Tag Archives: mission

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.

The GOSPEL

30 Mar

This is a great 5 minute presentation of the Gospel.  Creatively presented and compelling.

 

The Gospel should always be compelling.  Unfortunately we spend so much time in the minutae that I think we lose sight of what the Gospel is really all about.  We debate over atonement theories, and soteriology, almost like we need to tell God how to do his job, because it’s really important to Him that we understand all that he does.

It is important to study theology.  It is important to know what we believe and why.  But we should never lose sight of these truths:

  • The Gospel is the greatest story that was ever told.
  • God’s love is really big
  • We are the problem with this world
  • God provided the solution through Jesus’ Cross and Resurrection

Do we really need to know how it all works?  Do we really need to foot note those truths that we find in the Bible with the words of theologians who lived thousands of years after the event?

Whenever I read the Gospel accounts I find that Jesus is way more compelling than our Theology or Christology or Soteriology makes him out to be.

So in all the debates about salvation that are going around the internet and in churches, let us not lose sight that the Gospel is an amazing story of God’s love for us.  And let us not lose sight of the fact that we need to tell people about Jesus.  And let us not lose sight that we are to continue the work that Jesus started, through the power of the Holy Spirit!

We have a mission before us.  Stop fighting, and tell the good news.  Our hope should be that all will accept God’s story of rescuing his people! That should be our motivation.  Our motivation should not be that our side is right and their side is wrong.  Stop!  Tell the Gospel story.

I should stop before I get angry.

(thanks to Josh Hebert for the heads up on this video)

Thoughts On Vision Prayer

20 Jan

Thanks to everyone who came out to vision prayer last night.  Such an encouraging time of community prayer and worship.

Events like vision prayer are where the church gets to be the Family of Christ.  Sunday gatherings are designed for guest.  It’s like inviting the neighbors over for the party.  Vision Prayer is where we do the household work.  And the work of the household of Christ is Prayer and worship.

We cannot (and should not try to) do the work of the church with out first going to the Lord in prayer.

It was great to have a time of encouragement from team members.  To pray with and for the staff.  To keep Jesus and his mission central in all things that we do at Creekside.

Looking forward to the next one.

Calibrate NW session 6 – Rich Stearns

3 Nov

CEO of World Vision
Author of The Whole In Our Gospel

We’ve drifted away from being fishers of men to being keepers of the aquarium – Paul Harvey

It may nite be our fault that 24,000 children die every day, but it is our moral responsibility to do something about it.

We are God’s plan to change the world.
But we have to be willing, available, and willing to pay the price to be used by God.  

Luke 4 Jesus in the synagogue laid out his mission connected proclamation and justice!  Have we been that good news for the poor?

Revolutions challenge the powers from within

We can’t just proclaim the good news we have to be the good news

The gospel is not a private transaction between God and me.

We are not saved by works, but we are saved for works

Revolutions start with small people who use their outrage to motivate change.   

Francis Chan Calibrate NW 2010

3 Nov

More and more people are taking the Bible seriously and not relying on tradition.
The problem is that we were not sticking close enough to the Bible.

When we look to scripture we see that God is calling us to be united like a family

Once we were not a people, now we are! God has brought people from all over the world to be one people.

Lack of commitment in church people is troubling

Following Jesus is an everything thing. It’s about your whole life.

How many people in our churches have actually discipled anyone?

The emphasis of the New Testament is making disciples not the services we are having.

We are all called to make disciples. Not just the “trained professionals”

Discipleship is on the job training.

There is a wave of people who read the Bible and now there is something more for the contemporary church. No one is reading Acts and saying. “wow, that’s just like my church.”

The events in the book of Acts wasn’t just for then, but for today as well.

What is the sign to the world that we are right about the truths in the Bible? When they see us walking together in unity.

We are called to encourage each other and strive together knowing that God is our good shepherd.

People want their leaders to be strong and courageous. We don’t need to translate that to arrogance. But we need to believe why God has called us to and that the Spirit is in us and empowering us. Be strong and courageous!

James 5:17 – Elijah was a man just like us

God will choose the weak, the people who are just like us.

1 Peter 4:12 Done be surprised by the fiery ordeal

Calibrate NW session 4 – Alan Hirsch

3 Nov

Look for an Alan Hirsch Calibrate Video

How do we retain a movement that resonates with who Jesus is?

Renewal – recover the apostolic movements

ReJesus: we have to rediscover the role of Jesus and the phenomenon of Jesus.
Christology lies at the heart of the renewal of the church.
When we veer we have lost sight of Jesus
We must radicalize in order to missionalize

Christology > Missiology > Ecclesiology

The subversion of Christianity – that is a book title that I need to look up

Christianity (minus) Christ = religion

ReDisciple: becoming a little Jesus
Embodiment and transmission
Spiritual authority is bound up in this as well
It is our capacity to live our messages
Movements grow based on the ability to grow disciples
Leadership is an extension of discipleship
Consumerism is killing us (from within)

ReMission

(missile and mission come from then same word.  You want to send missiles not receive them)

Missional God
Incarnational God -Jesus was born as a baby instead of sending cosmic lazier beams.
Missional Church means we are going out into the world. We are sent out!
Incarnational church means going deep

ReOrganize
What we need are mission ally responsive, culturally adaptive, organizationally agile, multiplication movements
Don’t plant a church plant a movement.

Movements
- mobilize the whole people of God
Every believer is a church planter every church is a potential church planting movement.

Movements are reproducible and reproducing.

Movements are structurally networked

Movements imply missional leadership & ministry modes. Eph. 4

Calibrate NW session 2 w/ Carlos Whitaker

2 Nov

Twitter.com/loswhit hey people follow him. 

One Sunday in a Gym, next Sunday in a $53 million dollar facility. 
         That would be jarring

If why is our last question for what the church is up to, that messes things up.

If why is first that changes the game entirely

Called to disturb and disrupt the career Christian for the sake of seeing Christ’s face again.

Instead of building a service to attract non-Christians what if you built  attractional Christians? 

The greatest moments in our services are the elements that are not produced.  They are moments where the Divine can interact with the human.  (last sentence is my own)

As we fight traditionalism we are just creating more traditionalism.

Disturb and disrupt

This generation doesn’t want to be entertained they want to be a part of a movement

Francis Chan Calibrate NW 2010

2 Nov

More and more people are taking the Bible seriously and not relying on tradition.  
The problem is that we were not sticking close enough to the Bible.

When we look to scripture we see that God is calling us to be united like a family

Once we were not a people, now we are!  God has brought people from all over the world to be one people.

Lack of commitment in church people is troubling

Following Jesus is an everything thing.  It’s about your whole life.

How many people in our churches have actually discipled anyone?

The emphasis of the New Testament is making disciples not the services we are having.

We are all called to make disciples. Not just the “trained professionals”

Discipleship is on the job training.  

There is a wave of people who read the Bible and now there is something more for the contemporary church.  No one is reading Acts and saying. “wow, that’s just like my church.”

The events in the book of Acts wasn’t just for then, but for today as well.

What is the sign to the world that we are right about the truths in the Bible?  When they see us walking together in unity.  

We are called to encourage each other and strive together knowing that God is our good shepherd. 

People want their leaders to be strong and courageous.  We don’t need to translate that to arrogance.  But we need to believe why God has called us to and that the Spirit is in us and empowering us.  Be strong and courageous!

James 5:17 – Elijah was a man just like us

God will choose the weak, the people who are just like us.  

1 Peter 4:12 Done be surprised by the fiery ordeal   

Groups Launch

8 Jul

We are getting set at Creekside to launch our fall groups. We have a goal of launching 40 groups this Fall. 40 groups is a lot of groups. This us what 40 groups would mean for Creekside:

-40 campuses. Churches are all buzzing about multiple-site ministry. If we are able to launch 40 grouse this fall then we will effectively have 40 campus, or venues, where people are engaged in our mission of helping people discover, trust and love Jesus Christ.

-40 pastors, group leaders may be the strongest examples of the priesthood of all believers. Instead of 400 people looking to a few “professionals” for pastoral support, the groups become the primary support structure, and group leaders are serving as pastors for that community.

- 40 missional communities. We used to believe that community groups were the end goal for Christian discipleship. We now believe that groups also serve as a front door to our larger Creekside community.

- Hundreds of lives impacted because of the relationships and discipleship that happens in the context of groups.

So this is what I need from Creekside people. I need group leaders. If you’ve been in a group you know the basic structure. We offer groups that focus ob the Sunday morning question, we offer groups that study books, we are looking to start groups that simply get together to play and have fun together, we will offer Financial Peace Groups, Divorce Care, etc.

I am looking for people who care about other people and are willing to have conversations and build relationships. I am not looking for experts. I am not looking for gurus.

If you are a Christian, you like people, and are willing to talk to others you already have a lot of the prerequisites for this role. We’d love to get the ball rolling for you if you are interested in Leading a group. We have a quick info meeting this Sunday 8/8/10 in Finch Hall at 10:30. I look forward to seeing you there.

The Church Is Mission

4 Dec

On December 28th, I will have the priveledge of preaching at Creekside.  I’ve been tending to preach this last weekend of the year for the past couple of years, so I try to look forward to the next year.  Last Year, I talked about how the Church is a community that is called to Exile.  We are called to be on a Journey.  I was trying to make the point that the Church is not a destination.

This year I want to talk about what it means to live missionally.  The title I’m leaning towards right now is the year of living missionally.

My thinking has been shaped by a lot of different voices on this, but if you want to get a good primer on what it means to be missional (because I know that I don’t have all the answers).  Then may I direct you to friendofmissional.org.  This site has all kinds of great resources and defintions that you can work with.  I can’t do it all in one sunday so I know that I need to really just get the idea in our heads so that we can begin to carry it out all year, and beyond.

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