Missional Spirituality (Review)

8 Feb

Missional is a buzzword in the North American Church.  It’s a buzzword with a lot of ambiguity.  What does it mean to be missional?  What is a missional church?  What is a missional follower of Jesus?  These are all questions that church leaders are asking.  And there are many resources that are trying to provide some clarity to these questions.

Missional Spirituality (Paperback, Kindle) by Roger Helland and Leonard Hjalmarson is one of these many books.  Unlike many of the other texts that I’ve been reading on the subject.  Missional Spirituality builds its foundation on Jesus response to the question, “What is the greatest commandment?”  Jesus’ reply to this question is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.  The second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.”

From this response Helland and Hjalmarson begin to investigate what it means to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.  They focus on practices that help believers grow in their love for the Lord in all four of these arenas.  This is important as it helps people build faith and knowledge about God and move them into living the mission of God.  The authors then go into examining what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.

Missional Spirituality is by no means a ground breaking revolutionary text on what the church should be doing to be more “missional”.  However, it is a helpful text for church leaders and non-church leaders to begin to figure out what it means to live in God’s mission of grace and saving the world.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Changes

6 Feb

There are some changes that are coming to Creekside Church.  They are changes that we believe will ultimately help Creekside in the next chapter of our church’s story.  There are two staff members who are no longer going to be on staff at our church.  But they are planning on remaining at Creekside.

These staff changes mean that there are going to be more changes down the road as we bring new people on the team.  Help get them acclimated to our church culture and climate.  Give them the tools that they will need to do their jobs and all that.

Just a whole lot of new stuff coming at Creekside.

Now. I like most people have a hard time with change.  Mainly because change is inconvenient.  I like to have things a certain way.  And I like to have a system.  I like for other people to have their systems and I want those systems to work with my systems.  Any change usually slows down those systems.

However, I am trying to embrace change and to be more flexible.  This is hard for me. But I’m trying to enter into this season of change with excitement.  Because God is way smarter than me.  And even thought I don’t like change, God can still orchestrate these changes.  I want to see what he’s going to do.  I want to see how this all pans out.

God has something cool in store for Creekside.

Vulnerability

2 Feb

I think what is really troubling me in this whole issue is that there is a lack of vulnerability on the part of church leaders.

When dealing with a church there is a lot of trust in the congregation that the leaders will help them to become more like Jesus.  Church members confide in leaders their struggles and where they need help, believing that these leaders will help them to grow.

Confession creates a position of vulnerability with the hope of restoration.  When we (church leaders) put a bunch of barriers in someone’s path to restoration, or give them arbitrary activities that we think should make them closer to Jesus, we take advantage of their vulnerability.

That’s abuse.

Church leaders, have you ever made a mistake?  Have you ever had to confess your mistakes to someone?  I know the pastor in question has been publicly chastised and claims to have undergone discipline himself.  My question here is shouldn’t that discipline create more humility and more vulnerability?

There is a fear in church leadership that if we show our own weaknesses then people won’t want to follow us.  That is we let people know we aren’t perfect they will see through our B.S. and go to someone who has their crap together.

I know from experience at Creekside that when our pastor (Don) has expressed his own weaknesses people have actually responded favorably.  Don is one of us.  He’s not better than us, he’s just one follower of Jesus trying to help other people follow Jesus.

In a conversation with another person who calls Creekside home they said that why they love Creekside is that we are willing to talk to people based on life experience.  We have a community of broken people and Jesus is putting us back together.  We have drug addicts sitting next to stay at home moms.  All of us recognize that we need Jesus.  And recognizing that we all need Jesus helps us to be vulnerable and honest with each other.

Tags:

Brothers, we are all broken

1 Feb

My heart is hurting for people who have been deeply hurt by a church in my area.  As a leader in a church I know that it is not hard to offend someone.  As someone who goes to a church I know that it is not hard to be offended.

But the stories that I am hearing lately are too much.  Church discipline is intended to ultimately be redemptive, to help people get closer to Jesus.  It’s not intended to show your power or authority over your followers.

Pastors can you please take a moment to pray for the people in your area who are hurting because of church leadership.  It’s not fair to those people that their image of Jesus is tarnished because of human agents.

The truth is that we are all incredibly broken people.  The grace of Jesus is the only thing that helps us get our lives back together.  Can we talk more about that?  Can we humbly recognize our need for Jesus?

Leaders, let’s get out of the way of people who are trying to find Jesus.  We are not meant to be gatekeepers of faith.  We are guides.  The only reason that we can guide anyone in their faith journey is because some one guided us.  That person was a broken human too.

Let’s be honest.

Let’s be humble.

Let’s celebrate Jesus’ transforming love and grace.

Let’s help people walk away from sin and towards the grace that we find in the Cross of Christ.

I think that’s what people are looking for when they come to church for the first time.

Love.

Hope.

Healing.

Forgiveness.

Compassion.

Community.

We should be the best at creating environments like this because we have received all of this from Jesus in the first place.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Stewardship Series

26 Jan

This month we have been working through a stewardship series.  We have talked about how we need to be stewards of ourselves, our relationship, our time and (this coming Sunday) our money.

All of these thing are in all of our lives.

All of these things come from God.

How we steward all of these things show us how well we understand the Gospel.

That’s really what stewardship as a follower of Jesus is all about: the Gospel.

Jesus has rescued us, and he wants us to tell that good news to others.  If we look at all the things in our lives as just our things, and not opportunities to move the Gospel forward then we are missing the point.

It’s all about the Gospel.

Tags: , , , , ,

I Actually like the Star Wars Prequels

20 Jan

I don’t know about you but the farther I get from the original release of Star Wars eps. I, II, III the more I appreciate them.  The acting is not great, and Jar-Jar Binks is still a painful experience, but the story arc is still good.

Yes I do believe that eps IV, V, & VI stand-alone and they are amazing.  In the original trilogy Luke Skywalker is the hero, Han gets the girl, and the Rebellion defeats the evil Empire.  It’s great.

What George Lucas was trying to do with the prequels is important though.  I think he was trying to show us why Luke matters so much.  Using Anakin Skywalker’s journey from an innocent and gifted child, to an accomplished yet troubled hero, to a man who is willing to do anything to save the woman he loves and ultimately the person who destroyed the Jedis and fell to the Dark Side, George Lucas gave us a character who is troubled and conflicted.  Darth Vader is no longer just the face of evil.  He’s a person who tried to do what he thought was right and he was ultimately decieved.

Star Wars then becomes about the redemption of Anakin Skywalker.  Luke’s mission is not about overthrowing the empire it is about rescuing his father from darkness.  In the process the Emperor is defeated but in the process Luke saves his father.  I find the saga of Anakin Skywalker to be compelling.  I find Luke’s journey to be very interesting.  And I wonder how long we should wait until we reboot eps. I, II, & III and see if we can do it right.  that or just edit out Jar-Jar and replace the actors for Anakin.

Tags:

God In A Brothel

19 Jan

Part of my responsibilities at Creekside is to learn how Creekside can engaging in meeting the needs of our community and of the world (Serving and Missions).  I have been overwhelmed by the amount of attention that has been given to human trafficking.  So overwhelmed that I didn’t really have the courage to investigate how to help.  I’m ashamed of that fact.  It’s so easy to see all the big issues in the world and feel like you can’t do anything about it.

I have been personally challenged lately as a follower of Jesus to be doing the things that Jesus said he was all about.  Particularly I have been drawn to Luke 4 where Jesus declares what he is going to do at the outset of his ministry:

14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

I’ve been challenged by the notion of proclaiming freedom to the prisoner and setting the oppressed free.  Human Trafficking is modern slavery.  Much of this trafficking is in the sex trade.  Being challenged with this information I decided to finally begin to do some research into how to rescue people from this oppression.  So I ordered God in A Brothel by Daniel Walker.

In this book Walker tells of his own journey in rescuing people from the sex trade.  This book challenges the assumption that one person can’t make a difference.  While I would not recommend that people address this issue the way Walker does, I would recommend that people read this book because it will open your eyes to just how devastating this issue truly is.  Walker is far from perfect but he

It could also be easy to say that Human Trafficking is not an issue in America, but it is.  This is an issue that the church cannot afford to ignore.  I am being challenged in how to help Creekside address this issue and how to set people free.  We have been engaged in building homes which helps give families security and changes their future.  We have begun partnering with WorldVision and their Clean Water Fund, another of the major issues facing the world is the availability of clean water.  Now is the time to set people free and to give those who are stuck in the devastating sex trade hope.

 

Tags: , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 398 other followers