The church's mission is all about becoming God's agents of re-creation and renewal in the world. This happens as God fills us with his Spirit and sends us into the world to be culture formers.
As we think this way and become more intent on forming missional communities, we require a new vision and new way of measuring "success."
JR Woodward, at the blog Dream Awakener presents a perspective on "success" that helps form our understanding of what it means for the church to be God's missional people.
Take some time to think these points through. Let's keep the conversation going and seek to live out the vision...
Success is:
* Not simply how many people come to our church services, but how many people our church serves.
* Not simply how many people attend our ministry, but how many people have we equipped for ministry.
* Not simply how many people minister inside the church, but how many minister outside the church.
* Not simply helping people become more whole themselves, but helping people bring more wholeness to their world. (i.e. justice, healing, relief)
* Not simply how many ministries we start, but how many ministries we help.
* Not simply how many unbelievers we bring into the community of faith, but how many "believers" we help experience healthy community.
* Not simply working through our past hurts, but working alongside the Spirit toward wholeness.
* Not simply counting the resources that God gives us to steward, but counting how many good stewards are we developing for the sake of the world.
* Not simply how we are connecting with our culture but how we are engaging our culture.
* Not simply how much peace we bring to individuals, but how much peace we bring to our world.
* Not simply how effective we are with our mission, but how faithful we are to our God.
* Not simply how unified our local church is, but how unified is "the church" in our neighborhood, city and world?
* Not simply how much we immerse ourselves in the text, but how faithfully we live in the Story of God.
* Not simply being concerned about how our country is doing, but being concern for the welfare of other countries.
* Not simply how many people we bring into the kingdom, but how much of the kingdom we bring to the earth.
July 8, 2009
June 18, 2009
Peace and Mission
Long enough have I been dwelling with those who hate shalom. I am for shalom, but when I speak, they are for fighting.
- Psalm 120.6-7
Becoming missional is all about becoming agents of new creation - that is - becoming instruments of God's shalom.
Every day media outlets reveal humanity’s willingness to fight. The mechanisms of war and human violence are often put forward as a means to an end. We’re told that we must go to war if we want to see peace. It’s said that armed conflict is inevitable if we want to see true development work happen around the world. Really? Is it true that we must have military solutions to the problems we face in the world?
The difficulty with this view is that war and violence often play a false role in history. They parade as the true way to liberate people from oppression and to bring a sense of security. But the hard truth to which the history of civilization attests is that violence begets the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, violence multiplies evil. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”
In contrast, God’s vision for shalom is centered on humility, compassion, and mercy. It involves the human acts of making amends, peacemaking, restoration, and living in harmony. Shalom is a movement toward fullness and completeness and encapsulates a vision of wholeness for the individual, within societal relations, and for the whole of creation.
Without question, the one true God wants all people to live in harmony, to be at peace, to love one another, and to live whole and fulfilled lives. This is the mission of God for the people of God.
All disciples of Jesus agree that we both worship the Prince of Peace and are called to be a people of peace. God implores us: "Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it" (Psalm 34.14; 1 Peter 3.11). Peace is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5.22). And Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God" (Matthew 5.9).
God is the source of lasting peace. A relationship with Jesus is the only path to perfect peace. And in the strength of the Holy Spirit we are called to pray and work for peace.
In light of Scripture's teaching, we must conclude that peacemaking, like war, is waged. It is an act that involves the formation of an alternative consciousness, an alternative imagination. Peacemaking is deliberate and is rooted in grace. It takes the initiative in settling disputes. It involves the demand to love, feed, and forgive enemies.
"Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience" (Thomas Merton on Peace).
And yet, we Christians so often neglect our vocation to be peacemakers. We avoid or suppress the violence in our own hearts. We become numb and calloused to the world’s pain. We fall prey to the twin evils of cynicism and apathy.
In light of this tension we ought to join the lament of Henri Nouwen: "Out of the depths of our being, we cry to God for peace. Out of that fearful place where we have to confess that we too are part of the destruction against which we are protesting…Out of that empty spot of silence where we feel helpless, embarrassed, and powerless, where we suffer from our own impotence to stop the reign of death in our world…we cry to the Lord and say: 'Lord have mercy'" (The Road to Peace).
The same grace that brings us salvation impels us to face our fears and insecurity’s and to work for God’s shalom. The shape this takes will vary from person to person. But what remains the same is our common vocation to be peacemakers in God’s world.
This will always be a major part of the mission of God's people!
- Psalm 120.6-7
Becoming missional is all about becoming agents of new creation - that is - becoming instruments of God's shalom.
Every day media outlets reveal humanity’s willingness to fight. The mechanisms of war and human violence are often put forward as a means to an end. We’re told that we must go to war if we want to see peace. It’s said that armed conflict is inevitable if we want to see true development work happen around the world. Really? Is it true that we must have military solutions to the problems we face in the world?
The difficulty with this view is that war and violence often play a false role in history. They parade as the true way to liberate people from oppression and to bring a sense of security. But the hard truth to which the history of civilization attests is that violence begets the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, violence multiplies evil. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”
In contrast, God’s vision for shalom is centered on humility, compassion, and mercy. It involves the human acts of making amends, peacemaking, restoration, and living in harmony. Shalom is a movement toward fullness and completeness and encapsulates a vision of wholeness for the individual, within societal relations, and for the whole of creation.
Without question, the one true God wants all people to live in harmony, to be at peace, to love one another, and to live whole and fulfilled lives. This is the mission of God for the people of God.
All disciples of Jesus agree that we both worship the Prince of Peace and are called to be a people of peace. God implores us: "Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it" (Psalm 34.14; 1 Peter 3.11). Peace is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5.22). And Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God" (Matthew 5.9).
God is the source of lasting peace. A relationship with Jesus is the only path to perfect peace. And in the strength of the Holy Spirit we are called to pray and work for peace.
In light of Scripture's teaching, we must conclude that peacemaking, like war, is waged. It is an act that involves the formation of an alternative consciousness, an alternative imagination. Peacemaking is deliberate and is rooted in grace. It takes the initiative in settling disputes. It involves the demand to love, feed, and forgive enemies.
"Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience" (Thomas Merton on Peace).
And yet, we Christians so often neglect our vocation to be peacemakers. We avoid or suppress the violence in our own hearts. We become numb and calloused to the world’s pain. We fall prey to the twin evils of cynicism and apathy.
In light of this tension we ought to join the lament of Henri Nouwen: "Out of the depths of our being, we cry to God for peace. Out of that fearful place where we have to confess that we too are part of the destruction against which we are protesting…Out of that empty spot of silence where we feel helpless, embarrassed, and powerless, where we suffer from our own impotence to stop the reign of death in our world…we cry to the Lord and say: 'Lord have mercy'" (The Road to Peace).
The same grace that brings us salvation impels us to face our fears and insecurity’s and to work for God’s shalom. The shape this takes will vary from person to person. But what remains the same is our common vocation to be peacemakers in God’s world.
This will always be a major part of the mission of God's people!
May 28, 2009
The Missional Church
During the spring/summer I want to spend some time reflecting on how God is calling his church to raise its prophetic voice, get on the streets, and become a truly "missional" reality in the world.
This is especially important for those of us who live in the Western world, for much of Christianity in the West is enculturated. We are numbed out, suffering from a severe form of apathy. Our imagination is stunted. Indeed, we are sleeping.
What do I mean when I say that the church is enculturated? Consider the words of Brian Walsh:
"As a community of believers and as individuals we have, mostly against our best intentions, been thoroughly sucked in to our secular culture...Our consciousness, our imagination, our vision has been captured by idolatrous perceptions and ways of life. The dominant worldview, the all-pervasive secular consciousness, has captured our lives. And what is so intriguing about this phenomenon is that we were not taken after a long drawn-out fight. No, it happened in our sleep...We simply bought into the materialistic, prestige oriented, secular values of our age without ever noticing that that is what was going on. At present, the church is virtually in a coma, asleep to her own cultural entrapment...We are numb. To be numb is to be without passion; it is the absence of pathos; it is a-pathy. We are so numb that we don't even realize what has happened to us. Our numbness denies us of a spiritually renewed imagination. We are numb, we don't notice the perverse abnormality of affluence. We are numb to the precariousness of our times, numb to the danger of the earth, to the pain of the poor, to the impossibility of our present affluent lifestyles" (Subversive Christianity, 29 and 37).
For the church to wake up from its slumber and embody the mission of God, we must center ourselves on the reality that God sent Jesus to save the world and sent the Spirit of Christ to sustain and recreate the world. Only as we move out from this center in faith and love, and choose to follow the way of the Suffering Servant will we become the people God wants us to be.
As we move out from that center we become participants in God's mission to bring renewal and restoration to his broken creation.
Mission is about what God is doing in the world - renewing, recreating, enlivening imagination, renewing minds and hearts, restoring the cosmos.
So, our primary calling is to get on board with what the Holy Spirit is already doing in our communities and in the world.
We must WAKE UP to God's reality, to God's justice and righteousness. We must turn from our idols of economism, consumerism, sexism, racism, technicism, and scientism. And we must turn in faith and hope to the living God. We must allow the Holy Spirit to reorient us to God's ways, and thus to become integral parts of transformational communities of faith.
It's time for us to get on our boots and start moving our feet - to become culture formers, to focus on people and relationships, to get impassioned to serve others, and to embody the radical love of Christ in every aspect of our living!
This is especially important for those of us who live in the Western world, for much of Christianity in the West is enculturated. We are numbed out, suffering from a severe form of apathy. Our imagination is stunted. Indeed, we are sleeping.
What do I mean when I say that the church is enculturated? Consider the words of Brian Walsh:
"As a community of believers and as individuals we have, mostly against our best intentions, been thoroughly sucked in to our secular culture...Our consciousness, our imagination, our vision has been captured by idolatrous perceptions and ways of life. The dominant worldview, the all-pervasive secular consciousness, has captured our lives. And what is so intriguing about this phenomenon is that we were not taken after a long drawn-out fight. No, it happened in our sleep...We simply bought into the materialistic, prestige oriented, secular values of our age without ever noticing that that is what was going on. At present, the church is virtually in a coma, asleep to her own cultural entrapment...We are numb. To be numb is to be without passion; it is the absence of pathos; it is a-pathy. We are so numb that we don't even realize what has happened to us. Our numbness denies us of a spiritually renewed imagination. We are numb, we don't notice the perverse abnormality of affluence. We are numb to the precariousness of our times, numb to the danger of the earth, to the pain of the poor, to the impossibility of our present affluent lifestyles" (Subversive Christianity, 29 and 37).
For the church to wake up from its slumber and embody the mission of God, we must center ourselves on the reality that God sent Jesus to save the world and sent the Spirit of Christ to sustain and recreate the world. Only as we move out from this center in faith and love, and choose to follow the way of the Suffering Servant will we become the people God wants us to be.
As we move out from that center we become participants in God's mission to bring renewal and restoration to his broken creation.
Mission is about what God is doing in the world - renewing, recreating, enlivening imagination, renewing minds and hearts, restoring the cosmos.
So, our primary calling is to get on board with what the Holy Spirit is already doing in our communities and in the world.
We must WAKE UP to God's reality, to God's justice and righteousness. We must turn from our idols of economism, consumerism, sexism, racism, technicism, and scientism. And we must turn in faith and hope to the living God. We must allow the Holy Spirit to reorient us to God's ways, and thus to become integral parts of transformational communities of faith.
It's time for us to get on our boots and start moving our feet - to become culture formers, to focus on people and relationships, to get impassioned to serve others, and to embody the radical love of Christ in every aspect of our living!
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