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.

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[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 #3

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: acts, Bible, Bible study, Christianity, church, church planting, community, contextualization, culture, evangelism, Great Commission, incarnation, incarnational, Jesus, mercyview, ministry, missio Dei, mission, missional, missional church, missional living, New Testament, organic, orthopraxy, Phillipians, post-Christendom, Poverty, sent, social justice, theology
• Date: Jul 14,2010

After taking a week off for the 4th of July, this past Sunday we jumped into the 3rd of 5 labs this summer, looking at another foundational piece of mercyview.

It was great again to gather with friends, to pray for one another and the birth of mercyview, to look at Scripture, to dialogue, and of course, eat good food (this week, it was Oklahoma Caviar!).

Our prayer is that by the end of the summer, the DNA of mercyview is clear and God will call together a group of men and women who have an overwhelming desire to plant the Gospel in the city of Tulsa.

For those who have missed a lab or are “peeking over the fence” via the blog, here is 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]

In Lab #3, we talked about what it means to live “sent.” Specifically, we talked about being a missional people, sent as missionaries to be witnesses. We broke it down like this:

1. Sent
2. Sent as missionaries [1]
3. Sent as missionaries to be witnesses [2]

–When we talk about being “sent,” we are talking about the “in the world” part of the “in the world but not of the world” concept taken from Romans 12:4.

–Jesus prayed for His people to be in the world, living as a city within a city, and living sent. In John 17:15-19, we see Jesus pray three things in His high priestly prayer:

1. Don’t take them out of the world
2. Keep them from the evil one + sanctify them in the truth
3. Send them into the world

–The word “missional” captures the heart of how we do the “in the world” part of Xian community – is the adjectival form of the word “mission”

–Most believers readily grasp the idea of Jesus being sent to the world. The fact that Jesus was the “sent one” is one of the most fundamental identifications of Jesus, called the missio Dei. The issue is to realize that as Jesus was “sent”, His prayer is that we would also be “sent.”

–The concept of a missional church is recognition that God is a sending God and we, the church and individual believers, are to live sent. Our sent and sending identity is connected ontologically with the very existence of the church.

–Why be “missional?” Alan Hirsch says:

When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people.

–Research indicates that the vast majority of church activities and groups, even in a healthy church, are aimed at the insiders and fail to address the missional issues facing the church in any situation. If evangelizing and discipling the nations lie at the heart of the church’s purpose in the world, then it is mission, and not ministry or fellowship, which is the true organizing principle of the church.

–The old adage was this: If you preached to believers, you were called a “pastor.” If you preached to non-Christians in your own culture, you were an “evangelist.” If you needed a passport to get there, you were a “missionary.” This is not helpful…

–“…all Christians are missionaries or they are not Christians. The only kind of Christian there is, is missionary.” (Theodore Gill)

–”What kind of missionary would go to a foreign city, find a place to live, find a source of income, find where to buy food, maybe find a hobby and a wife, and then kick back and enjoy his surroundings, never befriending the locals? We wouldn’t call him a missionary – we’d call him a resident.” (Winfield Bevins)

–Two ways in which we are to be missionaries:

1) Incarnationally

Jesus had to be God to be able to lift us out of our sin, but had to be fully human to create the right conditions for such redemption to take place. It is from inside the human condition and experience that God fulfills his own requirements for the salvation of the human race.

Three theological themes of the incarnation:

a. Identification: The incarnation embodies an act of profound identification with the entire human race. In an act of unspeakable humility, God actually takes upon himself all the conditions, even the limitations, the struggles, and doubts of humanity. To identify incarnationally with a people will mean that we must try to enter into something of the cultural life of a “people”; to seek to understand their perspectives, the hurt, their real existence, in such a way as to genuinely reflect the act of identification that God made with us in Jesus.
b. Locality: The coming of God among us was in Jesus constituted a “dwelling” among us (John 1:14) and geography itself took on a sacred meaning. Jesus became Jesus of what? Nazareth. Geography matters! If you want to incarnate the Gospel in a particular setting, you will have to think about living in that setting.
c. Sending impulse: Incarnational mission implies a sending impulse rather than one of “extraction.” God is a missionary – he sent his Son into our world, into our lives, into human history. Incarnation implies some form of sending in order to be able to radically incarnate the various contexts in which we live. It extraction from culture vs. insertion into culture.

“You cannot become a part of the organic life of a given community if you are not present in it and experience its cultural rhythms, its life, its geography. We too need to practice the missional discipline of presence and identification with any of the people and groups we hope to engage with.” (Alan Hirsch)

Two objectives of incarnation:

a. Real connection: This objective here is for not-yet-Xians to see that Jesus is “for” the unreached people group. Particularly in the Missional Communities, we want to introduce people to the network of relationships that make up that believing community so they can see Christian community in action. People are often attracted to the Christian community before they are attracted to the Christian message.
b. Real demonstration: This objective is to demonstrate that Jesus is “with” the unreached people group. Being thoroughly loving and gracious within the community will transform attitudes toward Christ. In a sense, the incarnational community has to completely reframe the unreached people group’s perceptions about Jesus and the church.

“…the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.” (Leslie Newbigin)

2) Contextually

Perhaps the most important text on the subject of ‘contextualization’ is 1 Cor 1:22-25 — Paul offered Christ’s salvation in a way the culture could relate to (offering true power to the Jew and true wisdom to the Greek) and which connected to ‘baseline’ cultural narratives. And yet, at the same time, it confronted each culture’s central idolatry (calling Jews to repent of works-righteousness and Greeks of intellectual hubris) with the meaning of the cross.

Contextualization can be defined as the dynamic process where the never-changing message of the Gospel interfaces with specific, relative human situations. Because the Gospel is always God good news, it cannot be defined w/o reference to the human context.

“Contextualization is not ‘giving people what they want’ but rather it is giving God’s answers (which they may not want!) to questions they are asking and in forms that they can comprehend.” (Tim Keller)

How we contextualize:

a. Speak in the common language: avoid “tribal” language, “we-them” language, and inspirational talk and speak as if not-yet-Xians were there.
b. Enter and re-tell the culture’s stories with the gospel
c. Create Xian community that is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive: embody a ‘counter-culture,’ showing the world how radically different a Xian society is with regard to sex, money, and power.

–There are two sides to the missional coin – in other words, there are two primary ways that every Christian can become missional.

1) The first is by sharing a verbal witness. This is more commonly known evangelism. This is when you share the gospel message with your words.

Once we firmly trust and believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior, we must make his name known to the entire world. This is also called the Great Commission.

Many people want a form of evangelism they can compartmentalize in their schedule, switch off, and go home from but Jesus calls us to a lifestyle of love (1 Thessalonians 2:8).

“We can identify forms of evangelism that involve sharing the Gospel without sharing our lives, as well sharing our lives without ever having the courage to share God’s word. Paul’s ministry involved both: sharing his life and sharing the word of God.” (Steve Timmis/Tim Chester)

What does evangelism in the post-Christendom era look like?

Three steps in sharing our faith via the enter-challenge-re-establish approach.

a. Enter the framework: uncover “belief positions” and “themes of relevance”
b. Challenge the framework: show tension between their theme and their belief
c. Re-establish the framework: relate a brief presentation of the gospel to their theme

2) The second way we can fulfill the mission of God is called the social witness.

God is concerned about the needy, destitute, hurting, poor, and orphans of the world. The word of the Lord tells us that we are commissioned to care for those around us who cannot care for themselves.

In the abstract- evangelism is more important than social justice, not because the soul is more important than the body, but the eternal is more important than the temporary. However, practically —if you don’t care for the needs of people, why will they listen to you? The reality is that the more we do justice the more effective our evangelism will be.

Justice can precede evangelism. It creates plausibility for the gospel proclamation, and in reality it often draws non-yet-Xians in. This then leads them into Xian community and leads to a great openness to evangelism.

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[1] Adapted from Alan Hirsch/Michael Frost: The Shaping of Things To Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church, “The Incarnational Approach” (Chapter 3) and “The Contextualized Church (Chapter 5).

[2] Adapted from “Contextual and Missional” by Tim Keller from London Church Planting Consultation, 2008-2009

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

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

[2] Ibid.

missional mondays: introducing Linda Bergquist

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: books, Christianity, church, church planting, community, culture, incarnational, kingdom of God, mission, missional, missional church, missional living, Missional Manifesto, missionSHIFT, multi-ethnic, Poverty, social issues, social justice, urban, work
• Date: Feb 8,2010

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 am 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 Monday.

Here is Ed’s next introduction:

Today I want to introduce you to Linda Bergquist. She will be speaking at the missionSHIFT conference this summer. We are also excited to have her voice as a part of framing the Missional Manifesto.

Linda and her husband Eric live in San Francisco, California. She is a New Church Starting Strategist and the co-author of Church Turned Inside Out: A Guide for Designers, Refiners, and Re-Aligners from Leadership Network (2009).

I have known Linda (Dr. Bergquist ) for many years. When I was a professor (oh so long ago) she took several of us on a tour of the marginalized communities where God was at work in the Bay area. She has a passion for people on the edge of society and the change that the gospel brings. You can find out more about her work in San Francisco at her site Plant Churches with Us.

To introduce her to you, I asked Linda to answer a few questions about herself:

You work as a new church starting strategist in San Francisco. Tell us briefly how you came to do that work in that place.

Linda: I’ve been involved in missional activity since the week I became a follower of Christ, and in church planting since a few months after that. Five years and four churches later, with a seminary degree in hand, my home church invited me to join their staff and help them start churches. Ten years later, the senior pastor left for the Bay Area [and I took] the church planting strategist job in San Francisco. That was fourteen years ago.

What do I see that gives you hope for the church in America?

Linda: I see Dave and Brook Maturo who moved from a 4 bedroom house they owned in Florida to a small rented space in San Francisco, with no guarantee of jobs, to assist our church planting team become more effective. I see a church of poor Mongolian refugees, all new Christians, who sent the school supplies we gave them back to Mongolia where children are glad for even one pencil. I see business entrepreneur Ken McCord intentionally translating kingdom values into the workplace; notifying the utility company that his bill was too low, extending medical benefits to employees at the expense of his own salary, and caring enough to utilize more costly earth friendly processes. I see Marian Engelland planting churches, mentoring other women and running a nonprofit that serves the poor, even with twin baby girls and two other preschoolers. I see Jason Williams helping local churches collaborate with Afghan business owners to raise money to repair windows in a girl’s school in Afghnistan. I see really good DNA that’s worth reproducing.

You recently published Church Turned Inside Out. Tell us about the book.

Linda: Church Turned Inside Out is a design book for churches. My friend, Allan Karr and I wrote it because we wanted to introduce Christian leaders to the world of design thinking. Over the decades, church became algorithmic. We discovered a formula, and a set of rules that helped us find ways to get from here to there more efficiently and more effectively. But the present algorithm is not as reliable as it once was. New information has come into the equation, and it requires a more experimental posture. Some people experiment in ways that improve the results of the present algorithm (refiners and re-aligners), and others step into the mystery and discover new ways of thinking and being in the world. Awareness of both is needed for a good design process, and both are necessary concepts to carry the church into the future.

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 family are seeking to live missionally?

Linda: Sometimes I tell people that in the suburbs it’s easier to be nice, but in cities it’s easier to be good. So many things rub against us in a dense city– crazy driving, difficult parking, close proximity to every kind of noise and smell. It’s a different pace of life. Serenity, patience, and “nice people attitudes” seem distant and even extravagant. But in cities, the decision for goodness is ever-present. Will we waste the food from our large portion meal, or cut some off before we eat, and wrap it to give to that hungry person we will surely encounter on the way home? Do we follow the trail of blood that leads down the street and into a park to see who may need help or do we ignore it? Do we acknowledge the beggar on the sidewalk who is asking for money, or do we look away because seeing is too costly? Do we treat the Russian pizza delivery driver with respect and kindness? In Russia, he was a classical musician, but here, his limited English prevents him from being well employed. Every time I treat him more like a delivery driver than a classical musician, I rob him of his identity.

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

Linda: There have been times and places in history that mobilize great movements. For example, I love the story of the Harlem Renaissance. African American poets and preachers, artists and educators showed up in Harlem at the same time in the 1920s and 30s. Together they imagined what it might be like to be black in America some day. Communication was more difficult then, but what happened in Harlem sparked the Civil Rights Movement. Today I imagine a new, decentralized, and wonderfully diverse movement of God’s people who respond to the urgent call of a missional manifesto and walk together in a revitalized kingdom direction.

Are you registered for the missionSHIFT conference? Head over to the website and sign up.

the missional gospel: evangelicalism’s most significant shift in late 20th + early 21st centuries

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: books, Christianity, emerging culture, Evangelicalism, Gospel, missional, post-Christendom, postmodern, Poverty, religion, social justice
• Date: Feb 7,2010

Christianity Today recently asked religious leaders such as John Green, senior research adviser for the Pew Forum on Religion + Public Life; Cathy Lynn Grossman, religion reporter for USA TODAY; and Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research this question: What was the most significant change in Christianity over the past decade?

Scot McKnight claims that evangelicalism’s metamorphosis in the late 20th century was also the most significant emphasis in the first decade of the 21st century. He says this shift was:

…a gradual, if largely unacknowledged, repentance from the near gnostic division of the spirit and the body that shaped its gospel in the early part of the 20th Century to a robust embracing of the missional gospel…

According to McKnight, a part of this “missional gospel,” is what most people call:

…”social justice” and, while I prefer to use the word “justice” and define “justice” by the will of God as taught through the Bible and the Church, it is now a part of much of evangelicalism — and not just as an appendix to the spiritual work done at the church.

McKnight sifts through the glut of books on social justice and recommends a new book by Peter Greer and Phil Smith called The Poor Will Be Glad: Joining the Revolution to Lift the World Out of Poverty. (Smith lives in the city where we are planting a church in the urban core in the spring of 2010: Tulsa; check this article from the Tulsa World: Tiny loans make huge difference in lives of poor)

Read McKnight’s entire post here.