Category: Missional

God's missional means of grace: “sign and agent and foretaste of what God intends”

5/21/2019

The church at worship:

“If there is to be a ‘committed people as the sign and agent and foretaste of what God intends, it can only be insofar as their [church’s] life is continually renewed through contact with God himself’ in worship . . . ‘True worship enables us [as church] to be conformed more and more inwardly to the Cross of Jesus.’ The cross of Jesus means a total and costly identification with the world [around us], on the one hand, and yet a radical separation from its idolatry, on the other. Worship renews us in this life of Jesus.”

~Michael W. Goheen, in his The Church and Its Vocation, as he reflects on Lesslie Newbigin's concept of God’s missional means of grace.

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Christendom: Our 'form' of church becomes an idol and holds our imagination captivate

2/24/2017

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"We can no longer afford our historical sentimentality to the past. Christendom is not the biblical mode of the church. It was/is merely one way in which the church has conceived of itself. In enshrining it as the sole form of the church, we have made it into an idol that has captivated our imaginations and enslaved us to a historical-cultural expression of the church. We have not answered the challenges of our time precisely because we refuse to let go of the idol. The answer to the problem of mission in the West requires something far more radical than reworking a dated and untenable model. It will require that we adopt something that looks far more like the early church in terms of its conception of the church (ecclesiology) and its core task in the world (missiology)." ~ Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come

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A proposal to look at the messy "crowd" in the Gospels: learning missional-church

1/18/2017

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Each spring I attempt to write a brief paper for our Northeast Regional Evangelical Theological Society. This year (2016) I thought I’d put together a study on the Synoptic writers’ use of “crowd” (oxlos) in their Gospel narratives. Below is my paper submission abstract and outline, along with a brief reflection on how I came to consider “crowd” as a Gospel character.

A Real Time, Messy Missional (Local) Church: What “Crowd” as a Gospel Character Teaches About Being Missional-Church

Pastors and lay-teachers tend to be more comfortable focusing on cognitive effects and propositional aspects of the gospels like Jesus’ preaching, parables, and teaching. Characters are another matter in the gospel narratives, for they are more likely to be “identified with” or used as “lessons” in which they tend to be allegorized, devotionalize, or typified rather than seeking how they are used in the story and, thus, developed for their contextual interpretive significance. The “crowd,” on the other hand, is rarely viewed as a character in the Synoptic Gospels and, thus, often not considered for its interpretive value.

The “crowd” character presents a difficulty for the interpreter of the Gospel narratives. The “crowd” is that messy, unclear presence at much of Jesus’ ministry—sometimes for Jesus, sometimes against him, occasionally believing, oftentimes unbelieving, and, then, more so, it is split believing and not believing. And what makes the interpretation-application process even more troublesome, often the reader is left just not knowing the crowd’s confessional state of mind.

One thing is consistent, however, the “crowd” is almost always present at Jesus’ public activities, teaching, and travels. Conversely, one could posit that Jesus was present among the crowd in much of the Synoptic Gospel narrative. Assuming that the Gospels were written to help local, believing communities to imagine how the gospel was to inform and form their discipleship and missional purpose, the "crowd" has value at the teaching level. What does the Synoptic Gospel crowd reveal about a church’s mission and presence among others? Is our building-centered church experience prohibitive of such crowds? What can the significance of the Synoptic Gospel crowd character tell or instruct us on how we should do church, today?

To give this a contemporary social location, the forming significance of “crowd” as a Synoptic Gospel character should be juxtaposed with the forming power of a building-centered church experience and how this affects the missional life of the local church. We should grasp how a building-centered church experience is anti-crowd; the "crowd" as a Gospel character should inform our exegetical-significance-application process; we should observe how the role of “crowd” and its impact in the text informs the missional purpose of a local church; and, the significance of “crowd” shows is what is suitable "space" for a local church. This effort here [in the full paper] seeks to demonstrate (conclude) that a missional-church creates space for crowd to engage the gospel of the kingdom.

A preliminary reflection on “crowd

After studying and writing on the Mark 3 Beelzebul passage and “the blasphemy the Holy Spirit” (it isn’t what you think it is; trust me), I was fascinated by Mark’s use of “crowd” throughout his Gospel. If we take Mark as inspired and his use of “crowd” as a strategic character in the gospel story, it seems to me, we should grasp the crowd’s significance within our understanding of both the gospel and, as well, the (local) church. Obviously more needs to be studied and written on this, but a brief forethought on crowd is worth it as we strive to rethink church.

One specific characteristic of the “crowd” worth noting, it is always around Jesus (or Jesus is in the midst of the crowd), meeting and greeting him, listening to him, and sometimes literally jumping over one another to be near to what Jesus was doing or saying. Second, another aspect to grasp, the “crowd” is sometimes believing and sometimes unbelieving, and sometimes, well, you just can’t tell one way or another. Sometimes the “crowd” is even split by belief and unbelief. Yet, the presence of Jesus was also marked by the presence of "crowd" (ochlos).

I have come to the conclusion this is the way it should be with the (local) church, which is God’s fullness, Christ’s body local (e.g., Ephesians 1:22). Seriously, as the body of Jesus, the church, that is, a local church, should be surrounded by “crowd” in a similar fashion as Jesus himself was surrounded by “crowd.” We read out such inferences (to “crowd”) in the Gospels and mostly cannot conceive the church’s role in this way. This is one of the negative aspects of our building-centered church habits. We need to stop thinking church as a building, and acting like it is—in fact, a building-centered church experience is prohibitive of this crowd-missional aspect of the church's purpose and, can be, antithetical of gospel. We, as evangelicals, are uncomfortable with crowds “at” church; uncomfortable where the categories of believing and unbelieving are rather foggy. (This does havoc on a high fencing view of communion, for sure.) This suggests we need to rethink church and where “church” (and possibly how it) happens.

Whereas the inner circle of followers and disciples (we more comfortably refer to as the church members or regulars attenders) are believing (and sometimes maybe even struggling to believe) and, at differing levels, learning obedience, on the other hand, the outer circle that surrounds the church (and sometimes crowding inside as it were) is a little foggy on the issue of belief. But, they ought to be there—sometimes they’ll look like believers, sometimes they won’t, and sometimes you just will not be able to tell one way or another. We need to see “crowd” around the (local) church as a vital character in the (local) church’s story within the community it seeks to minister and serve. Perhaps more biblically accurate, we should experience church in the midst of “crowd,” for the church is Jesus' body--and this is what Jesus displayed in the Gospel narratives.

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The ferment of the early church: we are unprepared to live out patience (well, I am unprepared that's for sure)

7/18/2016

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“The earlier Christian tradition was based on an understanding of God’s work as manifested in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The word that summed this up for them was patientia (hypomonē in Greek) [patience]. In their patience-shaped perspective, history is safe in God’s generous hands. So people who worship God and follow Jesus do not need to control things; they do not rely on the power of the state to vindicate their point of view; they do not fret their brows or hurry; and they never impose their view by coercion and force. And somehow, spontaneously, carriers of the gospel show up—slave women, business people, people of no account—and the church grows, spottily, unsystematically, and by ferment” (The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, pp. 294–295).

What Alan Greider has summarized here is so strange to our Christian faith. We are so unprepared to live this way; so unlike our habits as modern, especially American, Christians.

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Brad Brisco and top 40 missional reading list

4/8/2016

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Brad Brisco has put together a good list of Missional church related books. Additionally he includes a four-part series of blogs that will help us understand the term and use of “missional.”

A number of the books on the list I have read--some I need to. From his list, here is a few I can highly recommend. If you are a church planter, concerned about evangelism and missions in the local church, these will feed your soul:

Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America by Lois Barrett and Darrell Guder

Missional Essentials by Brad Brisco and Lance Ford

The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies by David Fitch

ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch

Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture by Michael Frost

The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America by George Hunsberger, and Craig Van Gelder

Misisonal: Joining God in the Neighborhood by Alan Roxburgh

Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus by Smith, Christopher Smith and John Pattison

Confident Witness – Changing World: Rediscovering the Gospel in North America
by Craig Van Gelder

The Ministry of the Missional Church: A Community Led by the Spirit by Craig Van Gelder

MISSIONAL READING LIST – TOP 40 (April 5, 2016) by BRAD BRISCO

Following is an updated list of MY top 40 books to best provide a thorough understanding of the missional church conversation, along with practical guidance on how to engage God’s mission more fully. The list is not comprehensive. I realize I have left out some of your favorites, and there are no doubt many other great books, but these are MY favorites and/or most helpful. And if you are interested by what I mean when I use the word missional check out this four part series here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.

For Brisco’s full list >> MISSIONAL READING LIST – TOP 40

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Wasted Quote: God's future always breaks out through imperfect people and places

12/16/2015

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“God’s future almost always breaks out among those in real-life attic situations, moving through imperfect people and structures. God is always going to surprise us by calling forth a new imagination in all the places we want to write off."

~Alan J. Roxburgh and M. Scott Boren, Introducing the Missional Church, 67).

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Dangerous Sunday morning devotions: Ephesians 3:1-13 is scaring the hell out of me

8/10/2015

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Sometimes we should be deeply impacted by a text of Scripture, not so much as an encouragement or a comfort, but seriously scaring us to death. We are conditioned to seek solace, comfort, encouragement, even exhortation, in the Bible. We are told and, perhaps, have taught others to hold on to its promises. But, this is only half right. We should be consoled by texts meant to console, yet scared to death by texts meant to slay us. Ephesians 3:1-13 is one such text of Scripture (despite most preachers never presenting this path of relevance or application from this pericope of Paul’s words–at least to my knowledge).

“For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, n whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

Here some of my thoughts that arise from Paul’s words to the church in Ephesus:

What are we (those claiming “a call” to ministry, whether as a lay-person or a vocational church calling) willing to suffer, so those outside the churched can find access to the Father (3:11-12)?
Whatever we think of the issues facing the church today, we need to fully affirm that “all,” indeed, have access to the Father. This means we cannot and should not determine by design, default, or naïve unintended consequence that bar or hinder some from such access; then, “all” isn't “all.” This, then, is surely not the gospel. We can believe every person or demographic has access to the Father (i.e., brain-theological affirmation), but our attitudes, bias, prejudice, and lifestyle may demonstrates otherwise. So, in the end it is not just what I think, but how I live, where I live, my choices, my habits, and my actions that determine whether I truly believe all human beings have access, now, to the Father through Jesus Christ.
This passage is the minister’s (or lay-leader’s) fulfillment (that is, our obedience) to Jesus’ words “take up your cross and die” and the application for His words, “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” Reread Paul’s Ephesian text here, vv. 1–13, and say it ain’t so. You will hear Jesus’ words behind Paul’s: “For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles . . .” The apostle to the Gentiles understood the gospel Jesus, and so commissioned the church to engage and bring it to the ends of the earth. Do I take up my cross and die for those outside of the faith? Do I serve and live in such a way that my body and life is a ransom for the many outside the church?

I recall, now too many years ago to acknowledge, telling some bible college students that were complaining about the rule that all hats, including baseball caps, were to be taken off inside a campus building:

“If you can’t take off those caps now, what makes you think you’ll be able to die for your faith in some god-forsaken land when all indication seems to indicate that God has abandoned you?”

Here's the rub: I have had to eat and stumble over these same words myself. Where is my (our) sacrifice today? Where is my sacrifice, my willingness to suffer—really suffer, not just figuratively suffer, but real suffering—for those outside who are in need of access to the Father?

Who is willing to actually do for others outside the church what Paul did on behalf of the Gentiles? Inner city teens and children facing the odds of continued poverty or, even, death at the end of violence in their neighborhood. Or, as Christians in the Middle East living with an ISIS target on your head? Are the trendy missional Christians preparing to sacrifice their lives in tough urban centers, lonely rural towns, or in the Middle East—planting churches and doing ministry in unsafe streets and neighborhoods or right in the path of ISIS? Where are these “called” Christians?

Within suburban and exurban American church life, our comfort is our god way too much. We confuse our desire to be safe, secure, and well resourced with God’s peace about our callings (as ministers and, as well, as lay-leadership).

This text scares the hell out of me. Paul’s inspired words are calling me way beyond my comfort zone, beyond safety to fulfill Jesus’ call and the gospel’s obligation to die to myself so others can have full and free access to the Father.

Where is my sacrifice, my willingness to suffer—really suffer, not just figuratively suffer, but real suffering—for those outside who are in need of access to the Father?

If you are a Christian (especially a Christian leader), you shouldn’t be able to read Ephesians 3:1-13 with any measure of comfort either—and it should scare the hell out of you, as well. The question remains, nonetheless, where will you go? To whom will you go to? With whom will you live and ministry so that all, that is those now outside the church, may have access to the Father?

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God's missional means of grace: “sign and agent and foretaste of what God intends”

Christendom: Our 'form' of church becomes an idol and holds our imagination captivate

A proposal to look at the messy "crowd" in the Gospels: learning missional-church

A Real Time, Messy Missional (Local) Church: What “Crowd” as a Gospel Character Teaches About Being Missional-Church

A preliminary reflection on “crowd

The ferment of the early church: we are unprepared to live out patience (well, I am unprepared that's for sure)

Brad Brisco and top 40 missional reading list

Wasted Quote: God's future always breaks out through imperfect people and places

Dangerous Sunday morning devotions: Ephesians 3:1-13 is scaring the hell out of me

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