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margo-xmas

Parents often forget that their most important mission field is the home. Living missionally as parents means that God’s goodness should infect our homes as we humbly live out the power of the Gospel in our own lives. And as this happens, we pray God will woo our children to his saving grace.

I am so excited to share that last night, I had the privilege to lead my daughter Margo in a prayer of faith and trust in God’s grace for her salvation. What an unbelievable opportunity! Since Cooper trusted in Christ back in January 2008, Margo has been asking a lot of questions. There have been many moments over the last year of her life where I thought I saw the “lightbulb” come on for her, only to be convinced that she needed some more time.

Last night, we were reading the story of Jesus and the children from Matthew 19 from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones (an amazing Gospel-centered children’s Bible) and I could tell that something clicked in Margo’s spirit. She got it. The part of the story that she resonated with said this:

…no matter how clever you are, or how good you are, or how rich you are, or how nice you are, or how important you are – none of it makes any difference. Because God’s love is a gift and, as anyone will tell you, the whole thing about a gift is, it’s free. All you have to do is reach out your hand and take it.

…You see, children loved Jesus, and they knew they didn’t need to do anything special for Jesus to love them. All they needed to do was to run into his arms…

After I read this, Cooper said, “That’s what I did, Dad,” and Margo said, “That’s all I have to do, Dad?” I told her yes. It knew it was time. It had all been leading to this moment. We went upstairs and we talked for a bit and prayed together. Wow…

What is beautiful about this is that Cooper was drawn to the saving knowledge of Christ through the Word by the same Bible almost a year and a half ago. God’s word is alive!

She is so excited to get baptized, especially to show her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins about her decision, but she is almost more excited to take communion as a family. At The Journey, we come forward to take communion and Holly, Cooper, and I have been doing this together for the past year and a half. Margo has been joining us as we go forward but not partaking. She has been asking more questions lately about what the elements represent.

I think this has been another big part of her journey to Christ. It reflects what can happen when, as an ordinary family, as Tim Chester and Steve Timmis say, you do ordinary things with Gospel intentionality. Just having Margo around the sacraments made an impact on her. It drew her into wanting to be a part of God’s family.

I thank the Lord for the professions of faith of Cooper and Margo and continue to pray for my two youngest, Sloan and Everett. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord…

For further reading, the following post was written in January 2008 and captures my heart on bringing the Gospel to your children, highlighting what is most important and exposing some misconceptions. I would encourage you to read: Bringing the Gospel to your Children: What I’ve Learned So Far


bodybillboard

In light of my recent post on seeing people, not as commodities, but inherently made in the image of God, or better, “eikons” in need of repair (to borrow from Scot McKnight), I really resonated with this post from Skye Jethani entitled “Your Body as a Billboard.” Here is a blurb:

The problem is when we make sacred things into commodities…we no longer see God as inherently worthy of our worship because of who he is but because of what we believe he can do for us, he becomes a divine commodity (hence the title of my book.) But we do the same thing to people created in God’s image. Whether it’s a corporation reducing people to a means of production, a society reducing unborn children to “tissue,” or churches reducing families to “giving units,” we live in an age when human beings carry no inherent value. They are expendable commodities whose value is determined by their usefulness.

Read Jethani’s entire post here: Your Body as a Billboard by Skye Jethani

And here is the NY Times Article referenced: The Body as Billboard by Andrew Adam Newman


ddevito

“If you want to talk to somebody honestly as a human being, ask him about his kids, find out what his dreams are, just to find out for no other reason because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it’s not a conversation anymore, it’s a pitch. And you’re not a human being you’re a marketing rep.”

-Phil, played by Danny Devito, from The Big Kahuna

I have begun meeting with an older mentor who is providentially working God’s truth deep into my soul. Last week, we met and he challenged me on the issue of what I “lead with.” Especially in conversations with those who don’t follow Jesus.

What do you lead with? Do you lead with what you do? Is what you do who you are? Or is what you are not defined by what you do? Is telling people what you do even important?

People are not commodities. Evangelism is not a recruiting scheme. Conversation and relationship should not be bait-and-switch.

We must be compelled by love.

See also: Doug Pollock: Ten Spiritual Conversation Killers


coffeeconvo

My new friend, Art Rogers, reprinted Michael Frost’s four “P’s” of missionality (love that word). I’ll re-re-print them here:

Proximity – We must be in the lives of those needing the Gospel. It is not something you can do from the sideline or as a tourist.
Presence – We must live incarnationally, revealing the presence of God to those not looking for Him otherwise.
Powerlessness – We must disavow the political, material and temporal leverage that the institutional church has long represented and coveted. It has discredited us and eschewing it commends us to those previously disillusioned.
Proclamation – We must openly declare that Jesus is the reason that we are living as servants, abstaining from worldly power struggles. People don’t need “good people” they need the Gospel.

Art asked for thoughts. Here was my response:

i think it’s pretty strong. many “missional” folks leave out proclamation. great to see that…

on the proclamation front, people like frost and his buddy, hirsch, show they are thoroughly evangelical. unfortunately, they are still on the margins of much of evangelicalism. i see their prophetic influence slowly seeping out, but there is much work to be done…

i do want to say that we need to be careful how we define proclamation though. we typically do this: proclamation = preaching. that’s a slice but not exclusively what it is. proclamation is an all-of-life, “giving a reason for the hope..,” verbal proclamation of our faith. at the appropriate, discerning time…

the one thing i would add is the impetus of the declaration that Jesus is the reason we are living as servants isn’t first because we are resisting worldly power struggles but we are servants because the cross was the fullest expression of service. We serve because Jesus’ obedience to the Father was the ultimate act of service. i’m afraid if we don’t do that, people will not see the gospel as the impetus, rather an apple for apples trade off – service vs. power struggles. i hope that makes sense…

i understand that early in conversation, it may be helpful to use the apple for apples idea as a gateway, but we have to be careful to expand the idea at the most appropriate time so we model the gospel as the prism they need to look at all things, especially mission.

i would say it this way: gospel-less service is merely activism but gospel-filled service is mission!


fruit

Brother Maynard, in a recent entry entitled “Missional Conversation for 2009,” waxes on what he believes will be at the forefront of the missional discussion this upcoming year. One of the things he says should be at the center is evangelism. And it should be…

In light of the recent hubbub over the issue of “conversion” and the “fruit” of the missional church via Dan Kimball, et al., there is no question that those of us in the missional conversation must wrestle with the issue of evangelism as it relates to conversion.

On the one hand, David Fitch is right when he says that in the post-Christian culture, “converting” the truly unchurched – as opposed to the dechurched, who have some Christian memory – will be a much slower process that will take extreme patience. The world knows a bait-and-switch when they see it and we have to honor the process, discerning our part on the spectrum of one’s spiritual journey. We may be the seed “planter,” “waterer,” or “harvester.”

On the other hand, as we are “compelled by love” to engage in relationship with unbelievers because we believe their greatest need is on the soul level, we will have to discern if and when our job is to “harvest” and be ready to lead others to Christ and not, for the sake of offense, be so hesitant to do so because we are so intent on going “slow.”

There is no question that evangelism has been subsumed into the “mission” at various points historically, many times in the name of the missio Dei. When it has done so, “conversion” was no longer important. Rather than explicitly share the Gospel, one must merely express “solidarity” with an oppressed people group for Christ to “save” them. No proclamation of the Gospel, just presence. In this paradigm, as Stephen Neill has said, when everything is mission, nothing is mission.

In other words, if a narrower definition of mission is sharing the good news of Christ, then “sharing” may be a part of the equation depending on our role in the process. Expressing oneness with someone alone will never lead anyone to Christ. It may be an excellent gateway, but cannot be equated with what historically has been understood as evangelism.

I believe the fruit of the missional church will be seen in our ability to live in the creative tension of earning trust and credibility with the lost, going slow and discerning the Spirit’s leading to our “role” in their spiritual journey and if given a window of openness to the Gospel, boldly and lovingly, leading our friends into the Kingdom.



The first Midwest Acts 29 Quarterly of 2009 is tomorrow at The Journey – Tower Grove. I’m going to try to live blog it via the Cover It Live platform. I know it is difficult for some of you to travel to St. Louis, especially in these difficult economic times…

Here is a blurb from A29 about what the quarterly will focus in on:

Approaching Evangelism: Salt & Light

As Christians, our primary ministry calling is to bring the gospel to the broken culture. But, sadly, as pastors, church planters, and church leaders we can lose touch with this call while navigating the other demands of local church ministry. Throughout the history of the church we have seen movements that have reacted to this issue by becoming wholly focused either on making the gospel attractive to the culture or through incarnating the gospel within the culture. Does there have to be an either/or response to our call? How can we keep personal evangelism a priority for ourselves and our congregations while shaping a church culture that expresses an attractional facet of the gospel?

Our teachers for the first session focusing on The Shape of an Attractional Culture will be Darrin Patrick, lead pastor for The Journey, and Jonathan McIntosh, Teaching and Hanley Rd. Campus pastor for The Journey.

Our teacher for the afternoon session focusing on Jesus-Style Evangelism will be pastor, teacher, and author Jerram Barrs, Professor of Christian Studies and Contemporary Culture and Resident Scholar of the Francis A. Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO.



Ed Stetzer & David Fitch – a missional conversation from Missional Tribe on Vimeo


From Missional Tribe:

Shot in Chicago in November of ‘08, Part One of this 45 minute conversation features Ed Stetzer and Dave Fitch discussing what they each mean by the term “missional”. They also spend some time discussing attractional vs missional – and whether missional church, as it seems to be presently framed is “interested in converts.”

A very good conversation between two PhD’s, who are also church planters, teachers, authors and missional instigators in their own right.

This video was produced by Toronto’s mkpl.tv – Producer, Imbi Medri. Director/Editor, Bill Kinnon. It is made available under a Creative Commons License – Attribution – No Derivative Works. Copyright Holders: Medri Kinnon Productions Limited, Ed Stetzer, David Fitch.


1. Ed Stetzer – edstetzer.com

Ed Stetzer, President of Lifeway Research, Lifeway’s Missiologist in Residence, on the faculty of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Southern Seminary, prolific author and blogger, multiple church planter and ministry trainer, is my #1 missional blog of the year.

So I’m a little biased here, but as many of you know, I’ve had the special privilege to work under Ed through my master’s level work at Liberty Theological Seminary this fall/winter. I’ve witnessed first hand his heart to help and serve people at all levels of ministry understand the missional conversation and practically move them towards it. And this heart for mission, the church and God’s people shines through on his blog.

Check these:
The Meanings of Missional series
Speaking of Jesus and Justice
Simply Missional
When the Mission Gets Lost in the System
Missional Living

Top 8 Recap
8. J.R. Woodward | 7. Jonathan Dodson | 6. Neil Cole | 5. Drew Goodmanson | 4. Bob Hyatt | 3. Alan Hirsch | 2. David Fitch


2. David Fitch – Reclaiming the Mission

David Fitch, Betty R. Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary; founding pastor of Life on the Vine Community, an emerging church in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago; co-founder of Up/Rooted, an emergent cohort that gathers leaders and thinkers to engage issues of the emerging church and the post-modern context; and author of The Great Giveaway comes in at #2.

David has been one of the most influencing voices in the development of my ministry/church planting philosophy. It started with The Great Giveaway, but continuing on with the stream of consciousness on his blog, let’s just say, it’s a gold mine. I believe it will be shown that David was one of the most important shaping influences on the grounding of missional orthopraxy in the twenty-first century.

I’m looking forward to becoming a regular part of the missional leader learning community in the future. I was personally invited to the one in January but can’t make. I hope to down the road..

Check these:
Please Lord, Don’t Let Me Get Pragmatic: Spiritual Formation for Missional Leaders
“The Numbers Are Going Up But Something Doesn’t Feel Right”
Conversion a casualty of Missional Theology?
When They Will Not Come – Community: The anti-attractional process of beginning a church with community
The Middle In: The Unique Missional Opportunity

Top 8 Recap
8. J.R. Woodward | 7. Jonathan Dodson | 6. Neil Cole | 5. Drew Goodmanson | 4. Bob Hyatt | 3. Alan Hirsch


6. Neil Cole: Cole-Slaw

I think for those of us who enjoy the missional conversation, we would agree that having Cole’s voice back in the blogosphere is a huge gift. Not one to mince words, Cole continues to be a much-needed “prophet” in evangelicalism. Comeback of the year…

Check these:
Biblical support?
Misguided Misgivings 5: A cost too high
Separating the church from the business


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