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.

“More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems.

My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.”

– Henri Nouwen

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.”

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After a month hiatus I am looking forward to posting regularly on the blog again. I have a backlog of missional resources and posts that I hope to start sharing in the next day or two.

I had to take a month off to finish up my dissertation. Additionally, last week my family and I were in Phoenix after the passing of my father-in-law, Dee Thompson. I conducted the memorial service on Saturday. The stories told by many of Dee’s friends presented a wonderful testimony of his influence. The whole week was an awesome reminder of the healing power that is found not only in God’s grace and mercy, but also in the presence of loved ones.

There is something wonderful and mysterious about telling stories. Over and over again as people shared what a blessing Dee had been to them I sensed great healing taking place. I was reminded how important it is for us to tell stories. In the grieving process some experience healing while sharing stories while others need to hear the stories being told.

One comment that has stuck with me came from a very close friend of Dee’s that was trying to describe the deep sense of community that their “breakfast club” experienced over the years. One line that seemed to sum up the importance of their love for another was, “A joy shared is a joy doubled and a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved.” I hadn’t heard this line before, (maybe he made it up?) but it ought to describe, at least in part, what real Christian community should be about.

Lastly, I was also reminded that during such times of loss we typically focus our attention on the grief experienced by the immediate family. While this is of course right and appropriate, we do need to be keenly aware that the loss experienced by close friends is just as deep and painful.

Dee, thank you for being a blessing to so many, and thank you for being such a wonderful father-in-law and “Papa Dee” to my two sons.

“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

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

“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”

Many of us have done a great disservice to Jesus Christ. Not only do we tone him down to tame and soften him, but we also understand his message to be addressed primarily to our needs of comfort, safety, and convenience.

We have been telling people that if they come to Jesus, they will live a safe and comfortable life: “He’ll be your rock and fortress, and he’ll protect you from the dangers around you.” Some even insist that Jesus wants nothing more than to heal you, bless you financially, and make your life carefree.

Jesus does heal, of course, and bless us financially and bring peace. But all of that does not even come close to Scripture’s teaching on what it means to follow Jesus. If you follow Jesus, you follow the most radical man who ever existed. He marches into the world with kindness, peace, and love, and offers people a whole new way of looking at the world and living within it.

His is the most radical message you can preach or live. He turns everything upside down and calls us to do likewise. Jesus is not vitally committed to our comfort and safety; he is committed to the advancing of his kingdom revolution in the hearts of people everywhere.

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

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?”

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

Here is another great excerpt from Salvation to the Ends of the Earth where the authors encapsulate the sending theme found in the Gospel of John.

“In John’s sending christology, the sent one is to know the sender intimately (7:29; cf. 15:21; 17:8, 25); live in a close relationship with the sender (8:16, 18, 29; 16:32); bring glory and honour to the sender (5:23; 7:18); do the sender’s will (4:34; 5:30, 38; 6:38-39) and works (5:23; 9:4)); speak the senders’ words (3:34; 7:16; 12:49; 14:10b, 24); follow the sender’s example (13:16); be accountable to the sender (passim; cf. esp. ch. 17); bear witness to the sender (12:44-45; 13:20; 15:18-25); and exercise delegated authority (5:21-22, 27; 13:3; 17:2; 20:23).

John goes to great lengths to show that Jesus fulfilled all the functions of a sent one perfectly. He does so in part for the purpose of presenting Jesus as a model for his disciples to follow. When Jesus commissions his followers (20:21), he functions, for the first time in the Fourth Gospel, not as the sent one, but as one who sends others. Like Jesus, his disciples are to fulfill the manifold functions of one sent as outlined above.”

Darryl Dash shares a provocative post on the Christmas theme of weakness. Here is a portion:

Jesus consistently taught about laying aside our rights, becoming weak like children, and rejoicing when we were under-appreciated. He identified with those who were outcasts and powerless. He taught that the tiniest of seeds becomes the haven of birds. His entire ministry was predicated upon God’s strength showing up in weakness. Yet I find myself consistently impressed with the strong. I do not naturally like the way of weakness.

I praise God for large and strong churches, but I worry that we often think that God needs powerful churches and important people to do his work. Scripture shows us that some of the most powerful and influential people in redemption’s history squandered their influence, while God has used humble nobodies to change the world.

On Christmas, as we think of the God who laid aside his strength, it’s important to remind ourselves of the strength of weakness. Perhaps God is most at work today in people and churches that will never be written up in books, and will never make the conference circuit. God’s strength still shows up most powerfully in weakness.

Here is another excellent excerpt from chapter 10 of Donald Miller’s “Searching For God Knows What.” The title of chapter 10 is “The Gospel of Jesus: It Never Was a Formula.”

Becoming a Christian might look more like falling in love than baking cookies. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that in order for a person to know Jesus they must get a kind of crush on Him. But what I am suggesting is that, not unlike any other relationship, a person might need to understand that Jesus is alive, that He exists, that He is God, that He is in authority, that we need to submit to Him, that He has the power to save, and so on and son on, all of which are ideas, but ideas entangled in a kind of relational dynamic. This seems more logical to me because if God made us, wants to know us, then this would require a more mysterious interaction than what would be required by following a kind of recipe.

I realize it all sounds terribly sentimental, but imagine the other ideas popular today that we sometimes hold up as credible: We believe a person will gain access to heaven because he is knowledgeable about theology, because he can win at a game of religious trivia. And we may believe a person will find heaven because she is very spiritual and lights incense and candles and takes bubble baths and reads books that speak of centering her inner self; and some of us believe a person is a Christian because he believes five ideas that Jesus communicated here and there in Scripture, though never completely at one time and in one place; and some people believe they are Christians because they do good things and associate themselves with some kind of Christian morality; and some people believe they are Christians because they are Americans.

If any of these models are true, people who read the Bible before we systematically broke it down, and, for that matter, people who believed in Jesus before the printing press or before the birth of Western civilization, are at an extreme disadvantage. It makes you wonder if we have fashioned a gospel around our culture and technology and social economy rather than around the person of Christ.

- Donald Miller in Searching For God Knows What

Old habits are hard to break, and no one is easily weaned from his own opinions; but if you rely on your own reasoning and ability rather than on the virtue of submission to Jesus Christ, you will but seldom and slowly attain wisdom. For God wills that we become perfectly obedient to himself, and that we transcend mere reason on the wings of burning love for him.

- Thomas a Kempis

While this short video is produced by an inspirational, marketing business I think it has something to say about living each day with a missional perspective and the possible impact of doing so. (Thanks Brad M.)

More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them. 

-  Henri Nouwen