Missional or Mission-Minded?

November 11, 2008

There’s a difference between being ‘missional’ and ‘mission-minded’.  I was reading an article titled ‘Is Your Church Missional?’ by Ed Stetzer, where he outlines the difference between being missional and being mission-minded.  Generally speaking a mission-minded church is primarily concerned about mission around the world: it gives financially to mission, it prays for it’s missionaries and countries around the world, and it promotes short term missions or cross cultural missions.  In a mission-minded church, mission is seen as one of the many programs or departments of the church, which happens to be the case in the majority of churches in our city (if at all).  The dominant focus is on seeing mission as something we support or do around the world.  A missional church sees the mission field as being here in our city around them, their workplaces, their family networks, their schools, wherever God has placed us today.  Not only do they see the need to support mission overseas, they see themselves as missionaries and act like missionaries where they are placed.  In a missional church, every aspect of the ministry and life of the church is shaped by a missional perspective.

In a missional church, everyone acts and lives like a missionary. They do things that missionaries do.  They study and learn the culture around them, and they live in that culture to proclaim the good news by contextualizing it for the culture around them.  As Paul puts it in 1 Cor.9:19-23, it’s about becoming all things to all people to win them for Jesus, not compromising the gospel of Jesus, but sharing Jesus in culturally relevant ways.  To the banker you become like the banker to reach them … to the commerce student you become like the comer student to reach them … to the skatehead you become like the skatehead to reach them.  And you do this not compromising your Christian life or the gospel, but contextualizing it for those in front of you.

The challenge for us is more than just one of evangelizing those around us.  The challenge for us is to evangelize in culturally relevant ways. Do you know the hopes, fears and questions those around you are asking about life?  Do you know their worldview?  Do you know their culture?  Do you know where the gospel address their fallen condition?  Do you know how to best introduce them to Jesus?  Are you being ‘missional’ where God has placed you?

As a church we’re not just the people whom God has gathered around Jesus, we are also a people who have also been sent.  We are a called and sent to be a missional community and missionaries by the one who was himself sent on a mission.  Jesus himself commissioned us when he said, ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you’ (John 20:21). As I have often said, you are either a missionary or a mission field.  There are only two kinds of people in God’s economy.  I believe God has gathered us into his church, and is sending us as his missionaries into the many places in our communities: our workplaces, our families, our places of study, our clubs wherever God has placed us today.  The mission of God begins where God has placed you today!

Stetzer points out that missional believers take Acts 1:8 literally and act like missionaries first in their own Jerusalem (Burwood), Judea (Sydney), Samaria (Australia) and to the ends of the earth.  Sometimes we forget that the mission of Jesus begins where God has placed you first thing Monday morning.

A Hymn on the Holy Spirit by Luther

September 19, 2008

I spent this week looking at contemporary worship songs on the Holy Spirit while preparing for a new sermon series on the Holy Spirit this coming October.  While many were disappointing and vacuous, many were devotional focusing on our dependence and response to the work of the Spirit.  There were few that were rich in a deep theology of the Spirit.  What surprised me was the number of hymns written on the Holy Spirit that were deep, warm, devotional, fervent and moving.  Here’s one by the reformer Martin Luther.

To God the Holy Spirit Let Us Pray

To God the Holy Spirit let us pray
Most of all for faith upon our way
That He may defend us when life is ending
And from exile home we are wending.
Lord, have mercy!

O sweetest Love, Your grace on us bestow;
Set our hearts with sacred fire aglow
That with hearts united we love each other,
Every stranger, sister, and brother.
Lord, have mercy!

Transcendent Comfort in our every need,
Help us neither scorn nor death to heed
That we may not falter nor courage fail us
When the foe shall taunt and assail us.
Lord, have mercy!

Shine in our hearts, O Spirit, precious light;
Teach us Jesus Christ to know aright
That we may abide in the Lord who bought us,
Till to our true home He has brought us.
Lord, have mercy!

Martin Luther, 1483-1546

How should you deal with spiritual dryness?

September 15, 2008

Often when people have spoken to me about spiritual dryness, I’ve often tried to work out what they’ve meant by it.  Some people associate spiritual dryness as being spiritually down or depressed.  Others speak of spiritual dryness as feeling as though their Christian life was in a lull.  Sometimes people articulate spiritual dryness this way - ‘I go to church, I read my Bible, I pray, yet I still feel empty and down as a Christian. To make matters worse, everything around me is falling apart. I feel as if God is distant.‘ Richard Foster in his book on Prayer, calls this walking a spiritual desert.  Let me share with you some thoughts that I hope will help you along the way in your desert experience.

Firstly, let me say that the Scriptures have much to say about desert experiences.  The Psalms are full of prayers that express the pain and depths of feeling alone, isolated, rejected, abandoned.  The story of Job is the story of a guy who looses everything he has in his life.  The story of Joseph is the story of a guy who is sold into slavery by his brothers, and is then jailed for a crime he didn’t commit.

What can we learn about spiritual dryness from the Scriptures?

1) Spiritual dryness is not necessarily a bad thing. We must always remember that God is sovereign and is still actively working for our growth and good.  Job in ch.1 was never privy to the spiritual exchange that was happening between God and Satan.  Joseph only in hindsight understood God’s good purposes in Gen.50:20.  We must remember that God IS committed to us, HAS demonstrated his commitment to us completely and definitively in his Son (Rom.8:31-39), and is working even through our present desert experiences to grow us to be more like Jesus (Rom.8:28-30).  Spiritual dryness is part of God’s sanctifying work growing us to be more like Jesus.  Sometimes we forget that there is unseen beauty in the desert.

2) Spiritual dryness should drive us to desire and seek God. When I’m hungry I raid the kitchen for food (often it’s the chip cupboard at midnight).  In the same way, when we are walking in a spiritual desert, we should be panting for God like a deer panting for water.  Read Ps.42 - this guy was truly down spiritually and physically.  He’s wondering where God is.  Tears has been his food day and night.  Yet, it drives him to want God, to seek Him, to find Him.  Spiritual dryness should drive us to desire and seek God: his comfort, his presence, his strength, his filling, his help, his love.  We should be devoting ourselves to fasting, solitude and prayer during these times, to seek Him and to long for Him.

3) Spiritual dryness should drive us to ask what God is wanting to teach us. I mentioned before that God is sovereign and is always actively working for our good, to grow us to be more like Jesus.  Well, ask yourself, what is God wanting to teach you through your desert experience?  Growing in prayer, learning to depend more on him, perseverance and faithfulness, finding comfort in him, loving him more, seeking and proving his promises, praising and giving him thanks for what you do have?  Spiritual dryness can draw us closer to God and grow us.

4) Spiritual dryness should drive us to examine our lives. In our spiritual dryness God might also be wanting us to examine our lives to see if there might be anything in our lives that might be hindering our spiritual walk with Him - unrepentant and unconfessed sin that we need to repent off, habitual sins that we neglect to deal with, spiritual disciplines that we need to commit to, priorities that need to change. Sin if not dealt with affects our spiritual walk with God (Is.59:2), affects our joy (Ps.51:12), brings God’s discipline (Heb.12:6) and a whole host of other consequences.

A verse that has always been a comfort to me in my desert experiences has been Is.50:10 where we are told that, ‘let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.‘  When there is no light, I trust in the name of my LORD i.e. the unfailing and proven character of the one who has loved me, died for me and saved me, who holds my life and future in his loving hands (Gal.2:20).  Let me encourage you to do the same in when you walk the desert paths.  May you keep trusting Him, may Jesus fill you abundantly.

The Prosperity Gospel

August 31, 2008

The “prosperity gospel” by Kirk Anderson.

Here’s another take on ‘$3 worth of God’ that you find in many churches today.

The Gospel vs. $3 Worth Of God (Moral Relativism)

In my last post on ‘gospel centered’ ministry I highlighted the dangers of ‘religion’. The default position of the human heart is always a move towards a performance or works based approach to God in life. We need to remember that the gospel is that God accepts me because of Jesus’ cross work alone, and so I trust and obey him in life. The gospel is not I trust and obey him in life so that God accepts me.

The problem for many Christians though is that if we don’t gravitate towards ‘religion’, we move towards ‘moral relativism’. Just as you can stray from the gospel as a Christian by slipping into a performance based Christian faith, you can stray by slipping into moral relativism or apathy. A moral relativistic faith is a nominal faith, where you belong only in name to Jesus, but without any impact in how you live the Christian life. You want Jesus to save you, but he has very little to do with how you live your life, except to be there to serve you, to validate your lifestyle, and to affirm your needs. A moral relativistic approach to God will always lead to self-centered hedonism.

Like I shared in my sermon tonight, most people only want ‘$3 worth of God’, a Jesus who will save me, give me what I want, but who makes no moral or ethical demands or changes in my life. Wilbur Rees with great irony describes it this way in speaking of those of us who hold to this kind of gospel and nominal faith: “I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please - not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of him to make me love a foreigner or pick beets with a migrant worker. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of a womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I’d like to buy $3 worth of God, please.”

It’s so true isn’t it – we want the warmth of the womb, but not a new birth. We want just enough of Jesus, but not enough to so radically change our lives or disturb our comfortable lives. We want just enough to make us feel good, but not enough to transform us. We want the warmth and assurance of being saved, but not a new birth. We don’t want a Jesus or a gospel that demands that we pick up a cross, make major sacrifices, repent of our sins, change the way we live, make us give up our selfish ambitions, and cause us to change our plans in life.

The gospel is that God accepts me because of Jesus’ cross work alone, and so I trust and obey him in life. What we often forget is that repentance, trust and obedience is the fruit or evidence of a life that has been saved. The problem with a moral relativistic or nominal approach to God is that it gives you the false assurance that you’re ok or even worse, that you’re a Christian. You can have a convenient gospel and a Jesus who makes you feel good, who doesn’t make any demands on your life, who will allow you to do and live as you please - you can have that Jesus and you’ll end up in hell, because that’s not the Jesus of the Bible or the gospel.

RICEfest … RICE Rally 2008

August 17, 2008

What could be more exciting that seeing 1500 young people hearing the gospel, not just once, but three times over the day! Last Saturday was RICEfest, and it was a privilege for me being involved in sharing Jesus this year.  I think my job as a preacher was an easy one compared to the RICEfest team.  I was absolutely struck by the incredible commitment of the RICEfest team who made it all happen.  It struck me that here was a group of young leaders from so many churches really committed to seeing Jesus proclaimed in our city to young people.  It wasn’t about where they came from or what churches they belonged to - Jesus and his mission united them.  They don’t just talk about it, they actually got their hands dirty to serve Jesus, his mission and his gospel.  I saw the trucks they hired to carry gear, the equipment and tables they had to haul, the manual labour involved in setting up the tents, organizing the food, showbags, activities … these guys love Jesus and more than anything else they want to see Him lifted up among young people in our city.  Let’s pray for the seeds sown at RICEfest this year … that we’ll see a harvest of young people for Jesus next week at RICE Rally!

It’s 7 days to the RICE Rally where Mark Driscoll will be speaking, so let’s pray for the RICE leaders, the RICE volunteers, young people bringing friends, for Mark as he preaches, and for the thousands of young people who will hear of Jesus this coming Saturday!

Watch The Lamb …

August 15, 2008

Here’s a great reminder of the atoning work of Jesus. Ray Boltz’s ‘Watch The Lamb‘ will encourage and move you.

The Gospel vs. Religious Legalism

August 12, 2008

Today I was reminded of the need to keep our ministry ‘Gospel Centered’, reading Tim Keller’s article on ‘Gospel Centered’ ministry. It seems strange to say it, as it’s something we’ve always assumed. But it’s worth saying over and over again as I reminded our small group leaders yesterday evening. We need to be absolutely clear when it comes to the gospel. The gospel is that God accepts me because of Jesus’ cross work alone, and so I trust and obey him in life. The gospel is not I trust and obey him in life so that God accepts me.

Our problem even as Christians is that we always gravitate towards ‘religion’. It’s the default position of the human heart to move towards a works based approach to God in life. Many of us begin with grace, but then gravitate towards works to find our acceptance as Christians. Religious legalism is an enemy of the gospel and the church because it leads to a self-centered moralistic faith. A performance based Christian life either leads to a lack of assurance or pride because my acceptance depends on my performance as a Christian. It’s effectively saying that God’s acceptance depends on how well I am performing as a Christian.

Even the early church struggled with the issue of religious legalism. In Acts 15, we read of a group within the church insisting that those who wanted to be Christians needed to conform to certain human traditions to be saved. Peter’s response is that the gospel is pure ‘grace’ where, ‘we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.’ (v.11)

Too many of us within the church I believe have forgotten that God accepts us because of Jesus’ cross work alone, not because of any work we do. Instead of trusting and obeying him, we obey him to stay in his favour, and trust in our work. It’s the reason why for so many Christians, the Christian life lacks joy or assurance and has even led to resentment, because they are constantly performing to earn God’s acceptance. They live the Christian life trying to make up for their personal failures and sins in life. The flip side is that when you trust in your works and you’re doing well, it’s easy to fall into pride and self-sufficiency, thinking that your personal performance has done it for you. When that happens it’s also easy to look down on others whom you feel are not performing like you in the Christian life.

Many Christians do what they do out of guilt, thinking that they must do this or that for God to accept them, which either makes them resentful or proud (depending on how well they perform i.e. whether they fail or succeed). That’s religion and no different to any other world religion. As Christians we don’t do what we do to earn God’s acceptance. The gospel is that God accepts me because of Jesus’ cross work alone, and so I trust and obey him in life. The gospel is not I trust and obey him in life so that God accepts me

Newer Posts »