God’s mission is a global mission 2

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Evangelicalism, Gospel, Great Commission, New Testament, acts, church, church planting, contextualization, culture, discipleship, eschatology, evangelism, kingdom of God, missio Dei, missiology, mission, missions, multiplication, post-Christendom, postmodern, world issues
• Date: Feb 24,2010

Last week, I posted on the importance of understanding that God’s mission is a global mission. I promised you some brand new and soon-to-be-released books that will help you put the “mission” back in “missional.”

Recently released:

Paul Hiebert: The Gospel in Human Contexts: Anthropological Explorations for Contemporary Missions

Product Description:

While the gospel is timeless truth, it enters into ever-changing and widely varied human contexts. In order to meaningfully communicate the gospel to particular humans, those involved in cross-cultural ministry need to understand people and the particular influences–social, cultural, psychological, and ecological–that shape them. Further, we must understand ourselves and the influences that have shaped us, since our own contexts influence how we understand and transmit the gospel message. Therefore, we must master not only the skill of biblical interpretation but also the skill of human interpretation. That task is the topic of this book, the summation of a lifetime of experience and thinking by a world-renowned missiologist and anthropologist, the late Paul Hiebert.

Timothy Tennent: Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century (Invitation to Theological Studies Series)

Product Description:

This unique text is arranged in three parts according to the Trinity’s roles, relationships, and activity. Tennent questions whether missions as currently conceptualized is adequate and he challenges the reader by building the book around key theological foundations such as “missio Dei” and the “new creation” vision for the global church. This volume will call and enable the reader to understand how missions is biblically and theologically basic to Christianity, and how missions is essential to living out an abundant and impassioned life.

Coming soon:

David Hesselgrave + Ed Stetzer: MissionShift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium (July 2010)

Product Description:

Veteran missionary David Hesselgrave and rising missional expert Ed Stetzer edit this engaging set of conversational essays addressing global mission issues in the third millennium. Key contributors are Charles E. Van Engen (“Mission Described and Defined”), the late Paul Hiebert (“The Gospel in Human Contexts: Changing Perspectives on Contextualization”), and the late Ralph Winter (“The Future of Evangelicals in Mission”). Those offering written responses to these essays include: Van Engen, Keith Eitel, Enoch Wan, Darrell Guder, Andreas J. Köstenberger, Hiebert, Michael Pocock, Darrell Whiteman, Norman L. Geisler, Avery Willis, Winter, Scott Moreau, Christopher Little, Michael Barnett, and Mark Terry.

Craig Ott + Stephen Strauss with Timothy Tennent: Encountering Theology of Mission: Biblical Foundations, Historical Developments, and Contemporary Issues (Encountering Mission) (May 2010)

Product Description:

This fresh, comprehensive text fills a need for an up-to-date theology of mission. It offers creative approaches to answering some of the most pressing questions in theology of mission and missionary practice today. The authors, who are leading mission experts, discuss biblical theology of mission, provide historical overviews of the development of various viewpoints, and address theologically current issues in global mission from an evangelical perspective. This readable yet thorough text integrates current views of the kingdom of God and holistic mission with traditional views of evangelism and church planting. It also brings theology of mission into conversation with ecclesiology and eschatology. Topics covered include contextualization, the missionary vocation, church and mission, and theology of religions. Sidebars and case studies enable readers to see how theology of mission touches real-life mission practice.

a missional heart

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Gospel, New Testament, Paul, acts, confrontation, contextualization, evangelism, mission, missional
• Date: Feb 18,2010

Scot McKnight has a great series going on at his Jesus Creed blog on Paul’s missionary journeys called “Acts and Mission.”

In a recent installment, McKnight says this about Paul and his interaction with Festus in Acts 26:

Paul’s passion is for everyone to see the light of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ, and that means even Festus is in his circle of compassionate gospel preaching. Festus thinks Paul’s lost his mind with his belief in the resurrection as a gospel fully conversant with the Jewish Scriptures. But Paul asks him if he believes the Scriptures. Festus wonders aloud if Paul might not be trying to convert him right then and there, and so he says that very thing. To which Paul says: I wish everyone would see the truth of the gospel in Jesus.

I see here the heart of a missional man: using every opportunity to point people to Jesus Christ.

Read the story of Paul and Festus in Acts 26:24-32 here.

God’s mission is a global mission 1

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Great Commission, New Testament, acts, church, discipleship, evangelism, missio Dei, mission, missional, missional church, missions, sent, social justice
• Date: Feb 17,2010

I’ve heard my friend Ed Stetzer say many times, in so many words:

If we are truly interested in being missional– in joining God on His mission– our efforts should actually reflect His stated mission.

And His stated mission is to take the Gospel to the entire world and preach the good news to all of creation (Mark 16:15). God’s mission is a global mission that includes our neighborhood AND the slums of Calcutta.

Last year, Ed wrote on the five reasons why missional churches don’t do global missions. Here is what he said:

1. In rediscovering God’s mission, many have only discovered its personal dimensions
2. In responding to God’s mission, many have wanted to be more mission-shaped and have therefore made everything “mission”
3. In relating God’s mission, the message increasingly includes the hurting but less frequently includes the global lost
4. In refocusing on God’s mission, many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news. (He has a great quote with this point: “…as many missional Christians have sought to “embody” the gospel, they have chosen to forsake one member of Christ’s body: the mouth.”)
5. In reiterating God’s mission, many lose the context of the church’s global mission and needed global presence

So how do you, as Ed says, put the “mission” back in “missional?” He has four suggestions:

1. Recognize it is God’s mission
2. Engage more strongly, as evangelicals, in social justice
3. Share God’s deep concern about His mission to the nations
4. Obey his commands to disciple the nations

Read how Ed expounds on the reasons churches don’t do global missions and his suggestions for correcting that here.

I would add one more idea to the mix: read books/articles on world missions. It will stir you, I promise. To that end, tomorrow I will post some resources that are soon-to-be-released that will help you put the “mission” back in “missional.”

missional mondays: introducing alan hirsch

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Missional Manifesto, apostolic, books, church, church planting, contextualization, culture, incarnational, mission, missionSHIFT, missional, missional church, missional living
• Date: Feb 16,2010

Over the weeks to come, Ed Stetzer will be introducing the people who will be serving as framers for The Missional Manifesto, as well as speakers for missionSHIFT (the conference that I have the privilege to be working with him on) which takes place July 12-15 in Ridgecrest, NC. I will be re-posting Ed’s introductions in their entirety here on transformission each week.

Here is Ed’s next introduction:

I am very pleased that my friend Alan Hirsch will be joining us in the conversation leading up to missionSHIFT this summer (July 12-15 at Ridgecrest). Alan has been one of the leading voices in calling the church to live missionally and he will play a significant role in guiding the discussion regarding the Missional Manifesto.

I asked Alan if he could stop by the blog and answer a few questions about all things missional and what is happening in his life and ministry right now.

Ed: What do you see in the church that is giving you hope that we are doing better at engaging in God’s mission?

Alan: Certainly I see a newfound, system-wide, willingness to really rethink and even question some of what up to now we have considered sacrosanct. I have been an activist for missional-incarnational church for a long time now, and I have never before experienced such radical openness and real engagement with the ideas. Even more exciting is that many are willing to really try them out…to experiment and perhaps innovate new forms of church. Another thing that excites is is the talk about exponential. Why I get excited about this because when you really begin to take this seriously, it serves as a catalyst to think missionally about the forms of church, mission, and discipleship. It effectively forces us to take issues of how we are currently doing church seriously and sends us on a journey of discovery to find out new ways of being more effective–this is very much part of the missional journey.

Ed: Your website, The Forgotten Ways, uses the tagline “Developing Apostolic Imagination and Practice in Western Contexts.” Describe what that means. Especially “apostolic imagination.”

Alan: Yes, I believe that in this terminology of the Bible lies one of the keys to missional thinking and acting. I in no way wish to replace the role of the original twelve, so lets get that straight right up front. What I seek to do however seek to do is to revitalize and recover the very ethos and genius that is caught up in authentically apostolic ministry. I advocate for the recovery of apostolic ministry–I believe this very distinctive way of thinking and acting is crucial in our day. For instance, many of unaware that the word apostolic has the same roots as the word missional–the one is Greek (apostello) and the other Latin (missio) and they both mean sent. So if I said it another way, if we want missional (sent) church then we have to have missional ministry…and that must at least include the apostolic ministry. If Einstein is right in saying that if we can’t imagine it we can’t do it (and I think he is), then we certainly we need to learn to think apostolically again. This is what I mean by apostolic imagination.

Ed: Obviously, the word “missional” is spoken of, used by, and claimed by many groups. Instead of giving another definition for the word, can you tell the readers an example of where you and your wife are seeking to live missionally?

Alan: Currently we live and serve at edgy, somewhat experimental, church called The Tribe of LA. While Debs has a the formal role with the community, I am involved and very keen. I travel to much to be really useful. :) But Tribe is made of what we fondly think of as spiritual artists and vagabonds…These people are witnesses to Jesus in some of the craziest places of LA. One of the places they pop up at is called Burning Man, a radical annual arts festival of 40,000 people in the middle of the desert near Reno. It is a tribe that few Christians ever venture to engage but is really wide open for mission and evangelism. Tribe is the church in that crazy place and I love them for it.

Ed: In terms of missionSHIFT and the Missional Manifesto, what would be a great end-game in your mind for this event and process?

Alan: I think so much is bound up in understanding and appropriating the nest of paradigms bound up with the word ‘missional’. At the moment is is becoming the word of the month…and as I have noted above, while I am very excited about this newfound openness, my feeling (and experience) says that most people don”t really understand what it entails: that it involves a radical reconceptualization of just about every aspect of how we do church and mission. And so my hope is that the conference and manifesto serve to give needed definition and clarity to this very important idea.

Ed: Tell us a little about your upcoming projects (writings, books, travels)? What are you up to these days?

Well my latest book (written with my beloved wife Debra) is called Untamed and really is an attempt to articulate what it means to be a radically missional disciple of Jesus. It tries to identify (and remove) many obstacles in what it means to follow Jesus the way he intended, I feel very excited about it as I believe discipleship is a very strategic (and very missional) issue in the church of our day–if we fail here we will fail everywhere else.

I have also delivered a draft on a book with Lance Ford called Right Here, Right Now, which is a missionality-for-dummies kind of book. For so many people missional ideas seem very complex and the conversation way too academic. Right Here, Right Now brings it all home to the people of God–right where it belongs (out early 2011).

I have also just finished a manuscript with Mike Frost than can best be described a Theology/Missiology of Risk and Adventure (we haven’t got a name pinned down yet–out middle 2011).

I am finishing up a very serious, hefty, and I hope definitive, work into the nature and function of apostolic ministry in our day with a very bright church planter theologian called Tim Catchim.

And I am also starting a new book with Dave Ferguson called On the Verge. This is a unique look at what ten really adventurous megachurches are doing to integrate Missional-Incarnational approaches into the equation of the church. It therefore tracks closely with a process we are calling Future Travelers. On the Verge will also be the theme book/concept for Exponential 2011.

We are also launching Forge America, a training network aimed at developing incarnational mission.

So, you seem I have my work cut out for me!! Actually having written it out like this, I feel somewhat overwhelmed and in need your (and the readers) prayers….please pray with/for me.

transitioning to missional

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Jesus, church, community, discipleship, incarnational, leadership, mission, missional, missional church, missional living, social justice, theology
• Date: Feb 10,2010

Brent Thomas, lead pastor of Church of the Cross in Phoenix, has posted on some of his reflections on Verge, a conference that focused in on gospel-centered missional community.

Thomas says in his post, “Missional Communites Are Great And All, But Now What?! Transitioning to Missional”:

One of the take-aways for me from this conference was that there is a tremendous outpouring of frustration with the American church and its consumeristic mindset and business-like models. There is also a growing consensus that missional community rather than programs might be one of the answers to this growing frustration.

But Thomas knows that transitioning to missional will be extremely difficult for many pastors:

While much of this is refreshing and even exciting, it may in fact be frustrating for a good many pastors. I spoke with several pastors who attended the conference who actually left the conference quite frustrated because the churches to which they were returning were so far away from this model. The obvious, overwhelming and unclear question here for many pastors is how to get from here to there: how do you transition a traditional, American program-driven church to missional?

Thomas gives us 8 things to consider when transitioning to “missional”:

1. Go slow
2. Be theological/scriptural
3. Clearly define your terms
4. Lead by example
5. Don’t neglect community
6. Center each community around a tangible mission with the clear end-goal of making disciples
7. Celebrate successes/share stories
8. Focus on Jesus

Read Thomas’ entire post here to see how he fleshes out these points.

authority for the gentle missional conquest

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Gospel, Great Commission, Jesus, Matthew, New Testament, discipleship, mission, resurrection
• Date: Feb 8,2010

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Andreas Kostenberger, professor of New Testament at SBTS and editor of The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, looks at how Jesus’ authority emboldens his followers to join in God’s mission without fear.

Kostenberger:

…it is only after the crucifixion that Jesus claims to have all authority in heaven and on earth. It is the risen Christ who, in the manner of a conquering, victorious general, ascends the mountain and commissions his followers to go and conquer the worlds, similar to Alexander the Great and other military leaders who set out to subdue the universe and subject it to their will. But Jesus’ will be a gentle conquest…

He continues:

…as his followers go into all the world in order to disciple the nations, Jesus himself, Isaiah’s Immanuel, which is translated “God with us” (Matt 1:23), will be with them: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” How, then, can the church’s mission possibly fail, if Jesus, the risen Christ, the conquering general, will himself be present with his people in the power of the Holy Spirit?

Read the entire post here.

tracing the Biblical metanarrative of “mission”

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Jesus, Metanarrative, New Testament, Old Testament, blessing, church, community, kingdom of God, mission
• Date: Feb 7,2010

Tim Chester:

Mission is not one thing we do among others. Mission is central to the Bible story and central to our identity. We are missionary people. We are communities on mission.

Creation: God made humanity with a mission: (1) to fill and govern the earth, and (2) to be his image in the world, reflecting his glory. We create, we explore, we investigate, we cook, we clean, we repair, we do science and culture and art – all to the glory of God.

Fall: After our rebellion our mission distorts and turns inwards. At Babel humanity (1) comes together instead of being scattered (2) to a name for themselves instead of glorifying God (Genesis 11:4).

Abraham: ‘All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ (Genesis 12:3) God chooses Abraham for the nations. The Saviour will come from Abraham’s descendants. See Genesis 18:18-19. The nations will be blessed as God’s people walk in his ways and ‘do’ justice. People will look on and see it is good to know God.

Continue to read how Chester traces “mission” through the metanarrative of the Exodus, Israel, the Prophets, Jesus, the church, the new creation, and God’s coming kingdom here.

the requirement of neighbor-love + neighbor-service

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Gospel, Great Commission, Jesus, New Testament, books, incarnational, missio Dei, mission, missional, missional living, orthopraxy, sent, social justice
• Date: Feb 5,2010

Mark Roberts, Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence for a phenomenal conference center called Laity Lodge in the Hill Country of Texas, is blogging through the classic book by John Stott, Christian Mission in the Modern World.

His recent installment deals with the implications of the Great Commission. Citing Stott, Roberts says:

The Great Commission neither explains, nor exhausts, nor supersedes the Great Commandment. What it does is to add to the requirement of neighbor-love and neighbor-service a new and urgent Christian dimension.

Further, he talks about how “mission” is both proclaiming and enacting the Gospel:

“Mission” describes rather everything the church is sent into the world to do. “Mission” embraces the church’s double vocation of service to be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world.” For Christ sends his people into the earth to be its salt, and sends his people into the world to be its light (Matthew 5:13-16)

Read the entire post here.

realtime connections by bob roberts jr.

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Great Commission, New Testament, discipleship, emerging culture, futurism, incarnational, missio Dei, missional, missional living, missions, multi-ethnic, orthopraxy, postmodern, social issues, work, world issues
• Date: Feb 4,2010

Bob Roberts, lead pastor at Northwood and author of such books as Transformation: How Glocal Churches Transform Lives and the World and Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World, has written a brand new book called, Realtime Connections: Linking Your Job With God’s Global Work.

If you read Transformation or Glocalization, you know that Robert’s loves to talk about how to enact the tagline of his new book: engaging your occupation with God’s global (or as he likes to say, glocal) mission. Here is what he says about his new book: “The book basically looks at the 21st century and projects forward from practical action that’s being done right now in a local church and what it will look like to see the Great Commission fulfilled.”

He goes on to say:

It’s written for everyday ordinary disciples – not preachers or just church leaders. It’s a “missional” book for everyone and what a missional disciple looks like.

I can’t think of a more helpful book when many are preaching, writing, talking about what a theology of work looks like. Connecting our work to God’s glocal agenda is a must and this book will no doubt help us to that end.

the vocabulary of “sending” in the gospel of john

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Gospel, Jesus, John, New Testament, missio Dei, missional, sent
• Date: Feb 3,2010

Brad Brisco:

The reason it is important to recognize such language (“sending”) 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 ours. This is never more true than in the Gospel of John.

He goes on to say:

The primary focus of the Fourth Gospel is the mission of Jesus…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.

Read the entire post here.