Missio Dei Suburbia

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.

Baby Steps

I'm reading - and my mind is churning over - Skye Jethani's The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity. Ed Stetzer recently did an interview with Skye that produced this quote:

We've embraced the mission of Christ, but we simply cannot wrap our minds around how to do what Jesus envisions.

That sentence pretty much sums up my life and our story as a church.

Bigger Is Better

One of my best reads in 2008 was Paul Tripp's book, A Quest For More: Living for something bigger than you. Justin Buzzard posted a helpful overview of the book:

I found it helpful how Tripp stated the big idea (he calls it "the bottom line") of each chapter at the outset of each chapter and finished each chapter with a "final question."

Below are both the 17 big ideas and the 17 final questions of the 18 chapter book (above is the table of contents). It's worth your time to work through this list. It's worth your time to work through the whole book.

1. You were created to be part of something big. What is the big thing that you are living for right now?

2. Sin causes us to talk about more, but to settle for less. What is the "less" that tends to capture your attention?

3. Since sin has damaged everything, God calls us to be concerned about everything. Have you treated the size of God's grace as if it were no longer than the size of your personal concerns?

4. Each of our lives is shaped by the war between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of self. What earth-bound treasures and anxiety-bound needs tend to control you and your responses to life?

5. You and I are always being civilized and civilizing others into the culture of some kind of kingdom. In what ways do you try to get the people around you to follow the rules of your kingdom of self?

6. The most dangerous thing about the kingdom of self is how easily it masquerades as the kingdom of God. In your everyday life right now, where are you telling yourself that you are living for God when you are really living for yourself?

7. Sin causes all of us to shrink the size of our lives to the size of our lives. Has the energy of your life been expended in the narrow world of personal wants, needs, and concerns?

8. Big kingdom living mean living with Christ at the center of everything I think, desire, say, and do. What tend to compete with Christ for the center of your world?

9. In calling us to die, Christ is actually rescuing us from death and giving us real life. In your everyday situations and relationships, where are you finding it hard to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Christ?

10. At street level, big kingdom living is Jesus-focused living. What is the focus of your life's energies and intentions?

11. This side of eternity, there should be a dissatisfaction in all of us with the way things are. What are the things that make you groan?

12. God calls us to the vertically interactive lifestyle of living in moment-by-moment harmony with him. Where in your life are you tempted to write your own music rather than making harmonious music with the king?

13. Big kingdom living is all about the humility of seeking forgiveness and the grace of granting it. Do you find joy in the liberating lifestyle of seeking forgiveness?

14. Life in the kingdom of God is like waiting for the love of your life to return. Where in your life are the "other lovers" that compete with your love for Christ?

15. Jesus calls us to offer him everything so that we can be free from the things that have a hold on us. Whose kingdom are you making sacrifices for right now?

16. Life in the big kingdom is all about being good and angry. Right now, where do you live every day, whose kingdom does your anger serve?

17. True hope, the kind that will never disappoint, is never hope in a thing, but hope in a person. Where do you tend to look for daily hope?

Darrin Patrick - Life with Non-Christians

I've heard the audio to this a good half-dozen times. The first 1:30 always ruins me...

The Vanishing Suburbs

Completely agree with Kevin Cawley's post below:

It has been interesting to read some of the conversations related to Time Magazine's The New Calvinism (10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now).

I haven't seen as many Christians talking about No. 2: Recycling the Suburbs:

The American suburb as we know it is dying. The implosion began with the housing bust, which started in and has hit hardest the once vibrant neighborhoods outside the urban core. Shopping malls and big-box retail stores, the commercial anchors of the suburbs, are going dark — an estimated 148,000 stores closed last year, the most since 2001. But the shift is deeper than the economic downturn. Thanks to changing demographics, including a steady decline in the percentage of households with kids and a growing preference for urban -amenities among Americans young and old, the suburban dream of the big house with the big lawn is vanishing. The Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech predicts that by 2025 there will be a surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (on one-sixth of an acre [675 sq m] or more) in the U.S. (read more)

Christ Community Church - Tribe or Mission?

The next few months are going to determine the identity and rhythm of life for Christ Community Church - will we embrace and live out our existence as a tribe or a mission?

From Tullian:

There’s a radical difference between tribal and missionary mindsets. The highest value of the tribal-minded is self-protection. Since these people feel safest around those just like them, they ask, “How can I protect myself from those who are different?” They intentionally surround themselves with those who think the way they think, like the things they like, and despise the things they despise.

We all seek out sameness, as John Seel notes: “We cope by settling into our safe intellectual cliques—our favorite blog, cable channel, or e-zine—where our own views are reinforced and applauded. Without really trying, we can easily lose sight of the wider horizon and fail to listen to those who do not think as we do.”

As a result, tribally minded people live with a sense of superiority, looking down on those who are unlike them. This is the “fashionable” posture of our culture.

In contrast, the highest aim of mission-minded people is not self-protection but self-sacrifice. Mission-minded people exist not primarily for themselves but for others. They’re willing to set aside personal preferences in service to those with different preferences. They’re willing to be inconvenienced, discomforted, and spent for the well-being of others.

Driscoll Interviews Chandler

What Do You Do Better Than Your Friends?

Loved this post from Abraham Piper over at 22 Words:

What are you better at than other people?...Now you know what you should be doing for them.

It’s arrogant to revel in your superiority.

But that’s different than reveling in the opportunity your superiority gives you to serve others.

To help you discover the joy of living out what you do best in the places you love doing those things, we've created an environment called .design. Next session is Sunday evening, April 5th from 6:30-9:00pm.

If you live in the Athens/Watkinsville/UGA area and want to sign up, shoot an email to [email protected].

Struggling to Live on Mission?

Why do we have such a hard time living among non-Christians and loving them into the kingdom?

From Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

Once a man has the love of Christ in his heart you need not train him to witness; he will do it. He will know the power, the constraint, the motive; everything is already there. It is a plain lie to suggest that people who regard this knowledge of the love of Christ as the supreme thing are useless, unhealthy mystics. The servants of God who have most adorned the life and the history of the Christian Church have always been men who have realized that this is the most important thing of all, and they have spent hours in prayer seeking His face and enjoying His love. The man who knows the love of Christ in his heart can do more in one hour than the busy type of man can do in a century. God forbid that we should ever make of activity an end in itself. Let us realize that the motive must come first, and that the motive must ever be the love of Christ.

(HT: Adrian Warnock)

No More Quiet Times

I grew up thinking that being spiritual meant having a 'quiet time' - pulling away from life and the world to read the Bible and pray on my own.

Over the past few years, I've grown dissatisfied with the 'quiet time' as a normative rhythm of spirituality. I'll let Tim Chester fill in the blanks - from The Resurgence:

What images do spirituality or spiritual activity conjure in your mind? I guess many people think of praying alone away from the noise of the family, or sitting in contemplation on retreat in a rural place. It’s about what I do alone, rather than what I do with other people. Spirituality has come to be about solitude, calm, silence.

In reality, though, this is spirituality for the well-off. It’s only for those who can afford to go on retreat or have space in their home where they can be quiet. It won’t work for the single mother in a small apartment. It won’t work for the migrant worker who goes to work at six in the morning. It’s not urban spirituality. And it’s not biblical spirituality

Biblical spirituality is about:

• Bible meditation, not mystical silence
• Passionate engagement, not rural retreat
• Growing together, not individual solitude

In other words, biblical spirituality, at its core, is about the word of God, the mission of God, and the community of God.