Handling the Intersection

I haven't ever hurt myself running with scissors, so I assume I can just run faster with them and be OK. I haven't gotten fired yet for a blog post, so ... let's talk about the Muslim issue.

Of course, there is no singular "Muslim issue." We could talk about theology, we could talk about general immigration, we could talk about the Syrian refugees, we could talk about ISIS, or some other related issue. And whatever conclusions might be drawn about one of these aren't necessarily transferable to any of the others. It's like saying let's discuss "the Christian issue" or "the political issue" or "the baseball issue" - too many variables to reduce the topic down to one, digestible idea.

I have opinions on each of these and more, but it's not my goal here to explain my views or in any way tell you what you should conclude. My point here is to challenge you who are followers of Jesus on how you come to those conclusions.

I have seen Christians respond in such a broad spectrum of ways that it appears we're reading out of two different Bibles (or more). Not to critique any particular view, I've seen people who want to shut and lock the door, others who want people to knock and know the secret password before getting in, others who want to cautiously hold the door open, and still others who want to leave the door wide open. (The "door" refers to anything from immigration to theological discourse.)

I offer the following thoughts to consider in order to determine what you think about the various ways Muslims intersect your life.

A follower's primary citizenship is in heaven, not the U.S. As you sort through these issues, remember your primary citizenship. We should operate without wavering according to that Kingdom, and then according to the nation only where it doesn't conflict. How do the ways that are specific to the Kingdom of God determine what we should think, say, and do? What did Jesus teach about that Kingdom? 

There certainly is room for loyalty to one's nation, but at least we should be able to agree that Jesus taught us to seek the Kingdom before everything else. Not only ask yourself what are the attributes and ways of the Kingdom, but how do I seek the Kingdom - even pursue it - by how I think through these issues? How am I seeking the Kingdom first by trying to figure out what to think and do?

This also means that we can have two goals - the goal as a follower of Christ and the goal as a citizen of this country. Those two goals may not end up being the same thing! Believe it or not, it's OK to have dissonance here. In fact, conflating the two ideas prevents us from thinking through either one rightly. However, the goal as a follower must have priority over the goal as a citizen wherever they are different.

The Great Commission is our main mission. Jesus was very clear in His post-resurrection appearances that what He wants us to do as first priority is to make disciples from every nation for Him. It's also clear that His model for doing so is through loving relationships. How we decide our response to issues related to Muslims must be for the purpose of achieving our highest task - making disciples from all nations through relationships. What will best help us progress in that mission over the long haul? Over the short haul?

Would Jesus do what I'm doing, say what I'm saying? This is kind of the inverse of WWJD. If I step out of myself and listen to what I just said or watch what I just did, can I reasonably conclude that Jesus would have said or done that? That's what being a follower of someone means - following what they would think, say, and do. If I cannot imagine Jesus doing something (without twisting Scripture), then what possible justification can there be for me to do so?

What is the right amount of risk? There is risk, no matter what. There are innocuous risks, such as leaving one's comfort zone to befriend (or even just coexist with) a Muslim - doing so runs the risk of having some of your assumptions challenged. On the extreme end, there are life-and-death risks posed by the radicalized. Of course, risks of this level are found in many corners of our lives, not just the jihadist corner. 

There are risks from little to small. What place should that play? Is avoiding risk what a follower should do? Is throwing caution to the wind what a follower should do? Jesus and the apostles certainly risked their lives at times, and certainly avoided danger at other times. We are called to be willing to give our lives for our King and for the Gospel, but how does that rightly translate to these issues? Furthermore, what risk do I end up imposing on others? No matter what you decide, you are assigning some form of risk to someone else - either to a refugee or to a neighbor or to the stability of another nation or to some other group. For the follower, though, we cannot make personal safety an idol - that cannot be our non-negotiable factor.

Blow people's minds by being humble. This addresses more of our manner than the process we use to make up our minds. Engage in disagreements about these important, complex issues with kindness. It's not easy for anyone to know what to think, and engaging in ugly exchanges is rarely the Jesus way. You're in process, others are in process, and kindness fosters that process for everyone. Blow their minds! Once it turns ugly, people dig in their heels, and positions become unnecessarily fixed. Try listening to the other person's views, ask questions, refrain from telling them what they should think, and then lay out what you're thinking. Be humble enough to be able to learn from someone else. For issues so complex, it's OK to change your mind.

In case you weren't sure, you don't know everything there is to know about this subject. You don't have all knowledge and there are angles you have not considered, yet. Without omniscience, our only choice is to assume a posture of being able to learn and ... yikes ... change.

I have opinions on most of these issues, and as I discuss them with people (not always following my own advice), I have frequently faced worthy ideas that draw me in one direction or another. That's good! These issues are too important and too complex to firmly hold conclusions without room to adapt to new information. We don't have to have firm opinions.

What we can be solid about is determining now which methods we will use to seek out those conclusions. We can be firm about the "rules of engagement" we will use to think these things through, such as the suggestions I've made here. These methods don't force one conclusion or another, but do set the parameters and how those (flexible) conclusions can be reached. Perhaps there are other rubrics even more appropriate than these.

A "Christian answer" cannot be reliably achieved apart from "Christian ways" of thinking about the question.

An Experiment in Prayer

I have heard dozens of teachings on "the Lord's Prayer" (also called "the Model Prayer") found in Matthew 6:6-13. This is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, in a sequence of statements in which Jesus says "you have heard" some teaching from the Old Testament or the Pharisees, "but I say to you" something even more demanding for righteousness. In this particular paragraph, He's teaching about prayer. He then tells them to pray "this way," and begins the familiar prayer, "Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored..." Or perhaps your more familiar with a different translation, "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name..."

In these dozens of teachings, I heard very careful (and accurate) analyses of each phrase and how we ought to pray that way, because Jesus said, "Pray this way." I value all the teaching I've received on this.

But I want to add a different angle to the mix, not to replace the good teaching, but to supplement it. Given that Jesus is continually discipling His followers to form them into people who resemble Him well, we can assume He is doing this formation as He teaches us to pray. So, in this model prayer, He's not only telling us how to approach God in prayer, but He's also trying to form us into a particular kind of people. Through praying, He wants us to be changed. He gives us prayer not only as a way to dialog with God, but also as a means to be discipled into Christlikeness.

So, let's look at the Model Prayer in terms of what Jesus wants us to become, and then look at how it might affect praying for something specific. For our purposes, I choose a troubled relationship to pray about as an example.

Fearing (Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored,)

God wants us to be fearing, to be people who fear, honor, and respect God with a sense of awe. This opening to the prayer is not instruction on how to "butter up" God for your requests, but to be a particular kind of person, approaching Him in prayer with a particular attitude and self-awareness.

In the example of praying about a strained relationship, I might pray, "Father, may the way I approach this relationship bring you honor. May our friendship be worthy of Your awesome and mighty name. Make me to be a person who brings honor to You with my friendships." This is a very different prayer than, "Lord, change this person" or "Father, help me to be more tolerant of this jerk."

Missional (may your kingdom come,)

God wants us to be missional, to have His Kingdom be our life goal, our every aspiration. He wants us to carry out the Great Commission of making disciples of all nations. He wants us to use our time, talents, and treasures for the good of His Kingdom, to live here and now based on the Kingdom's values, and to bring tangible elements of the Kingdom to those around us - for His Kingdom to manifest in part now and then to come in full later.

Therefore, I might pray, "Lord, my relationship right now is not running according to the character of your Kingdom. May your Kingdom come into this relationship, and may the two of us collaborate to advance Your Kingdom. May our relationship now be just like it will be when Your Kingdom has fully arrived." This is more immediate than praying that the end of time would come soon so that the Kingdom would be fully established, and then I don't have to suffer this person's annoying behavior any longer!

Submissive (may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.)

God wants us to be submissive, to surrender our will to His. Jesus did this beautifully in the Garden of Gethsemane just before He was crucified by praying, "Not my will, but Yours be done."

I could pray, "Lord, I'm not really submissive to you right now in my relationship with so-and-so. Regardless of this person's problems, I'm not really pulling for your will in this - I want mine. Change me to be eager for Your will in this relationship. I surrender ... I want to be a fully surrendered person, even in this." Wow - this one hurts when praying about a relationship!

Dependent (Give us today our daily bread,)

God wants us to be dependent, which is brilliantly captured with the idea of daily bread - the stuff I need to get through just one day. And then the next day, I'll depend on God some more. This is the kind of person God wants us to be.

So, my prayer changes. "Father, I have been relying on myself and on my fleshly strength, and worse, I have been pursuing what my selfishness wants in this relationship. You want me to rely on You for this relationship, for You to give me the love, the patience, and the attitude. I need You for this relationship to be healthy. Help me to love well. I depend on You for this relationship. Let me walk dependently in all my relationships."

Free (and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.)

God wants us to be free - free from our sins ("debts") through forgiveness, but also free from the sins against us (by our "debtors") through forgiving them. Only through forgiveness that we first receive and then grant can we be truly free people.

Then I should pray, "Lord, the relationship between You and me is based on forgiveness. In this case, it's all You forgiving me. My relationship with this other person will only be to Your pleasure through the same forgiveness. But in this case, that's each of us forgiving the other. Help me to be changed by Your forgiveness, to grant forgiveness freely to the other, and even to receive the forgiveness that the other offers me. Help me to be a forgiving kind of friend always."

Holy (And do not lead us into temptation,)

God wants us to be holy, to avoid sin and to escape the temptations to enter into sin. His forgiveness makes us holy through the blood of Christ, but holy living on a daily basis as our practice requires us to change our practices, too. In the Model Prayer, Jesus instructs us to pray for God to help us be holy.

So, I would pray, "Father, in this relationship, I have impure, hurtful, judgmental, and sometimes hateful thoughts. Lead me away from that, not just to have a better relationship, but because of who You want me to be in this relationship - a person who lives according to holiness, even in my friendships."

Rescued (but deliver us from the evil one.)
Finally, God wants us to be rescued (which is what deliver means in this verse). In other words, He wants us to live knowing that He rescued us from ourselves, and so we are a perpetually rescued people, in God's blessings only because of his mercy to rescue us. It's the blood of Jesus that rescued us, so every breath we take was purchased by the rescuing blood. We have an enemy who opposes us because we follow Christ - we have been rescued from him, but also need daily rescue from his continued attacks. We live perpetually with a rescued identity, which should keep us humble.

Therefore, my prayer might be, "Lord, I need rescue in this relationship. Satan wants to have us at each others' throats, and frankly, I've been pretty accommodating. I need rescue from my anger and my desire to 'even the score' with this person. But I have been rescued by Christ, and I also need rescue in this moment. Help me to always live out all my relationships as a rescued one."

# # #

This is not radically different from other teachings we've received, and I would be worried if it was. It is, rather, a different entry point into the same model prayer - to focus the ideas of this prayer onto who God wants me to be, to see the characteristics Jesus is developing in us by praying as He prayed and turning those characteristics into the heart of prayer.

So, I'm conducting a little experiment for a while. Not forever. I'm not saying that this is the way for me to pray for the rest of my life. But I'm going to experiment until the experiment runs dry by intentionally praying along these lines. Already I've seen some barriers broken in my prayer life and in my daily life, simply because I'm praying in a different way. I'm eager to see how the experiment goes.

For this experiment, I've printed out the following list just to remind me. You might print this out and stick it in your Bible and guide your prayers through this for a while. Experiment some yourself.

God wants us to be:

Fearing (Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored,)
Missional (may your kingdom come,)
Submissive (may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.)
Dependent (Give us today our daily bread,)
Free (and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.)
Holy (And do not lead us into temptation,)
Rescued (but deliver us from the evil one.)

Learning to send or Being sent to learn?

Our typical pattern in churches for years has been:

1. Come together to learn about Jesus
2. Go into the field to share about Jesus with others

Gather, then scatter. Learn, then share. Repeat. 

The "go" could be around the world or across the street, into the inner city or at the kids' soccer game. That's what being "sent" means - learn then go. There's usually an iterative process here of learning and going, but the general flow puts the learning here and the going there (and, by the way, you'll do some learning there, too).

This is not a bad pattern at all - I'm not going to criticize it, and in fact it is very appropriate in many contexts. Jesus certainly employed this with His disciples.

But I was struck with a different model, recently. Instead of going into in order to share what I've learned about Jesus, what if I went into in order to learn as much about Jesus as I can in that place? For example, rather than going into my neighborhood to tell my neighbors all the cool stuff I've learned about Jesus, instead I go into my neighborhood with the intent of learning about Jesus while dwelling there among my neighbors.

The premise: Jesus is already at work in my neighborhood (or whichever place we want to talk about). He's already there, He already reigns over all things, and He's already involved in the lives of my neighbors, whether they acknowledge Him or not. Rather than the arrogance of already knowing that they need to know about Jesus and being so gracious as to let them know some of it, this is a posture of humility - I have much to learn about Jesus, and in particular, I have a lot to learn about Him from and through my neighbors. There are ways of knowing Jesus that I can only learn in my neighborhood. So, I can endeavor to learn about Jesus by doing life with my neighbors (or coworkers or fellow soccer parents), to get to know Jesus in far more intimate ways by trusting Him and expecting to discover Him in my neighborhood. Jesus is already there and there's much to learn about Him there. I just need to really be there in order to discover it. "Here I am - send me ... in order to find out even more about Jesus."

The theory: By doing the things we consider to be "missional" (building authentic, unconditional relationships, praying consistently for our neighbors, sharing meals with them, serving them, sharing with them), we are doing the very things that will end up revealing great things about Jesus. And not just to me ... to my neighbors, too. I can study in a classroom about trusting Jesus and learn a lot, or I can dare to trust Jesus in my neighborhood and really learn about trusting Him. I can study about prayer and then go practice it, or I can commit to practice it on behalf of my neighbors and then learn about it by how our relationships change and by how opportunities open up. I can read biographies about people who walked by faith and endeavor to emulate them, or I can walk by faith in my neighborhood and discover Jesus that way. I can get to know Jesus better by discovering how He's already at work in others.

There's a treasure of knowing Jesus in my neighborhood and in my workplace and in the stands at the soccer field! Am I willing to explore in order to find it?

Then I become far more eager to "do that missional stuff." If I try by my determination to be missional because I should, I won't last long. If I realize that living missionally is how I will most learn about Jesus, then I become eager to dwell in my neighborhood with my neighbors. I don't have to remind myself to pray for them - I become eager to pray for them because I'm going to learn about Jesus this way.

Learning-to-send is not a bad model, and we should continue to employ this idea. But I think we should do a whole lot more of the Being-sent-to-learn model. We are sent (John 20:21). We are told to "Go!" (Matt 28:19). If it is in being sent that I will learn most about Jesus, I'm eager to go.

I Don't Have Time for This!

This Sunday is the last in our series on how Jesus redefines everything in our lives as disciples, pulling our thoughts mostly out of 1 and 2 Corinthians. To review, this is where we've been:

1. I am a Disciple (the "tree") 
2. I am on Mission (the "fruit") 
3. I am Being Transformed (the "roots")
4. I Worship the Risen Christ (the "trunk")
5. I Belong to a Community (the "branches") 
6. I am a Disciple who Makes Disciples (but what kind?) 
7. I am Missionary (learning to think like a missionary right here)
8. I am a Consumer (we can become consumers of church, rather than disciples)
9. I have a Vocation (our 3 callings)

This Sunday's message will be "I don't have time for this!" from 1 Cor 9:19-27.

And we don't really have time for all this ... do we??? I simply can't add all those things to my life, because I'm already hovering around the "overwhelmed" status. Quite frankly, I just end up feeling guilty about all this, which is worse than before.

We must be honest enough to admit whatever feelings like this we have, and we must be brave enough to explore those questions.

I'm not going to explore here what we're going to explore Sunday morning, but I did want to create a simple list of the series so we can see the big picture of where we've been. I also wanted to put the question about time in your mind in advance to get you thinking about it so that we gather together with fresh, real questions and ideas.

Let me prime the pump with the following:

• Does God ever give us too little time for what He desires for us?
• Are we foisting our idea of "time" onto God's plan? If so, how?
• What are we not fully believing that then leads us to think we don't have enough time?
• Are there things I'm not yet willing to give up in order to live life "on mission" according to a list like this? If so, how should I respond?

Am I Sent?

On Sunday, I told the graduating high school seniors that (if they are believers) they are being sent to their college campuses. In the past several months, I have said the same thing to you about your neighborhoods and workplaces. The implications, of course, are life-altering. If I am sent to my workplace, my neighborhood, my school, even my grocery store, then I can never just go to my workplace, neighborhood, school, or even grocery store. But is it true? Am I really sent?

We've been in these places for years, time and time again - perhaps without any sense of being sent. No determination on my part to live as one sent, and no voice from heaven exclaiming "I sendeth thee!" I've being living quite unsent for a very long time, and the universe still seems to spin and the paycheck keeps showing up twice a month. How can I be sent if I've successfully gone so many years as if unsent? Besides, I chose that job, that neighborhood, that school, and that store without praying or asking God where He'd like to send me - my choice means I couldn't have been sent.

Rather, isn't this religiospeak to make my daily grind sound way more important than it really is? Isn't this just a clever way for the pastor to trick me into integrating my faith better into my "regular" life?

This is no mere manipulation or motivation-by-guilt. It's absolutely, fundamentally, necessarily true. Consider:

God is continuously purposeful. It is God's unchanging nature to have a purpose for every action. He never lacks a fully developed purpose for anything He does. Where you live and work and shop and play are in fact choices you make. Furthermore, you can make some choices that are decidedly contrary to God's purpose and will. However, you cannot do anything, not even choose something against His will, that works outside of His purpose. He will use all of your decisions - those submitted to His will, those ignorant of His will, and those contrary to His will - to accomplish His purpose. "And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose" (Rom 8:28). You are not where you are outside of God's purpose.

Jesus said so. Jesus sends His disciples, pure and simple. He had the habit of doing so during His ministry, and in the instructions He gave them, they still had freedoms to make choices on how to carry out that sending. More importantly, near the end of His ministry, He effectively sent all who would follow Him. "Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you" (John 20:21). He did, in fact, say, "I sendeth thee!"

Let no man separate what God has joined. We tend to separate our jobs and the marketplace from our "religious" sphere. It's a false secular-sacred dualism. We can be sent to the people in our church or sent to a pre-designated "mission field" across town or across an ocean. I'll even take a week off from work to go (be sent) to one of these specially-designated mission fields - I leave the work sphere to enter the mission sphere. That's a false dualism. Our mission field is this world. All of it. "All" would include "secular" places like work, home, school, and market. On God's map, there are no lines to separate mission fields from "normal" fields. He just drew a big, red circle around the whole planet and said, "Go ye therefore there" (cf. Matt 28:18-20).

It is impossible for a follower of Christ to be unsent. In order to prove the positive, let's look at the negative - you cannot be an unsent follower of Christ. Impossible. A follower of Christ follows Christ. (It's tautological, but profound.) To follow Christ is go where He goes, do what He does, think how He thinks. Jesus is by His very nature missional (i.e., sent). In order to follow a missional (i.e., sent) Christ by definition means being missional (i.e., sent). I.e., sent! It is impossible for a follower of Christ to be unsent.

If you are a follower of Christ, you are sent on behalf of the Kingdom of God into your neighborhood, workplace, school, and even shopping mall. (Oh, God, please don't send me to the shopping mall!!!  -- 1 Kinseronians 4:12) You may have "chosen" these places without regard to God's mission. You may have chosen them out of godless, selfish, or rebellious intentions. And yet you are sent nonetheless. How much better, then, to be sent to these places by choice?

So be sent. You can never just go to your workplace, neighborhood, school, or even grocery store.

The Church in the Book of Acts - Descriptive or Prescriptive?

How does the Book of Acts inform us on what a modern church should be like?

View 1: The Church in the Book of Acts is merely descriptive. Luke (the author of Acts) was not intending to record what other churches must do, or even should do, but just what the First Century Church did do. Clearly, there were incidents of bad behavior, confusion, mistakes, arguments, and changing structures. In fact, it's impossible to replicate the "First Century Church," because it was a moving target. This view is favored by a majority of the modern Church, especially highly institutionalized churches.

View 2: The Church in the book of Acts is prescriptive - Luke is informing us how we should do things. We must return to the ways of the First Century Church, because that's the way the Apostles did it. The modern Church has become too enamored with the methods of the world, too corporate, too institutionalized, too dedicated to its own infrastructure to be effective. And that failure is precisely because we have fallen away from the organic, grassroots example in the Book of Acts. We must replicate the First Century Church and her ways. This view is favored by the house church movement and the "emergent church" advocates.

In all fairness, these two views as described are oversimplified. Each view is far more nuanced and accommodating than described here, but the differences are clearly illustrated in this condensed form.

The question is an important one, because it affects how we position our church gatherings, priorities, and activities. It affects how leaders lead, how goals are set, how groups meet, where meetings happen, and how success is measured - virtually everything about church life can be defined by whether a local church favors one view of the other.

Let me introduce two more views, based on the first two:

View 3: This is more of a salad bar approach. Pick and choose which aspects of the First Century Church you think are applicable, and forget the rest. "We like the deacon idea, but not the house church location. We like the idea of feeding widows, but we really don't like the idea of everyone bringing their possessions in to be shared with the rest." This hybrid approach can be either justified through careful study, or it can be a lazy attachment of only those verses that appear to reinforce foregone conclusions.

View 4: Copy what the First Century Church focused on, but have freedom on how it should get done in a given context. Replicate their goals and priorities, and even take notice of their techniques and strategies, but be fixed on the former and flexible on the latter.

View 4 is where I want to spend my time. Having deacons or not, how money is collected and used, where you meet - those are all how questions, not what questions. The "what" of the First Century Church was to proclaim and demonstrate that the Kingdom of God is present and available through Christ. They were focused on making disciples and were seeing people's lives radically changed as they began to follow Christ, forsaking their loyalty to the world's system. This must be replicated, but the methods change with the context.

So much of the church literature is focused on the how question - how to grow a church, how to lead Bible studies, how to run a children's ministry. These are not bad things to consider. But there is a growing set of literature that focuses on the what question, sometimes even refusing to address the how (which can frustrate readers who just want a "how-to" manual). The first kind of literature compares your church to other modern churches. The second kind of literature compares your church to the First Century Church, but not in technique - just in priorities and commitments.

The question is really this: How well does your church stick to proclaiming and demonstrating the reign of Christ by focusing on personal disciplemaking? Are you seeing the kinds of activities (not necessarily methods) in your church that are written about in the Book of Acts? Are lives being radically changed, or are people merely being pleased with well-run programs?

It's those places where we see a disconnect between our church and the First Century Church's priorities that tell us where to put our energy. Rather than be discouraged by the differences and how we "come up short," be encouraged by seeing clearly how to best improve your church in the most important ways! It doesn't matter if your church is different than the bigger, slicker, better funded church that's serving a totally different context. It does matter if what happened in the First Century Church is rarely happening in your own.

If you're a church leader, it's a simple as "you really do already know what you should do" but as complex as "there's a ton of reading and dialoging you need to do with those further down the road than you."

If you're not a church leader and you don't have leadership pull in your church, the next step is actually pretty simple. Within the church structure you already have, work with likeminded folks to create a pocket of intentional disciplemaking. Start as yeast - you don't need to start a new program, get a logo, design a website, or have a slogan. Just clear your calendar and start making disciples in a small context. Don't worry about big - let big happen.

If you don't know where to start, I'd be happy to talk and suggest some ideas.

Forge KC Cohort

Last week I joined a "cohort." Forge KC and KCSentral have combined efforts to create a cohort for pastors and other church leaders in the KC Metro area to collaborate on the twin tasks of learning and doing, specifically for the goal of leading our churches to live life "on mission." The leaders of the cohort, Brad Brisco and Lance Ford, are also the authors of the workbook a few groups at Grace have been studying, Missional Essentials.

The cohort will read a stack of books and articles together, wrestle with the ideas, work on implementation personally and in our churches, and participate in one-on-one mentoring. We will meet as a group once a month for nine months, but I'm sure friendships and working relationships will last for years to come.

The first meeting was simply introductions - we each had a turn at telling a bit of our stories, especially as they relate to how we got to the point of joining the cohort and what we hoped to gain from it. The stories were rich and the night went quite a bit longer than we had scheduled, just because we didn't want to miss anything about anyone's story.

We also had an assignment that night - to bring some artifacts that represent our contexts. Since we're coming from different parts of the area, from outlying to the 'burbs to the city, we will have different challenges, opportunities, and approaches. I brought two items, which I also used in last Sunday's message. Our context is primarily the 'burbs (although we do have some closer in toward the city and some further out in the open spaces), and the 'burb life provides unique challenges to living missionally. I brought a garage door opener (because we drive into our garages, close the garage, and never have to interact with our neighbors), and a slat from a wooden privacy fence (a guardian of privacy, creator of personal space, and barrier to casual interaction with our neighbors). I didn't have to say what I said - they all knew what I was going to say as soon as I showed those two artifacts.

Most of the members of the cohort had the same kind of story. They had been in church ministry for a while, and by the church culture metrics, they were "successful." But they looked at the New Testament and what was happening in those churches, and then looked at their own "successful" churches, and realized that they weren't making disciples like they read about in Scripture. They were doing good things, but they weren't truly making disciples, and they weren't seeing God move in the lives of their people like we should expect.

And so, one by one, they began a journey that had lead them eventually to this cohort, where we are all asking the question, "How do we best make disciples? And how do we build our churches around this idea?" Some are church planters who want to craft their churches as disciplemakers from the ground up, and others are in present church contexts trying to figure out how to guide a living, moving organism with its own strong momentum more and more towards disciplemaking.

And every single one said something like, "Once I latched onto the idea that our churches should major in disciplemaking, I can never go back."

I don't know where our journey will take us. But I'm excited and enthused, perhaps like never before. I pray that little by little, our focus on disciplemaking will grow in intensity and clarity. No one is going to flip a switch and suddenly change everything we know. But we pray that everything we do will orient with ever-growing fidelity toward making disciples who make disciples.

A New Diet and Exercise

You know that Christmas has given way to New Year's when the Santa commercials are replaced by Jenny Craig commercials. Now approaching the second week of January, all those diet and exercise resolutions are facing their first real challenges. In this season focused on diet and exercise, I'd like to recommend a different kind of diet and exercise.

We've been talking recently about BLESS, a convenient acronym for investing in our neighbors:

• Begin with prayer - pray for your neighbors and for your relationships with them.
• Listen - spend time listening to first the Spirit, who guides us on the mission God has for us; and also to listen to your neighbors, to really hear their stories, thoughts, concerns, and beliefs.
• Eat - share meals with your neighbors, because eating together is one of the best ways to cultivate relationships.
• Serve - with the heart of a servant, find ways to meet the needs or to just bless your neighbors in a way that adds value to their lives.
• Share - if they are open to talking about the things of God, share your story, your concerns, your beliefs, and what God is doing in your life, not as an expert, but as a fellow traveler.

Within this is a new diet and exercise. The diet is sharing meals with your neighbors. I'm all for being good stewards of our bodies by watching what we eat, but if we look at sharing meals regularly with our neighbors as part of our diet, we look at food, meal planning, and the rhythm of life in a different way. Our diet includes the meals we intentionally share with others to deepen our relationships with them.

The exercise can come with the "Serve" idea. For example, we have started in our neighborhood a list of people who need their driveways shoveled when it snows, and a list of guys who are willing to shovel. This last weekend, we helped two families - both were fighting illnesses, one mom had just given birth to premie twins, and the other mom is nine months pregnant. And I got some exercise shoveling someone else's driveway and sidewalk. (I found myself trying to do a better job for them than I do for our own house.)

Now, if I can look at these two kinds of activities as part of my diet and exercise routine, I'm much more likely to keep at it regularly. More importantly, my perspective changes. I'm not looking at diet and exercise as merely self-help, doing things for my own benefit - it is part of loving my neighbor as myself. Now, being involved with my neighbors is less of a project added to my busy life, but rather is integrated into the rhythms of my busy life. Serving them is part of being a healthy person - diet, exercise, an externally focused view, and integrating their good with our good.

I don't write this as a wildly successful veteran, whose missional life is worth emulating. Rather, I write this as a learner, discovering new ways to think about several different aspects of my life which used to be separate and programmatic, but now are becoming blended together and more natural to the normal rhythms of life.

How's your diet and exercise?

The Facebook Gospel

We have the "Good News" (which is what the word "Gospel" literally means). We believe that it is Good News not only for some, but for all. We believe that it is the only Good News. We believe that the only way to a relationship with God is through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who took upon Himself all the justice that our sin requires, and that all who believe in Him for this will have their sin forgiven, will be given new life starting now, and that this new life will endure into eternity in the presence of God.

We believe that this Good News is so Good that others should know about it. We believe that Jesus instructs His followers to share this Good News around the world. But we seem to be having a tougher and tougher time connecting with those who don't believe the Good News is really Good News. We aren't always sure how to find a way to have an authentic, engaging conversation on things that matter. We don't get them, and they don't get us ... and then we start saying words like "them" and "us."

Now add in the noise of social media (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, SnapChat, etc.). Now our relationships are spread a mile wide and an inch deep. We have hundreds of friends, but we have no friends. We talk more and say less. When we get too snarky, we get unfriended - clean, cold, and final.

Maybe our solution is found within the problem.

Think about what people say via social media. They are normally commenting on things that matter to them! Things they care about. It doesn't matter if we agree with what they say! What they are telling us, in essence, is what "Good News" would look like to them. This is perhaps the most important truth about all of social media - people are telling us every day what the "Good News" would be to them.

If someone is posting (or tweeting) about something that makes them happy, then it's pretty clear what they consider to be "Good News." If they are whining about something, then it's usually not too hard to reverse engineer to find what they would consider to be "Good News." If they are just telling the world that they just brushed their teeth, then it may be hard to discern, but somewhere in this, there's a reason why they posted that - they want something, and they expect that something to bring them a little happiness. Good News.

Please don't misunderstand - the true Good News is not whatever we think might bring us happiness. It is not defined by what we consider or don't consider it to be. God defines the Good News, and it is the Good News whether we regard it or not. We can't redefine it. But daily through social media, people are giving us clue after clue after clue of what they would consider to be Good News.

And that gives us a connection point into the core of who that person is.

We can use social media to help solve the problem, rather than blame it as being part of the problem. When one of your thousand closest friends posts something, consider doing the following:

• Pray. People are telling us what they think the Good News would be for them. Pray for the person to find what they are seeking in the authentic Good News. Pray to discern well the core, God-given need that they are trying to satisfy through other means. Pray for their souls to be restless until they find their rest in God (to borrow from Augustine).
• Listen. You've been given a way to find out about someone. Ask questions. Explore. And listen - really listen. Don't judge, don't argue, don't disapprove. Just love. There will be a time for truth, but now is the time for grace. The only way to be a genuine listener is to genuinely listen (a brilliant tautology, if I say so myself).
• Identify. If you could somehow peel away the layers of what this person is talking about, more than likely you'll even find that you and he want the same thing. Peace, joy, security, love, relationship, a sense of belonging, being attached to something bigger than yourself, something. You probably have a lot in common when you get past the externals, and it's stuff that matters.
• Speak. When they know you really hear them and really care about them unconditionally, then they may be willing to listen to you, especially about this core issue. You already know they care about the core issue - it's something you agree on, and the other person obviously finds the issue to be meaningful. He told us it was of some importance when he posted about it amid the noise of social media.
• Love. First, middle, last, and more than anything else.

Looking at Halloween differently

So let me just start dancing in a minefield and talk about Halloween.

I don't intend to tell you how you should view Halloween. If your best judgment is to avoid any association with it, then do so in good conscience. If your best judgment is to be a part of the activities that do not intentionally engage evil, then do so in good conscience. (Engaging in evil cannot be your best judgment, so I'll leave that one be.)

I do invite you, however, to consider the missional possibilities. 

Jesus loved His neighbor. He considered loving our neighbor to be the second greatest commandment out of the entire Old Testament. While never engaging in or celebrating evil, He was often found participating in the gatherings of others, especially those whom the religious despised. "He eats and drinks with sinners" was a continual criticism. He valued spending time with those who didn't believe.

We've talked about ways to genuinely love our neighbor in the way Jesus does. No bait-and-switch. No strings attached. No manipulation in order to force our agenda on anyone. But love them, pray for them, and be authentic with them - enough to where matters of faith might be discussed with the "gentleness and respect" of 1 Peter 3:15, but never as a condition for our love.

Halloween brings our neighbors to our doorstep, and us to theirs - people that we may struggle to find ways to connect with. Rather than just exchange cavities with one another, how can we be missional with this cultural phenomenon? Again, no manipulation, no bait-and-switch, no strings attached - but ways to cultivate authentic relationships with our neighbors, to love them as ourselves (you wouldn't bait-and-switch yourself, would you?).

Here are some ideas of how you might be missional with Halloween in your neighborhood, if you choose to:

• Be at home, answer the door, and give out candy. That's not hard.
• Don't just give out candy, give out the good stuff. It costs more. If our purpose is to spend as little as possible, then give out the cheap stuff. If our purpose is to bless our neighbor, give out the good stuff.
• Don't just give out good candy and shut the door, talk to the parents and the kids. They don't want a long conversation right then (they are on mission, too!), but if you don't know their names, for example, exchange names. Wish them to be safe and have fun. Connect, if even a little.
• Would it be more welcoming to actually be outside, welcoming people as they come, creating more chances for dialog? 
• If you take your kids, stay in your neighborhood, even if the candy is better in the next neighborhood. Introduce yourselves, mention where you live, find out names, or just say 'hi.' Don't be so far away that they can't see you (but not so close that your kids roll their eyes).
• As you go from house to house, pray for your neighbors! As kids leave your doorstep, pray for them and their families.
• Consider having a little block party afterwards - invite people to come back later. Again, no bait-and-switch - that's dishonest and very un-Gospel.
• Be creative! No formula, no program - just a chance to take a cultural opportunity to be missional.
• It's almost certainly not very missional to drop religious material into their sacks - there's no relationship in that.

Again, if your choice is to not be a part of this at all, that may be the right decision for you. But if nothing else, this exercise might spark in us other ways to think about familiar things in unfamiliar ways.

For more ideas, please see the following two articles, where I got several of these ideas:

Five Ideas

Three Ways

I'm not asking you to leave your comfort zone

"Leaving your comfort zone" is a social virtue. Regardless of context (at home, at work, in your community of faith, in a social or hobby club), kudos abound for those who leave their comfort zone. Leaders often ask their groups to step out of their comfort zones in order to try something new and, perhaps, enjoy some kind of new benefit. When we do, then we high five each other and give attaboys. And then we return to our comfort zones.

A "comfort zone" is commonly described as that sphere that surrounds you - within that sphere is comfort, and outside that sphere is some level of discomfort, whether slight or severe or something in between. We, being creatures who gravitate toward comfort, spend a lot of time inside that sphere or "zone," and the common wisdom is that it's a good thing to leave that comfort zone on occasion. And then return.

I have been bugged by the concept of "comfort zone" on the simple basis that comfort should not be our primary ethic. Comfort should not be that controlling value by which most decisions are made. With this mindset, leaving our comfort zone can become something "heroic" in our own eyes because we dared to challenge this primary ethic. I tried sushi - how daring and brave!

So, I began to talk in terms of "expanding your comfort zone" instead of leaving it (and then returning). Wouldn't it be better if we just expanded that sphere so that we were more comfortable with more things (without compromising morals)? Going to a foreign country to help in an orphanage then is not the brave "leaving your comfort zone" but the humble "expanding your comfort zone." Rather than enduring uncomfortable things more often, we are more comfortable with more things. We actually grow - increasing the number of things we're comfortable doing and encountering is a kind of growth.

But that still didn't answer the issue in a satisfactory way for me.

Lately, I've been toying with the idea that it's not really a "comfort zone" at all. It's a "control zone." It's the sphere inside which I feel like I have enough control, and outside which I feel like I don't have enough control. The sense of "comfort," then, is a byproduct of how much control I feel. If this is the right view, then my primary ethic is not my arbitrary level of comfort, but a question of who's in charge.

If God is truly God, He is then truly sovereign, perfectly loving, and completely purposeful. Everything is within His "control zone." And if I am truly His child, then the sphere of my control is entirely subsumed by His. Now, leaving my control zone is to enter His. It is not this brave, temporary venture beyond my level of comfort, but a matter of trust. If I do not trust God to know what He's doing, I will not leave my control zone. If I do trust that His sovereign involvement is actual and not just theoretical, I can leave my control zone and enter into His.

As we talk about living more missional lives, I'm not asking you to leave your comfort zone. I'm asking you to leave your control zone. And to enter His.

My habits are so habitual

We've been studying and teaching about discipleship and a missional mindset over these last several weeks, with the goal of getting our minds right on these ideas before even attempting to do anything specific about it. It is our expectation that right actions will come from right thinking, and right habits will come from right actions.

This great theory, however, doesn't prevent me from my wrong habits that come from wrong actions that come from wrong thinking.

While moving Lynne's folks this week, my brother-in-law (Steve) and I did a McDonald's run for breakfast, since the kitchen had already been completely packed. (Although I consider fast food a bad habit in its own right, that's not where my story is going.) I had a very simple order - one eggwhite muffin combo, one #1 combo, and three #2 combos, all with coffee. To her credit, the gal working the counter was extremely creative in finding ways to fulfill the order by all methods except the correct one.

I confirmed three separate times that they were all combos with coffee. And yet, I had to stop her from filling sodas and to pour coffee instead, then from 3 coffees to 5, then from 3 hash browns to 5. The floor manager noted she had rung up the order incorrectly, which she shrugged off wordlessly. After all of that, I still never got my #1 combo. If I had wanted two eggwhite combos, I'm quite sure I would have said something other than "one eggwhite combo and one #1 combo." Never did she acknowledge an error, apologize, smile, or even try to change her original, determined plan.

Here's where my wrong thinking led to my habitually wrong action: My concern for this person, who God loves and who bears His image, was fleeting at best. In my habit, she existed only to feed me quickly, pleasantly, and without error. When she failed to exist in that manner, my main concern was getting the greasy, high-caloric, high-fat, oversalted breakfast (and coffee!!) that I was on a "mission" to get.

But my real mission is supposed to be to cultivate complete followers of Jesus (Matt 28:16-20). My real mission never really came to mind because of my habits, which came from my actions, which came from my thinking.

I want a new set of habits so that my first thought for people I encounter is to wonder how I can cultivate, even a little. How can I "loosen the lid"? By habit, I'm still more of a consumer than a cultivator. But ... my thinking is beginning to change (aided by a little indigestion, which reminded me of right priorities - bleh).

I'm Too Busy to be Missional

The word missional may be new to some of you, and for others, it may be a term associated only with a particular movement. At its core, the word missional is a simple adjective that describes someone (or a church body) who is an intentional participant in God's mission to mankind. It's not a particular activity, not a particular movement, not a particular checklist of things, but an attitude and a lifestyle. Someone who is missional cares enough about God's mission that he or she lives life with that mission in mind.

It is not a word reserved for the extremists or those who are "radical." It is not reserved for clergy, elders, and deacons. It is not reserved for missionaries. Any believer of any age in any occupation can be missional. And Scripture is clear that God is missional, the Gospel is missional, the incarnation of Christ was missional, and the giving of the Holy Spirit is missional. In fact, the entire Bible is missional.

But we're a busy people, and we might think that being missional is something we don't have enough room in our schedules for. I don't have time to add another thing, so I'm not going to even think about becoming missional.

The great thing about being missional is that it's not a program to add to life, but a way of life. It's a way to do everything else.

In his article "10 Simple Ways To Be Missional …without adding anything to your schedule" (http://www.vergenetwork.org/2011/10/04/tim-chester-10-simple-ways-to-be-missional/), Tim Chester has great suggestions on how even busy people can be quite missional. The short version of his list is:

1. Eat with other people 
2. Work in public places 
3. Be a regular (at a restaurant or coffee shop)
4. Join in with what’s going on (rather than starting up your own new thing)
5. Leave the house in the evenings 
6. Serve your neighbors 
7. Share your passion 
8. Hang out with your work colleagues 
9. Walk 
10. Prayer walk

Certainly, we could come up with 20 more ideas just like these. The point is not this list, but the idea of this list. There are things we do every day anyway, and almost every one of those things can be done with a missional mindset and purpose. The key is to build relationships, to make your faith obvious but not obnoxious, and to share truth when people are willing and interested, to do as we learned in the last sermon - to share what you have personally seen and heard. All it takes is willingness and intentionality to take God's mission seriously.

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and cultivate complete followers from all people groups." (Matthew 28:18-19, author's translation).