I have no converts and I have no church plants then at what speed is the Kingdom of God growing?

Now of course the Kingdom of God is growing and expanding, but in my area I see no tangible growth. In the role that I was commissioned for I’ve yet to see any “fruit”. This can get extremely frustrating and extremely depressing. Now if I had a form to fill out every month that asked about relationships then I’d be up for promotion (my agency doesn’t give promotions - so this is a little tongue in cheek). My life here, in vast difference to the way it was in the States, is all about relationships.

We hang out with our neighbors, and I’ve made friends with some of the folks that run a couple of the youth centers here in town, and we’ve started to hang out at the new coffee shop down the road, and I made a few friends in a photography class that I took, and on and on.

So maybe the Kingdom of God does have a speed (or rate of growth) that is relative to where you’re living/working and who you’re doing life with. For me I’ve come to realize that Kingdom work is hard and slow (very slow). I stay faithful in building, growing, and maintaining these relationships and pray like crazy that God moves these people toward himself.

But man is it hard…
-shorty

Posted on May 12, 2008 - by ray

The Function That Catalyzes (or Frosty, Part II)

What drives your church? What is the function that is the catalyst for all other functions that exist in your church? Michael Frost would argue that the majority of churches today are driven by a single function. That single function is the catalyst for all other functions that the church carries out.

Frost would say that that single function that drives all others in today’s churches is worship. Stop and think about the church you’re a part of. What drives it? For many of us we immediately think of the Sunday event. We even call it “worship”. We invite our neighbors to it. We dress up for it. We set aside our Sunday morning for the “event”. The Sunday event (the worship event) drives our community structures (our small groups, our Sunday schools, our home groups), it drives our discipleship, and it drives our mission. In almost any church today if you took away the Sunday event the church would cease to exist.

Frost goes on to argue that there are four main functions that make up a church: mission, worship, community, and discipleship. None of these are more important than the others. They should all play an equal part in the life of a church. But one will usually be the catalyst for the others, and to Frost it should not be worship - it should be mission. The mission of our churches should drive the way we worship, the way we disciple, and the way we form community. And this is not a simple mission statement. It’s much more complex than that. To Frost mission plays itself out in the missional rhythms of a church (another post for another day).

So, what is the thing that catalyzes all things that your church does and is? Is it the Sunday event, or worship, or your desire to see community formed within your church body, or your desire to see disciples made? Or is it the mission that catalyzes all of these things?

I’ll conclude my series on the Frost conference with missional rhythms later this week.

-shorty

Posted on April 15, 2008 - by ray

America, Part 2

The purpose of my trip to the States was to speak at a conference. The purpose of the conference was to interact with and get to know churches that might have a desire to get involved with work here in Western Europe. During the conferences we had little break-out sessions where we were able to really jump into conversations with the representatives from the churches that attended. I really enjoyed getting to know these people, their heart, and their interest in things happening overseas.

But there where two things that struck me about my conversations. One, there’s a big difference between “doing missions” or being “missions minded” AND being missionAL or being ON mission with God. The first two terms seem to indicate that missions is simply a ministry of the church, like the mens ministry or the childrens ministry. I heard these two terms from quite a number of those attending the conferences. The second two terms indicate (or should indicate) the inherent nature of you and your church. Being on mission with God should be at the center, the core, of who you are to those around you, and how your church is seen by others. Unfortunately I didn’t hear these terms used very often.

Now some might say that it’s simply a matter of training or re-training. But I think it goes deeper than that. We’ve been conditioned to see church in a consumeristic way. We, being the consumer, come to shop on Sunday’s (or for really big churches most days of the week) and get our fill. In many cases these things have the purpose of making us feel better about ourselves. Now, no one would say that’s the purpose, but let’s be honest. When a guy comes home from a men’s ministry camping weekend, or the wife comes home from a weekend women’s conference how do they report their experience? And mission trips are no different…another ministry opportunity to get people “plugged in”.

However, the missio dei (the mission of God) is about seeing His kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven. It’s inherent in who He is. He doesn’t have a mission, He is the mission. And His mission should be carried out not only in the church, but in the lives of the individuals that make up the church…that’s you and me. Don’t make missions another ministry, another short term trip, another dollar in the offering plate. Make it who you are, someone who is on mission with God, not just someone that is missions minded.

The other big thing I noticed is that there were several churches that were waiting to get involved because they felt as though they didn’t have the resources. I’m sympathetic to smaller churches with small budgets not feeling as though they can make a “big” impact on things happening overseas. My recommendation…don’t wait until you have the resources. You never will. Partner with other churches, start small, start with a single purpose in a single place and let God grow it. But better still, start in your own community. Being on mission with God doesn’t necessarily mean that your involvement with God’s mission has to be done over here. Bring about God’s kingdom in your community. Partner with other churches that share your vision and passion for seeing God move in your community and in your world. And go from there…

If any of this resonates with you I’d love to talk more with you about it. Shoot me an email. This is something I’m passionate about and I would love to see your community transformed through your obedience to be on mission with God.

Technorati Tags: misisonal, church

Posted on July 10, 2007 - by ray

On Strategy

I read with great interest blogs and sites that deal with issues of strategy and methodology in missions. I appreciate and respect individuals like Guy Muse and David Rogers. They talk about things like MAWL (Model, Assist, Watch, and Leave), or common elements found in CPM’s (Church Planting Movements), or strategies from Wolfgang Simpson’s book Houses That Change the World.

In and of themselves these are all good things to discuss. I’m of the belief that while strategies are good to study, the implementation of them is quite dependent on the geographical location and group of people you are working with. There are things that Guy writes about on his blog that simply wouldn’t work where I’m at. It doesn’t mean that they are bad, they’re just not right in this context. Much of what is written about mission strategy starts with a wrong assumption. The assumption is made that there are those that have either come to faith, or about to come to faith. So the strategy focuses on what to do at the point of conversion so that it can be duplicated such that it leads to a movement. This is why much of what I read about mission strategy doesn’t work for me.

I live in a European context. But I’m not working with Europeans. I’m working with Muslim ethnic minorities. The community is completely closed. They have little to no use in outsiders. If you don’t have a good or service to offer them they want nothing to do with you. To “do life” with them is very difficult…next to impossible in my opinion. Theological discussions will not persuade them. And these people are not coming to faith and are not near coming to faith.

So you can see that I have a hard time taking what others are doing (or not doing) and try to implement it here. I have to find something that works for where I’m at and who I’m trying to reach. And this has led me to a passage I read recently in John 4. The son of a royal official is very ill. The father comes to Jesus asking him to heal his boy. Jesus responds by saying, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe”. In other words, Jesus is saying “look, you won’t believe in me based on what I’m saying, so I’m going to have to show you something miraculous and blow you out of the water in order for you to believe.” And he does just that. He heals the boy and as a result the father and his whole household come to faith (v. 53). This is where I’m at with strategy. I’m not giving up on building relationships with those in my community. In fact, I’m doing just the opposite. But I truly feel that these people will have to see sign and wonders, and will have to have dreams and visions in order to come to faith. I know that God can move anyway he chooses, but it just seems that something is going to have to shake these people to their very foundation before they will look and behold the glory and grace of Jesus Christ.

So now my strategy contains a lot of praying for signs, wonders, dreams, and visions. It may be the only way this community is saved.