Praying with St Benedict

July 2, 2009 | Filed Under prayer | 1 Comment

Gracious and Holy Father,
give us wisdom to perceive You,
intelligence to understand You,
diligence to seek You,
patience to wait for You,
eyes to behold You,
hearts to meditate upon You,
and a life to proclaim You,
through the power of the Holy Spirit of Christ our Lord.

– Benedict of Nursia (480-547)

DEATH by Church

June 30, 2009 | Filed Under books, church | 3 Comments

“I am convinced that one of the reasons so many people are turned off to the church (including pastors!) is that it all seems to explainable. How many pastors signed up to lead a revolution but are now caught in managing a spiritual business (complete with budgets, payroll, vision statements, and organizational charts)?

So many churches seem to be growing because of the excellence, efficiency, and relevancy of their programming. Of course, none of this (by itself) changes anybody; only God can do that. But we certainly act as if our programs could.

We all feel as if we have to offer a church much like the Wal-Mart Supercenter down the street. People want a vast array of inexpensive products, convenient times and locations, and smooth checkout, so we structure our churches the same way.

The problem with this, obviously, is that nothing in Wal-Mart transcends the ordinary. The same is true for most of our churches. We have little to no awareness or expectation of the presence of God directly speaking and ministering to His people. The entire ministry is mediated by well-dressed and polite people with name tags and the professionals on stage. The way the room is arranged, the worship music timed down to the second, the sermon with three points and two illustrations, the closing hymn — all these can point to human beings doing their best to be substitutes for God’s work in the lives of His people. No wonder clergy are blowing out in massive numbers. We’ve changed what church is and what pastors do — so much so that very few are able to keep this up for long.

Our definitions of success are too often aimed at bigger, better, and more, and we work ourselves into exhaustion as mini-messiahs who are poor substitute for the real thing. We may get glimpses of God’s transforming or healing power, but those are the exception rather than the rule. The ‘church as vendor of religious goods and services’ mind-set is antithetical to the Bible’s insistence that the church is the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:19-22), the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16), and the household of God (1 Timothy 3:15). This mentality is harmful not only to the church’s members but also to other churches as they compete with one another to deliver the best experience.

All of this adds up to the increasing irrelevance and isolation of the American evangelical church. Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger comment, ‘The end result of this increasing isolation is that a spiritual culture now surrounds a secular church.’”

– Mike Erre in Death by Church

Praying with Francis of Assisi

June 29, 2009 | Filed Under missional | No Comments

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, the truth;
Where there is doubt, the faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Praying with John Baillie

June 29, 2009 | Filed Under prayer | No Comments

“Today, O Lord — let me put others before self; let me put things of the Spirit before the things of the body; let me put the attainment of noble ends before the enjoyment of present pleasures; let me put principle above reputation; and let me put you before all else.”

– John Baillie (1886-1960)

Praying with John Wimber

June 26, 2009 | Filed Under prayer | No Comments

“Father, you know and I know I can’t do anything — so show me what you are doing and draw me into that.”

– John Wimber (1934-1997)

Praying with William Barclay

June 20, 2009 | Filed Under prayer | 1 Comment

“Grant, O God, that we may never listen to any teaching which would encourage us to think sin less serious, vice more attractive, or virtue less important; grant, O God, that we may never listen to any teaching which would dethrone Jesus Christ from the topmost place.” — William Barclay (1907-1978)

William Barclay on prayer:

“Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest we wait in silence for God’s voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace and His power to flow over us and around us; we lean back in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of perfect security in Him.”

Praying with Thomas a Kempis

June 18, 2009 | Filed Under prayer | No Comments

“Lord, may my desires change to your desires. Lord, if a desire is good and profitable, give me grace to fulfil it to your glory. But if it be hurtful and injurious to my soul’s health, then remove it from my mind.”

– Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471)

Praying with Aelred of Rievaulx

June 17, 2009 | Filed Under missional | 2 Comments

Lord, I sometimes wander away from you. But this is not because I am deliberately turning my back on you. It is because of the inconstancy of my mind. I weaken in my intention to give my whole soul to you. I fall back into thinking of myself as my own master. But when I wander from you, my life becomes a burden, and within me I find nothing but darkness and wretchedness, fear and anxiety. So I come back to you, and confess that I have sinned against you. And I know you will forgive me.

- Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167)

Praying with Clement of Rome

June 15, 2009 | Filed Under prayer | No Comments

“Grant us, Lord, we beseech you, your grace. Pity the poor, encourage those who are sick, enlighten those whose spirits are in darkness, heal the sick, guide the confused, feed the hungry, release those who are unjustly imprisoned, support the weak, comfort the faint-hearted. Let all the nations of the world know that you are God, that Jesus Christ is your child, and that we are your people.

- Clement of Rome (c. 96)

Praying with Thomas Aquinas

June 12, 2009 | Filed Under prayer | No Comments

“Most merciful God, order my day so that I may know what you want me to do, and then help me do it. Let me not be elated by success or depressed by failure. I want only to take pleasure in what pleases you, and only to grieve at what displeases you.

For the sake of your love I would willingly forgo all temporal comforts. May all the joys in which you have no part weary me. May all the work which you do not prompt be tedious to me. Let my thoughts frequently turn to you, that I may be obedient to you without complaint, patient without dejection, and serious without solemnity. Let me hold you in awe without feeling terrified of you, and let me be an example to others without any trace of pride.”

- Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274)

Eugene Peterson (watch, listen & read)

June 3, 2009 | Filed Under books, spiritual formation, theology | No Comments

I have been especially blessed lately, or “lucky” (you will have to watch the video to understand) by the work of Eugene Peterson. I wish his books would have been required reading in my seminary studies.

Our monthly network group is currently reading through Peterson’s “The Contemplative Pastor.” If you are a pastor and you haven’t read this book then do yourself and your people a favor, and do so. The short ten page chapter entitled “The Subversive Pastor” is well worth the price of the book.

After first illustrating how Jesus was a master at subversion, partly through the use of parables to subversively slip past the defenses of his hearers, Peterson writes:

Prayer and parable are the stock-in-trade tools of the subversive pastor. The quiet (or noisy) closet life of prayer enters into partnership with the Spirit that strives still with every human heart, a wrestling match in holiness. And parables are the consciousness-altering words that slip past falsifying platitude and invade the human spirit with Christ-truth.

This is our primary work in the real world. But we need continual convincing. The people for whom we are praying and among whom we are telling parables are seduced into supposing that their money and ambition are making the world turn on its axis. There are so many of them and so few of us, making it difficult to maintain our convictions. It is easy to be seduced along with them.

Words are the real work of the world — prayer words with God, parable words with men and women. The behind-the-scenes work of creativity by word and sacrament, by parable and prayer, subverts the seduced world.

The pastor’s real work is what Ivan Illich calls “shadow work” — the work nobody gets paid for and few notice but that makes a world of salvation: meaning and value and purpose, a world of love and hope and faith — in short, the kingdom of God.

For a very enjoyable sample of Peterson’s insight and wit check out the following video from ‘07 as he discusses a wide variety of topics, including the need for pastors to read fiction, the importance of new Bible translations, and a hilarious story about his interaction with Bono. For a bit more on the Bono connection you might also enjoy this post.

Lastly, during the month of June, Christian Audio.com is offering a free download of Peterson’s “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.” Simply go here and follow the instructions. No strings attached. Also be sure to sign up for the monthly newsletter to be notified of future free downloads.

(ht)

Is There a Hole in Our Gospel?

May 20, 2009 | Filed Under missional | 3 Comments

I just started reading The Hole in Our Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us? by Richard Stearns, president of World Vision. I hope to post much more in the coming days, but so far it looks to be a gem. Here is a short bit from the introduction:

I write this book from a very biased perspective. I believe that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And if Jesus was willing to die for this troubled planet, maybe I need to care about it too. Maybe I should love the people who live on it more. Maybe I have a responsibility to do my part to love the world that Jesus loves so much.

The idea behind The Hole in Our Gospel is quite simple. It’s basically the belief that being a Christian, or follower of Jesus Christ, requires much more than just having a personal and transforming relationship with God. It also entails a public and transforming relationship with the world.

If your personal faith in Christ has no positive outward expression, then your faith — and mine — has a hole in it.

God’s Heart for the Poor

May 15, 2009 | Filed Under gospel, justice, scripture | 5 Comments

I was reminded today of this post from a couple of years ago that helps us see clearly God’s heart for the poor, widows, orphans and foreigners. If you have any doubt about the volume of scripture that speaks to this topic, then consider this sampling:

Exodus 22:21
“You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way. Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.”

Exodus 22:22-23
“Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me. I will certainly hear their cry.”

Exodus 23:3
“And do not slant your testimony in favor of a person just because that person is poor.”

Exodus 23:6
“In a lawsuit, you must not deny justice to the poor.”

Exodus 23:11
“. . . but let the land be renewed and lie uncultivated during the seventh year. Then let the poor among you harvest whatever grows on its own. Leave the rest for wild animals to eat. The same applies to your vineyards and olive groves.”

Exodus 30:15
“When this offering is given to the Lord to purify your lives, making you right with him, the rich must not give more than the specified amount, and the poor must not give less.”

Leviticus 19:10
“It is the same with your grape crop—do not strip every last bunch of grapes from the vines, and do not pick up the grapes that fall to the ground. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.”

Leviticus 23:22
“When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.”

Leviticus 25:35
“If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and cannot support himself, support him as you would a foreigner or a temporary resident and allow him to live with you.”

Deuteronomy 15:7
“But if there are any poor Israelites in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward them.”
More >>

Death by Church

May 12, 2009 | Filed Under missional | 3 Comments

The church growth movement taught church leaders that the key to healthy church was that people have a positive experience in church. The program of the church needs to be excellent to attract a crowd. The speaker must be entertaining. The music must be excellent. The programs must be fast paced and offer relationship with nice people, and the parking must be sufficient.

If we do this well, people will be attracted to church, and this will expose the masses to the Word of God and the gospel. In this approach, we are really converting people to church attendance. The program takes most of the pastor’s time. He is the director of an event. Christian fellowship is then reduced to individuals consuming church together.

All of this, I argue, is not the cause of the church’s increasing irrelevance but is rather the consequence of a much larger and more foundational mistake. The church has forgotten that it is to be a witness to, a sign of, and a foretaste of the “now but not yet” kingdom of God. Central to the kingdom is God’s desire to renew, restore, and reconcile all things. For the church to truly be the church, it must announce, embody, and participate in this work of God in the world.

– Death by Church by Mike Erre

Guided Prayer Retreat

May 4, 2009 | Filed Under prayer | 4 Comments

Do you ever desire to set aside more time for prayer? Maybe even a whole day dedicated to listening and discovering what God is saying? But perhaps you haven’t been certain on how to best organize such a day. Or maybe you thought it would be helpful to participate with like minded people in such an endeavor.

If this is the case in your spiritual journey, then we hope you can join us for a one day guided prayer retreat on Thursday, June 4th here in Kansas City. We will be meeting from 9:00am to 4:00pm at the Tall Oaks Conference Center. Tall Oaks is located in Linwood, KS half way between Kansas City and Lawrence. For a map and directions to Tall Oaks you can go here.

Our prayer “guide” for the day will be Dr. Liam Atchison. Liam has been a seminary professor and church planting pastor, and is an historian and teacher. He and his wife Precious co-authored a book called Grief, published by NavPress. Liam is a graduate of Kansas State University, where he received his PhD in the history of hermeneutics, and Dallas Theological Seminary, where he received a Master of Theology. He was founding editor of the Christian cultural journal Mars Hill Review and has written a number of articles on history and on spiritual growth. He is the founder of Emmanuel House, a graduate theological study center in Manhattan, KS and Lincoln, NE that emphasizes knowing God and knowing ourselves as a theological basis for becoming effective readers of the biblical text, people, and culture.

Liam directed the biblical counseling program at Colorado Christian University in the halcyon days of the 1990s, where Dr. Larry Crabb was both a colleague and mentor. Liam went on to be a founder and the academic dean at Western Conservative Baptist Seminary’s Seattle (Now Mars Hill Graduate School) campus, before founding Emmanuel House in 2002. He was the ancient history teacher at K-State from 2005 to 2008, when he was nominated for Professor of the Year by his undergraduate students (he didn’t win, but what was cool was that the national professor of the year won!). A coffee snob from his years in the Pacific Northwest, Liam sees baseball as a spiritual exercise, loves telling stories, and seriously, seriously bleeds purple.

The cost of the one day retreat will be a very reasonable $15 (which even includes lunch!). If you are interested in joining us or have questions please leave a comment or email me at brad.brisco@gmail.com

Hope you can join us on June 4th.

May Missional Network Gathering

April 28, 2009 | Filed Under missional, networks | No Comments

The next Missional Network gathering will be Thursday, May 14th, from noon to 3:00pm. This month we are continuing our discussion through “The Contempaltive Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction” by Eugene Peterson. Thus far the book has been a wonderful breath of fresh air as Peterson speaks with words of wisdom seldom found in contemporary pastoral ministry literature.

In the foreword of the book, Rodney Clapp writes of Peterson:

“He pastors and writes from a scholarly background, having mastered the biblical languages and done doctoral-level work with the magisterial William F. Albright. But none of the learning is for show. Peterson is, in fact, uncomfortable with persistent questions about his books, insisting that his identity and aim in life is merely being a dependable pastor. In a world of mounting hype and glitter, he has dedicated himself to the unsung promotion of honesty, simplicity, and substance.”

Kansas City Network
Thursday, May 14th
12:00noon - 3:00pm
Kansas City Association
8745 Ballentine
Overland Park

Missional Meanderings

April 20, 2009 | Filed Under meanderings, missional | 1 Comment

David Dunbar’s latest Missional Journal article - “Everything Changes.” Here David speaks on the importance of having our theology shaped by the missionary nature of God and His church.

“What is crucial here is that mission is not first and foremost a job description for the church, but a reference to what God is up to in the world–God is on a mission!”

“The Church in a Missional Age” by Brett McCracken is a good basic introduction to the missional conversation. On the same Biola Magazine website, you can also find a great interview with Ed Stetzer.

Here are “10 Ways Not to Be Missional“

And finally, “Are You Attractive?”

Jesus and Leadership

April 14, 2009 | Filed Under way of Jesus | 4 Comments

“If you locked a new believer in a room for a month, and told him/her to read the Gospels and learn all they could about Jesus’ understanding of true spiritual leadership, there is no possible way that they would emerge a month later and suggest a CEO-style, management-based heirarchical model.” – Robby Mac

Is Jesus Crazy?

April 10, 2009 | Filed Under books, way of Jesus | 5 Comments

If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party.

The world says, “Mind your own business,” and Jesus says, “There is no such thing as your own business.”

The world says, “Follow the wisest course and be a success,” and Jesus says, “Follow me and be crucified.”

The world says, “Drive carefully—the life you save may be your own”—and Jesus says, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

The world says, “Law and order,” and Jesus says, “Love.”

The world says, “Get,” and Jesus says, “Give.”

In terms of the world’s sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion.

The Faces of Jesus by Frederick Buechner

8 Ways to Easily Be Missional

April 8, 2009 | Filed Under missional | 3 Comments

Jonathan Dodson helps to remind us that living a missional life is not rocket science. In his post titled “8 Ways to Easily Be Missional” he encourages us to invite others into daily activities that we already do.

As I read Jonathan’s post I was once again reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Eugene Peterson’s: “The way of Jesus is always local and ordinary.”

The Doctrine of Vocation

April 6, 2009 | Filed Under books, church, missional | No Comments

As the church in the west attempts to recapture the missionary nature of God and His church, we must think seriously upon the doctrine of vocation.

How can we better understand, and “apply” the fact that God blesses us so we can be a blessing in all that we do? A book that I believe can help us do just that is “God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life” by Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

Here are a couple of excellent excerpts that have helped me get a better mental picture of the importance of vocation:

“When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, observed Luther, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread. And He does give us our daily bread. He does it by means of the farmer who planted and harvested the grain, the baker who made the flour into bread, the person who prepared our meal. We might today add the truck drivers who hauled the produce, the factory workers in the food processing plant, the warehouse men, the wholesale distributors, the stock boys, the lady at the checkout counter. Also playing their part are the bankers, futures investors, advertisers, lawyers, agricultural scientists, mechanical engineers, and every other player in the nation’s economic system. All of these were instrumental in enabling you to eat your morning bagel.

Before you ate, you probably gave thanks to God for your food, as is fitting. He is caring for your physical needs, as with every other kind of need you have, preserving your life through His gifts. . . . And He does so by using other human beings. It is still God who is responsible for giving us our daily bread. Though He could give it to us directly, by a miraculous provision, as He once did for the children of Israel when He fed them daily with manna, God has chosen to work through human beings, who, in their different capacities and according to their different talents, serve each other. This is the doctrine of vocation.

When we or a loved one gets sick, we pray for healing. Certainly God can and sometimes does grant healing thorugh a miracle. But normally He grants healing through the vocations of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians, and the like. It is still God who heals us, but He works through the means of skilled, talented, divinely equipped human beings.

When God blesses us, He almost always does it through other people. The ability to read God’s Word is an inexpressibly precious blessing, but reading is an ability that did not spring fully formed in our young minds. It required the vocation of teachers.

God protects us through the cop on the beat and the whole panoply of the legal system. He gives us travel through the ministry of auto workers, mechanics, road crews, and airline employees.

He keeps us clean through the work of garbage collectors, plumbers, sanitation workers, and the sometimes undocumented aliens who clean our hotel rooms. He brings people to salvation through pastors and through anyone else who proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost. The fast-food worker, the inventor; the clerical assistant, the scientist; the accountant, the musician — they all have high callings, used by God to bless and serve His people and His creation.”

That is the doctrine of vocation!

Confession as Spiritual Discipline

April 3, 2009 | Filed Under missional | No Comments

“Confession is so difficult a Discipline for us partly because we view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We come to feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We could not bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. Therefore we hide ourselves from one another and live in veiled lies and hypocrisy.

But if we know that the people of God are first a fellowship of sinner we are freed to hear the unconditional call of God’s love and to confess our need openly before our brothers and sisters together. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied but transformed.”

– Richard Foster (ht)

A Sense of Mission

March 25, 2009 | Filed Under books, missional, way of Jesus | 1 Comment

“The first step in maintaining or getting a sense of mission for oneself is to feel the sweep and power of Jesus’ own sense of mission.”

– Albert Curry Winn in “A Sense of Mission: Guidance from the Gospel of John”

Instilling Missional Habits

March 20, 2009 | Filed Under missional | 2 Comments

Many of you may have already read this excellent post from David Fitch on how to lead a congregation out of ingrained habits of Christendom. Fitch shares nine habits that the church ought to “kindly” reject, along with nine corresponding missional virtues to instill into the life of the congregation. When you visit David’s blog be sure to subscribe to his feed, while his posting is often infrequent, when he writes it is always worth reading.

Speaking of worth reading, if you are not familiar with Fitch’s book The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies, then here is a short review I did on the book a couple of years ago:

Fitch’s overall intention in the book is to show how modernity has transformed clear gospel teaching into modernistic trends, he does this by looking at eight areas including success, evangelism, leadership, the production of experience, preaching, justice, spiritual formation, and moral education. Then the “task” of the book is to (1) examine the ways we have “given away” being the church to modernity by allowing its influence to individualize, universalize, syncretize, and commodify the tasks, truths, and even the very salvation we have been given as a people from god through Jesus Christ, and (2) to offer practices to evangelicals by which we may receive back being the church, the people of God ruled by Jesus as Lord in resistance to such modern influences.

With each of the eight areas of discussion there are clear strengths to be found in the explanation and solutions offered, however the strongest areas of the book include the chapters dealing with success, evangelism and spiritual formation. With the topic of success, Fitch contends that we measure success by size because we have accepted the modern values of individualism and efficiency.

Instead, success should be measured by measuring faithfulness rather than size. With the topic of evangelism he states that we rely on arguments, presentations, and proofs in our Gospel presentations, rather than embodying the reality of Jesus Christ being lived within our churches.

And with spiritual formation we have accepted therapy and psychology, and in many cases have substituted these for the biblical practices of confession, repentance, and speaking the truth in love in the context of community. Additionally, the book includes over thirty pages of excellent notes for further study and reflection.

The Holy Spirit and Mission

March 18, 2009 | Filed Under missional, theology | 2 Comments

I just finished reading “The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit” by Hendrikus Berkhof. Here is a powerful quote taken from a section titled “The Theological Neglect of the Mission.”

In Roman Catholic theology, the Spirit is mainly the soul and sustainer of the church. In Protestant theology he is mainly the awakener of individual spiritual life in justification and . So the spirit is either institutionalized or individualized. And both of these opposite approaches are conceived in a common pattern of an introverted and static pneumatology. The Spirit in this way is the builder of the church and the edifier of the faithful, but not the great mover and driving power on the way from the One to the many, from Christ to the world.

In one of the very rare theological works on the relation between the Spirit and mission, the American missionary Harry R. Boer writes: “Much has been written about the work of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of men, but very little about his crucial significance for the missionary witness of the Church.”

This situation is probably to the detriment of the mission, but surely to the detriment of theology, which suffers a great impoverishment indeed in that it is oriented to situations far more than to movements. In neglecting rather than reflecting the great movement of the Spirit, it distorts the whole content of faith and is an accomplice to the individualistic and institutionalistic introversion and egotism still found in the churches of today.

– Hendrikus Berkhof in The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

Sending in the Fourth Gospel

March 15, 2009 | Filed Under missional | 2 Comments

This morning in a message I shared in one of our church plants I spoke of the missionary, sending nature of God. As part of the message we examined the sending language in the Gospel of John.

The Fourth Gospel begins with the incarnation (or you could say it actually begins with the pre-incarnate Christ) in John 3:16-17 as the Father sends the Son, and it ends with Jesus sending his disciples in John 20:21. In between these two passages Jesus sees himself as one “sent by the Father” more than twenty-five times.

John 3:34
“For he whom God has sent utters the words of God.”

John 5:23
“He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”

John 5:24
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life.”

John 5:30
“I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

John 5:36-38
“These very words which I am doing, bear witness that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness to me.”

John 6:38
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.”

John 6:44
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

John 7:28-29
“But I have not come of my own accord; he who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I came from him, and he sent me.”

John 7:33
“I shall be with you a little longer, and then I go to him who sent me.”

John 8:18
“I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me.”

John 8:26
“He who sent me is true.”

John 8:29
“And he who sent me is with me.”

John 8:42
“I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.”

John 9:4
“We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day.”

John 12:44-45
“He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And he who sees me sees him who sent me.”

John 12:49
“The Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment what to say and what to speak.”

John 13:20
“He who receives me receives him who sent me.”

John 14:24
“The word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.”

John 14:26
“The Counselor will teach you everything and will cause you to remember all that I told you. This Counselor is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name.”

John 16:7
“If I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

John 17:3
“And they have believed that you have sent me.”

John 17:18
“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

John 17:25
“They know that you have sent me.”

The Art of Manliness

March 14, 2009 | Filed Under leadership, spiritual formation | No Comments

Over the past year I have enjoyed many wonderful posts from The Art of Manliness blog. If you are not familiar with this site then check out these two recent posts for an excellent sample of what you are missing:

Every Man Needs a Man Mentor and Great Lessons From Great Men

Websites For New Church Plants

March 13, 2009 | Filed Under church planting | 1 Comment

I was aware that John Smulo has been providing website design and support for some time, however just this week I took at look at his Purple Cow Websites page for the first time. I was impressed, not only with the quality of the product John provides but also with his desire to work with church planters. If you are starting something new or know your church website is in need of a new look (and you know it is!), be sure to give John a shout out.

Rhythms of a Disciple

March 12, 2009 | Filed Under missional | 2 Comments

Jason Salamun offers some key components when considering a missional rhythm of life. To read the complete post go here.

Follow
Above all, we seek to know, love, and follow Jesus in our thoughts, words, and actions. In every day and every moment, we look to Jesus as our great King and example. Following Jesus is a series of next steps, each resulting in us becoming more like him. His footsteps may be large but they mark the path of the life in full.

Sent
Jesus sends us out, on mission, into culture, to be salt and light everywhere we go. In this sense, we are missionaries wherever we are.

Explore
To love God with all our minds means we are to be curious and filled with wonder at what God has revealed- in particular in the scriptures. By regularly reading the bible, we learn what it means to live the lives we’re meant to live and we are shaped by the very words of God. We also discover more about our Creator and his creation in all realms of learning through story, wisdom, song, nature, imagination, and more. However, our highest authority is our divine conversation with Jesus through the reading of scripture.

Eat
We choose not to waste our meals. We will seek to commune with others when possible and view each meal as a blessing from God. With each food and drink we consume, we will remember the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf as his body was broken and blood was shed for us.

Presence
We reject any notion that we are to create our own subculture. Instead, we dwell within culture in order to influence, shape, and redeem it. We believe this whole world and everything, and everyone in it, belong to God. Like Jesus, we choose to enter the story in order to change the story.

Listen
We are charged to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. One tangible expression of love is listening. We will take opportunities to hear the stories of others. To rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. We also will listen to God and create deliberate moments of silence and quiet our hearts before our Creator.

Party
Backyard BBQ’s, gathering at the local watering hole, inviting friends to our home for food and fun. These are just a few examples of what it means to party. We choose to celebrate and enjoy life with people inside and outside our community. This is what Jesus did. A good party is like a little drop of heaven on earth and is a way of life for the follower of Christ.

Bless
We are blessed by God to be a blessing to others. This can come in many forms. An encouraging email, a note of appreciation, a kind word, an unselfish act, a helping hand. Wherever your imagination takes you. Being a blessing is to make deposits into the accounts of people. Showing grace is to do so whether someone deserves it or not. We will look to tangibly bless others daily.

Grow
Growth is a natural byproduct of every healthy, living thing. This includes people. Since growth comes from God, we will continually fix our eyes on Christ, search our hearts for any cheap substitutes to him, and repent of our sin and place them at the feet of our King. We will seek to live lives of health and wholeness remembering there’s one throne and one source of genuine growth.

Include
The arm of God is big enough to wrap around the whole world. The least we can do is wrap our arms around our neighbor, the people we come across in our daily lives. We will not play favorites based on social status but view all people as equally valuable under an almighty God. Our community is one where people can belong before they believe and find grace overflowing. All are welcome to the table.

Pray
We will be a people of constant conversation and communion with God. As we live our lives, we will pray without ceasing according to God’s will. We will thank God, worship God, be honest to God, confess our sins to God, listen to God, and always seek opportunities to pray for others. Our hope is to be the go-to people for prayer in our relational networks without making a big show of it.

Share
We will seek to share our time, talent, and treasure with others. Generosity will flow out of the grace God has given us. We are to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. We will be an authentic community who shares one another’s burdens with a battle cry that “no one stands alone.” This is pleasing to God and a fingerprint of a true disciple.

Fight
We will stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves and offer hope to the hopeless. We will fight against injustice and guilt-based religion by our actions and the Gospel. We agree with scripture and believe for justice to roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. In serving others, we serve Christ. We will never forget that our ultimate mission is to bring good news and be good news to those around us.

Magnificent

March 11, 2009 | Filed Under missional | 1 Comment

If you didn’t catch “U2 week” on Lettermen, this was my favorite performance.

I was born to sing for you
I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise

Formation “For The Sake of Others”

February 26, 2009 | Filed Under missional, spiritual formation | 4 Comments

My friend Georges Boujakly writes a helpful post on the need for spiritual formation being “for the sake of others.” Lately I have had several conversations with people about the greatest “need” for the dying church in the West. In most cases the issue is identified as a “discipleship/maturity” or “spiritual formation” problem.

For those who have followed this blog know that I, like many of you, believe the primary issue for the church in the West involves rediscovering the missionary nature of the church in the midst of a post-Christendom culture. The church must relearn what it means to be sent into the world to participate with God in what He is already doing.

Now is spiritual formation an issue in the church? Absolutely! But let our spiritual formation be that which equips, motivates and propels us to be sent into the lives of other people. Let our formation be, not for our own benefit, but “for the sake others.”

Another Good Story From Sports

February 23, 2009 | Filed Under missional | No Comments

In the midst of so many negative stories in the world of sports lately, here is a nice story that might help restore your confidence.

You might also check out this sports story from a couple of months ago.

Sent From The Father

February 17, 2009 | Filed Under books, missional | No Comments

In referring to God, Jesus almost always said, “the Father who sent me” (5:23, 37), or simply “him who sent me” (5:24, 30; 6:38). Just as Jesus designated God as the sender, he designated himself as the one sent. Instead of “I” he spoke of “he that the Father sent”: “This is the work that God requires: believe in the one whom he has sent” (6:29). . . .

But Jeus was never meant to be the only missionary; John says that God explicitly did not intend Jesus to be unique. On the contrary, Jesus’ mode of existence as mission made manifest furnished the model for all the disciples. We must understand in their fullest and most radical sense Jesus’ words: “As thou hast sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (17:18); and after the Resurrection: “As the Father sent me, so I send you” (20:21), that is to say, “As the Father made me a missionary, so I make you missionaries.”

Jose Comblin in Sent From The Father: Meditations on the Fourth Gospel

Abraham Lincoln Quote

February 12, 2009 | Filed Under justice, prayer | 1 Comment

“We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

– President Abraham Lincoln, 1863

From Christendom to Post-Christendom

February 10, 2009 | Filed Under missional | 4 Comments

Seven significant ecclesiological shifts from Christendom to post-Christendom:

From the centre to margins: in Christendom the Christian story and the churches were central, but in post-Christendom these are marginal.

From majority to minority: in Christendom Christians comprised the (often overwhelming) majority, but in post-Christendom we are a minority.

From settlers to sojourners: in Christendom Christians felt at home in a culture shaped by their story, but in post-Christendom we are aliens, exiles and pilgrims in a culture where we no longer feel at home.

From privilege to plurality: in Christendom Christians enjoyed many privileges, but in post-Christendom we are one community among many in a plural society.

From control to witness: in Christendom churches could exert control over society, but in post-Christendom we exercise influence only through witnessing to our story and its implications.

From maintenance to mission: in Christendom the emphasis was on maintaining a supposedly Christian status quo, but in post-Christendom it is on mission within a contested environment.

From institution to movement: in Christendom churches operated mainly in institutional mode, but in post-Christendom we must become again a Christian movement.

The Anabaptist Network Newsletter, February 2004

Gathering In Order To Be Sent

February 4, 2009 | Filed Under church, missiology, missional | 1 Comment

I discovered an insightful article written by Art McPhee, Professor of Mission and Evangelism at Mennonite Biblical Seminary. The article is titled The missio Dei and the Transformation of the Church. It was first published in the Fall 2001 issue of Vision: A Journal For Church and Theology.

McPhee provides a brief, yet helpful history of the use and understanding of the concept of missio Dei and its implications for the church. In regards to the implications McPhee includes:

1. From start to finish mission belongs to the triune God, therefore whatever missionary activities we engage in can only be deemed appropriate if they coincide with God’s mission.

2. Because it is God’s, mission is not something the church can call a moratorium on, or evade. Because the church is the fruit of God’s emerging kingdom, the church will be missional.

3. The mission of the church cannot be limited to planting churches and saving souls, for with God’s kingdom comes shalom, of which the church is a sign.

4. God’s people do these things not out of obligation but our of a new identity. When Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses”, he was not issuing a command but making a statement about the nature of his followers.

5. For some in the church, being in mission will involve a call to a specific place or people. But no longer will mission be seen as something westerners carry to the non-western world.

McPhee concludes the article with these excellent words:

When our ethos changes and our prayer begins with “thy kingdom come,” our priorities, our programs, our preaching, our practices will all change. No longer will we be able to abide an ecclesiology that is not missiological. No longer will be able to divide church and mission. Isolation (personal or corporate) and respectability will be mutually exclusive.

Therefore, we will seek unceasingly to learn what God is doing in our little part of the world and get on board. We will rediscover the meaning of gathering in order to be sent. Our Sunday schools and small groups will recover their missional intent. Our failure of nerve will dissipate. Having been called from our darkness to be God’s own people, we will give testimony to God’s mighty acts and become lenses for God’s marvelous light (1 Pet. 1:9). Our kindness, passion for justice, and engagement in peacemaking will be clearly seen by all to be derivatives of God’s mission — we will make sure of it. To paraphrase Mennonite missiologist James Krabill, our mission will smell like God’s mission. Finally, we will reclaim our faith and approach each day with anticipation, expecting to encounter in ourselves and others the transforming work of Christ through the Spirit.”

Life After Church

February 3, 2009 | Filed Under books, church | 2 Comments

“The church sits as the only institution with the resources to transform the face of planet Earth to a place of justice, peace and equity, a place without suffering. We have the message (gospel), we have the leader (Jesus), we have the example (sacrifice), and we have the power (love). The church has nevertheless lost its way. On the one hand we are capable of so much, and on the other hand we are accomplishing so little.

We are like a great warrior who has gotten lost on the way to the battle and been gone so long that he has forgotten what he set out to do. All that remain for the warrior are remnants of the original journey. Hanging over the fireplace is his old sword that stayed close for many years but now just hangs, shield is safely stored there, because the lost warrior no longer needs protection from anything; his life is all comfort. This may be why he never got back on his way; he found such comfort in his lostness.

This is the story of the church. Sent by Jesus himself to subdue evil, to destroy all the works of the evil one, to proclaim freedom for the captive and good news for the poor, to declare and establish the triumph of God, we never got there.

We stopped in the city of mediocrity and moderation, and there in the decadence of that city we have forgotten that the city of God is yet to be built. While the rest of the world is wasting away under the tyranny of sin, and hell is having its way with our children, and the poor are sacrificed to the god of material wealth, the church is growing weak and its great weapons — the Word of God and faith — have become sermon titles and concepts relegated to the realm of self-help and personal inspiration.

We have lost our way, and worse, we have forgotten to care. The battle yet rages.”

Brain Sanders in Life After Church: God’s Call to Disillusioned Christians

Building Missionary Congregations

January 29, 2009 | Filed Under books, church, missional | No Comments

Here is a good word from a book published in 1995 (now out of print) titled “Building Missionary Congregations.” This little book (55 pages) was written by Robert Warren, The Church of England’s National Officer for Evangelism.

“A church effectively engaged in mission will see that participating in the missio dei will involve shifting emphasis from a focus on the life of the local church, and a concern to keep everyone in it happy (which too easily passes for ‘pastoral concern’), to a concern for the world in its needs, joys and struggles.

The work, for example, of engaging with the sick, the grieving and the dying, as well as with the moral issues of such roles in society as those concerned with wealth creation or medical ethics, is indeed pastoral. It is the shift from the maintenance and ‘keeping people happy’ mode in which the church all too often operates, into engagement with these situations that will bring the church into the pastoral-in-mission mode of operation.

For such a shift to take place, the structure of the local church will need to be simplified, and new priorities adopted. However, much can be done within existing ways of operating. The intercessions each Sunday in public worship give a marvellous opportunity to engage with the hopes and fears of everyday life. Home groups geared outwards to engage with whole-life issues can also contribute significantly. The description of the Christian faith as ‘the Way’ gloriously expresses this understanding that the faith is not so much about doing different things, as it is about doing things differently.”

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