Tag Archives: Missional

Critiquing the Church, Part 1

by ray on 18. Apr, 2009 in Church

I’ve been thinking about the church lately, Christ’s bride. When the majority of us hear the word “church” we immediately think of the Sunday experience, and not the collection of believers that should be working towards the continued advancement of the Kingdom of God.

My thinking has led me to want to write a couple of posts about the church, but I’ve held off for a couple of reasons. One, my friend Ernest Goodman has been writing a series of articles on the Counterintuitive Church and I wanted to make sure the direction I was going wasn’t going to duplicate or repeat things he had already written. By the way, if you haven’t taken the time to read Ernest’s series I would recommend you take the time to do it. And two, there were things I wanted to write about without being critical. I think there is a difference between offering a critique and being critical. I didn’t want to be the later. I just finished ReJesus, by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, and a quote in the last chapter prompted me to go ahead with my plan for a very short series of posts (2 or 3) on the church. Here’s the quote:

But the point is that somehow these people, most of them ministers, failed to recognize that Jesus was regularly and scathingly critical of the religious leaders of his faith community. Futhermore, Jesus’ seven messages to the seven churches in the book of Revelation (Rev 2:1-3:22) contain plenty of harshly critical comment directed at the church! To claim it is un-Christlike to criticize the church is to disregard the example of Jesus (185).

My first critique is that the church today is bi-polar. It doesn’t understand it’s purpose. It has no sense of direction. It doesn’t know who it’s intended for. One reason the church is bi-polar today is the overuse of the word missional. Church leaders use the word without understanding what it truly means. They use the word as though it’s another program, like the Men’s Ministry, Upwards sports, and the monthly ladies dinner. It boggles my mind that churches have gone to the point where missional is now listed on church websites as a quality. All the while the vast majority of these churches would never think it feasible to release their church members out into the community (on a Sunday) to impact the Kingdom. The same leadership that promotes their church as missional also begs that it’s members invite, invite, invite friends and family members to the next big series.

So which is it? Are you still blatantly attractional with your program driven church experience, pretending to be missional, or are you missional in your mindset but don’t know how to translate it to vision and action?

And maybe the bigger question should be: do church leaders today know who makes up the church and what it’s intended to be? And so that you don’t miss where I stand on the issue let me flesh it out. I firmly believe that the church is intended to be a collection of believers (both local and universal), and that the members of the church have been uniquely gifted for the encouragement, discipleship, and admonishment of it’s fellow members. I also believe that the church is the vehicle by which God will save his elect. The church is the body of Christ, his bride. This does not mean, however, that the Sunday church experience should not be welcoming to the not-yet-Christian.

In my second post I’ll explore more deeply the Sunday church experience and why many churches have gotten it wrong.

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Missional Rhythms (or Frosty, Part III)

by ray on 21. May, 2008 in Church

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

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America, Part 2

by ray on 15. Apr, 2008 in Life, Missional

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.

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The Stories of Others

by ray on 02. Jan, 2008 in Life, Missional

I was watching a show recently where a part-time character was killed in an auto accident. One of the main characters was responsible for telling the spouse about her husband’s death. The main character commented that until this particular day she didn’t even know the wife (they worked at the same place), but was now the one that brought the news that would make up one of the worst days in the life of the wife. The main character would now be known as the one who told the wife of her husband’s death. She would be “that” person in the wife’s story of her life.

It got me to thinking…what part have I or will I play in the stories of others? When my neighbors tell their life story what part will I play? Will I be the one that showed them what Jesus was like, or will I show them what hypocritical religion was like, or will I even be mentioned at all?

I hope that when others I know, or will come to know, mention me in their stories it will be because in me they saw and experienced the hands, feet, eyes, mouth, and ears of Jesus. Hopefully they will say that I pointed them to the throne of Christ.

-shorty

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On Strategy

by ray on 10. Jul, 2007 in Gospel

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.

-shorty

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