Missio Dei Suburbia

NT Wright on Everyday Life

Short interview with NT Wright on how individuals and churches honor God in everyday life.

You must always come back to prayer, worship, and Bible study. Make sure that Christians are not going hollow in the middle individually or corporately.  But, then let it flow out. First, focus on mission. Second, grow leadership. Third, encourage discipleship.  Then, act collaboratively. That means the church helps the local education authority, the local housing committee, the police force, whatever it may be. Let’s work with everyone who we can. 

You can read the entire interview here.

Coaching - Gospel Conversations

If you're looking for help in starting and sustaining gospel conversations, these posts from Chris Walker should do the trick:

These are in no particular order, but rather a list of some of the most popular sought after articles on Chris' website regarding personal evangelism.

1. Take the Risk, Offer to Pray.
2. Scripts for Evangelism
3. The power of testimony
4. God is at work — Do you see it?
5. Conversion Stories in the NT — Pisidian Antioch
6. Look for God’s activity
7. Beginning a Conversation about Christ
8. Take a Look Across the Room
9. Dot on a Watch
10. Helpful Questions for the Evangelist
11. Three ways to repel / Three ways to attract
12. Ashamed of the Gospel?
13. 15 ways to Keep your Evangelism Passion High
14. Prayer and Evangelism
15. Evangelism PAINS
16. Evangelism 101: Beginning to Share your Faith.
17. Compelled to share?
18. God — The Evangelist
19. 20 Fears about Personal Evangelism
20. Guest Article: Sharing your faith in the ordinary course of life
21. Fit your evangelism style to your personality
22. Keeping Your Evangelism Passion Hot
23. Evangelism Oozing from our Pores (on motivations)
24. Define Evangelism Series
25. Personal Testimony Questionnaire
26. Personal Evangelism Mentoring
27. Ten Devotional Questions about Your Evangelism
28. Evangelism as Storytelling
29. Role of the Holy Spirit in Evangelism
30. Evangelistic Conversation Starter Questions
31. Ten Prayer Points For your Friends
32. How to Practice a Gospel Presentation
33. Using Questions In Spiritual Conversations
34. 44 Spiritual Conversation Starter Questions
35. 5 Evangelism Tips for Pastors
36. The Big Story – Improving the Bridge Illustration
37. 10 practical ways of sharing your faith
38. 20 Evangelism Questions To Start a conversation
39. The Holy Spirit Prepares the Way
40. Respecting Boundaries in Conversation
41. How the Holy Spirit Directs Evangelism
42. 7 Tips For More Spiritual Conversations
43. Drifting Away from the World

Myth - The Suburbs Are Safe

From the Life Together blog:

Dave Gibbons pastors a church in Irving, California which was recently given the title, ”Safest City in America” (over 100,000 people) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on June 1, 2009.  But he would like to submit that suburbs just like his may actually be the most dangerous places in America.

The suburban enclaves—with their middle-class citizens and well- manicured lawns, gates and guards protecting their Orwellian lifestyle and toys, Starbucks a few minutes from each busy intersection, and some of the best schools in the country—may actually be the most dangerous places to live. We may not have the high murder counts or robberies that urban centers have, but I wonder if the suburbs have become breeding grounds for the accessible and shallow thrills of drugs and alcohol abuse, extravagant parties and proms, and mere facades of happiness and the American dream. Just ask your local city drug dealer about his primary consumers: suburban teenagers and college students.

I’m not a researcher, but my gut impression from my travels and interactions with youth in the major cities of the world, as well as in suburbs and rural communities, is that they are all equally dangerous, just in different ways.

The dangers of the suburbs entail the lack of imagination (where do you find real art museums, innovative music venues, and creative opportunities to explore nature?); materialism; greed; isolation behind cookie-cutter neighborhoods and homogeneous clubs and churches; boredom: apathy; fascination with the relevant more than the real; a love affair with popularity more than loving the poor; and a thirst for excitement superficially satisfied in the Friday night party. All this takes precedence over a dangerous ride with God on the frontlines of his movement.  (Read the whole thing …)

Download John Piper's New Book for Free

From the Desiring God blog:

John Piper's new book Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ is now available for download. Get it for free.

What Makes People Effective For Mission...

...is their passion for the mission.

I had lunch last week with David Melton, campus director for Campus Outreach at UGA. I love having David and Jenny at our church and have a lot of fun watching God use David and the rest of the CO team on the campus. We were talking about CO's Summer Beach Project and the reason why some students really embrace talking about Jesus with complete strangers on the beach while other students would rather take a 5-iron to the temple. Here's what we came up with...

The critical difference between those who thrive in that environment and those who struggle had less to do with skill or personality than it did with sheer conviction and passion. People who enjoyed having those conversations on the beach thrived; those who didn't want to be there wilted.

Here's what that means for the rest of us - go where your passions collide with real need. Follow the leading of the Holy Spirit who wires you to enjoy people, places and events that desperately need the hope and freedom of the gospel. I know you don't think that your quirky hobby has any kingdom value but what if you were able to bring the values of God's kingdom into an arena that you love to be in already?

Here's how one man pulled it off - by starting a blog for fans of his favorite NBA team.

Don't wait for someone else to write your story for you. Look for needs in the people and places you love and do something about it.

The Goal of the Gospel

From a great blog - Of First Importance:

“The object of the work of redemption is not limited to the salvation of individual sinners, but extends itself to the redemption of the world, and to the organic reunion of all things in heaven and on earth under Christ as their original head.

The final outcome of the future, foreshadowed in the Holy Scriptures, is not the merely spiritual existence of saved souls, but the restoration of the entire cosmos, when God will be all in all under the renewed heaven on the renewed earth.”

—Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 2008), 105-106

The Necessity of Mission for Small Groups

From Drew Goodmanson:

Kaleo Church is still learning what it means to be a community of believers gathering throughout the week in homes across the county. We call these groups Missional Communities. Why? Our desire is that we would be gospel-centered communities on mission. As we’ve got a few years into this church plant there are a couple observations:

To Clarify…A Missional Community is not PRIMARILY:
1. A Small Group
2. A Bible Study
3. A Support Group
4. A Social Activist Group
5. A Weekly Meeting

1. Small Groups as Bible Studies are the easiest to form but the most dangerous.
Why are they dangerous? In our early days we did much more class or Bible study gatherings. What we found is that theology “in theory” often leads to knowledge without wisdom. Thinking through the problem of evil and suffering in abstraction is quite different than sitting next to a young couple that lost their baby. Groups should use theology to re-orient people back to God/Truth but in such a way that it is focused on heart transformation and right thinking. Sometimes we call this teaching “theology on mission” since the aim of the theology is directed to specific worldview conversion.

2. Small Groups that deal with Support of one-another inevitably become exclusive and accommodating.
While not as easy as a Bible study, a support group can become the default when people are not on mission. Recently a church decided to move to a neighborhood small group model. Several of the ‘established’ small groups resisted. They provided an apologetic saying that their group had 30-years of deep relationship building that wouldn’t allow others to jump into this deepness they sought. 30 years of not being on mission will lead to exclusiveness and without mission the group will never get beyond itself.

3. Missional groups without a Community Centered on the Gospel can not last.
A missional group will quickly run into circumstances that require it to drink from the grace-renewal well of the gospel. Groups that gather around good causes and can-do attitude will eventually peter out as people become absorbed into something else or lack the motivation to continue.

Mission is a necessity for small groups to avoid #1 & #2 because mission requires gospel-supporting of one another that causes us to stand on the promises and truths in God’s word. Our hope is that our understanding of God’s word is intensified, our support through gospeling of one another is continual and the result is mission that causes us to seek the Kingdom of God first in all we do.