What should define the church?

December 22, 2008

Without a doubt a church faithful to the Biblical witness must strive to be a missional church community.  You are either a missionary sent by Jesus (John 20:19-21) or a mission field to be reached for Jesus.  One of the challenges we face will be how we define our mission field as a missional church.  For many of us the mission field of the church is defined by our ethnicity or culture.  Hence, in my church community many of us think of our church as an ABC (Australian Born Chinese) church or an overseas Chinese church.  The great danger in defining our church by it’s ethnicity or culture is that eventually it becomes both inclusive and missionally narrow in our city.  This will eventually lead to an unhealthy elevation of our ethnicity or culture above the cross-cultural mission of Jesus. There’s a difference between calling ourselves an ABC church or an overseas Chinese church, and calling ourselves a missional church made up of predominantly ABC’s or overseas Chinese reaching all people.

There’s a significant difference because in the former, our ethnicity and our culture is what defines us, our leadership and how we will do things.   In the latter, Jesus, his words, his cross work and his mission defines us.  In the latter our mission horizons expand in our city, because we will not be defined or limited by our ethnicity or culture.  We will be prepared to not just cross cultures, but change our culture to reach people in our communities – from planting new kinds of churches, to engaging our community in relevant ways, to changing our traditions and practices to win the lost.

We will move from being attractional to being missional.  Our present congregation might be effectively reaching middle class second generation ABC’s which is in line with the Pauline principle of being all things to all people to reach them i.e. to the ABC be like the ABC to reach them (1 Cor.9:19-23).  But, the question I’m asking is, ‘what about other people?‘   What will it mean for us to be all things to all people to reach them, to love them, to serve them?  It might mean changing our present church culture.  It might mean starting new ministries to reach new groups of people.  It might mean starting new churches to cross-culturally help people engage with God.  It might mean changing the way you think of what defines us as a church community – our ethnicity and culture, or the words, cross work and mission of Jesus?  I think that’s where it starts.  While I’m not denying the need to recognize our culture, I sometimes think we often make ourselves slaves to it.  Jesus and his gospel came to us in a particular culture (1st century Jewish culture), yet, he crosses into and transcends culture.  If the gospel were bound by culture, there would no mission and there would be no church.

In the great commission of Jesus (Matt.28:19-20), we are told to take the gospel to ‘all nations’.  The idea of the nations is not countries that are overseas, but people groups or ethnic groups right around us.  There were no countries or nation states in the world of the New Testament.  There were only groups of peoples and empires (Rome, Egypt).  The direction of the command to go or be sent to – is to all people groups.  We are sent not just to reach ABC’s, but to reach children, local youth, commerce students, professionals, Koreans, Egyptians, Anglo, families … we are sent to ‘all people’ in our city.  As a church we are defined not by the color of our skin or culture.  We are not an ABC or overseas Chinese or Anglo church.  As a church we are defined by the Lord Jesus who loved us and laid down his life for us, who gathers us under his rule, and who sends us to all people in our city and world (Galatians 2:20).  We are Jesus’ church sent to be all things to all people in this city to win them.

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.

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