Category Archives: Missional Living

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Vision Questions For Every Neighbourhood Missionary

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Before we get to the official “Five Questions” for every neighbourhood missionary, we want to look at some bigger picture, vision based questions for those who want to be salt and light to the neighbourhood.

The first question, one that is so obvious that it might easily be overlooked, is “What is a “Neighborhood Missionary”?  I do not want to assume that we all have the same level of understanding and/or acceptance of what God is calling us to.  At the same time, I hope that for most this is not new information.  I feel very strongly that God has called his followers to be a community of people on mission where ever he has called them.  This calling includes our families, schoolmates, teammates, coworkers, and yes, our neighbours as well.  We are called to be salt and light wherever God has planted us, but I think we need to reclaim our neighbourhoods as an obvious place that God desires us to shine forth for him.

All that said, a neighbourhood missionary is one that acknowledges their God given call to love those who cross their natural path of life in the natural rhythm of life.  So the first important question we need to answer is “Do we acknowledge and accept the call of God in our lives to be on mission  for and with him?”  I believe we need to be able to answer this before we can move forward with knowing how to care and love our neighbours.  I am not sure that most of us have really wrestled with this question.

There are a number of other big picture questions that I think are foundational to the calling to be on mission with God.  Some of those are:

  • Am I actually called to make disciples?
  • Can I even make friends outside of the Church?
  • What does it look like to share the gospel today?
  • What does it look like to live out the mission of God in my everyday life and at the natural rhythm of my life?

As we begin this journey let’s start by focusing on these foundational questions.  Take some time over the next few days to reflect on these questions.

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Primer for Everyday Mission–An Introduction

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This is an introduction post for a new blog thread entitled “Primer For Everyday Mission”.  This thread of posts will be presented for 10 weeks and will look at “Five Questions” that need to be asked with regard to living on mission for God in the everyday journey of life.  The goal of these questions will be to develop a heart and strategy for loving and bringing the hope of the Gospel to those that God has placed in the natural paths of our lives.

One of the sources of inspiration for this thread will be book entitled “A Field Guide for Everyday Mission: 30 Days and 101 Ways to Demonstrate the Gospel by Ben Connelly and Bob Roberts, Jr., but there will be many resources used and cited for these posts.

Over the next 10 weeks there will be a blog post for this thread every Tuesday and Thursday, and there will be weekly audio podcast posted each Saturday.  Please check back regularly to stay up to date with the material and challenges presented.

“A church without the broken is a broken church.”
Ed Stetzer

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The Costliness of Caring

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Sometimes I find sermon preparation difficult.  The main reason that I struggle with it is that there is always 10 or 100 times the material than I will be able to present.  This last week as I worked through chapter 2 of Mark this was very much the case.  I am excited to use the blog as a way to provide extra material to augment the sermon for those who desire more information.

There was one portion of chapter 2 that I would like to have unpacked more, and that was the story of the men who brought their paralytic friend to be healed by Jesus.  I am inspired by this narrative.  In this story, we see a few vital lessons for us as we seek to show the love of Christ to those that God has put in our path of life.

The first thing we see is the compassionate concern that the friends had for their suffering friend.  We do not know much of the background, but we do know that these men wanted their friend to find healing and restoration.  They must have seen his pain throughout his life, and they wanted him to have a better and more fulfilled life.  To them this might be possible through the healing touch of the new teacher of whom they had heard.

Secondly we see their faith.  They just believe that if they can deliver their friend to the feet of the Messiah then there would be hope for him.  So in hope they put their plan of action into play.  They seek to get him to the master, but when they can not make it into the crowded room they are ready with Plan B.  If they can’t come through the door they figure they will go through the roof.  Their faith is that strong that it drives them to be creative.

Our compassion and faith can sometimes be costly, and their creativity would come with a cost.  For them to open the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching would assume that they would be willing to exert the effort or pay the cost to have the roof repaired after all was said and done.  To them the hope of healing for their friend was worth the price that they would have to pay to get their friend before the Saviour.

Are we in our lives compelled by a genuine compassionate concern for our friends, neighbours, and loved ones?  As we seek to meet the needs of those around us, as we desire to get them to the foot of the cross, are we walking in faith?  Are we  willing to pay the cost for such a cause?  It has been my personal experience from my life and the observation of the lives of many that we often hold to these values in theory, but struggle to put them into practice.

Be inspired by the story of these men.

Above is a video interview with Jeff Vanderstelt.  This is part of a promotional package for a book called A Field Guide for Everyday Mission: 30 Days and 101 Ways to Demonstrate the Gospel.  I am currently reading this book and I will begin a series of posts based on this book in the next few days.  I feel the straight forward approach to living on mission presented in this book will make for great conversation and thought.

For now please enjoy and be challenged by the interview with Jeff.

In a few weeks I will have the distinct privelage to be with a handful of other NAB pastors under the teaching leadership of Jeff Vanderstelt.  I have known Jeff for many years since he was a youth pastor in Seattle.  He is an amazing leader with an amazing passion to see the Kingdom of God grow and multiply.  I know that I will be challenged with the two days that we will be with Jeff and his church family at Soma in Tacoma.  The video above is a snippet of the teaching we will be receiving.

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Discipleship at The Kitchen Sink–The Art of Regular Hospitality

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Time to wash up

I have said for a long time that “discipleship happens at the kitchen sink.”  I believe this to be true for our children and for those God has arranged to cross our path on a regular basis.  It is in the rhythm of ordinary everyday life that God brings about extraordinary changes in the lives of those we walk life with.  While we wash dishes and do yard work God provides the opportunity for us to share the fabric of our faith with others.

I learned many years ago as a young youth pastor that it was hard to sit across from a young person and get them to open up to you, but if you were active in some pursuit with them they would open up to you.  This pursuit could have been throwing a football, shooting hoops, washing dishes, setting up for an event, raking leaves for a senior or anything other of a million things we could do together.

I remember when I realized that was true with friends as well as my youth group.  It was while cleaning the kitchen with a friend that I was able to enter easily into a spiritual conversation.  In the flow of an everyday activity I was able to intertwine a discussion on this persons view about God and his involvement, or seemingly lack of  involvement,  in their present situation.  This simple conversation was a springboard for a season of heart to heart discussions that would make us both grow in our understanding of God and his place in our lives.

I know that this information may not be revolutionary to some who read this, but for others, this kind of ordinary life conversation is something yet to be experienced.  For those on either end of the spectrum I think that there is one thing that we need to master to make sure that we don’t miss out on a single opportunity to deepen the spiritual richness of our relationships, and that is the art of hospitality.

I believe that hospitality, while a natural gift for some, needs to become something that we all work towards.  I believe this is a lost art that needs to be restored to and through the Body of Christ.  I feel that Joanne and I have or at least have been able to develop the gift of hospitality.  We love to have people in our home and yet there has been a dry season of entertaining and sharing life with others in our home.  What has caused this season?  Simply being to busy.

I recently read an article by Jeff Vanderstelt an old friend from my youth ministry days.  In the article Jeff addresses the lost art of Gospel Hospitality.  He gives this very unique and interesting definition of Gospel Hospitality:

In light of the Gospel, we might define hospitality as the creation of a space that allows people to BE themselves, to BECOME renewed, and to DO the works God has saved them for. When we properly exercise hospitality, we welcome people to be themselves in the warmth of the light of Christ, to become renewed by being changed by the work of Christ, and to do works we have been created for in Christ.

This definition and the article as a whole has given me much to think about.  I will write more later, but I encourage you to click  here to read the complete article by Jeff on the Gospel Centered Discipleship website.

 

 

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Freedom To Love People, Not Win People

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For many years as a follower of Jesus, as well as many years as a pastor, I was afraid of loving people.  No, that is not correct, I wasn’t afraid, I was simply not called to love people, or so I thought.  The calling I had received from the churches that I was a part of was to WIN people, not to LOVE them.  Every aspect of relational involvement with people was geared at winning them over to the side of Christ.  I was taught an adversarial and competitive stance that lead me to see people as the enemy, or at best those to be conquered.  It was after many years of ministry  that I came to understand the joy of truly just loving people.

One of the freedoms that we need to experience is to be free to love people not see them as opponents to be challenged and conquered.  Now that is much easier to say than to do, because many say that they are going to  change their behaviour, but they don’t change it correctly.  Change is not always correct, sometimes it is just change.

Often people think they are loving when all they have done is changed their perspective on people.  They view them no longer as opponents or competitors and begin to view them as projects.

I always give the example of my daughters as my understanding of the difference between people as projects verses truly loving people.  I never see my 5 daughters as a project, or as people I am trying to “turn into Christians”.  I simply love my girls and as a reflection of that love I desire the best for them, and the best I could hope for them is that they will come to know and to walk intimately with Christ.

It is that kind of love I have had to learn to develop for my neighbours and friends.  To do this means to walk in true community with people, and to walk life with them.  We need to be planted among the people and we need to allow our roots to go deep.  We need to take up residence among the people that God has planted us.

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry
and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your
daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.
Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”   Jeremiah 29:4-8

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The Joy Of Life Together–The Spiritual Act of Community

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I have been reminded over these last few months of the joy of doing life together.  I often struggle to make time for community.  I struggle for two primary reasons.  The first is due to the fact that life is very busy and it is just difficult to find time to be with others or to have people in our home.  The second reason is that I am introverted by nature.

Through the years it has been my introversion that has kept me from enjoying community, but over time I have learned to appreciate the need for others in my life.   A few days ago we enjoyed the fun of having our Community Group meeting in our home and sharing a meal together.  We were spread across the house eating, but over time all of the adults ended up around the table in the dinning room.  We simply all wanted to be in the same room together.  What a joy this was.

It is easy to over strive to make time together spiritual and miss the idea that just being together in community and sharing life together is in itself a spiritual act.  Trust me, being together is not enough.  We need to pray for one another and encourage each other in the Word.  We need to pull each other along toward Christ, but we must not miss the fact that the Lord has created community not as a structure but a spiritual act.

Now I do not fight my introversion as much as I fight the busyness of life to make sure that I do not miss out on the privilege of experiencing the spiritual gift of community.