imagining how the church can reorient around mission

Immanuel Church, the church I help lead, is an apostolic, church planting community (its leadership has planted 10 churches incubated in the Pacific Northwest, along with years of international urban church planting experience). In collaboration with our denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church, Pacific Northwest Church Planting, and Whitworth University’s OCE, we have developed a hands-on leadership residency to equip and resource people in real-time on how to plant justice-oriented, missional, incarnationally formed churches. We are a laboratory for learning and after completing the Leadership Residency, we have multiple funding streams available. If you are interested in planting, in particular a woman or a person of color, we have a couple of positions currently available in our Residency program.

If you are interested let us know at the bottom of this page – www.immanuelspokane.org/mission

Your kingdom come, your will be done in Spokane as it is in heaven.

In Spokane as it is in heaven! That is how I always pray the Lord’s Prayer in regards to our church.

So, what is it like in heaven? What will that be like? I think each one of us has the ability to conjure or imagine what it might be. Fortunately for us we get glimpses into what that might be like in the latter portion of the book of Revelation.

 “I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.  I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband. I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.” Revelation 21:1-5 (Message)

Really that is my vision for Immanuel. To live into that… In Spokane as it is in heaven.

About a few years ago now, we did a multi-part series reflecting this idea entitled “The Reconciliation of All Things.” We tackled subjects of kingdom misalignments in our city, such as broken relationships, racial tension, class discrimination, gender inequality, the environment and several other culturally significant (and charged) topics. We brought in presenters for each topic who were considered “experts.” It was an attempt at the very least to sensitize us to the misalignments in our world and in the best case, equip us to be agents of shalom in our city.

The reality is we live in a world that is disjointed or as the theologian Jürgen Moltmann would say, “…out of order.”

If this is our vision then, how does it work itself out in mission? At least part of the answer to that question would be, our mission is to vigilantly observe where the misalignments are and locate ourselves into those places as people and as a community of reconciliation.

That is our calling.

In II Corinthians 5:16-20 the apostle Paul writes,

“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”

It tells us that God has committed to us the message of reconciliation and that we are his ambassadors.

So what I’d like to lay out in this short essay are the four forms that this reconciliation occurs in the context; Immanuel Church, the West Central neighborhood and the larger city of Spokane.

RESTORED LIVES

I use the word restored not to infer that everyone was once Christian and just fell away. It is more to help capture the idea that there is a Gospel story or narrative if you will. See, the Gospel doesn’t begin with bad news, but with good. It is a narrative of God’s loving gestures to us that culminates in the Christ event. In other words, the Gospel didn’t begin the last days of Jesus’ life and in his resurrection, but rather it began in Genesis 1. You know the story. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In that creation event, we see that each creative act God performed was described as good. In fact, when it describes the creation of humanity, it is described as very good. It says that humanity was in a perfect environment. Eden. If you are familiar with Scripture you know that that did not last though. What comes next is what is described theologically as the Fall. It’s found in Genesis 2:15-17.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’”

It says “death” will come upon humanity if disobedience happens. So restoration, if seen through this lens, would be for people to be moved back into right relationship with God. Restoration means, to be sure, a rescue from estrangement from God to life eternal, but also must include the idea of being healed of our brokenness, made whole…having the potential to experience God’s shalom through Jesus Christ.

My hope then, is that people would be restored to that right relationship to God. Or another more straightforward way to say it is, I want to see people become Christ followers. The sad fact is in Western culture we do not see many people become Christians. Not long ago I surveyed 10 or 12 different local pastors and asked them if they had seen any type of conversion growth in their church at all in the last year. I allowed them to define what conversion was in their own terms, whether it was as following Jesus, or getting saved, or converting or some other descriptor. The sobering results, though nonscientific, were that few of them were seeing anyone become Christian. Now, it must be stated that these leaders are some of the strong leaders in our city. They’re the good guys. Trying to do church in a way that reflects Jesus. Yet, none of them were seeing anybody (or at least very few) become Christian. I believe this is endemic in the west. The sobering fact is when we see churches that are growing, though there are exceptions, almost all of them are experiencing what we call “transfer growth.” In missiological circles, we call this “rearranging of the furniture on the Titanic.” If this trajectory continues the church in the west is headed toward obsolesces.

Looping back to the text we just read from II Corinthian’s, Paul makes it clear in verse 14 that “…it is Christ’s love that compels us.”

That really is my story. I became a Christian in my early 20s, but the seven or eight years just prior to that I lived a significantly self-destructive life. When I encountered Jesus, when I realized that I was loved and that there was a purpose in life, it changed everything. I could no longer go on living the way I once did. And, I fervently wanted others to know about this love.

Our love for Jesus inspires us to fulfill our mission. Everyone matters to God. God loves every person who has ever been born. God made some people that I don’t love. I can go further, God made people that I don’t even like. But God loves them. The most dreadful human you can imagine is still loved by God. And because God cares, it follows that we must care as well.

I think the missionary theologian Lesslie Newburgh put it best. He writes,

“Anyone who knows Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior must desire ardently that others should share that knowledge and must rejoice when the number of those who do is multiplied. Where this desire and rejoicing are absent, we must ask whether something is not wrong at the very center of he church’s life.”

We, Immanuel, must resolutely and unapologetically be about the restoration of all people to a right relationship with God, through Jesus Christ.

Peace to each of you!

r

 When introducing yourself as a Christian you may sometimes be greeted in a strange manner. Some people assume that being Christian also means you are an extremist. This is because some of the only interactions they may have had with a “Christian” is someone yelling about God’s wrath, or picketing on a street corner. They think we all abide by some strict controlling cultist style life. However, we know this to be false. We must do our best to correct this misled view of our collective group of believers. Religious extremists, cultists, and
hate-mongering groups are destroying the good name of Christ, by standing behind it while they speak nothing of the love and grace of God.

One such group would be the Westboro Baptist Church, who interestingly enough has no association with the Baptist Church, nor should it even be considered a church. This particular gathering of beings is completely misled by their leader, and believe themselves to be spreading the word of God. This word, however, is that God hates pretty much everyone, that he is destroying and will continue to destroy the world and everyone who does not agree with him. The list of people the WBC claims God hates consists of: Homosexuals, Transsexuals, Military, Muslims, Obama, Police, Government, Immigrants, and many more.

While we would all very much enjoy to shut this group up permanently, our response to them must not be one of equal disprovable as they preach. That would be fueling their fire, as much as it pains me to say, we must react to them in a loving nature, kill them with
kindness, in order to prove them wrong.

Then
Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite
your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors;
if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you
give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and
you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the
resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke 14:12-14)

             The great
eighteenth-century hymn writer and ex-slave trader John Newton marveled at the
far-reaching impact of these words spoken by Jesus in Luke. “One would almost
think this passage was not considered part of God’s word, nor has any part of
Jesus’ teaching been more neglected by his own people. I do not think it is unlawful
to entertain our friends” he says, “but if these words do not teach us that it
is in some respects out duty to give preference
to the poor, I am at a loss to understand them.” Looking at the current state
of the American church, one can’t help but wonder if the “luncheon or dinner”
Jesus was referring to could be what we call our church service today. We spend
so much time catering our churches to our friends, brothers, sisters, relatives
and neighbors, that we completely disregard those Jesus is calling to invite
join us in our “banquet.” read more

    I’m not sure how to handle
forgiveness. The culture tells me I’m entitled to my grudges, my animosity, my
lifelong hate against someone who wronged me. My friends tell me that I
shouldn’t allow that one person back into my life—much less forgive them. That
it’s idiotic for us to be close friends after the devastating breakup. That the
walls I build are justified.  

    Christ and his kingdom step in and call me quite clearly,
against the expectations of the world, to tell an alternate story. To forgive
seventy times seven, yes, but also to be perfect as my Father is perfect. And
yes, that’s great, and yes, I tell myself that I have forgiven and so fulfilled
the letter of the law but I still hold a seed of hatred in my heart. I beg off
forgiving completely, because they hurt me, they used me, whatever the
situation may be, I’m completely and undeniably justified. read more

 
    I venture to say, based on observations as far as I am able
to see, more people are calling themselves Christians while more Christians are
denying the title for all its negative connotations. Have you heard anyone
claim their faith as “believer” or “follower of Christ” or “Jesus lover”?
That’s dandy, and true. But the term “Christian” has been taken away from us,
much as the symbol of the rainbow has. As a young person learning that I am in
the midst of much needed revelation and change for “the church,” I fear the
negativity toward the church. I fear for non-believers because it will keep
them away, and for believers because of unforgiveness and bitterness toward
those who have been getting it wrong. I fear the anger I’ve seen. I fear more
splitting, more division dangerously close at hand within the whole Christian
body. I pray it doesn’t happen that leaders who are making right changes due to
convictions about how the church has been failing begin to find new titles. I
don’t want to see a new movement rise up again only to lose itself in its
mission once more. I want to see the church be taken back; for the term
Christian to be taken back.  To bring
them back to mean the body of Christ and Christ-like. The only way to know
those meanings is through Christ himself and we find him in the Word, our
Bibles, and in prayer. I think this means we must look at the broken church
with a heart of forgiveness. Jesus saw the broken and flawed and he forgave
them, then said, “now sin no more.” Forgiveness and correction. Jesus was, is, for the church, his bride, so I want
to be, too. Jesus’ heart probably breaks for her, I want mine to, too. Let us
lift the church back up to what it should be, not break it down.

   “And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything
they had… they worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the
Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity- all while
praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord
added to their fellowship those who were being saved.” Acts 2.44, 46-47

I read this morning…

“Anyone who knows Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour must desire ardently that others should share that knowledge and must rejoice when the number of those who do is multiplied. Where this desire and rejoicing are absent, we must ask whether something is not wrong at the very center of he church’s life”. read more