Here are the links to two very good presentations from Alan Hirsch on the topic of cultural distance in a post-Christendom context. The first video is a 19 minute talk given at the Q conference. The second clip is an expansion on the same topic in a 47 minute session at Velocity.

As presented in the previous posts in this series, the explicit language of sending found throughout the Old and New Testament is substantial. Moreover, the usage of sending language “establishes such a clear picture of mission in the Bible that its unique missional character is seen unmistakably even in events and ideas where the language as such is not explicit.” [1]

There are multiple passages in Scripture that speak to the missionary nature of God and the missional essence of the church that employ terms different from sending language. For example, the widespread use of the word “go” in both the Old and New Testament “is the imperative mood of the missional idea. It expresses through mandate form what the sending expresses in description and idea through the indicative mood.” [2]

In Genesis, God told Abram to “go to the land I will show you” (12:1). There God’s plan was to bless Abram so he in turn could be a blessing. In many of the Prophetic Books the word “go” is central to commissioning of the prophets. In Ezekiel, the prophet is told to “go and speak to the house of Israel” (3:1), Amos is commanded to “go and prophesy” to God’s people (7:15), and Jonah is told twice to “go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you” (1:2; 3:1).

In passages mentioned earlier the idea of going and the idea of sending are linked. In chapter six of the Book of Isaiah not only does the prophet respond to God’s question, “Who shall I send? And who will go for us?” in the affirmative; but after he does respond, God tells Isaiah to “Go and tell this people” (6:9). Moreover, in the sending of the seventy-two in Luke’s gospel they are told to go as Jesus was sending them out, “Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves” (10:3).

Finally, while the language of sending is clearly explicit in the commissioning of the disciples in John’s gospel, the language of “go” (or “going”) is evident in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20 (cf. Mark 16:15-18). However, it is still clear that Jesus,

the one who was sent on mission and who has accomplished his mission, now becomes the sender. . . . The eleven disciples are the sent ones. Jesus had called them with a view to mission (4:19). He had taught them about kingdom living (5:3-7:27), kingdom mission (10:5-42), the mysteries of the kingdom (13:3-52), relationships within the kingdom (18:1-35), and the future consummation of the kingdom (24:3-25:46) – all in order to prepare them more effectively for their mission. [3]

The shear volume of the sending theme evident throughout Scripture ought to prompt the church to examine more closely the theological implications of such language. It undoubtedly illustrates the sending, missionary nature of the Triune God. The mission is ultimately the mission of God the Father, who has sent the Son, who has sent the Spirit, who has sent the disciples – this must give the Church’s mission both its power and its authority. In the excellent little book,A Sense of Mission, Albert Curry Winn concisely summarizes the importance of having this sending theme form the church’s understanding of its nature and activity when he writes: “If the sense of having been sent defines who Jesus is, from henceforth it must define what the church is.” [4]

1. Francis M. DuBose, God Who Sends (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1983), 55.

2. Ibid.

3. John D. Harvey, “Mission in Jesus’ Teaching,” in Mission in the New Testament: An Evangelical Approach, ed. William J. Larkin Jr. and Joel William (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998),, 129.

4. Albert Curry Winn, A Sense of Mission: Guidance From the Gospel of John (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981), 43.

Most of you that follow this blog are familiar with The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch. It is certainly one of the most significant books in the present missional conversation. If you are not familiar with the book you can read a series of post I did here. I would also highly recommend the more recent The Forgotten Ways Handbook, which I wrote about briefly here.

To move the conversation beyond the written word, and to hear directly from Hirsch himself, check out the training videos created by Lance Ford at Shapevine. The training involves eight sessions, or “podules,” that include an introduction, a session on chaos theory, and a session on each of the six mDNA elements described in The Forgotten Ways. The eight session training is priced at $39.95, however Shapevine is currently running a special which includes the same online training in a DVD format. In other words, you can get instant access to the online training while having the DVDs shipped in the next couple of weeks.

For those of you in the Kansas City area, keep a watch out for the development of some local learning cohort groups as we work through this excellent training together.

When considering the theological and biblical underpinnings of the missional church conversation I find the two most helpful topics to address include the concept of missio Dei, or mission of God, and the language of “sending” found throughout Scripture.

The chief element to grasp about the missio Dei is that the mission is God’s. We are not called to bring our mission into a local context, instead we are called to partner with God in His mission. In the words of South African missiologist David Bosch; “It is not the church which undertakes mission; it is the missio Dei which constitutes the church.” We often wrongly assume that the primary activity of God is in the church, rather than recognizing that God’s primary activity is in the world, and the church is God’s instrument sent into the world to participate in His redemptive mission.

This leads to the second important topic, which is the theme of “sending” in Scripture. The reason it is important to recognize such language in Scripture is not only because it speaks to the missionary nature of the Triune God, but it also connects – particularly in the New Testament – God’s mission to our’s. This is never more true than in the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of John

The primary focus of the Fourth Gospel is the mission of Jesus: “he is the one who comes into the world, accomplishes his work and returns to the Father; he is the one who descended from heaven and ascends again; he is the Sent One, who, in complete dependence and perfect obedience to his sender, fulfills the purpose for which the Father sent him.” [1] “The entire Gospel is about sending and being sent.” [2] Therefore it is not surprising that John’s gospel is laden with the vocabulary of sending – the term and its derivatives appear almost sixty times.

While there is a variety of vocabulary used to describe the sending concept in the Fourth Gospel, [3] the concept is most often “expressed by different variations of the verbs pempo or apostello.” [4] The verb pempo, which is commonly translated as “to send,” occurs 33 times in John as compared to the Synoptic Gospels where the word is found four times in Matthew, once in Mark, and 10 times in Luke. [5] The verb apostello has the basic meaning of “to send forth,” and can be used of persons or things. [6] “When the object of the verb is a person, apostello often has the connotation of a commissioning, which transfers the authority of the sender to the person being sent.” [7] On account of the frequency of these two verbs it would appear that both words are of equal importance to the Johannine concept of sending and are virtually synonymous in John, however the question of synonymity has created significant debate in the past few decades. [8] Nevertheless, regardless of the position one takes on the nuances of the sending vocabulary in the Gospel of John it is difficult to overemphasize “how deeply the sending concept relates to Jesus’ identity. Almost every page of the Fourth Gospel breathes with a passage in which Jesus expressed who he is in terms of his sense of being sent.” [9]

When considering the sending motif in John’s Gospel there are at least three major areas of exploration: (1) Jesus’ mission and the origin of that mission, the Father who sends; (2) the fulfillment of the mission in the sending of the Holy Spirit to the disciples; and (3) the continuation of Jesus’ mission through the sending of the disciples into the world.

“It is part of the fundamental structure of any sending, even the sending of a mere human being, that the one sent does not follow his own will, but that of the sender, and that he does not speak and act in his own name, but represents another.” [10] This structure is clearly evident in Jesus’ relationship with the Father as depicted in the Gospel of John. Jesus, the sent one, is to know the sender intimately (7:29; cf. 15:21; 17:25) and to live in a close relationship with the one who sends (8:16, 18, 29; 16:32). Jesus came not to do his own will but the will of the Father who sent him (4:34; 5:30; 6:38-40), to speak not his own words but the words of the one who sent him (7:16-18; 8:26-29; 12:49; 14:24), and not to do his own work but the work of the Father who sent him (5:36; 9:4). The sending relationship between the Father and the Son speaks to the very heart of the gospel: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (3:17).

In addition to the theme of the Father sending the Son, the Gospel of John speaks twice concerning the sending of the Holy Spirit. [11] In John 14:26 the Spirit is sent by the Father: “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” And in John 15:26 the Spirit is sent by the Son from the Father: “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father.”

Of special importance in John is the linking of the mission of Jesus with that of his followers as the “sent ones.”  “The disciples’ mission is essentially the same as the mission of the Son and the Spirit – to bring glory to God and to bring to the world forgiveness of sins and spiritual life.” [12] In Raymond Brown’s commentary on the Gospel of John he explains the continuity of mission in the following way:

The special Johannine contribution to the theology of mission is the Father’s sending of the Son which serves both as the model . . . and the ground . . . for the Son’s sending of the disciples. Their mission is to continue the Son’s mission; and this requires that the Son must be present to them during this mission, just as the Father had to be present to the Son during His mission. [13]

After his conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus sends his disciples to reap the harvest (4:38). In the high priestly prayer Jesus prayers to the Father for the protection of disciples as Jesus sends them into the world (17:18).  And shortly before Jesus ascends to the Father he commissions the disciples to evangelize the world. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (20:21). Here John in one pericope repeats once again three main aspects of mission he has been developing throughout the gospel: (1) Father has sent Jesus into the world, (2) Jesus sends his disciples into the world, (3) the Holy Spirit is sent to enable disciples in their mission. By themselves the disciples are inadequate to fulfill the mission, yet by receiving the Spirit they receive authority and so also become God’s “agents, or sent ones,” the apostles. Referring to this verse, John Stott remarked that the church’s mission finds precise articulation in the Fourth Gospel:

The crucial form in which the Great Commission has been handed down to us (though it is the most neglected because it is the most costly) is the Johannine. Jesus had anticipated it in his prayer in the upper room which he said to the Father: “As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18). Now, probably in the same upper room but after his death and resurrection, he turned his prayer-statement into a commission and said: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (John 20:21). In both of these sentences Jesus did more than draw a vague parallel between his mission and ours. Deliberately and precisely he made his mission the model of ours, saying “as the Father sent me, so I send you.” Therefore our understanding of the church’s mission must be deduced from our understanding of the Son’s. [14]

Finally, in an excellent commentary on the Gospel of John by Craig Keener he offers a similar summation of the importance of the commissioning passage in the Fourth Gospel for the life of the church:

Whereas the sending of the Son is the heart of the Fourth Gospel’s plot, its conclusion is open-ended, spilling into the story of the disciples. Thus the church’s mission is, for John’s theology, to carry on Jesus’ mission (14:12; 17:18). Because Jesus was sending “just as” (kaqws) the Father sent him (20:21), the disciples would carry on Jesus’ mission, including not only signs pointing to Jesus (14:12) but also witness (15:27) through which the Spirit would continue Jesus’ presence and work (16:7-11). [15]

1. Andreas J. Kostenberger and Peter T. O’Brien, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), 203.

2. Johannes Nissen, “Mission in the Fourth Gospel: Historical and Hermeneutical Perspectives” in New Readings in John: Literary and Theological Perspectives, Essays from the Scandinavian Conference on the Fourth Gospel Arhus 1997 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 215.

3. In addition to the most common use of the verbs pempo and apostello, analogous to these are erxouai, ecerxomai and katabaino; prepositions that are used with the sending concept are apo, ek and para; other terms that relate to the concept are agiazo, didwmi and entellomai; verbs that describe the return of the emissionary to the Father are upago, poreuomai, anabaino, and metabaino. Johan Ferreira, Johannie Ecclesiology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 167.

4. In John’s gospel the term pempo is used approximately twenty-three times for the sending of the Son, all in articular participial forms: eight times in the nominative (5:37; 6:44; 7:28; 8:16, 18, 26, 29; 12:49); seven times in the genitive (4:34; 5:30; 6:38, 39; 7:16; 9:4; 14:24); seven times in the accusative (5:23; 7:33; 12:44, 45; 13:20; 15:21; 16:5); once in the dative (5:24). Apostello occurs seventeen times in reference to the sending of the Son, in indicative forms only. Martin Erdmann, “Mission in John’s Gospel and Letters” in Mission in the New Testament: An Evangelical Approach, ed. William J. Larkin, Jr. and Joel William (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1998), 210.

5. Ferreira, 168.

6. Ibid., 167.

7. Ibid.

8. For an excellent overview of the debate see Andreas J. Kostenberger, “The Two Johannine Verbs For Sending: A Study of John’s Use of Words with Reference to General Linguistic Theory” in Studies on John and Gender: A Decade of Scholarship (New York: P. Lang, 2001), 129-147.

9. Francis M. DuBose, God Who Sends (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1983), 49.

10. Michael Waldstein, “The Mission of Jesus and the Disciples in John” Communio 17, (Fall 1990): 319.

11. For an excellent study on the priority of the Holy Spirit in mission see Hendrikus Berkhof, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Richmond, John Knox, 1964). Berkhof argues that there has been a serious theological neglect of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the work of mission. He writes: “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 sanctification. 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 today” (Berkhof, 33).

12. Geoffrey R. Harris, Mission in the Gospels (London: Epworth, 2004), 177.

13. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 1036.

14. John R.W. Stott, Christian Mission in the Modern World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVaristy, 1975), 23.

15. Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary vol. 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 1204.

Because of a major glitch involved in the 2.9 WordPress upgrade, the blog has been down for the past couple of weeks. But because of the great help from the guys at iThemes I am finally back up. So to get caught up a bit here are several links I have been hoarding:

Len Hjalmarson adds a bit to an excellent post by David Fitch on Instilling Missional Habits.

Len again with Dallas Willard on Incarnation.

Ortberg shares a great illustration of the incarnation.

How Religious is Your State?

Spiritual Warfare and Gospel Movements.

A good reminder from Dan Kimball to start with prayer in 2010 and to see church buildings as mission outposts.

Churches and Social Media from Drew Goodmanson.

Is There an Organic Church Movement?

Update: Andrew Jones and How to Spot a Church Movement.

Ervin R. Stutzman has written an excellent paper titled “Preaching in the Missional Church” which can be downloaded here. Stutzman provides a brief analysis of the effects of secularization on the Christian church in the West. He then moves to discuss the response of the missional church to the secularization process. However, the majority of the seventeen page paper is focused on the missional church approaches to preaching. He suggests nine key characteristics of “missional preaching.” Below I have listed each characteristic, with a small portion of Stutzman’s explanation, for the first few points. For further clarification read the entire paper.

Missional preaching prepares God’s people for their work in the world.

Guder (Missional Theology for a Missional Church, 1998) maintains that effective Gospel preaching arises from a missional hermeneutic. This method of interpretation “works from the basic assumption that the New Testament writings are directed to communities which are primarily and essentially defined by their missionary vocation. They are apostolic communities, that is, churches founde.d by the apostolic proclamation with the purpose of continuing that witness in their particular contexts.”

Missional preaching grows out of the “agonistic” encounter between the gospel and the church.

Agonistic preaching is “the struggle to proclaim the gospel in such a way that it ‘frames’ the entirety of our ministry in light of the context we live in” (Wyatt, Preaching to Postmodern People, 1999). . . . Wyatt describes four key expressions of agonistic preaching. It is 1) iconic, 2) midrashic, 3) parabolic and 4) poetic.

Missional preaching takes place in many contexts outside the traditional worship service, including the public square.

Guder claims that “preaching” has come to mean something quite different from the New Testament definition of the word. In many North American churches, preaching is practiced only within the church, to the faithful, on Sunday morning. Such preaching probably bears more resemblance to the New Testament concept of ‘teaching’ than to its concept of ‘preaching.’

Missional preaching is concerned with authenticity of life and witness, not simply proclamation of spiritual propositions.

Daniel Oudshoorn avows that to be missional, the western church must learn to “speak Christianly in the midst of Babel.” Christian living, coupled with faith in the Holy Spirit, ought to provide the content and meaning of the Christian message.

Missional preaching deliberately draws contrasts between the gospel message and the practices and values of American civil religion, aiming for conversion from habits shaped by participation in American democracy to habits formed through Christian discipleship.

“Public announcements of God’s actions in the world are a call to conversion, to turning around, to giving up idolatries, and to placing one’s loyalty in the one true God and God’s reign.” This is just as true for believers in the church as for nonbelievers outside the church.

Missional preaching has a cross-cultural dimension.

The “tendency of early Christianity to cross cultural boundaries is a fertile starting point for developing a model of biblical interpretation. It is fertile, especially for our purposes, because it places the question of the relationship between Christianity and diverse cultures at the very top of the interpretive agenda.” Missional preaching, then, engages in various ways with people outside the dominant culture or even the “churchly” culture, the privatized gatherings of Christians in local communities of faith.

Missional preaching employs an interactive style of presentation that engages postmodern listeners in a participatory manner.

Missional preaching employs storytelling and metaphorical language in an “abductive” mode.

Missional preaching is shared among those in the congregation who are effectively sharing the gospel with others.

Stutzman concludes his paper with the following paragraph:

Finally, training schools must find ways to equip a range of people, beyond the seminarian or other matriculated student, for the ministry of preaching. To reach our world for Christ, we need a multitude of lay people (if such a term is even appropriate), to announce the gospel in every corner of our nation, indeed around the globe. These preachers can benefit from instruction in preaching even though they will not earn a degree in one of our evangelical institutions. We will do well to provide training for them in the context where they live and work.

(ht)

Here are two additional sessions from last month’s missional church conference. In these two sessions Eric Swanson speaks to the topic of community transformation. The final 30 minutes of session one includes the audio of an animated short film titled The Man Who Planted Trees. The film is the story of a solitary sheperd who patiently plants and nurtures a forest of thousands of trees, which single-handedly transforms his desert surroundings into a thriving oasis. The film sparked a very good discussion around the topics of focus, forbearance, and investing for the long-term. You can purchase the film and read multiple reviews here.

During the conference this week Eric Swanson made an interesting comment about the church’s ministry with the poor. While reflecting on Matthew 26:11, when Jesus says “You will always have the poor with you,” he stated that while there will always be the poor among us, it shouldn’t be the same poor.

In other words, because of the church’s involvement in community transformation those who are poor should be lifted out of poverty. Not through one time deeds of charity, but as the result of seriously dealing with the deeper issues of justice; bringing redemption into the spiritual, economic, and societal issues that led to the state of physical poverty.

The discussion reminded me that it was Swanson’s book, The Externally Focused Church, that prompted me to create a post a couple of years ago that help remind me of 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.”

Read the rest of this entry

Stetzer & Fitch – a missional conversation – Part III from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

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.”
Read the rest of this entry

“There are countless models and handbooks available on church membership recruitment, but there is little to instruct the average American Christian in how to announce the reign of God.”

David Lowes Watson, “Christ All in All: The Recovery of the Gospel for Evangelism in the United States” in The Church Between Gospel & Culture

What keeps us from a life of such faith is that we have become very good at assessing and minimizing risk. Our culture is all about risk management. We want to hedge our finances against future market downturns, and we have home insurance, life insurance, car insurance, fire insurance, flood insurance, and earthquake insurance.

Athletes and entertainers can insure parts of their bodies against injury. We sign prenuptial agreements to protect us from the financial ramifications of divorce, and we have health plans to protect us when we are sick.

We practice birth control and watch our blood pressure. We wear seat belts and helmets. I see the need for most of these things, but we have become people who focus on managing and minimizing risk everywhere we see it. We love the illusion of danger but not the real thing. I can ride a roller roaster and feel out of control, while remaining safely buckled into my seat.

We want Jesus to be the same way: all reward, no risk. We don’t give ourselves fully to him because we are afraid he will send us to China or ask us to become poor. We want the illusion of faith, as long as we are safe. But walking with God is not a no-risk proposition; it is one of the most dangerous things you can do. Risk is inherent in the life of faith. Risk and faith cannot be divorced.

Mike Erre in “The Jesus of Suburbia: Have We Tamed the Son of God to Fit Our Lifestyle?”

I have been trying to read the Gospels lately with fresh eyes. In doing so I have struggled with where we put the emphasis on what it means to be a Christian in light of the language of Jesus. In only one passage do we find the phrase “born again” used by Jesus. In the dialogue with Nicodemus Jesus states that for a person to see the Kingdom of God he must be “born again.” Hence, the doctrine of regeneration.

I certainly do not want to minimize the supernatural, transforming work of the Holy Spirit in the process of becoming a new creation. Furthermore, I am aware of other passages such as Ezek. 36:26 and Eph. 2:1-5 found elsewhere in Scripture that reflect the doctrine of regeneration, but I ask where is the serious consideration in evangelical circles for the words of Jesus in the following Gospel passages?

Matthew 4:19
“Come,  follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”

Matthew 8:22
But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Matthew 9:9
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

Matthew 10:38
“… and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

Matthew 16:24
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Matthew 19:21
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Matthew 19:28
Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Read the rest of this entry

David Hayward

Here is another excerpt from my favorite chapter of Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller. In this section of chapter 10 Miller is discussing the dominant metaphors used to describe our relationship with God. He argues that many of the attempts we make to explain the gospel somehow miss this crucial relational dynamic.

Miller writes:

“Biblically, you are hard-pressed to find theological ideas divorced from their relational context. There are, essentially, three dominant metaphors describing our relationship with God: sheep to a shepherd, child to a father, and bride to a bridegroom. The idea of Christ’s disciples being His mother and father and brothers and sisters is also presented. In fact, few places in Scripture speak to the Christian conversion experience through any method other than relational metaphor.

Contrasting this idea, I recently heard a man, while explaining how a person could convert to Christianity, say the experience was not unlike deciding to sit in a chair. He said that while a person can have faith that a chair will hold him, it is not until he sits in the chair that he has acted on his faith.

I wondered as I heard this if the chair was a kind of symbol for Jesus, and how irritated Jesus might be if a lot of people kept trying to sit on Him.

And then I wondered at how Jesus could say He was a Shepherd and we were sheep, and that the Father in heaven was our Father and we were His children, and that He Himself was a Bridegroom and we were His bride, and that He was a King and we were His subjects, and yet we somehow missed His meaning and thought becoming a Christian was like sitting in a chair.”

Here is another excerpt from my favorite chapter of Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller. In this section, titled “The Gospel: A Relational Dynamic” Miller is arguing that the essence of the gospel is relational rather than the mental ascent to a set of theological statements or an agreement with a list of bullet points.

Miller writes:

It doesn’t make a great deal of sense that a person who went to Bible college should have a better shot at heaven than a person who didn’t, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense either that somebody sentimental and spiritual has greater access.

I think it is more safe and more beautiful and more true to believe that when a person dies he will go and be with God because, on earth, he had come to know Him, that he had a relational encounter with God not unlike meeting a friend or a lover or having a father or taking a bride, and that in order to engage God he gave up everything, repented and changed his life, as this sort of extreme sacrifice is what is required if true love is to grow. We would expect nothing less in a marriage; why should we accept anything less in becoming unified with Christ?

In fact, I have to tell you, I believe the Bible is screaming this idea and is completely silent on any other, including our formulas and bullet points. It seems, rather, that Christ’s parables, Christ’s words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, were designed to bypass the memorization of ideas and cause us to wrestle with a certain need to cling to Him. In other words, a poetic presentation of the gospel of Jesus is more accurate than a set of steps.

- Donald Miller in chapter 10 of Searching For God Knows What