bob.blog

On Holy Ground at St. Arbucks

I have a new post up at Out of Ur- here's a sample and a link there...

 

 

Like many pastors I know, I have a love/hate relationship with Starbucks.

For seven years now, as I have labored to plant, grow, and guide a church, Starbucks has been my office, my meeting space, my cafeteria, and my retreat. I’m there most work days, and I’m even there most days off to get some reading or writing time in away from the house.

Yeah—if Starbucks disappeared, I’d notice.

As with anything, though, familiarity breeds contempt. The thousands of hours I have spent in Starbucks locations all over the Portland Metro area have left me feeling at times that I’d rather be anywhere else.Please, Lord, not another day on hard wooden chairs, sipping burnt-tasting coffee, and wondering when the employees will notice the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of the safe that sets my teeth on edge every 20 minutes as it tells them it’s time to make another deposit...

And yet, week after week, I return. Occasionally I try new places, but nothing has ever stuck. Despite a certain weariness with the place, the convenience of Starbucks, the free Wi-Fi, and the ease with which I can meet people there all conspire to draw me back week after week.

But something else draws me back there. At times Starbucks has been more than a coffee shop for me. Much more...

 

Read the rest here...

 

Ecclesia Network National Gathering

 I had the privilege again this year to attend the Ecclesia Network National Gathering last week in Washington DC (okay, technically in Chevy Chase, MD). 

Ecclesia is a relational network of missionally-focused, theologically-centrist, Gospel-centered churches and church planters. By relational they mean that relationship comes first and foremost. The focus is on churches and planters being in relationship with one another- that means the way into the network is to be in relationship with someone already in the network and the way to participate is to continue building relationships with others in the network. By missionally-focused they mean that this a network of churches concerned with orienting themselves around the mission of the church- being a sign and foretaste of the Kingdom and what God is doing in the world. Theologically centrist, it's a group that takes Scripture seriously, yet focusing on the majors and leaving the rest up to individuals and their communities and open to women in leadership. And they are all about the Gospel.    

All that to say, it's Evergreen's tribe, and always a kick to get together with the men and women of Ecclesia. 

 The national gathering is also an expression of the more organic, main-thing-is-the-main-thing values of the network. Intentionally small (capped at 175 or so), extremely low-cost (less than $300 for the conference, all the meals, lodging...), and lo-fi (zero lasers and smokemachines, thankfully), there's plenty of time to connect conversationally over meals (and cigars), and the emphasis is on interaction with the presenters who are there for the whole time, not fly-in and then gone. Want to have lunch with Dallas Willard and talk about what he just presented? Yeah, you can do that. (In fact, Todd Hiestand totally dissed me to do just that!).

 But perhaps one of the big highlights for me these last two years, aside from some of the paradigm-shifting wisdom that's been crammed into my head by the likes of Dallas Willard, Mike Breen, and Jon Tyson has been the space that Ecclesia gives ordinary planters to address the whole group. This year, some of the best stuff of the conference came at the end as one pastor, one pastor's wife and some other church planters addressed the group with some things they've been learning. Hearing from Dallas Willard was great. Hearing from these folks? Even better. 

Love this gathering. Love this network. Hope you can be a part of both. 

The Jet Set

Seems like Evergreener Caleb Crider is in a different part of the world every other week! But these are no pleasure trips... Caleb is a driving force behind the Upstream Collective, a group of people and churches trying to catalyze "a missions movement uniquely focused on Europe, mobilizing missional churches and church plants in North America to engage Europeans (both indigenous and immigrant) with the Gospel in relevant ways." 

And now, it seems like they are setting their sights beyond Europe! Caleb is in Taiwan right now with missional superstar Ed Stetzer and others, learning from the church in Asia- they call these "Jet Set" Tours- Why?

Caleb writes: 

"We’ve had a few people ask us why we call the Upstream Collective vision tours “Jet Set” trips. Here’s an explanation:

The term “Jet Set” was coined in the late 1960s in reference to a wealthy class of socialites who had the time and money to hop a jet for lunch in Rome, shopping in Paris, and stopping for drinks in Prague on the way home to a penthouse apartment in Manhattan. Of course, these privileged few were interested in little more than their own social stature, their gallivanting around the world had a surprising side effect- The “Jet Set” learned about culture. As it turns out, visiting other countries affects how you see your own.

We would never condone such waste and frivolity. But relative to the rest of the world, we have ridiculous amounts of money and free time. We have access to places that we’ve never heard of. The opportunities are unprecedented. We want to redeem the term “Jet Set.” We want to bring responsibility to the opportunities we have. When we hop on a plane to see what God is doing among the nations, we do it not o climb a social ladder, but to get a glimpse of how God might use us outside our own cultures. We want to experience life from someone else’s vantage point. We want to cross cultures with intentionality.

These trips aren’t just for us. They’re for the people we lead and the partners we join. Jet Set vision trips are a privilege that bring tremendous responsibility. We want to be good stewards of what we see and do here. We feel an obligation to apply what we learn, to pray for those we meet, and to pursue the vision God gives us as we walk among unreached peoples."

You can follow the Upstream Collective on Twitter here, and Ed Stetzer has been blogging this recent adventure here 

New post at Out of Ur

I've got a new post up at Out of Ur:

June 17, 2009

The Sometimes Surprising Price of Success

What happens when our people do what we ask?

No, this post isn’t about growing pains as your church gets bigger and bigger or what to do with the budget surplus all that extra tithing is leaving you with (though if your problem is the latter, email me).

I’ve been thinking this week about the cost we pastors and our communities pay when people actually begin to do what we’re asking them do to: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

So far this year, we’ve had a hard time making budget just about every month. And as a smaller church, that matters. As I looked at the numbers, I began to wonder what was happening. Were people giving less because of the financial crisis? Were we angering people and provoking a “hold back” response in giving?

But as I tried to see the big picture of where our community is, I realized we’re actually just paying the price of success.

Read the rest here

Missional living- Churches serving PDX!

In an effort to expand our definition of what missional living is (from simply what we do as a community together to what we do as a community together, as individuals on our own, as families, groups of friends, etc), I want to highlight some things Evergreeners are doing- not to toot our own horn, but to remind myself (and anyone else who wants to be reminded), that often we get too myopic, too narrowly focused on "We're not doing enough!" when maybe the reason "we" aren't doing enough collectively is because we are all so busy doing good things individually! Certainly there's a balance, but I think it starts with the perspective that truly missional living is an endeavor that goes both wide and deep and consists of many things- some with a particular church's name on it- but much, much (most in fact) without. 

Recently, the Willamette Week did an article on the ways the Church in PDX is serving the city. One of the ways that was mentioned was Compassion Montavilla, a local initiative aimed at providing free medical and dental care to low income folks. It was organized by an Evergreener, Kurt Van Deren and supported by a number of evergreeners who helped out alongside a ton of folks from other churches and from no churches. 

When I see this stuff get excited- and I also am encouraged- sometimes I too can fall into the "When are we going to DO  something?" trap- and forget... Oh yeah, many of us already are. God is at work putting a broken world together- and many of us are finding Him and joining Him "out there." Awesome.

Missions, Misunderstood

Like the bob.blog? Many of you readers came here during the salad days when I was posting daily, ranting about church and saving the world. I still do some of that, but boy- the pace has slowed. 

Ernest Goodman (a pseudonym), however, is at the top of his game. 

You should read his blog Missions, Misunderstood

Really good stuff... good missional thinking from someone who's been there and done that. The current series on the counterintuitve church is gold. 

Ecclesia Network day 1

I'm in Maryland at the Ecclesia Network National Gathering with David Fitch (with whom I am having a free-ranging, continuing argument about Tim Keller!), Jr Woodward, Todd Hiestand, John Chandler and others. We're in the pre-conference time, talking about the future of the Network, how it can resource church planters and church planting. Evergreen is not "officially" a part of this network, but they are courting us :), and honestly, I think this is our tribe. Ecclesia is Gospel-centered, missionally minded, theologically centrist and relationship focused. Some have described it as a less anal-retentive version of Acts 29 :)  They wanted me here and were actually generous enough to fly me out here, so here I am!

Already building some good connections, having some great conversations and looking forward to some good learnings this week. Here's the run down for today. 

2.00 – 3.45 - “Engaging: Missionary Strategies Then & Now” - Eddie Gibbs, Mike Breen
3.45 – 4.00 - Stretch Break
4.00 – 5.30 - “Organizing: Structures for Incarnational Church” - Breen
5.30 – 6.45 - Dinner
7.00 – 8.30 - “Challenges: Barriers to Mission in the Western Context” - Gibbs, Breen

In the next couple of days we'll also be hearing from Darrell Guder and Jon Tyson.

More in a bit...

Top Missional Blogs of 08

Brad Andrews is running a series on the top missional blogs of 08. I came in behind luminaries like Alan Hirsch and David Fitch (duh!), but still- honored to be included! 

Check it out

Kimball's Missional Misgivings...

Dan Kimball, a fellow OutofUr contributer, has earned my respect in a number of ways. 

First, as the pastor of a successful "church within a church" he had the guts to admit that ultimately, it doesn't work. New wine in old wineskins never does. 

Second, I appreciate the balance he has brought to the emerging church conversation. Yeah- he's on the more conservative end of the spectrum, and let's be honest- it's a needed voice. (Who speaks prophetically to people more conservatively-minded? Liberals. And who speaks prophetically to people who are more liberally minded? Conservatives. See?)

And lastly, he always sends me comforting Facebook messages when I get myself into little brouhaha's, like over Tony Jones's recent comments on Beliefnet re gay marriage (a Facebook interaction that took place during my recent blog hiatus)

His recent post on Ur asks some good questions of the Missional Church movement. 

I'm all in favor of good questions. And furthermore, I think Dan is asking the right ones (e.g. are people meeting Jesus in "missional" churches).

A couple of thoughts in response, though. 

Dan writes:

"We all agree with the theory of being a community of God that defines and organizes itself around the purpose of being an agent of God's mission in the world. But the missional conversation often goes a step further by dismissing the "attractional" model of church as ineffective. Some say that creating better programs, preaching, and worship services so people "come to us" isn't going to cut it anymore. But here's my dilemma—I see no evidence to verify this claim."

I both agree and disagree with Dan here. 

When I was in the middle of conversations and thinking that eventually led to me leaving a megachurch and beginning this pub church experiment, I said (and still believe) this wonderful piece of obviousness: the megachurch is great at reaching the people it's reaching. And it's awful at reaching the people it's not. 

Deep, huh?

To me the question isn't "Is the megachurch done?" Clearly, it's not. 

To me, the question has always been, is something else needed to reach those the megachurch isn't (and can't), those the traditional, smaller evangelical church (like 1st Baptist or 2nd Methodist) can't?

And the answer for me then and now is an emphatic yes. 

I pastor a growing church (something like 60% this year) of people for whom the attractional, large-scale production church was a dead end. Many of them even attempted to be part of a large-scale missional church here in town (that rhymes with Montego Bay) and found that though they appreciated the missional emphasis (as do I- I think we have a lot to learn from them), the size and difficulty of getting "in" precluded their participation. 

Many of our folks are either coming back to Christianity, just starting out (yes, we have people meeting Jesus @ Evergreen), or are, not to put too fine a point on it, half-way out the door giving it one last shot with us. I've heard from people in ALL of those places on the continuum that the attractional, program driven church, or even large church in general just wasn't attractive to them.

And that's the key to this whole discussion. 

There's a group of people for whom the megachurch works just fine. I LOVE that there are churches where those folks can find community and find Jesus. But let's be honest, there are people for whom those communities don't make sense, and an alternative is needed. 

Here's my contention (and no, I can't prove it- we'll just have to wait and see)- The numbers of people for whom the megachurch "works" is probably going to shrink over the next couple of decades. Mega Churches will continue to grow and be used by God, but those who intentionally make themselves smaller through strategies like multi-site will grow the most. More and more people will seek out medium sized communities (bigger than the house church or small (≤40) church but not as large as big (≥400) or mega-churches), recognizing that what they long for is community and it's just easier (though never easy) to create in smaller churches. I think when they want to hear Driscoll or (shudder) Ed Young Jr, or others they'll just hit the pod/vodcast. When they want production, they'll throw on a Hillsong or Crowder CD. For worship, a couple of guitars and vocals will suffice. 

But not just smaller communities, these people will seek out communities that point to and hold up Jesus, that encourage, prepare and launch people out into missional living (so no, I'm not predicting the renaissance of the millions of corner churches that can't seem to crack that particular code). They'll want communities that run lean (so not many building programs), take care of the poor, and focus on relationship and relational health. 

So while I appreciate Dan's pushback, I think it's a bit more complicated than what he's both depicted as the "missional" mindset and the way he's answering it. 

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe Osteen and Young Jr are on to something. 

But I doubt it :)

Okay- your turn- what do you think? 

Truly Missional...

God is doing some good things in my brain and heart and in our community. Some movement in my definition and understanding of "missional." Maybe the best way to sum it up is to say I realized today we've been asking the wrong question. 

One of the foundational questions for evergreen was "If our church disappeared tomorrow, would anyone notice? Would anyone go unfed, unclothed, unloved and unhelped?" We wanted to take that seriously and be able to answer with an enthusiastic "yes!!" I wanted to pastor a community that did stuff.

Four years in though, I'm realizing that Evergreen could disappear tomorrow and most of the things we support would be fine- not because we aren't missional, but specifically because we are.  

Lemme 'splain...

We're a metro church (no- not like metro-sexual... more like metropolis- a city-wide church). We are people from a ton of different neighborhoods in north Portland, South East, South West, North East and North West PDX... and our people, the more I look at them, the more I notice how connected they are- to their local public schools and community associations, to serving on boards and helping out with Loaves and Fishes, with the homeless downtown thru Blanket Coverage or they travel to Africa, Haiti and elsewhere to help and serve. Many know and love their neighbors in significant ways and find good and creative ways to converse their faith with people who don't know Jesus. Both here in Portland and elsewhere, a huge percentage of evergreeners are "on mission." 

And while it's been frustrating to see some evergreen people attempt different justice initiatives and try to get our folks involved- I've realized that a less-than-hearty response isn't so much a lack of passion, it's a sign that many are already involved, already committed to good things- just not good things our community is necessarily going to be able to "take credit" for. And that's okay. 

"Church" is not the bleeding edge of mission and kingdom. It's the result of it. Where God is at work, and the Kingdom is growing, church happens. People come to know Jesus and they form into those signs of the kingdom, worshiping communities. 

Church is necessary- it's the supply lines, the place to fall back to and be refreshed, encouraged, trained and taught. That place to worship the God who sends us out. To pray with others... and then to go. But it's not synonymous with Kingdom and it's not all that God is doing in the world. In other words- God always works through His people- but often through His people scattered more than His people gathered.

The question isn't- "if our church were to disappear tomorrow"... because a church that is truly on-mission would leave behind a bunch of on-mission folks who carried mission forward without the institution of "evergreen" (and would no doubt re-coalesce into a number of different worshipping communities). The real question is- if our community had never existed, what would be different? Who would have gone unmotivated to give? To serve? To make that extra effort with neighbors and love co-workers? To help change a neighborhood, help a village in Haiti get clean water, adopt some kids, live in Africa, move to Bangladesh...

Yes- a truly missional community does stuff- it accomplishes meaningful things together. But maybe, even more, a missional community encourages, trains and supports people as they do stuff, helps connect those not doing (but wanting to) with those who are, and becomes a well of missional living not so much by what we do together under the logo of the gathered community, but how we pray, train, encourage and send... and then how we just get out of the way and let God's people do what they've always done- follow God out into the fields where He's at work. 

Missional Leadership Development...

As elders, we're working through some next steps for our community, preparing to bring some ideas to the community for what we think is coming this next year and what we think we'll need to do to become not just a church that occasionally is able to plant another community, but a church-planting movement here in the city of Portland that consistently and sustainably replicates smaller communities of 40 or so people that grow and plant other communities by splitting or, as Evergreen is currently on track to do, replicating gatherings to get slightly larger so as to become a hub community that is able to train, resource, and send church planters and plants. 

But as excited as I am about that, what has really got my gears going right now are some things we are doing/thinking/dreaming about missional leadership and some ways I'm trying to move behind the scenes to help prepare and challenge our folks to impact the city and love the people of Portland. 

Over the last four years we've done a good job at being a church community that's made a real difference for many "formerly churched"- mainly because that part of our philosophy and vision was pretty well-defined in the heads of those of us who started Evergreen. 

And while I think that if we had never done anything more than be a place of healing and reconnection for those who had walked away from God and community it would probably be worth doing, we don't want to stop there. Our original vision was to be a community for the "unchurched and the formerly churched." 

To be a community that makes more of a difference for the unchurched, I think we're going to need to press forward and outward in relationship and missional living here in the city (as opposed to tweaking what we do on Sundays in the hopes of possibly luring the unchurched in to a worship gathering). 

An observation: I've never been a part of a church with

1. So many energetic, forward-thinking entrepreneurial types 

2. So many folks who have real, significant relationships with people so different from themselves in terms of faith

To me, this suggests two slightly different but very intertwined initiatives I want to begin leaning into over the next couple of years...

One is some Missional Leadership material we're working through with Dan Steigerwald and Casey Cerretani. I'm especially excited about this and bringing some formation and energy to unlocking some entrepreneurial/missional energy that is, I think, all around and in the Evergreen Community. 

Some of the stuff we're talking through:

Stirring a passion to join God on mission by encouraging sound missional theology, a God-surrendered heart, and a sense of communitas with other leaders (i.e. a heart-uniting bond from sharing in various faith-stretching endeavors for God)

Saturation listening- with Gospel-tuned ears, learning to listen and hear the resonant and discordant beats and rhythms of our city/neighborhoods.

Missionary training and role-modeling by those with influence to enable Christ-followers to meaningfully engage culture, to consistently sow shalom in our neighborhoods/cities and by God's grace see new disciples made. 

Commitment to deep discipleship via a practice-centered missional way of life

My dream would be to come out of this process with some concrete challenges, materials and channels to encourage evergreen people not only to live an intentional, Christ and others-focused lifestyle for the sake of those around them, but to be challenged, encouraged and resourced to begin new or partner with various existing initiatives here in PDX that are making a difference for its people and demonstrating the Gospel in real, tangible ways. 

The other piece is encouraging those among us with a genuine passion for and gift for conversing their faith with people who don't follow Jesus to begin to share not only that passion but ways it can be expressed. One of the challenges of being a community like Evergreen is that we know exactly how we don't want to do so many things... things like evangelism. The easy part is walking away from the coercive and emotionally manipulative "If you were to die tonight" kinds of methodologies we were guilted into practicing in our past. The hard part is replacing that with positive ways of conversing our faith with folks that don't come across as an intellectual wrestling match where we're just trying to pin someone down and get them to say "Jesus!" but rather respects the individual, their journey, and the working of the Holy Spirit in their life up to this point and yet clearly and appealingly presents both the person of Jesus and an invitation to come along with us and explore who He is in the context of first relationship with individuals and eventually with the community as a whole.

I'm excited about what is happening at Evergreen right now. I'm even more excited about the future, and what God can and wants to do in our community. 

OM- Original Missional...

I'm in one of those less-than-active brain periods. Trying hard to get up and running, but... That's a big part of why I haven't been very present in the Missional Synchoblog stuff taking place over the last few days. Lots of good discussion going on...

There's probably nothing more important for us to discuss as followers of Jesus than what we are to be about. Some focus on what we should be (and believe). Some on what we should do. To my way of thinking, the nexus of those two things is where both the tension and the power of the Christian life exists. 

And while I'm not a huge back-to-the-first-century guy (the church grows and matures, yeah?) I do think at times it's helpful to ask some questions about what the first church did and how they grew- about what that nexus of be and do looked like to the first people who followed Jesus.

And as I read their story in Acts, I love the idea that for them, a huge part of missional was... planting churches. Telling people about Jesus while simultaneously organizing those people into groups dedicated to loving God, loving each other and loving the people around them. Worshiping together, sharing communion, collecting money for the poor and to support the work of the community, appointing elders, caring for each other, reading Scripture together...

I know that a lot of people want to talk about missional as getting out of the church. I get the desire to be freed from the walls of institution. I seriously doubt that the Apostle Paul had in mind the mind and soul numbing institutional bureaucracy of where much of Church in the West has ended up. 

But...

"Missional" to the very first followers of Jesus looked like planting churches. Argue all you want about what the "right" way to do that might be. House, simple, mega... I have my opinions and so do you. The church is in serious need of reform (and truth be told- that's always been true. And it always will be). Reform it, renew it, revitalize it, contextualize it... But an indispensable element to "Life in the Way of Jesus" is and will always be the Body of Christ- followers of Jesus gathering together to do and be all those things listed above- a community that together loves God, loves one another and loves the world. 

We all have our problems with the Church but like Augustine said "She's a whore... and she's my mother." At the end of the day, take Church out of the equation and pretty soon, you have no Missional. Not that the Spirit and the Word don't accomplish anything in our lives, but... 

Having an engine and gasoline are good things, but if you don't have a chassis to put them in, you still aren't going to get anywhere.  

Here's something I wrote a couple of years ago:

Two and a half years in, and I still believe in the Church. 
And not just my particular community... Church with that capital C, you know?

There are a lot of reasons why people plant churches... some good, some less-than-good. The comforting thing to me is that in spite of the mixed grab bag of reasons we bring to this endeavor, whether it be pride, or ambition, or desperation, God still uses all that. He still finds pleasure in His people trying to do something that matters, trying to live out Christian community in the hopes that they'll be able to follow Christ together in a way that makes a difference for those around them.

My friend Ollie, when he was being ordained in the Anglican church was asked "Why do you want to be a priest?" His answer was, "Because I can't do anything else!"

The examining board was impressed and passed him thru, and it wasn't until later that he realized their mistake.

They had misunderstood... He wasn't saying he had a huge burden to be a priest, to minister to others, to lead... He was saying that he honestly felt like he wouldn't even be a Christian if he didn't approach it that way- it was too hard for him.

That's kind of how I feel about church.

I need it.

And yeah, that's an admission of weakness.

When I think about the christian life, I really don't think I'd be doing much at all disconnected from a Christian community. If there weren't people all trying to get on the same page with me, struggling through similar issues, talking things out, praying for me, encouraging me, at times correcting me... I think my spiritual life would be pretty academic. Maybe some blips on the radar now & again... but I have a feeling I would settle into a comfortable life with the god of my choosing and completely miss the God who tends to whisper through brothers and sisters and the spoken Word and times of worship, and community dinners and all the rest. Maybe you are different than me. Maybe you could survive being a free-range Christian... but not me. I need community. I need church. And I have a feeling that a lot of people are like me...

And maybe that's a big reason why church matters.

In spite of all the "issues", in spite of the hard work it takes to sustain community, in spite of all the voices questioning whether we really need church...

So, I agree with all (okay- most!) of the definitions of Missional I'm reading out there... and I'll add my $.02. 

Missional is... planting church communities that live out the Gospel in and for the cities and communities in which God has placed them. 

Missional Church...

The model for we Christians living in "Babylon" as the NT writers put it comes out of the experience of the exilic community in the OT. How should we relate to the culture around us? Few say it better than Tim Keller...

"It will not be enough for Christians to form a culture that runs counter to the values of the broader culture. Christians should be a community radically committed to the good of the city as a whole. We must move out to sacrificially serve the good of the whole human community, especially the poor. Revelation 21-22 makes it clear that the ultimate purpose of redemption is not to escape the material world, but to renew it. God's purpose is not only saving individuals, but also inaugurating a new world based on justice, peace, and love, not power, strife, and selfishness.

So Christians work for the peace, security, justice, and prosperity of their city and their neighbors, loving them in word and in deed, whether they believe what we do or not. In Jeremiah 29:7, Israel's exiles were called not just to live in the city, but also to love it and work for its shalom—its economic, social, and spiritual flourishing. The citizens of God's city are the best possible citizens of their earthly cities.

This is the only kind of cultural engagement that will not corrupt us and conform us to the world's pattern of life. If Christians go to urban centers simply to acquire power, they will never achieve cultural influence and change that is deep, lasting, and embraced by the broader society. We must live in the city to serve all the peoples in it, not just our own tribe. We must lose our power to find our (true) power. Christianity will not be attractive enough to win influence except through sacrificial service to all people, regardless of their beliefs.

This strategy (if we must call it that) will work. In every culture, some Christian conduct will be offensive and attacked, but some will be moving and attractive to outsiders. "Though they accuse you … they may see your good deeds and glorify God" (1 Peter 2:12, see also Matt. 5:16). In the Middle East, a Christian sexual ethic makes sense, but not "turn the other cheek." In secular New York City, the Christian teaching on forgiveness and reconciliation is welcome, but our sexual ethics seem horribly regressive. Every non-Christian culture has enough common grace to recognize some of the work of God in the world and to be attracted to it, even while Christianity in other ways will offend the prevailing culture.

So we must neither just denounce the culture nor adopt it. We must sacrificially serve the common good, expecting to be constantly misunderstood and sometimes attacked. We must walk in the steps of the one who laid down his life for his opponents."

Read the rest here

Some good missional thinking...

Some good missional thinking... from a self-proclaimed fundamentalist! Tim Challies on Halloween:

I am guessing my neighbourhood is all-too-typical in that people typically arrive home from work and immediately drive their cars into the garage. More often than not they do not emerge again until the next morning when they leave for work once more. We are private, reclusive people who delight in our privacy. We rarely see our neighbors and rarely communicate with them. It would be a terrible breach of Canadian social etiquette for me to knock on a person's door and ask them for a small gift or even just to say "hello" to them. In the six years we have been living in this area, we have never once had a neighbor come to the door to ask for anything... Yet on Halloween these barriers all come down. I have the opportunity to greet every person in the neighbourhood. I have the opportunity to introduce myself to the family who moved in just down the row a few weeks ago and to greet some other people I have not seen for weeks or months. At the same time, those people's children will come knocking on my door. We have two possible responses. We can turn the lights out and sit inside, seeking to shelter ourselves from the pagan influence of the little Harry Potters, Batmans and ballerinas, or we can greet them, gush over them, and make them feel welcome. We can prove ourselves to be the family who genuinely cares about our neighbours, or we can be the family who shows that we want to interact with them only on our terms. Most of our neighbors know of our faith and of our supposed concern for them. This is a chance to prove our love for them.

The same contributor to the email list concluded his defense of participating in Halloween with these words: "One night does not a neighbor make (and one night does not a pagan make), but Halloween is the one night of the year where the good neighborliness that flows from being in Christ is communicated and reinforced. We are citizens of another Kingdom where The Light is always on."

...

My encouragement to you today is to think and pray about this issue. I do not see Halloween as a great evangelistic occasion. I do not foresee it as a time when the people coming to your door are likely to be saved. But I do think it is a time that you can prove to your neighbors that you care about them, that you care about their children, and that you are glad to be in this world and this culture, even if you are not of this world or this culture. Halloween may serve as a bridge to the hearts of those who live around you who so desperately need a Savior.

Read the rest here

ht: Justin Taylor

missional church outline...

I spoke yesterday at Western Seminary on the Missional Church. It was a good time, but after two hours of that, and two hours later of theology pub, I'm fried. Fried, fried, fried...
And sad. But that's a story for another time.

For any interested, here's the outline I used yesterday. Note well- It's all stolen! If you see Keller's words, Frost's words, FriendofMissional's words, or even your words in this document, be flattered- I only steal from the best!

Seriously though- precious little of this is original, so...
download missional church outline