Missio Dei Suburbia

Shoot 'Em or Save 'Em - The Decisions We Face as Missional Churches in the Deep South

Yep...

From Jared Wilson:

To the cultural Christian, there is nothing attractive about a small church that expects relational community, practices regular neighborhood service, highlights the cost of discipleship in every message, has a minimalist menu of programs to partake from, and gives most of its money away (precluding a "nice" facility and assorted bells and whistles). But I want to reach them. All Christians are family. I love the big-C Church dearly.

There are some who would say the missional communities should just write off their attractional brothers and sisters and focus on reaching the lost. I defy false dichotomies. And while I never poach (I've never invited members of other churches to mine before they themselves have first expressed interest in visiting), I pray and preach AND BLOG and try to live a life of witness so that my churched brothers and sisters will begin to crave the gospel and gospel-centrism in their congregations.

The more churched converts gospel-centrism receives -- we're talking about revival here, by the way -- the greater impact for the kingdom among the lost and "least of these" there will be, in the Bible Belt and beyond.

Read the rest here.

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)

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.

The Suburbs - Bouncing Back

The Sub*text linked to this article from Forbes and New Geography about the burgeoning resurgence of the suburbs. It's a reminder that while urban planners - and even church planting movements - focus on the city, the reality is that most of the population of the U.S. lives in a suburban context.

Rethinking the Evils of Suburbia

Todd Hiestand argues that it's unhelpful to continue to bash the suburbs and asks how we can take the strengths that are here and leverage them for the good of God's Kingdom. He focuses on housing and calls us to be good stewards of our homes and express hospitality in a culture of isolation.

Read the article here.

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.

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.

Matt Chandler - Amen