Missio Dei Suburbia

Single Dudes and Church Planting

We've got a growing number of guys who are at UGA or just finished up who are seriously thinking about church planting. Most of them aren't married and would be the first to admit that there are no immediate prospects to change that in their world. Knowing how much I need my wife and love my boys, I get asked if a single man can and should plant a church. I'll let Scott Thomas, Director of Acts 29 (one of the groups we're partnered with along with the PCA), answer that question...

Parts 2 and 3...

Total Church Conference Audio and Video

From Jonathan Dodson:

Soak it up. Here is the first installment of resources from the Total Church Conference. You won’t agree with all of it, which is exactly why you need it. Chester’s session on the Community-centered Gospel had a significant effect on me.

Praxis Church - Tempe, Arizona

This is a really good article on one of our fellow Acts 29 churches out in Arizona. Take a minute to pray for the church, including their lead pastor, Justin Anderson.

The Strange Kindness of God

Most weeks, 9:00 on a Sunday morning would have me wrapping up preparations for our Sunday morning worship gathering at Christ Church. I'm usually skimming over my sermon manuscript and praying for God to make something of the mess on paper.

This morning I'm not preaching. And neither is anyone else. At least not at Christ Church because our leadership made a decision last night to cancel our worship gathering this morning because of the probability of icy conditions on the roads following yesterday's outbreak of wintry weather. The only problem is that there doesn't seem to be much ice on the roads...and it's bugging me.

So here's my brain - on the one hand I know that our decision was made based on the information we received and due to the fact that a couple other churches around town had already made the same decision or were very much considering doing the same. On the other hand, we're all sitting at home on a cold but relatively dry day. I don't like how that looks...does it mean we don't take God seriously? Does it mean that we don't value worshiping God together? Were we looking for an excuse to take a Sunday off?

These are the grenades getting launched at my head and heart - and at times I've felt like a coward and the very thing I don't want us to be...willing to set God aside at the first sign of trouble. But in the midst of that comes the strange kindness of God that reminds me that while he certainly could work in and through the fact that a nasty head cold has left me with almost no voice and a hacking cough, maybe this morning was his way of sparing all of us the adventure of me trying to preach through that. My wife gets a rare Sunday to sleep in and I get to have breakfast and play with Jonathan. Spending a morning away from everyone at Christ Church has reminded me how much I love being with these friends every week.

So while it is good and normal to gather with people to be made new once again by God's covenant love, sometimes he loves us in ways that aren't normal. To those of you who are able to gather in worship this morning, enjoy it and don't take the privilege for granted. For those of you at Christ Church this morning or in other places where gathered worship isn't going to happen, would you rest in the love of your Father who provides all we need even when we doubt ourselves and the place our decisions have left us.

Educating and Preparing Pastors

Al Mohler: I emphatically believe that the best and most proper place for the education and preparation of pastors is in the local church.

That's coming from the president of one of the most influential seminaries in the country.

This is why we're thinking through ways to connect with other churches to help equip and raise up men to plant and pastor Reformed, missional churches.

Discipleship and the Old Testament

Yesterday, I preached on discipleship from Matthew 28:18-20 as a reminder that discipleship is the holistic mission of the local church (pulled from the words 'all', 'baptize' and 'go' - which summarize the teaching of the entire Scriptures about what it looks like to follow Jesus or to 'walk in the way of the Lord').

My main point was this - God's mission in the world is to set things right...to put broken things back together. Created in his image for his glory, that mission must become our mission as the Church. Discipleship is teaching and equipping people to join God in his mission of fixing the broken things in their world.

From an Old Testament perspective, discipleship is learning 'the way of the Lord' (ex. Deuteronomy 10:12-19) - doing righteousness and justice for the sake of the oppressed and against the oppressor. This means that in the context of our particular communities, we must do what needs to be done in a given situation ('justice') if people and circumstances are to be restored to conformity with righteousness. That might help us understand how we shape our discipleship in the suburban church - we must teach actions (there is something we must do) because there is something God intends to achieve.

From the perspective of Reformed theology and our penchant to do cognitive discipleship that struggles to connect to affections and behavior, this biblical focus on action-driven discipleship is a needed counterbalance. Theology is critically important - but it has little value apart from its connection to our mission of righteousness and justice in the world around us.

So let's be about a discipleship that weaves together doctrine, ethics and mission. God has chosen and created a community of people who live in such a way that God's purposes to bless the nations actually happens. Mission shapes what we believe about the church - we exist to put broken things together. Mission shapes what we believe about election and predestination - 'God's choosing is not an end in itself but a means to the greater end of the ingathering of the nations. Election must be missiological, not merely soteriological.' (Wright, 369).

Dear Santa...

If you  feel called by God to send me here or here for a Christmas present, I won't hate you for it.

Mission to Suburbia

Steve McCoy has started a new page on his blog (which is one of my favorites) entitled Mission to Suburbia - should provide lots of great resources on doing ministry in suburbia.

The only problem I can see is that he's put this blog up as the first resource. God help us all.

Wide Awake in America

Ed Stetzer posts on the state of church planting in  America.

The Bible As Messianic and Missional

From Christopher Wright's The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative:

Jesus himself provided the [interpretive focus] within which all disciples must read these texts, that is, in the light of the story that leads up to Christ (messianic reading) and the story that leads on from Christ (missional reading). That is the story that flows from the mind and purpose of God in all the Scriptures for all the nations. That is a missional hermeneutic of the whole Bible. (41)