imagining how the church can reorient around mission

Being “Missional” is currently the hot topic of conversation among churches, denominations, and networks everywhere. Most church and network websites have at least a mention of their missional posture, if it is not the central focus. There remains a disconnect, however, between being missional and joining God’s global mission, with neither being informed by the other. Many churches appear to actually be choosing between the two, focusing either on justice ministry in their local context or involving themselves in global missionary efforts (you can read a previous post I wrote on the topic here). The question is, how do we fully embrace missional without losing the mission? read more

About a week or so ago I had the privilege to take one of several to come, walking tour of Madrid.  My guide, (April Crull) took us to the Royal Palace and Cathedral.  We were hoping to look inside the cathedral, but it was quite congested around the site.  After looking around for some time, April comes to us and blurted out something that I found quite metaphorical.  She declared, “The problem with churches in Europe is you can’t find the door to get in.”  I thought to myself that may actually be the problem with churches everywhere.  I’m not talking about how attractive they are or how engaging they are.  What I am talking about is how the church can actually end up becoming the opposite of what it is here for. read more

"Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, 'Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.'" This morning, during a group lectio divina meditation on this Scripture, the line the Holy Spirit highlighted for me was this: "She, out of her poverty…" As we sat with this passage, the question that came up for me was "Where is MY poverty?… And what would it look like to give out of it?" I suspect that too often, in our context, we are overly-focused on giftedness. We want people to know their gifts (and ours) and, in a sense, to operate out of their "riches." When it becomes clear that someone is good at something, or has resources in a particular area, we want them to begin serving, giving, worshiping God with that. And so the musician who plays well is encouraged to play for God. When it becomes clear someone can speak and communicate well, we encourage her to use that gift for God and for us. The good graphic designer is pressed into using that gift for the community, the natural leader to lead, the one with the gift of hospitality to be hospitable. And there's nothing wrong with that. God has given those gifts to us for a reason. But giving out of our gifts, out of the riches of what we do well and willingly is easy. Maybe too easy, in many ways. In sitting with the question of where my poverty lays, I realized- we all have areas within ourselves of relative riches and relative poverty. And God wants it all. He created us, bought us at great cost to Himself, and desires that we give to Him our whole selves- that our worship of, devotion to, service of Him be wholistic. But I wonder if, like us, God tends to smile at certain gifts more than others- not that He doesn't take delight in all service, all worship honestly given, but… In the same way we value the hand-made gift, the hand-written note, the thing that shows effort and thought, I wonder if God sees gifts given out of our riches a little differently than gifts given out of our poverty? The easy gift of operating out of our strength vs the harder gift of having to dig deep into our less-comfortable and less competent places. For me I know I am very comfortable in certain areas of ministry and less so in others. And as I sat today, meditating on this, I became convinced that God wants me to worship Him not simply out of my surplus- to give to Him what costs me little because I have so much of it, or am good at it. He does want those things- but perhaps what is more worshipful of Him, more forming for me, and ultimately maybe even better for others is when I take stock of the areas where I am poor and decide to give God everything I have there- to step out, and as an act of worship, do what is less comfortable, less likely to end with the positive ego-enhancing feedback we all so love. God, this Lenten season, may I learn to value my poverty more than my giftedness- my weakness more than my strength. Because it is in my weakness that Your strength and grace are shown and bring me to maturity.

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There is one thing about walking in a European city – you just don’t know how far you’ve walked.  You guess by how long it’s been.  I wanna say that my feet are killing my and my old knee is starting to creak.  read more

By now everyone has heard about the frenzy over HarperOne’s announcement of Rob Bell’s forthcoming book. If you’re not up to date on this, read Christianity Today’s article here. It has all the dirty details. The media is flooded with reactions. Here’s just a few of my off the cuff observations/questions. Tell me where I’m wrong eh?

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Here is a video from Justin Powell.  He is the planter I just visited in Barcelona.  Amazing.  It will take a couple of minutes, but it would be great if you took a look at it!

On the basis of a publisher’s promotional paragraph and an advertising video in which Rob Bell questions someone’s certainty that Ghandi is in hell, Justin Taylor sounded the web-wide alarm that Rob Bell’s forthcoming book Love Wins espouses universalism (the doctrine that everyone will eventually be saved). Though he too had not yet read the book, John Piper followed up with a puzzling melodramatic tweet bidding Rob Bell “Farewell“. An avalanche of tweets ensued — all (so far as I could discern) by people who had not read Bell’s forthcoming book — to the point that this yet-unpublished book became one of the top ten tweeted topics. (If this was planned by HarperCollins, the publisher of Love Wins, it was brilliant!!!)

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Here is what I have to say about Rob Bell's latest book…

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Here is a clip featuring one of CA's churches in Brussels as they mobilize to bring true Shalom to their city.  The pastor is Carlton Deal explaining how it came about.

Lesslie Newbigin has made significant contributions to ecclesiology.  First, along with with Bosch, he helped recover the missionary nature of the church by reminding us that mission is not primarily a task given the church, but the church in her essence is missionary, just as God is a missionary God.  His eschatological vision of all people from all over the world under one God, drove his ecumenical spirit to seek to bring what he saw as three ecumenical streams (preaching of the gospel, right administration of the sacraments and the Pentecostal approach) together. He shares the strengths that the various branches of Christianity have, but how all are necessary.  He demonstrates through Acts 19 that the main question is: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” Not what Protestants might ask, “Did you believe exactly what we teach?” And not what Catholics or Orthodox might ask, “Were the hands that were laid on you our hands” (156)? The Holy Spirit unifies the body of Christ.  Finally, Newbigin brought significant clarity to the “relationship between ecclesiology, mission and the contemporary Western culture” (157). He brought to light people’s epistemological presuppositions, thus he has helped the church to both affirm and critique culture; modernity (modern scientific rationality that led to individualism) on the one hand, and the “nihilism and hopelessness” of postmodernity on the other.  Newbigin helped us understand the importance of becoming missionaries to our own culture, thus enrichening our understanding of contextualization.

via jrwoodward.net read more