Clarifying Missional

I keep coming back to this Jen Hatmaker blog post I found on the "Exponential Website"
http://blog.exponential.org/2013/11/a-new-measurement-of-success/

It hit me where I am right now and many of the things I am struggling with.  I have listed some of the phrases and ideas below that really stuck out to me:

Sometimes all the talking outpaces real life.

a new measurement of “success.”

talk transitions to practice  

margin 

widen the definition of what counts

We hope to see an increase in shared responsibility, a rotation of teachers, a decentralization of power, and a less polished type of pastor making headway in the next 10 years.

“Outreach” has been reduced to inviting someone to church, which the numbers assure us is no longer working.

Rather than imagining church attendance as the bulls-eye, we are more likely to connect with an unchurched or dechurched friend through justice and community.

We are going to have to live prophetic lives in our communities, not relegate the heavy spiritual lifting to pastors on Sunday mornings. 

authenticity, justice, flexibility, kindness and grace, simplicity and community

we must adopt a missional posture in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, real lives.

If people fear or distrust the church, it is our responsibility to show them a fresh representation of Jesus, a flesh and blood demonstration.

For the lifers, this might require jettisoning the Christian lingo and setting aside the talking points for a while. Let us secure a longer relational runway to earn a hearing for the gospel. Folks may be rejecting organized religion, but they are no less hungry for meaning and truth. We must become trustworthy friends, advocates for our neighbors and safe recipients of their questions. Judgment belongs to Jesus; we need not take that mantle. This may take two months or 12 years. We go the distance. Our homes become sanctuaries, our porches altars.

We are the church

Who do I say Jesus is?

And how do I live in response to that?

real obedience, real lives transformed through Jesus

Choices

I am not sure where I originally found the link to this article, but it has been sitting in my browser for a while.  I just finally got around to reading it this afternoon and it struck me.
I wrestle with providing my kids with all that I can, while not providing them with too much or excess.  The whole Disney vacation is an example of that, along with the extra curricular activities that they participate in and the trips we take as a family each year.  Schooling is another area I struggle with.  I like our kids in the local public elementary school for many reasons.  We can walk to school, it is in our neighborhood and a lot of our neighbors have kids there, and it is a good school.  If it were not such a good school, would I still send my kids there.  I would like to think so.  It is a little more diverse than some others in Knoxville, but far from a "poor school".  I like that diversity though (both ethnically and economically).

Thought I would link this article though for future reference.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/thisisourcity/7thcity/why-we-send-our-kids-to-poorest-public-school.html?paging=off

Reconciliation Over Condemnation

I started this post last night with the original title of "Tradition and Discontentment".  I was trying to capture the quotes below.

(From Red Letter Revolution - Claiborne and Campolo)
"...rather than trying to throw out our traditions, we need to bring them back to life.  Instead of complaining about the church we've experienced, we are working on becoming the church that we dream of."

"The church needs discontent.  It is a gift to the kingdom, but we have to use our discontentment to engage rather than to disengage."

"Just as we critique the worst of the church, we should also celebrate her at her best."

This morning I changed the title as I think really what is key here is the reconciliation of Christ's church and of people in their relationship with God.  This extends into the whole issue of witnessing and sharing our faith.  Yes, it is important to share the gift of Christ, grace, and love; but we must do so without condemnation in an effort to reconcile humanity back to the relationship God originally intended.  Through this lens (and not the hell lens) it seems to make more sense to me and motivate me more to talk to people about my faith and Christ.  I still think I should be more concerned about people's eternity, but the relationship seems important as well.  Both my relationship with those I am sharing with and their relationship with the creator, a father, and a savior who wants to reconcile the world back to the way it was intended to be.  I don't want to approach people in condemnation (either mine or God's), but with a story of reconciliation (both mine and theirs).  

Feast and Fast

From Jen Hatmaker's "7".  Funny how God hits me from every direction when he is trying to get His point across.

What would the early church think if they walked into some of our buildings today, looked through our church Web sites, talked to an average attender? Would they be so confused? Would they wonder why we all had empty bedrooms and uneaten food in our trash cans? Would they regard our hoarded wealth with shock? Would they observe orphan statistics with disbelief since Christians outnumber orphans 7 to 1? Would they be stunned most of us don’t feed the hungry, visit the prisoner, care for the sick, or protect the widow? Would they see the spending on church buildings and ourselves as extravagantly wasteful while twenty-five thousand people die every day from starvation?

I think they’d barely recognize us as brothers and sisters. If we told them church is on Sundays and we have an awesome band, this would be perplexing. I believe we’d receive dumbfounded stares if we discussed “church shopping” because enough people don’t say hello when we walk in the lobby one hour a week. If they found out one-sixth of the earth’s population claimed to be Christians, I’m not sure they could reconcile the suffering happening on our watch while we’re living in excess. They’d wonder if we had read the Bible or worry it had been tampered with since their time.

But listen Early Church, we have a monthly event called Mocha Chicks. We have choir practice every Wednesday. We organize retreats with door prizes. We’re raising three million dollars for an outdoor amphitheater. We have catchy T-shirts. We don’t smoke or say the F word. We go to Bible study every semester. (“ And then what, American Church?”) Well, we go to another one. We’re learning so much.

I think the early church would cover their heads with ashes and grieve over the dilution of Jesus’ beautiful church vision. We’ve taken His Plan A for mercy to an injured lost planet and neutered it to clever sermon series and Stitch-and-Chat in the Fellowship Hall, serving the saved. If the modern church held to its biblical definition, we would become the answer to all that ails society. We wouldn’t have to baby-talk and cajole and coax people into our sanctuaries through witty mailers and strategic ads; they’d be running to us. The local church would be the heartbeat of the city, undeniable by our staunchest critics.

Instead, the American church is dying. We are losing ground in epic proportions. Our country is a graveyard of dead and vanishing churches. We made it acceptable for people to do nothing and still call themselves Christians, and that anemic vision isn’t holding. Last year, 94 percent of evangelical churches reported loss or no growth in their communities. Almost four thousand churches are closing each year. We are losing three million people annually, flooding out the back door and never returning. The next generation downright refuses to come.

Ironically, this is the result of a church that only feasts.

When the fast, the death, the sacrifice of the gospel is omitted from the Christian life, then it isn’t Christian at all. Not only that, it’s boring. If I just want to feel good or get self-help, I’ll buy a $ 12 book from Borders and join a gym. The church the Bible described is exciting and adventurous and wrought with sacrifice. It cost believers everything, and they still came. It was good news to the poor and stumped its enemies. The church was patterned after a Savior who had no place to lay his head and voluntarily died a brutal death, even knowing we would reduce the gospel to a self-serving personal improvement program where people were encouraged to make a truce with their Maker and stop sinning and join the church, when in fact the gospel does not call for a truce but a complete surrender.

Jesus said the kingdom was like a treasure hidden in a field, and once someone truly finds it, he will happily sell everything he owns to possess that field, a perfect description of the fasting and the feast. It will cost everything, but it is a treasure and an unfathomable joy. This is the balance of the kingdom; to live we must die, to be lifted we bow, to gain we must lose. There is no alternative definition, no path of least resistance, no treasure in the field without the sacrifice of everything else. Oh Lord, may we be focused on the least; a people balancing the fasting and the feast.

And from "The Poor Will Be Glad" by Greer and Smith.

If an integrated approach to making disciples is a scriptural imperative, followers of Christ are not at liberty to choose between proclaiming Christ or serving the needs of the world. While this fact may cause discomfort for Christians for a variety of reasons, we should ultimately rejoice in the many advantages of integrated ministry.
.....
God's body on earth - the church - is uniquely able to provide a special feast for people around the world by simultaneously meeting spiritual and physical needs.

Take Time to Connect with People

"Time to think and time to connect with people are as important as getting everything done. Sometimes you have to go slow before you go fast."

I came across this quote in a Leadership and Management post on LinkedIn by Beth Comstock (Chief Media Officer at GE).  It applies to business dealings, but I think it is also pertinent to how we go about our work in the church.  I often (in both my professional and personal life) am so busy trying to meet deadlines, keep appointments, and accomplish my to do list that I forget I am dealing with people and it is probably the relationships with these people that are more important and will have a more lasting impact than the activities we are trying to accomplish.  The same also goes for evangelism and missions.  We must share the gospel and care for the poor and hurting around us, but we also must approach those we interact with as people and build relationships.  This will take time and require investment on our part, but it is those relationships that will be used by God for his glory and to accomplish his purposes, not our trivial actions.

Living Life for Today

Angela posted a link to a blog on Facebook (http://www.handsfreemama.com/2013/08/20/school-year-hopes/) talking about focusing the school year hopes for our children not on what we do not know will occur in the future, but on what we can control today.  This list of hopes for your child today struck me.

Today I hope to take a few extra seconds to kiss the top of your head before you go. 
Today I hope to stand aside and let you do it yourself … even if it takes a little longer … even if it’s messier … even if it’s not perfect. 
Today I hope to say, “I’m sorry,” and “I love you” because they are life changing, comforting, and healing words. 
Today I hope to laugh more than I sigh with exasperated breaths. 
Today I hope to view missed shots and off-key notes as brave attempts at living rather than failures to succeed. 
Today I hope to focus less on your faults and more on your freckles and sense of humor because they light up your face. 
Today I hope to notice the color of your eyes when you speak to me. 
Today I hope to listen to your words without judgment and impatience. 
Today I hope to extend grace for accidental spills and other kid mishaps. 
Today I hope to help you as you clean up that spill and tell you about the time I dropped an entire bag of flour on the kitchen floor. Maybe we’ll even laugh about it. 
Today I hope to give you a little extra time to walk along the edge of the curb, do your own hair, and listen to your knock-knock joke. 
Today I hope to catch a glimpse of you that suddenly reminds me how much of an extraordinary miracle you are. 
Today I hope to remember you are more than your achievements, more that your academic performance, and more than your behavior. 
Today I hope you see my eyes light up, not because of something you do, but simply because of who you are. 
Today I hope you go to bed knowing life is better because of you. 
Today I hope you fall asleep feeling loved right now, today, just as you are.

Daily Pilgrimage

Finished Patrick Morley's "The Man in the Mirror" today in bible study.  It was an okay book and brought about a lot of good discussion.  The passage below really sums up the book for me though and is one of my favorite from the book.  If we can live this way, everything will fall into place in the end.

"Life is a struggle. Each day is part of a pilgrimage that prepares us for our eternal destiny. Each day we should set apart Christ in our hearts as Lord. Focus on the good you see and hear. Testify, just as a witness to the jury, about the changes occurring in your own life.

Encourage those around you, and meet together regularly for friendship, accountability, Bible study, and prayer. To encourage someone is to inspire them to have courage. Attend church where the Bible is believed and Christ is honored. Join a weekly Bible study group. Form an accountable relationship. Pursue your job as a holy vocation. Remember the poor when you give your resources. Be a faithful steward. Stand against bigotry and racial prejudice. Increase your love for God and for people. Remember, no amount of success at the office can compensate for failure at home."