notes from mercyview lab #5

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Christianity, community, culture, culture making, discipleship, evangelism, Gospel, incarnation, incarnational, missional, missional church, missional living, Old Testament, prayer, social justice, vision, work, worship
• Date: Aug 20,2010

This past Sunday marked the end of the exciting first phase of planting the Gospel in urban Tulsa. God has been good! It has been a great summer as we have looked at the ethos of mercyview and how it fits in the spiritual and social climate here.

This Sunday, August 22, we will dialogue formally and informally about the base-level covenant and pray that by early September, God will bring together a group of deeply committed men and women to help plant the Gospel in their hearts and in the city of Tulsa.

But this post is to share the notes from mercyview lab #5, particularly for those of you that weren’t able to be with us. First, here is the all of the content from the previous labs:

–-Lab #1: The Gospel: The Center of Everything [download synopsis here]

–-Lab #2: Salt and Light: An Alternative City Within a City, For the City [download synopsis here]

–Lab #3: A Missional People: Sent as Missionaries to be Witnesses [download synopsis here]

–Lab #4: Seeking the Shalom of the City: How a Center-City Church Transforms Culture [download synopsis here]

Lab #5 was the final piece of the DNA of mercyview: the apex of holistic ministry interlocks the four ministry fronts [evangelism + worship // community + discipleship // justice + mercy // faith _ work] well. Here is a synopsis:

–Churches that thrive in cities should be characterized by an integrative balance of four ministry areas: missional evangelism, community formation, justice and mercy, and the integration of faith and work. Christians should seek personal conversion, deep Christian community, justice, and cultural renewal in the city.

–It is rare for a church to combine several of these emphases in ministry and extremely rare to have them all. One of the reasons is that the leaders of these ministries often resist and resent the others. But there is no reason to pit them against each other. They do not contradict but rather supplement each other.

–Only if we do all of these ministries at once will any of them be effective. They are interdependent and interlocking. And it is the only way to see our cities comprehensively influenced for Christ.

A. Connecting people to God: Missional Evangelism + Evangelistic Worship

1. Missional Evangelism [2]

–Evangelism rarely happens by osmosis. A prevelant myth in many churches is that if you give not-yet-Xians a chance to rub shoulders w/Xians, they are guaranteed to catch a dose of the Gospel. This myth is sometimes used to justify not making any special effort to provide evangelism programs or training. It allows churches to feel that they are obeying the Great Commission just by doing good deeds for Christ’s sake. A holistic approach places spiritual nurture and social care on a equal footing from the start.

What is missional evangelism?

a. We share the Gospel by word and deed, not word or deed. Modeling the Gospel through personal piety, acts of kindness, and the pursuit of justice is powerful and can draw people to Christ – if they learn why you are doing what you do.

b. We expectantly hope that those who hear the Word will embrace the message and repent. The bedrock of the Gospel is Christ’s incarnation of God’s love to a broken world. But accepting that love brings more than warm feelings – the powerful love of a just and holy God calls for repentance – turning away from personal and social sin through the power of the Holy Spirit.

c. Evangelism does not stop when someone accepts Christ. The ultimate goal of evangelism is not to win converts but to make disciples. Discipleship-oriented evangelism is concerned not only with non-yet-Xians but also dechurched Xians. The radical life of obedience preached by Christ is impossible without the teaching, accountability, and fellowship (koinonia) of a loving church community. If we make converts but fail to connect them to a Biblical, supportive, worshiping Xian community, then you have not completed the evangelistic mandate.

How do you do missional evangelism?

a. Pray: Prayer is the key to unlock relationships – it is what will draw, change, cause people to be comitted to their relationship with the Lord. Because salvation is God’s work, we must permeate all our evangelistic activity with prayer.

b. Listen: The temptation in proclamational evangelism is to try to take the conversation where we want it to go. Evangelism takes place best when the target community is treated not as a project but as people that have dignity and deserve respect.

c. Look: Look for a way to serve (go the extra mile), to connect (no two people are alike), to invite (take next step in their relationship with God-the journey from unbelief to to belief is a long one), and to fellowship (long-term relationship)

2. Evangelistic Worship [1 Corinthians 14:5-25 + Acts 2] [3]

–Non-believers are expected to be present in Xian worship. Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:23 expects both “unbelievers” and “the unlearned” (literally “a seeker”– “one who does not understand”) to be present in worship.

–Non-believers must find the praise of Xians to be comprehensible. It should not be missed that Paul tells a local congregation to adapt its worship because of the presence of unbelievers. It is a false dichotomy to insist that if we are seeking to please God we must not ask what the unchurched feel or think about our worship.

–Non-believers can fall under conviction and be converted through comprehensible worship. . In 1 Cor 1,4 it happens during the service, but in Acts 2, it is supplemented by “after meetings” and follow-up evangelism. God wants the world to overhear us worshipping him. God directs his people not to simply worship, but to sing his praises “before the nations.” We are not to simply communicate the gospel to them, but celebrate the gospel before them.

B. Connecting people to each other– Community and discipleship [4]

–We seek to spiritually form people mainly through community. Growth in grace and wisdom and character does not happen so much in classes and instruction, or even in coming to large worship gatherings. They happen mainly through in counter-cultural communities where the implications of the gospel are really worked out cognitively and ‘worked in’ practically in ways that no other setting or venue can afford.

1. The function of Xian community

a. Mission: The quality of our community is the real secret of mission. When the world sees exceptional community it is both 1) more convincing of the truth of Jesus’ message, and 2) far more inviting and encouraging to join up with.

b. Character: Jesus created communities of learning, where there was plenty of time to work out truth in discussion and dialogue and in application. Therefore, the crucial (though not exclusive venue for discipleship is in communities, not classes. Character is mainly shaped by the people with whom we live–with whom we eat, play, converse, counsel, and study. It is therefore our primary social community that makes us what we are at the deepest level.

c. Ethics: Most of the “ethical principle”‘ or “rules for behavior” in the Bible are not just code-books for individuals but descriptions of the new community of love and holiness.

d. Spirituality: A human being is too rich and multi-faceted a being to be known one-on-one. We think we know someone but an individual can’t bring out all that is in the person. We need to see the person with others. And if that is the case with a human being, how much more so with the Lord. You can’t really know Jesus by yourself.

Summary

It is a typical mistake of Christians to miss the centrality of community. We often think of community as one more thing we have to do in the “rules” of behavior. But community is the way we are to do all that Christ told us to do in the world. It is the way we do ‘ethics’; it is the way we do learning.

C. Connecting people to the city – Justice and mercy [5]

–We did not want to emphasize mainly evangelism (as conservative churches do) or mainly social justice (as liberal churches do) but give a very high emphasis to both. A gospel-centered church should combine ‘zeals’ that are ordinarily never seen together in the same church.

What is justice?

–Bruce Waltke: “The tzadiq [just] are [those who are] willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community; the wicked are [those who are] willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves.”

–Living justly means the constant recognition of the claims of community upon us; it means disadvantaging ourselves in order to advantage others. According to the Old Testament, God’s justice means to share food, shelter, and other basic resources with those who have fewer of them (Is 58:6-10.)

–The basis for ‘doing justice’ is salvation by grace. Xians may disagree about the particular political approach to the problems of injustice but all Xians must be characterized by their passion for justice and their personal commitment to annihilate injustice through personal giving, sacrifice, and generosity.

What is mercy?

–Xians are to “show mercy” or eleos. This word is used to describe holistic ministry in Luke 10:25-37 and James 2:14-17, two of the key passages in the Bible about wholistic ministry. “Mercy” sometimes has a general meaning but sometimes it specifically refers to helping the poor and needy.

–Martin Luther: “We are saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.”

Keeping justice and mercy in tension

–There are two unbiblical political ideologies and reductionisms that reign in our culture today. Many ‘conservatives’ are motivated to help the poor mainly by mercy. On the other hand, many ‘liberals’ are motivated to help the poor mainly out of a sense of indignation and aborted justice. Both views, ironically, become self-righteous. One tends to blame the poor for everything; the other to blame the rich for everything.

–A balanced motivation arises from a heart touched by grace which has lost its superiority-feelings toward any particular class of people. It is the gospel that motivates us to act both in mercy and in justice.

D. Connecting people to the culture – Integrating faith and work [6]

–All of our work matters to God. We agree with the original Protestant Reformers that so called “secular” work is as valuable and God-honoring as Christian ministry.

–When you use your gifts in work you are answering God’s calling to serve the human community. Our work then, whatever it is, matters greatly to God.

–On the other hand, God matters to all our work. That is, we also believe that the gospel shapes and effects the motives, manner, and methods we use in our work.

–What then is our vision? We do not want Xians to privatize their faith away from their work nor to express it terms of a subculture. Rather we want to see growing Xians working in their vocations both with excellence and Xian distinctiveness, transforming the culture in which we live from.

========

[1] Adapted from “Integrative Ministry” by Tim Keller from London Church Planting Consultation, 2008-2009.

[2] Adapted from Chapter 3, “Making Evangelism Central,” from Churches That Make a Difference: Reaching Your Community with Good News and Good Workds by Ron Sider, Philip Olson, and Heidi Unruh, 2002.

[3] Adapted from “Integrative Ministry,” Keller.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

notes from mercyview lab #4

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: acts, Bible, Bible study, Christianity, church, church planting, city, community, culture, culture making, emerging culture, evangelism, Gospel, Great Commission, homosexuality, incarnational, Israel, mercyview, missiology, mission, missional, missional church, missional living, Old Testament, Paul, post-Christendom, Poverty, religion, Revelation, social issues, social justice, theology, urban, work
• Date: Aug 3,2010

This past Sunday, it was great to see new and familiar faces, to intercede for one another and the future of mercyview, to dig into the Sacred Text, and to dialogue at mercyview lab #4 [we have one more next week before we move into a new phase for our burgeoning community].

We are fervently praying that as we approach the end of the summer, the “culture” of mercyview is crystal clear and God will call together a group of men and women who have an overwhelming desire to plant the Gospel deeply in their hearts and in the great city of Tulsa.

Here is the content from the previous labs if you’re interested:

–-Lab #1: The Gospel: The Center of Everything [download synopsis here]

–-Lab #2: Salt and Light: An Alternative City Within a City, For the City [download synopsis here]

–Lab #3: A Missional People: Sent as Missionaries to be Witnesses [download synopsis here]

In Lab #4, we talked about how a center-city church, seeking the “shalom” (peace) of the city, can redeem culture. Here is a synopsis:

–In Jeremiah 29, we find the purpose of the Babylonian exile for the Israelites was cultural assimilation and while the Jews were living in that place, as a counter-culture, they were to engage fully in life, even in the life of a city that was ostensibly opposed to God, “seeking the peace and prosperity” of the city.

–This may sound radical to us today but it is very much in accord with what Jesus deemed to be the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). And It is right in line with the idea that Israel, God’s people at that time, was to be a “blessing for the nations” (Gen. 12:3)

God’s invention

–An Old Testament city would look like a human settlement surrounded by a fortification or a wall. This was very important because behind the wall, human society was very different than what existed outside of the city in the countryside.

–The average city in Old Testament times was 1000-3000 people and 205 people per acre (NYC has 105 people per acre). What made a city back then was not “bigness” but density, diversity, and mixed use (within 10 minutes you can walk to work, eat, learn, shop, live). The same is true for today’s cities.

–It is widely understood that when God tells Adam and Eve to “have dominion” and “fill the earth” he is directing them to build a God-honoring civilization. They are to bring forth the riches that God put into creation by developing science, art, architecture, human society. Therefore, God was calling Adam and Eve to be city builders.

–This new Jerusalem is the city is the Garden of Eden, remade. We began in a garden but will end in a city. God’s purpose for humanity is urban! Why? Because the city is God’s invention and design not just a sociological phenomenon or invention of humankind.

–City building is an ordinance of God just like work and marriage. God made the city to be a developmental tool, designed to draw out the riches he put into the earth, nature and the human soul at creation.

Cities develop culture

–Cities are the main creators of culture, values, and belief.

–Whatever develops in the center-city tends to have a profound effect throughout the rest the city, region, nation, and world. Influence tends to move from the center-city outward.

–In the latter half of the twentieth century in America, many churches left the cities and moved out to the suburbs. Today many evangelical Xians in the United States bemoan the fact that they have lost their influence on the culture. The reason is obvious: they are no longer in the cities.

How cities develop culture

1. The city as a place of refuge and safety

–It has always been a place where people come who are too weak to live in other places. When Israel moved into the promised land, the first cities were built by God’s direction as ‘cities of refuge’, where the accused person could flee for safety and civil justice. Thus God invented cities to be a sign of divine, not self, protection.

–Even today, people like the homeless, or new immigrants, or the poor, or people with ‘deviant’ lifestyles, must live in the city. The city is always a more merciful place for minorities of all kinds. Why? The density of the city creates the possibility of strong minority communities.

–Density creates diversity.

2. The city as a cultural “mining” center

–Even the description of the wicked city of Babylon in Revelation 18 shows how the power of the city draws out the resources of creation-of the physical world and of the human soul.

–Cities draw and gather together human resources and tap their potential for cultural development as no other human-life organization structure can.

–The city was designed by God to do, as an instrument of glorifying Him, by ‘mining’ the riches of creation and building a God-honoring civilization.

3. The city as the place to meet God.

–Cities are the key to evangelism in any area. Paul’s missionary journeys essentially ignored the countryside. When he entered a new region, he planted churches in the biggest city, and then left.

–Because of the diversity and intensity of the cities, urbanites are much more open to radically new ideas – especially the gospel. Because they are surrounded by so many people like and unlike themselves and so much more mobile and subject to change, urbanites are far more open to change/conversion than any other kind of resident.

–We need to care about the center-city: We need to be concerned about the city, if for no other reason than our future is likely to be profoundly influenced by what happens there.

–We need to change our view of the center-city: It is not an evil place from which we ought to flee. Negative views are directly linked to disengagement.

–We need to understand the crucial importance of the center-city: We need to commit ourselves to living in the city. All true ministry is incarnational. We are unlikely to have much effect on the city if we are not living where we can be salt and light.

–We need to engage the center-city at many different levels: proclaiming Christ to individuals and communities, doing justice, engaging culture, and integrating faith and work

–We need to reach the center-city to reach the rest of your city, the region, and the world

–We need to reach the center-city to reach your own heart with the gospel: You will eventually come to see that you need the city more than the city needs you. Tim Keller says it this way:

1. In the city you’ll find a) people that seem ‘hopeless’ spiritually, and b) people of other religions or no religion and of deeply non-Christian lifestyles that are wiser, kinder, and deeper than you. This will shock you out of your moralism and force you to either finally believe the gospel of sheer grace, or give it up altogether.

2. In the city you will find that the poor and the broken are often much, much more open to the idea of gospel grace and much more dedicated to its practical outworkings than you are.

============

[1] Adapted from Allen Barth and Tim Keller, “A Vision for our Cities,” from Redeemer City to City.

[2] Adapted from Tim Keller, “A Bibilcal Theology of the City,” from Evangelicals Now.

[3] Adapted from Tim Keller, “City Vision” from UPL Consultation 2 mp3.

[4] Adapted from Barth and Keller, “A Vision for our Cities,” from Redeemer City to City.

notes from mercyview lab #2

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: acts, Bible, Christianity, church, church planting, community, contextualization, culture, evangelism, Gospel, history, idolatry, imago Dei, incarnation, incarnational, Jesus, Jonah, kingdom of God, Matthew, mercyview, ministry, New Testament, Old Testament, orthopraxy, Paul, Poverty, Revelation, social justice, Tulsa
• Date: Jun 28,2010

This past Sunday, we held our second mercyview lab to introduce people to the heartbeat of a new church community in the city of Tulsa and we had a great time together. I was particularly encouraged to see some new faces.

As I said last week, these “labs” are intended to give folks a “window into” what we believe God is calling mercyview to be in Tulsa. This will give many an opportunity to begin to pray about joining us in the birth of mercyview at the end of the summer.

In our first lab, I unpacked what is the “hub” of all of mercyview‘s ministry: the Gospel. Last night, I talked about what is looks like for a church to be a “city within a city” – an alternative society in a city that is “salt and light” (Matthew 5:13-16). Here are the notes from the evening:

–One of the foundational issues a new church has to figure out where they come down on is their relationship with culture. This has to happen before they can talk about how to be the church in the community.

–There is a lot of talk about culture these days but not always much clarity about what it really is. The truth is that the tension between church and culture has been around since the church began. People shout about culture and how the church should or should not relate to it but we have to think discerningly about what it is and how we engage culture.

–So how do we unpack this issue? I believe it involves understanding three things:

1. Culture matters
2. Relating to culture the wrong way matters [1]
3. How the church should relate to culture matters [2]

–Culture mattered to Paul. In Acts 17, we see four things:

1. Paul finds a space within the culture to proclaim the gospel – the Areopagus [Acts 17:22]
2. Paul acknowledged their spiritual questions contextually [Acts 17:22-31]
3. Paul understood Athens – observed their idols as he walked through the city; quoted a poet [Acts 17:23, 28]
4. Paul understood how to respond to culture [Acts 17:29]

–There are basically three choices we have to respond to culture:

1. Receive
2. Reject
3. Redeem

–As we respond to culture, we essentially receive all of culture and within in that “reception,” we must choose which aspects of it to reject or redeem.

–What is culture? The common ideas, feelings, and values that guide community and personal behavior that organize and regulate what the group thinks, feels, and does about God, the world, and humanity [Harvie Conn]

–Culture itself is not evil but a composite of good and evil – as understood Biblically. In any given culture we can find both the imago Dei and idols because all people are made in God’s image and reflect that reality in some ways.

–Those who say we should not “engage the culture,” are using the word “culture” in a way that missionaries wouldn’t [Ed Stetzer]

–Four ways that the church has related to culture:

1. Pietiest
2. Conservative activist
3. Cultural “relevant”
4. Counter-culturalist

–A pietist is someone who stresses Bible study, personal religious experience, and evangelism to the exclusion of trying to understand culture’s expressions: attitudes, customs, beliefs, ethics, and value systems. In essence, their attitude is one of indifference. They believe that since the world is going to burn up in the end, what matters is to convert as many people as possible. If we do that well, then society will be changed ‘one heart at a time.’

–A conservative activist perceives the main problem today to be the loss of moral absolutes. They believe Xians have become too much like the culture, which no longer believes in absolute truth. In this approach, young people are encouraged to recover a Xian worldview and to penetrate the higher reaches of the cultural economy.

–A cultural relevant, in reaction to the conservative movement, complains that Xians are perceived as too hostile and condemning and that they speak in language that is undecipherable to the average person. In this model, the church is called to deeply identify with felt needs of people – embodying love and truth by working against inequality and injustice in society.

–A counter-culturalist sees the main problem today to be that the church has tried to reform the world to become like the church. In this view, the church needs to follow Christ ‘outside the camp’ and identify with the poor and the marginalized. It needs to be a witness to the world simply by being the church, an alternate society and they shouldn’t try to ‘transform culture’ at all.

–Is the lack of very vibrant, effective evangelism for the church today a major problem? Of course. Thus, the cry from the pietists.

–Is it a major problem that Christians are vastly under-represented in many sectors of the cultural economy? Absolutely. Thus, the cry from the conservative activists.

-Is it a major problem that the evangelical church essentially exists in a subculture, not able to speak the Gospel intelligibly to most Americans, and perceived to be only concerned to increase their own power rather than the common good? Of course it is. Thus, the cry from the evangelical relevants.

–Is a major part of the problem the “thinness” of our Christian communities? Of course, that is an enormous problem. Thus, the cry from the counter-culturalists.

–Every one of these groups articulates a crucial and irreplaceable part of what is wrong with our church’s relationship to culture.

–So what’s wrong? Two things:

1. An unbalanced view of themselves
Each group is responding more to the other Christian parties than to the culture. Because of this, they exaggerate the imbalances in the other groups, and thus, are blind to their own.

2. An insufficient grasp of the whole Biblical plotline
The Bible’s narrative arc is—creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. The problem is that each approach represents just one possible emphasis of the arc within a comprehensive whole. The Biblical teaching about Xianity and culture is very rich and should provide Xians in every century and culture with both boundaries and freedom to devise an approach that fits their time.

–With the Gospel

Gospel ministry is not only proclaiming it to people so that they will believe it but it also shepherding believers with it so that it shapes the entirety of their lives, inside the church and out in the world.

For evangelicals to move forward, we must be able to come together around a richer understanding of God’s will for a renewed world without losing the sharpness and power of the classic understanding of the gospel.

–As Light

Jesus tells his disciples they are to be a “city on a hill” whose “good deeds” are a light that will lead non-believers to praise the Father in heaven. Christians are called to be an alternate city within every earthly city and they should be the very best citizens, seeking the “peace and prosperity” of the city (Jeremiah 29:4-7). Here is where the relevants and the counter-culturalists get it right.

Care for the poor is a thing so essential that the contrary cannot consist with sincere love to God. [Jonathan Edwards]

Revelation 21-22 makes it clear that the ultimate purpose of redemption is not to escape the material world but to renew it. God’s purpose is not only saving individuals but also inaugurating a new world based on justice, peace, and love, not power, strife, and selfishness.

–As Salt

This metaphor is a counterpoint to that of light – it is more modest in what it holds out for us. Christian living (like salt in the meat) is quite important to keep culture from degrading but here we are being warned not to necessarily expect fundamental social transformation.

Salt is a more negative metaphor as well. Salt in a wound kept it from festering but it was also painful. This means that Christians are to stand for truth and guard orthodox belief and practice but there will inevitably be opposition. (1 Peter 2:12.)

The salt metaphor is different in another way as well. Salt must spread out and penetrate to be effective. Christians then do not only effect the world as a counter-cultural community (‘light’) but also as dispersed individuals who take the Christian message and world view into every circle and sector of society.

–The people of God (the Church) become an alternative city within a city to display, as a foretaste, what the eternal city will be like. (Jeremiah 29; Matthew 5:3-16; Luke 6:20-36; 1 Peter 2:9-12)

–Harvie Conn:

Perhaps the best analogy to describe all this is that of a model home. We are God’s demonstration community of the rule of Christ in the city. On a tract of earth’s land, purchased with the blood of Christ, Jesus the kingdom developer has begun building new housing. As a sample of what will be, he has erected a model home of what will eventually fill the urban neighborhood. He now invites the urban world into that model home to take a look at what will be. The church is the occupant of that model home, inviting neighbors into its open door to Christ…

As citizens of, not survivalists in, this new city within the old city, we see our ownership as the gift of Jesus the Builder (Luke 17:20-21). As residents, not pilgrims, we await the kingdom coming when the Lord returns from his distant country (Luke 19:12). The land is already his…in this model home we live out our new lifestyle as citizens of the heavenly city that one day will come. We do not abandon our jobs or desert the city that is….We are to seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which God called us in exile (Jeremiah 29:7). And our agenda of concerns in that seeking becomes as large as the cities where our divine development tracts are found.

–Motivation? God left the culture of heaven to enter the culture of man, to bring redemption and restoration:

“We don’t relate to God as a person on the first floor of a building relates to a person on the second floor. We relate to God as Hamlet would to Shakespeare. Hamlet’s only way to know Shakespeare is if Shakespeare writes himself into the play. In the incarnation, God has written himself into the story of this world.”
-Tim Keller

====================

[1] Adapted from “Church and Culture” by Tim Keller from London Church Planting Consultation, 2008-2009

[2] Ibid.

extract’d

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Ecclesiastes, extract'd, Old Testament, preaching
• Date: Jun 7,2010

Zach Eswine is one of my new favorite bloggers. The dude knows how to turn a phrase. He is lead pastor @ Riverside Church in my former hometown of St. Louis and was recently assistant professor of Homiletics and the director for Doctor of Ministry program @ Covenant Theological Seminary.

He has written a book I can’t wait to get my hands on entitled Preaching to a Post-Everything World: Crafting Biblical Sermons that Connect with our Culture which won Preaching Today’s Book of the Year Award in 2009.

Here is an example of his brilliant writing – in it, he is giving us a “window in” to his thoughts as he works through Ecclesiastes with his church:

God has given us a language for the dark. He has handed us a flashlight and gently walked us down into the creepy basement to show us what He knows is there. He has enabled us to look at death, injustice, misuse, mistreatment, doubt, skepticism, cynicism, greed, lust, emptiness, folly. God, it seems, wants us to grow up regarding our notions of what to expect in this life. He wants us wise toward the harming things we find in the world. If we are like children curled up in our beds as the sound of thunder knocks our trees about, vibrates the walls and rumbles through our yards. He is like a kind and knowing Father who takes our hand, invites us onto the porch and shows us that we can stand steady amid the barrage.

-Zach Eswine, “The Joy of an Ordinary Life, Pt. 1″ from his blog, Preaching Barefoot

(Photo by shizhao + used under Creative Commons)

tracing the Biblical metanarrative of “mission”

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