imagining how the church can reorient around mission

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

PNWM 1Day Event with Dr. Efrem Smith

Sept 14th- 9 am-1:30 pm – Free lunch included – hit the barcode below to register

This event, hosted by the Pacific Northwest Movement (PNWM), is free and open to all Pastors and Christian leaders interested in what church planting would look like in a rapidly changing culture.

what is next for the church

I read an article this last week in which the author stated with the utmost confidence (read hubris) what will happen to the church “next.” Really?

Here are some clues as to what to focus on regardless of what happens next… read more

a theological vision for immanuel church – part 3 – reproduce communities

iStock_000010038717XSmall-300x199

This is part 3 of Immanuel’s Theological Vision. You can find part 1 by clicking here and part 2 by clicking here.

—————————————————————————-

If you’re not aware of it, you may as well be brought into the circle. I have an apostolic calling. OK, relax. Some of you are thinking what does he think he is, one of the 12. The only “12” I’m a part of is a huge fan of the Seattle Seahawks. No, not a big “A” apostle, but I have an orientation that finds its greatest fulfillment in multiplying these reconciled communities that are populated with restored people.

A brief history of my pastoral experience is after pastoring a small rural church, I planted a church in Wenatchee WA, which, by the way, was a miserable failure. A humbling experience is almost always an efficient but austere teacher. From there, in 1991, I planted a church in Spokane called New Community, which in turn launched six other churches. After 17 years in the role, I took a job as the president of an international church planting organization called Christian Associates International. Its sole mission is to plant churches in Western culture. And now, at 59, I have planted another church called Immanuel. I think it is fair to say that it is far from a phase in my life. At 59, I am way past the normal age of church planter. By and large, church planting belongs to the young. Nevertheless, it is really a part of my orientation, to extend the work of Christ into the nations.

I am persuaded that this ministry of reconciliation takes place best through the multiplication of communities of faith.

Here’s a question: how did the gospel get to Spokane? When you consider the distance and challenges that stood in its way it is amazing. Jerusalem is 6707 miles from Spokane. How did the Gospel get all the way to us? Well, it got here as courageous believers who experienced the life of Christ and believed that they were supposed to go beyond their local context, left friends and family to take the Gospel to the nations. In our case it crossed language and cultural barriers and geography, even an ocean, to finally get to a place where we are today. That is precisely why Jesus says in Acts1:8, “For when the Holy Spirit comes upon you in power, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and to the very ends of the earth.” There is a concentric progression to extending the gospel into the nations. We cannot have a mature missiology without a firm conviction and vision of taking the gospel to the nations. That starts here in Spokane and goes as far out as God allows us.

Additionally, I believe this reproduction must be a part of every aspect of our ministry. It has to include what we do with kids, with our Life Together Groups, and ultimately with churches. Each leader should be giving his or her life away to someone else. It is the idea of working yourself out of a job. It is epitomized by Paul’s words to his mentee, Timothy.

“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.” 2 Timothy 2:2

It is really a perpetual succession plan. You receive from God and in turn you willingly and joyfully give it to someone with the expectation that they will pass the baton of faith and leadership on to someone else.

I have always felt strongly that my main calling in life is to give my life away to young men and women, to help them live into what God is calling them to do. I read a poem years ago that had a line in it that went like this, “I don’t want to be a king but I want to be a kingmaker.” That is what it means to be reproductive.
 r

a theological vision for immanuel church – part 2 – reconcile people

This picture was taken by my friend, Mike Midkiff from under the Monroe St bridge.

This is part 2 of Immanuel’s Theological Vision. You can find part 1 by clicking here.

We live in such a fragmented society. At this point, almost every element of society is responding as a victim. Everyone is slighted to one degree or another. Everyone is polarized. As a matter fact, in my 59 years, I have never seen a more volatile moment in our culture’s history. Here are a couple of examples.

The first one is a bit silly. A year ago I was watching football on TV and in the LSU game, the former Hall of Fame basketball player Karl Malone was in the stands. Apparently, his son plays for LSU. The picture they kept looping back to confirmed Malone was using a flip phone in the stands. Pretty innocuous, right? Not so in today’s age. As a result of him using a flip phone, the Internet went wild, accusing him of being an archaic buffoon. There was tweet after tweet and Facebook post after Facebook post talking about how ridiculous it was for him to use a flip phone. It got so intense that it could be called “crowd pounding.” Fortunately for Karl Malone, he probably could care less.

Another example is from my own life. It occurred during Pope Francis’ visits to the US. While I have no intention of converting to Catholicism, it is no secret that I have a serious man crush on Pope Francis. I think he is remarkable and have not been shy about sharing my admiration for him through my social media outlets. The sad part is, there’s a certain fundamentalist element of my history that is quite offended by me liking the pope,errrrr, “antichrist” I have had numerous people write me questioning my integrity as a Christian leader in showing my approval of Pope Francis’s trip. One even said, quoting from the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts that there will be many wolves coming among you, inferring that Pope Francis was one of the wolves that we should be aware of. Sheesh!

There are many other volatile issues where folks are separated such as racial tension, political angst and national cynicism.

Paul talks about this type of brokenness and estrangement in Ephesians 2. He talks about people being broken, separated, and estranged without God in the world. But he also goes on to say that Jesus himself is our peace and he has broken down every wall that separates us. In fact he goes on to say that God has created a new humanity. Everything that separates us from other humans; Jesus has provided a way for us to experience peace. God’s shalom. Paul even says that Christ does more than provide peace, he himself is our peace. This new humanity, Paul goes on to describe in the next chapter as the church.

So what does it look like? What does this new humanity look like?

Paul describes it for us.

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:26-28

Paul says no more Jew or Gentile, which refers to ethnic separation. He says there is no more slave or free. In other words, no more economic elitism. He also says no more male or female, eradicating gender inequality. But Christ remedies each and all of those points of separation.

OK, this passage is the catalyst for my dream. It is that we would become a community of difference, a diverse community…wealthy and poor, men and women, married and single, from various racial backgrounds representing Christ in the world. See, the gospel doesn’t call us to give up our differences, but to subordinate them for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

Why? Because the church is to be as Lesslie Newbigin has said, a sign, foretaste, and instrument of the kingdom. John Durham uses a different word picture. He calls the people of God “…a display people.” Our community is to act and look like what the consummated kingdom is in reality. It is to show the world what the new creation is to look like. In a word we are to be new creation people.

German theologian, Gearhart Lofink wrote,

“It can only be that God begins in a small way, at one single place in the world. There must be a place, visible, tangible, where the salvation of the world can begin: that is, where the world becomes what it is supposed to be according to God’s plan. Beginning at that place, the new thing can spread abroad, but not through persuasion, not through indoctrination, not through violence. Everyone must have the opportunity to come and see. All must have the chance to behold and test this new thing. Then, if they want to, they can allow themselves to be drawn into the history of salvation that God is creating.”

I was speaking to someone this recently about our church community. They asked how it was going. My response was, “Well, we are not there yet, but Immanuel is emerging into God’s dream.” I can sense it; if you were a part, I think you could as well.

Peace,

r

stop trying to keep your church alive…or free it to live

“Being missional means moving intentionally beyond our church preferences, making missional decisions rather than preferential decisions.” ― Ed Stetzer, Comeback Churches

I got the privilege of meeting with a young church planter from a mainline denomination yesterday. She is charming and passionate, though somewhat doe-eyed, seemingly not completely sure what she was getting in to (though, she is quickly arriving there).

I met her last week while teaching a track on the Missional Church at the Whitworth Institute of Ministry. While during the introductions, I came to find out about her dream and calling to church planting (got me excited) and how she was an embedded planter in a mainline church here in Spokane (got me even more excited, because I believe an embedded approach is the healthiest model to embark on the challenging journey of planting).

Anyway, that all led to us connecting yesterday. After some small talk, I began to ask into the “why?” and the “how?” of this new project. While I was thrilled to hear the church plant was being initiated, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut that those who were helping her hadn’t fully calculated the cost, nor were they clear on how to pull it off.

Part of the dilemma is that the local church she is embedded in and will supposedly send her out is in somewhat of self-protected posture. In other words, they like they idea of birthing a new church, but they don’t want it to cost them anything. There is already an apparent pulling back of support because they fear they will lose members.

Ok, listen carefully to this next part: You cannot do any form of mission, particularly church planting, without risk. Because the denomination she is a part of is dying, and the church that wants to send her is an aging congregation and apparently not robust, there is a contraction of resources…which is the very worst thing a denomination or a local church can afford to do.

If you want your church to flourish, you must have the courage to release resources – both money and people. It is not the churches job to try to keep people. If a church goes into protective mode, the very people the church wants to participate will not stay. The people who correctly see “life as mission” will go somewhere, where the church is not trying just to stay alive, but to a place where the church will give itself away for the sake of the Kingdom.

What happens is, to keep from dying, all resources flow toward vital systems, which seem logical and even natural. Yet, in the Kingdom, there is a counter logic. We hear Jesus say all of these crazy, counter-intuitive things like, “If you want to live, you have to die. If you wanna be great, you have to submit and become a servant.”

If a church, or a denomination for that matter, cannot transition its identity from a “container” for Christian people (Christendom orientation) to a missionary community, it will eventually come to an end. I know, those are hard words…sorry. Why? It will come to an end because the church is living counter to what God intended it to be…a community on mission.

r

my journey | interview from re-story podcast

I have known Mary DeMuth for some time now, as she and her husband Patrick were missionaries in France with the organization I led – Communitas International, formerly Christian Associates. She is a prolific writer, mentor and nationally sought after speaker. She asked if I would spend a bit of time talking about the transitions I’ve had going from a local church leader to the CEO of an international mission and then back to the local church as a planter. I unpacked some of the micro-conversions I have had from inside of the faith. It was a blast to chat with her.

Please let me know what you think about it!

A Call for the Church to Repent

Grasse

I have long felt like my calling in life has been to help change the mind of the church. Jesus made it clear that he came to proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of God was near. The imperatives related to this declaration were for his followers to believe and repent (Mark 1). Repentance, while it means many things, at its simplest, most rendered definition it means to change one’s mind. I believe that is what the church in the West must do – change its mind regarding its identity.

Part of repentance means to turn from one direction to another. The negative side of the turning happens by deconstructing what has become of the church in what many would call Christendom. Though it is not the thrust of this post, the church must turn from its over-reliance on power and cultural control, it's political co-opting, and it's baptized mimicry of a consumer driven society (Have you visited many churches lately? IMHO, most churches are discipling people further into the consumer life, all the while Jesus actually calls us to deny ourselves and to daily take up our cross). read more

Book Review: Kingdom Conspiracy by Scot McKnight

9781441221476

Do you wear skinny jeans or pleated pants?

Kind of a funny question, but those are the metaphors theologian Scot McKnight uses to describe two prevailing and popular views of the Kingdom of God in his book, Kingdom Conspiracy. The first view, skinny jeans, predictably represents a more current approach that frontloads public sector social justice activism, while often times bypassing the church. He writes, “Kingdom means good deeds done by good people (Christian or not) in the public sector for the common good.” (p.4) The second picture is, again predictably, a perspective that is more represented in “traditional” Christianity. He describes this group’s view by saying, “…the Kingdom is both present and future, and the kingdom is both a rule and reign.” (p. 9) read more

Prodigal Christianity: 10 Signposts into the Missional Frontier

Jpeg

Over the last couple of months I’ve had the privilege of reading the book “Prodigal Christianity” with a group of my friends here in Spokane. All of them are good thinkers and we had a wonderful time processing the ideas by Dave Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw. 

The book is really an attempt to locate a way forward that is truly prodigal in today's Christianity, a third way if you will. A writing device the authors employed is a cyclical juxtaposition between a Neo-Reform perspective of Christianity (Piper, Keller, et al) and a more “Emergent” version (McLaren and Jones). Honestly, a device I am not entirely thrilled with and I would suspect the authors represented in the book probably were not wild about either. Nonetheless, while looking at both of these poled perspectives they seek to mine out an alternative way for the church to move forward in the undulating social challenges of Western society. read more

Church Planting in Context – Incarnating the Gospel

Hands-300x131

Incarnating the Gospel

What does it mean to incarnate the Gospel? Observing God’s love toward humanity best captures the idea of incarnation. It is actualized by God taking on human flesh and lovingly drawing near to His creation. As a matter of fact, in John 1 it is articulated by verse 14, which says, “The Word became flesh and
made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and
only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Literally, it means God came near, even moving into the neighborhood.

As we plant Immanuel Church, one of the contouring values we have is seeking to dream of how we can incarnate the Gospel in a particular context. In our case, that is the north central area of Spokane, Washington (Click here for demographics of the area). It has become our parish if you will.

An Ecclesial (tricky word for “church”) Problem

One of the problems that the church faces in
America is Christians often envision their church involvement one directionally. By that I mean, people make decisions about where they should go based upon what they can get out of it. It is kind of like a
laundry list of items like:

  • Whether we like the speaker (does he have nice hair…does he have any hair? :))
  • Whether we like the worship style (or how accomplished the musicians are)
  • Whether our kids are cared for the way we think they should be
  • Whether the facility is comfortable
  • Whether we feel at ease with the people who attend,
    etc.

Now, I am not saying the following to produce guilt of any kind, but allow
me to poke at those reasons a wee bit. Each of them, if we are honest, are
somewhat “me” centered.

An Alternative

While we may fairly debate the validity of each of those reasons for attending a church, if we believe that incarnation is important, it is also essential that we consider attending in a location that has some proximity to where we live. In a word, we MUST consider the missional aspect of where we attend.

A Challenge

Here’s a challenge as it relates to Immanuel here in Spokane – and it is two prong:

  1. Join our Team – If you live in the North Central area of Spokane, will you consider joining our team of missionaries as we seek to genuinely display and declare the Gospel to this unique and under resourced part of our city. Some of you live in the very area we are attempting to reach, yet drive across numerous geographical zones to be a part of another community. That is fine if you clearly sense the Spirit’s call for you to do that, but if you have not considered the missional orientation of the church, take some time and do so. I am persuaded that your mission effectiveness would be enhanced by churching in the same area that you are living…and we certainly could use the
    partnership.
  2. Relocate – If you feel called to be a part of Immanuel Church, would you consider relocating to the North Central? It’s called “re-neighboring.” I know, I know, that is really counter to how we Americans think, but if we really buy the idea that God’s mission in a context is a calling, we cannot easily dismiss the idea that living in the same area you worship is important. While it may not be imperative in a commuter city, it certainly is not outside of the purview of consideration. Alternatively, maybe if you live in the North Central area and go to a church outside of that area, you should mull over the idea of moving there.

If you are interested in helping in any way, just comment on this blog and I will get back to you promptly or email me at (Click here).

Living, investing and “embedding” in the same area you gather to worship is not a new idea. It has been a proven missiological concept for a very long time…it is as old as, well…the moment God took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood.

Peace y’all!

r