Missio Dei Suburbia

Choosing Thomas

The Dallas Morning News has posted a video about the story of T. K. and Deidrea Laux, an evangelical couple who decided to give birth to their son, Thomas, despite the fact that he had the DNA abnormality Trisomy 13.

There isn't a person I know who's watched this who hasn't ended up crying like a baby - this is what happens when we come face-to-face with the realities of a broken world and the curse-reversing effects of a love fueled by the gospel.

Missional Communities in the Suburbs

Over on his blog, Jonathan Dodson asked several questions about doing missional communities (what we call community groups at our church) in the suburbs:

1. How would you describe a missional community?
2. Some argue that MCs are only effective in an urban context. Would you agree or disagree?
3. Have your missional communities grown by adding non-Christians?
4. What are your top three best practices for your MCs?
5. What has been your biggest struggle in creating MCs?

My response:

1. Missionaries in community empowered by the gospel.
2. Disagree. The suburbs create additional challenges - such as geographic distance - but there's nothing about any particular context that renders missional communities ineffective.
3. We're in the middle of retro-fitting our existing group system to a more missional DNA. What we're seeing so far is that people are becoming more aware and concerned about the spiritual condition of the people they're around every day. Conversations are taking place. We're starting to make decisions with a particular group of people who don't know Jesus yet in mind.
4. Involve everyone in the life of the group, according to their personality and giftedness. Be intentional and repetitious - use the weekly gathering of the group to bang home your values. Create a compelling and irresistible environment that non-Christians want to be part of.
5. Community groups are a journey, not an event. Mission is more than a series of disconnected weekly events.

Dance Steps

I've been heavily involved in or around campus ministries since 1993 - Arsenio Hall was still on TV and Beavis and Butthead were a cultural phenomenon. So I've seen a few things change since then - but one thing that hasn't changed is the annual tension that flares up between churches and campus ministries in university settings as a new semester begins.

Last month, Steve Lutz laid out the primary issues that feed this tension:

• Are church and parachurch partners, or should they have “sphere sovereignty”?
• Regarding parachurch, is there something inherently illegitimate about its existence?
• Regarding church, should it defer to parachurch’s unique calling and equipping for on-campus ministry?
• How can the local church most effectively serve and reach out to students?
• How actively should parachurch ministries be making local church involvement a priority?
• In the age of house churches, what IS a church, anyway?

Steve's entire post on ecclesiology is helpful - and at the end he lays out this perspective: A missional campus ministry approach utilizes the strengths of parachurch ministries to empower the local church to take its place on the missional edge.

There are two things that keep this kind of partnership from happening:

• Churches who insist on creating a rhythm of life for students that consistently pulls them off of the campus and out of their mission.
• Campus ministries who insist they have the same authority in the lives of students as the local church.

One way forward - and we're seeing this happen through our relationship with Campus Outreach at The University of Georgia - looks like this:

• Churches who encourage and equip campus ministries to do what they do best - incarnating gospel, community and mission in a context where most people in a church do not fit and honestly don't belong (I'm talking to you, Mr. I'm-45-and-wear-my-Auburn-War-Tigers-jersey-every-Saturday).
• Campus ministries who structure their missional rhythms to move students into the life of the local church. Figure out how the church trying to grow students and grace and don't hamstring the church by scheduling events that overlap with those events (NOTE: it helps if churches have a clear and simple pathway of corporate discipleship for students).

I love being able to encourage and equip the men and women who have shaped their entire lives around the mission of Jesus on campus. And as we continually wrap our collective gray matter around these central themes of gospel, community and mission, we're finding a great deal of overlap and the opportunity to give up control and free up students to live out a healthy pattern of life involved in both the local church and the particular work of campus ministry.

In the end, students belong neither to the church nor campus ministry XYZ. They belong to Jesus - and Jesus loves the local church and the local church can join him in his mission on the university campus by raising up and releasing missional tribes on campus.

It's all about learning to dance, boys and girls.

Evangelism - The Tipping Point

One of my favorite quotes from NT Wright's Surprised By Hope:

“When the church is seen to move straight from worship of the God we see in Jesus to making a difference and effecting much-needed change in the real world; when it becomes clear that the people who feast at Jesus’ table are the ones in the forefront of work to eliminate hunger and famine; when people realize that those who pray for the Spirit to work in and through them are the people who seem to have extra resources of love and patience in caring for those whose lives are damaged, bruised, and shamed; then it is not only natural to speak of Jesus himself and to encourage others to worship him for themselves and find out what belonging to his family is all about but it is also natural for people, however irreligious they may think of themselves as being, to recognize that something is going on that they want to be part of. In terms that the author of Acts might have used, when the church is living out the kingdom of God, the word of God will spread powerfully and do its own work.”

(HT: Tony Stiff)

Rethink Mission - Gospel-Centered Churches

Jonathan McIntosh has launched Rethink Mission, an initiative to inspire gospel-centered missional churches. I met Jonathan a year ago at an Acts 29 bootcamp in St. Louis and benefited greatly from both his preaching and hospitality. We've had the opportunity to interact a bit since then and this is a guy I want to continue to listen to and learn from - I'd encourage you to do the same.

Here's a blurb from the Rethink Mission site on gospel-centered churches:

A movement has begun among a diverse group of evangelical churches. Simply, one by one, pastors are coming to the realization that they are not preaching the gospel.

Pause.

Christian churches that do not preach the gospel? Wait. Are they teaching anti-Christian doctrine? Satanism? Snake-handling? Neo-shamanism? (I don’t really even know what neo-shamanism is, but it sure sounds cool.)

Often, it’s not that these churches have fallen into some gross heresy. Most likely, it’s just that over time, they’ve let the gospel slip in favor of another way to try to draw people and change people.

A few of the most prevalent things I’ve seen that can crowd out the gospel:

Moralism – using fear, rules, and commands as the basis for discouraging sin and encouraging holy living, which sadly results in increased self-righteousness among rule-keepers and absolute despair in those who are unable to live up.

Pragmatism – when in an effort to reach new people, church leaders spend more time teaching helpful techniques or useful principles than actually pointing people to the only thing that has real power to change both hearts and lives.

Political agendas – out of a desire to get involved in the public square and to influence policy, Christians of every political stripe often begin to equate the spread of the gospel with the growth of a specific political party or platform.

What’s tricky is that usually these –isms start with a noble aspiration: a desire to help people change & grow, a desire to reach out to people far from God, a desire to use influence to change the way things are done.

Unfortunately when something other than God is our primary goal, no matter how good that goal is, we will eventually start taking short cuts to get what we want accomplished.

A gospel-centered church understands that change or transformation of any kind, especially authentic heart-transformation, cannot happen apart from the gospel of grace.

A gospel-centered church roots and keeps the focus of all its activity – teaching, worship, outreach, social activism, and discipleship – honed in on the gospel: the riches of the grace of God available through of the sacrificial death of Jesus for sinners.

Because of this, a gospel-centered church is committed to:

• Reading & teaching the entire Bible in light of the gospel.

• Preaching the gospel to believers, not just unbelievers.

• Leaders applying the gospel to themselves first; church leaders are the first repenters.

• Cultivating a leadership culture marked by ever increasing “gospel astonishment.”

• Being known for an atmosphere of grace; gospel-centered churches are safe places for seekers, skeptics and those outside of the faith.

• Producing people who don’t just know the doctrine of the gospel but who love the person of Jesus Christ.

These are the themes that we are committed to fleshing out together in greater detail at Rethink Mission.

At the end of the day, grace isn’t just something we “get” and the cross is not just some object in time. These things hinge on a person. At the center of it all is a person.

Jesus.

In an age when his name is easily tossed around or relegated to some minor point of doctrine used to win arguments and manipulate people, we long for the day when Jesus is seen for what he is: the hero of the story.

Gospel, Community, Mission - Questions for People Who Struggle

Here are three questions I've started asking people who are struggling with life:

• Who's walking through this with you? (Big Idea: you were created for community)
• Who are you serving this week? (Big Idea: you were created to join God in his mission)
• Are you moving closer to or further away from Jesus? (Big Idea: you were created for Jesus)

These serve as basic ontological questions for those of us who suffer - reminding us of both our identity and purpose. They've been helpful with other Christians but last week I had two opportunities to ask these questions to people who aren't part of Jesus' family...yet. Both conversations were fruitful - both for the present situation and in providing open doors in the days ahead.

Discipleship Begins At Home

Dream: to see churches disciple children more effectively.

Making that dream possible: churches who equip parents to disciple their kids.

Winfield Bevins provides parents with a helpful list of practical ways to pass along the Christian faith to their children:

• Find a good children’s Bible.
• Remember to have fun with your children while learning the Bible.
• Keep the time brief to hold the child's attention.
• Recite the verse several times a day in your child's presence so it becomes familiar to them.
• Make flash cards with Scripture on one side and the book, chapter, and verse on the other.
• Put the verse to music or rhythm. Your child will enjoy singing and clapping their hands.
• Think of fun activities to make the verse fun and easy to remember.
• Tell them you are proud of them and have them recite it to someone else, like a grandparent or teacher.
• Pray with your children every day at meals and before they go to bed at night.

Check out Winfield's entire series of posts on discipleship in the home here.

Seth Godin and Porterbrook

A few days ago, Seth Godin posed three questions about the future of higher education:

• Should it be scarce or abundant?
• Should it be free or expensive?
• Should it be about school or learning?

Then reminding us that there are eight combinations of the three choices, he predicts that 'the free, abundant, learning combination is the one that's going to change the world.'

Well, that's what a few of us who are planting and pastoring Acts 29 churches in Georgia are banking on. We're launching a satellite hub of The Porterbrook Network to provide affordable, graduate-level training for church planters, elders, deacons, church staff, interns and campus ministry staff. More details coming soon...

Total Church Study Guide

There have been several books that have radically reshaped my thinking, values, and behavior - the most recent has been Total Church by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester. When I first read it a couple of years ago, it turned just about everything I thought about church on its head. The result has been a methodical process of working with our leaders to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, resulting in a church that intends to live and function as missionaries in community empowered by the gospel.

A few weeks ago, another A29 church produced a study guide to help people walk through Timmis and Chester's book - here's more information:

The Resurgence:

An A29 church has created a free study guide to go along with the Re:Lit book Total Church, by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. The well-designed 32-page study guide is available for free PDF download here. We’ve talked with Steve Timmis, and he’s excited about this free resource.

For more related resources:

• View video and audio from the Total Church Training at Mars Hill.
• Read the Total Church blog series.
• Get Total Church in the Re:Lit library.

(HT: JT)

Reaching College Tribes Around Athens

Just finished Benson Hines' Reaching The College Tribes - if you care about college students, the contemporary university culture, and/or mission(s) then you should check it out (for free) here.

One of the concepts that I found most helpful in the book is the idea of Aggressive Progress - 'a lifetime of strategic modifications in response to changing students, a changing campus, a growing understanding of the tribe, and God's work within the ministry and its leaders' (52). Such progress isn't measured by numeric growth per se, choosing instead to take a much broader view of the ever-expanding work of God, including:

• impacting students more deeply
• becoming a healthier ministry
• more creatively impacting the campus
• better reaching the entire mission field (including under‐reached student groups, faculty, administration members, and even the surrounding community)
• better preparing students for life after college
• better helping freshmen transition into college
• better complementing and cooperating with other campus ministries

In addition, the book furthered some thoughts/ideas/dreams I've had about missional ministry to students in and around Athens:

• Capturing and casting a regional vision that includes UGA but also includes other campuses such as Gainesville State College in Watkinsville (more than 2,300 students)
• Collaborative network among existing campus ministries and churches that serve the campus
• Focus on contextualized, incarnational mission
• Framed by helping students transition into school and out into post-grad life
• Cutting edge, creative, communal, gospel-saturated
• Emphasizing a patient yet persistent process of holistic spiritual formation

Now comes the fun part - prayer and conversations to shape and move this thing forward.