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.

principles of missional living

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Christianity, New Testament, acts, books, church, contextualization, culture, incarnational, missio Dei, missiology, mission, missional, missional church, missional living, organic, sent
• Date: Feb 10,2010

Michael Frost, author of Exiles and the upcoming, Jesus the Fool: The Mission of the Uncoventional Christ, is currently touring the U.S.

Frost is also the co-author of The Shaping of Things to Come and ReJesus with missional co-conspirator Alan Hirsch and serves as Vice Principal of Morling College and founding Director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission study center located at Morling College in Sydney, Australia.

As a part of his tour, Frost is speaking at local churches and this past Sunday, he spoke at Village Baptist Church in Portland on “Principles of Missional Living” from Acts 8. You can listen to the audio here.

John Johnson, lead pastor of VBC and also Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology, Director of Doctor of Ministry program, Western Seminary, reflects on Frost’s visit here.

For kicks, here is a full-length video from Frost that I’ve posted before. This is one of the best explanations of the missional church out there:

transformission as a missional aggregator

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: blogging, missio Dei, missiology, missional, missional church, missional living
• Date: Feb 3,2010

I have decided to add a new wrinkle to transformission…

Amidst my personal ruminations about life, church planting, theology, and other mysteries, I thought I would attempt to use this blog as a missional “aggregrator” or a place to cull the “best of the best” from the blogosphere on all things missional.

To lay my cards on the table, the inspiration for this comes from Justin Taylor and his excellent blog, Between Two Worlds, a blog that is a part of The Gospel Coalition blogroll. Taylor posts multiple entries a day on the top blog posts, audio, video, and new books within the conservative Evangelical realm.

The final form of the missional aggregator may be multiple posts a day or one post a day or every few days with multiple links, but rest assured, transformission will be the place to find the best blog entries, audio + video, new books, and book reviews from the top missiologists, theologians, thinkers, and authors that are firmly in the missional conversation.

Stay tuned…

the missional manifesto: introducing eric mason

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Missional Manifesto, church, church planting, discipleship, incarnational, missio Dei, missiology, missionSHIFT, missional church, missional living, urban
• Date: Feb 2,2010

Over the weeks to come, Ed Stetzer will be introducing the people who will be serving as framers for the Missional Manifesto that will be discussed as a part of missionSHIFT (the conference that I mentioned on the blog yesterday that I have had the privilege to work with him on) which takes place July 12-15 in Ridgecrest, NC.

Here is Ed’s first introduction:

First up is Eric Mason… better known as “Mase” to his friends.

He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with his wife Yvette and two sons Immanuel and Nehemiah. He is also an adjunct professor at Biblical Theological Seminary. Dr. Mason received his Master of Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary (ThM 2000) and a Doctorate degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (DMin, May 2007).

Eric is the lead pastor and co-founder of Epiphany Fellowship in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to the church website, the mission of Epiphany Fellowship is simple: “We want to develop disciples.”

It goes on to explain:

We want to develop disciples that are able to minister in the culture and help new disciples to grow in God’s word in every area of their lives and shining the truth of the person of Jesus Christ to the glory of the Triune God. We cannot stress enough the realization that this Church will not be a “Hip Hop Church,” but a CHURCH.

Albeit we will be sensitive to the unique needs of those heavily influenced by that culture. The target group will be those from ages 18-44 who are unsaved or without a community of disciples of which to bond in a Theo-centric community.

We would like to see The Name of Jesus Christ Magnified by the credibility of the Church being reestablished in the world through Robust & Relevant Worship, Rich & Relevant Word, and Real & Relevant Witnesses (Eph. 2:20-21). We want to have inward depth, and be outwardly missional.

Here’s a little more about Eric. You can find a series of messages Eric did about the missional church in April of 2007 and February of 2009.

Back in 2008, he spoke at “Missional Christianity… Church Beyond Boundaries: A conference addressing theological and practical challenges for the future of the missional church” at Biblical Seminary on the subject of “Missional Church Planting in an Urban Setting.”

I first heard Eric speak at the Dwell Urban Church Planting Conference in New York City on the subject of “Dwelling Incarnationally.” You can hear the audio here. And, Eric is speaking this week at the Desiring God conference in Minneapolis.

Eric Mason is passionate about the mission of God in world, and specifically in the urban context. He is godly and humble. I am proud to serve with him as we move in conversation toward a better articulating what it means to be a missional church– and then encouraging one another to live mission-shaped lives.

missional as identity

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Christianity, community, culture, incarnational, missio Dei, missiology, missional church, missional living, postmodern
• Date: Feb 2,2010

Tim Chester, co-author of the must-read, Total Church (with Steve Timmis), writes regularly on missional issues on his blog. Chester is a leader in The Crowded House – an international family of church planting networks – and within TCH, he leads The Edge Network in Sheffield, UK. He is also the director of the Northern Training Institute and co-director of The Porterbrook Network.

Recently, Chester wrote about what it looks like for a Christ-follower to have missional identity. Read his thoughts:

Mission as identity

For many people mission has become an event. We have guest services. Evangelistic courses. Street preaching. Youth programmes. There’s nothing wrong with these things. But mission is more than a slot into our schedules. It is an identity and a lifestyle. Mission is about living all of life, ordinary life, with gospel intentionality.

Missional communities

We are called to be missional communities – not lone evangelists. The life of the covenant community is to be a light to the nations. ‘By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’ (John 13:35) Our love for one another reveals our gospel identity. The world will know that Jesus is the Son of God sent by God to be Saviour of the world through the community life of believers (John 17:20-23). This does not primarily mean inviting people to meetings. It is about shared life into which other people are welcomed.

Scattered communities of light

Imagine a globe in darkness with one point of light. That was Israel in the Old Testament, one point of light in a dark world, drawing the nations to God. And New Testament believers are still be communities of light, drawing people to God. We still draw people in towards the centre. But the centre is no longer one geographic location in Palestine, but a hundred, thousand communities of light scattered across the globe. We are not be like a lighthouse, occasionally sending a beam of light across the city. We are to be communities of light and hope and love in a dark and broken world at street level, on the street corner.

Here is Chester speaking on this same topic at the recent Lead09 conference:

I think it is interesting to note that Chester places missional identity in the context of community. I would go so far as to say that mission divorced from community really isn’t mission in its fullest sense.

When God said to Abraham in Genesis 12, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you,” I believe He was saying that mission flows from within community. Oh, that we would be “communities of light” bringing people into the marvelous light of God’s grace.

missionSHIFT: framing the missional conversation // forging a missional manifesto

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Christianity, leadership, ministry, missio Dei, missiology, missional church, missional living, orthopraxy, pastoring, theology
• Date: Feb 1,2010

I’ve been slow to get this up here on transformission but last week, my friend Ed Stetzer shared an exciting announcement that I’ve been talking about via Twitter for some time now in his post, “Missing the Missional Mark.” (In fact, that is why there has been little to no blogging for the last few months…)

In his entry, Ed said:

A few of us have talked and we are going to try to forge something of a definition (of missional) — at least for how we use the term. As part of that, later this year, July 12-14, I’m partnering with a few others to launch a new conference called missionSHIFT that I believe will help us with the discussion.

As a part of this conference, we are prayerful that a helpful statement can be forged on what it means to be missional. Several leaders in the missional church conversation (Keller, Hirsch, and others to be announced), who write about all-things missional, have already agreed to be framers for the statement and some of the framers will be at the conference for discussion and dialogue.

The intention of “The Missional Manifesto” is to allow the Scriptures to guide our understanding and involvement in the mission of God as it applies to the whole of life and doctrine. The document will strive to show how “missional” intersects with truths about the gospel, the local church, evangelism, missions, social justice, and contextualization, among other things.

The intent would be to say, “This is what we mean when we talk about being missional.” It is not our intent (or within our ability) to say this is what everyone should think or say about the term. Words mean different things (for example, “grace,” “justice,” and “gospel” all have different meanings to different groups). However, it is our hope that it will help us be clearer and more mission-shaped in our own thinking and practice.

I have had the privilege of working closely with Ed on this for the past few months so I’m excited to see this come to fruition. More about my role to come…

As Ed stated at the end of his entry, he is “resurrecting” his Monday is for Missiology” posts in which he will blog about all things missional. If you are interested in this conversation, this will be a great place to engage in discussion. This will also be the forum where we release additional names of those who are framing “The Missional Manifesto” and those who will leading our missional “labs.” Stay tuned…

Another way to get involved in the conversation is via Twitter. First, follow @missionSHIFT to stay up to date on announcements re: missionSHIFT. Second, if you have a comment about what missional is to you, make sure and use the hashtag: #missionSHIFT. Finally, follow the discussion on the tweet “wall” at the bottom of all the pages on the missionSHIFT website.

If you believe it is time for the church to engage in the mission of God, missionSHIFT will inspire and prepare you to cultivate a missional movement in your church and community. I want to encourage you to come to this conference.

If you are interested in coming, you can register here.

rethinkmission.org

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Gospel, blogging, culture, emerging culture, leadership, missiology, missional church, missional living, pastoring, post-Christendom, post-Evangelical, postmodern
• Date: Sep 2,2009

It’s been a long time coming but my good friend, Jonathan McIntosh, former teaching and campus pastor at The Journey (my home church here in the Lou) and now vagabond holed up somewhere in a Mississippi backyard eating some yellow watermelon (which apparently is sweeter and you would know if you followed Jonathan on Twitter), has launched a blog.

Actually, Jonathan is headed to seminary in the very near future and in the meantime, he is going to be rocking it on a new blog called Rethink Mission.

JMac says this about his blog:

Rethink Mission is about inspiring gospel-centered missional churches. We are committed to doing that in three ways:

1. Blogging on the intersection of the gospel, the church, and culture.
2. Interviewing church leaders to provide a resource library on how other leaders do ministry in an ever changing culture.
3. Providing coaching and teaching for pastors and church planters.

Jonathan is one of the most humble, caring, genuinely authentic, culturally savvy, Christ-loving people I know. If the launch and subsequent posts of the blog are any indicator of what is to come, you should add Rethink Mission to your RSS reader ASAP.

Check out the three-part “missional Q & A” with lead pastor of The Journey, Darrin Patrick, on preaching missionally to get a taste:

Missional Preaching – Part 1
Missional Preaching – Part 2: Contextualization
Missional Preaching – Part 3: People

Also, here is Jonathan talking about Wilco and the Bible. If you knew JMac, this is perfectly normal:

darrin patrick interviews ed stetzer

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Gospel, church, community, contextualization, cross, culture, discipleship, emerging church, emerging culture, evangelism, futurism, history, homosexuality, incarnational, kingdom of God, leadership, ministry, missio Dei, missiology, missional church, missional living, pastoring, politics, post-Christendom, post-Evangelical, postmodern, religion, research, social issues, social justice, theology, video
• Date: Aug 30,2009

If you are a pastor, this is a must see.

Darrin Patrick, lead pastor of The Journey (my home church and where I intern) interviews my friend Ed Stetzer, President of Lifeway Research and Lifeway’s Missiologist in Residence, on what he sees as the pressing issues within evangelicalism today.

I believe this is Ed at his best, bringing prophetic insight to a wide variety of topics that should be of interest to those who love the church and the Gospel. Enjoy:

Tim Keller on the Gospel + the Poor

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Christianity, Gospel, New Testament, church, community, incarnational, kingdom of God, ministry, missio Dei, missiology, missional church, missional living, orthopraxy, postmodern, social justice, theology, video
• Date: Aug 29,2009

total church study guide

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Bible study, Gospel, New Testament, church, church planting, community, discipleship, evangelism, incarnational, kingdom of God, ministry, missio Dei, missiology, missional church, missional living, orthopraxy, relevintage, social justice, theology, vision
• Date: Aug 20,2009

I’m very excited about a new resource from Veritas Community Church, an Acts 29 church in Columbus, Ohio. They have created a free study guide to accompany the Re:Lit book Total Church by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis.

You can download the free 32-page PDF study guide here.

Chester and Timmis, the authors of Total Church, founded The Crowded House church-planting initiative in the UK and direct the Porterbrook Network. Steve Timmis is also Director of Acts 29 for Western Europe.

Total Church may very well be one of the most influential and informing books I’ve read that has influenced my ministry philosophy since The Emerging Church and Emerging Worship by Dan Kimball and Transforming Mission by David Bosch.

There is no shortage of great tools to help form Gospel and Missional DNA into the life of a church plant core team, a just-launched church plant, a small group ministry, a church revitalization, or a church that is transitioning from a traditional to missional model. The Total Church study guide is yet another exceptional resource to that end.

I would also encourage you to check out these great handbooks/guides:

>The Tangible Kingdom Primer from Hugh Halter and Matt Smay
>The Forgotten Ways Handbook from Alan Hirsch
>The Gospel-Centered Life: A Nine Lesson Study from A29 pastor Bob Thune
>Fight Clubs from A29 pastor Jonathan Dodson