Church Follows Mission

You can read the whole post from Alan Hirsch here, but this quote is worth considering:

"The church follows mission and not the other way around."

Hirsch's argument is simple, and he is not alone in his opinion. In my reading and research over the past six or seven years into the nature of church, it is clear that much of the effort given to working out a "transferable model" of church - whether your definition of transferable involves a large megachurch infrastructure or tiny, informally connected house churches - has failed to produce the desired results on a wide scale. Touting a particular model might increase the presence of a brand name or coax more pastors to a leadership conference, but church is notoriously difficult to franchise. That is why the new fad of megachurches is to create satellite services instead of planting multiple churches. Technology makes it easier to broadcast what is already "successful" rather than risk something that might fail. On the other side of the spectrum, house church leaders attempt to reproduce what worked in their neighborhood, or in China, or the book of Acts. But I don't live in their neighborhood, or in China, or in first century Asia.

Mission, God's mission, is all about place and is inherently risky. When you are sent to participate in some aspect of God's mission - remember the definition is broader than you think - you are first called to somewhere concrete. The gameplan, tools, and resources necessary to actually do the mission come later, usually not on your timetable. Along the way, you will make friends, allies, and perhaps partners, but it is in the course of following the mission that church appears. Predicting the form that church will take, or its "model", is irrelevant compared to following the mission.

God's Mission, Not Ours

Jesus' final words to his disciples were: "...You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8 The disciples were about to embark on the adventure of their lives, yet at that time they had very little understanding of their role, the purpose of the mission laid before them, or the means. To modern ears, that doesn't sound like very good leadership on Jesus' part. Where were the strategic plans? The financial backers? The measurable goals? According to the scriptures (Acts 1:6), the disciples still seemed to believe Jesus was going to overthrown the Romans and set up a new government. They were doomed to fail by our standards!

Yet, a few days later, the Holy Spirit came as promised and everything changed. In a short time, the disciples were scattered all over Palestine preaching, doing miracles, healing the sick, and proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom, fulfilling Jesus' prophecy. Later, as Paul and other leaders came on the scene, the focus became building strong, networked communities of faith all over Asia. However, the early church's reliance on the Holy Spirit for leadership and power did not diminish.

In these times, we are again discovering the unique role the Holy Spirit has in guiding the Church towards God's mission to the world. There really is no substitute for what Jesus promised in Acts 1:8, in spite of our best strategies for "reaching people" and regardless of how big our budgets are. However, there are a few questions worth exploring. Have the Church and missionary organizations around the world become so enamoured with their ability to organize results, that they have lost the simplicity of being guided step-by-step and empowered by the Holy Spirit? How can we learn to live in the reality Jesus promised in Acts 1:8? What would that mean for us in our vocation and as leaders? How would that change the way we view personal evangelism, outward expressions of the local church, and missions in other contexts around the world?

I intended starting another blog to explore some of these issues, but it probably makes more sense to just explore them here. Of course, the place to start is looking at what mission and its variations might look like from a kingdom perspective. This means looking at our activities as the Church and as disciples of Jesus as subject to the reign (or authority) of God rather than our own organizational constructs. Obviously, this is not the first century and we can never reproduce what the disciples experienced after Pentecost. However, we can seek to become the kinds of people who receive direction and power from the Holy Spirit and learn to see each other as part of the same family, with the same Father. The kingdom levels the playing field; there are no "experts", just those who listen and act accordingly.

Happy Birthday Chloe

From the beginning this blog has been a sort of journal to record our milestones as we move along in "The Way". Today is one such milestone. This time 4 years ago, Chloe Faith Bishop was born at 6 lbs 4 oz and was as feisty then as she is now. It was a milestone of sorts when I reconfigured the vans car seat positions this morning. Jackson went to a backless booster, Chloe finally had enough height and weight to go into a standard booster and Hudson moved into Chloe's old seat. It was exciting for them all. For me it was a reminder that life is short. Children grow in every way possible and as parents we grow right along with them. We named her Chloe because it means verdant and blooming and gave her the middle name Faith. We pray that she always has a "verdant and blooming faith" that has such sweet fragrance it attracts those who need the light and the salt of our King. We love you sweet princess. Happy day to you.

Guerrilla Engineering

I'm in Key West for the next few days doing some guerrilla engineering. A contractor we've done some work for in the past hired us to basically redesign the air conditioning system for a hotel that is currently under renovation. It's kind of like Extreme Makeover, HVAC Edition. Might sound boring to you...but I'm blogging from the Hyatt overlooking the Gulf...not a bad working environment.

Happy Mother's Day

To all of you Mamas who read the blog. Have a great day!

The Jesus Way

When I began writing and publishing on this blog five years ago, there was generally a small audience of people who were reading each other’s blogs as a source of encouragement and hope. Many of us had just begun rethinking what it means to be the church, Christian leadership, and what it means to follow Jesus in our culture. Over the years following, some of the questions we asked produced what seemed to some to be an overly critical spirit towards the status quo church in America. After all, different strokes for different folks, right? At least that seems to be the argument when criticism - or I think it could be more accurately described as “critique” - of the church is the topic of conversation. We have our way of doing things, other churches do it differently. “Why can’t we all just get along?” Or so the argument goes.

And then I pick up Eugene Peterson’s new book, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way. Peterson is, quite simply, a dude that commands respect from a pretty wide spectrum of the church. Of course, there are biblio-fundamentalists who do not care for The Message all that much, but most at least give him credit for the sheer magnitude of the work he has done. Personally, I think he’s one of the most important voices leaders in the North American church should be listening to and allowing to influence their thinking. The Jesus Way is the third book in his Magnum Opus, a five-book “spiritual theology”. The introduction alone, in my opinion, is worth the price of the book.

What is so striking about Peterson is that he can get away with writing words that he knows, and we know, we need to hear:

“The local congregation is the primary place for dealing with the particulars and people we live with. As created and sustained by the Holy Spirit, it is insistently local and personal. Unfortunately, the more popular American church strategies in respect to congregation are not friendly to the local and personal. The American way with its penchant for catchy slogans and stirring visions denigrates the local, and its programmatic ways of dealing with people erode the person, replacing intimacies with functions.” – pg. 5

Later on in the same section, he completes the thought…

“The great American innovation in congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise…It didn’t take long for some of our Christian brothers and sisters to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our congregations is to identify what they want and offer it to them…This is the language we Americans grow up on, the language we understand. We are the world’s champion consumers, so why shouldn’t we have state-of-the-art consumer churches?

Give the conditions prevailing in our culture, this is the best and most effective way that has ever been devised for gathering large and prosperous congregations. Americans lead the world in showing how to do it. There is only one thing wrong: this is not the way in which God brings us into conformity with the life of Jesus and sets us on the way of Jesus’ salvation…The cultivation of consumer spirituality is the antithesis of a sacrificial, “deny yourself” congregation. A consumer church is an antichrist church.” – pg.6

Did he just say what I thought he said? I can hear the counter-arguments being formed. ”But Eugene, what about all the people that just will never go to church unless it is entertaining?” “But Eugene, how will we ever reach the teenagers if we don’t have Dance Dance Revolution in the youth building and post our sermons on YouTube?” “But Eugene, what about the Baby Boomers? They don’t give their money unless the church looks like it’s doing something meaningful.”

A consumer church is an antichrist church.

Man, that’s uncomfortable. Not going to sell that many books if you keep saying things like that Eugene.

AAdvantage Miles...Anyone?

So I'm scheduled to go back to Peru in a few weeks with Mike Bourque and his teenage son and daughter. This trip will be for a week and will follow up on relationships formed back in October on my first trip. Anyway, we are trying to round up enough American Airlines miles to get a ticket for Amber and possibly Jackson as well if we can swing it.

If you have any miles you could donate, please let me know by sending an email to mike at rgdengineers dot com. Also, if you feel led to contribute financially, you can send money to paypal at the button below:

Hello Tooth fairy

Jackson lost his first baby tooth yesterday and I almost cried. He actually had it pulled because it was abscessing. He fell on it with his bike about 2 months ago and the dentist said to watch it. we did and sure enough, on Friday a small bump appeared on his gum above the tooth. I called and they said come in immediately. He was such a trooper. He decided the tooth was too cool to actually let the tooth fairy have it. Mike and I forgot last night to replace it and so he found it again under his pillow this morning. Jackson woke up and said, she didn't take it and Mike explained that she was out of change it would be back tonight to get it. Jackson thought about it later and said "I don't want her to have it, I want to show my friends. Can she mail me the change?" You could actually see his mind thinking "Change? this thing is way too cool to let go of for only a quarter." You have got to love kids!

In other news.... He also correctly used the word "frigging" in a sentence and Mike and I just about dropped our jaws. It took every fiber in my being not to laugh hysterically. He said "Mom can you brush my hair our of my eyes, so I can see my Frigging food?" When we said he should never say that word he responded with "But you say it?" So guess who wont be saying that work anymore around the household.