NC Conference



Significant Quotes For Discussion – Missional Church#1 “Missio Dei” In the 1950s a theologian named Karl Hartenstein connected these Latin words in a phrase, which literally translates, the God of mission. Hartenstein was anxious for the church to understand that mission belongs to and describes God’s work. As Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost remind us, “We, the church, become partners in what God is doing, but it is never our initiative alone. Those who are taken captive by Jesus see mission not merely as a practice preferred by God, but as an aspect of His very character. (God) is mission.”#2 Alan Roxburgh notes: “Mission is not something that the church does as an activity, it is what the church is through the mystery of its formation and memory of its calling. The church is God’s missionary people. There is no participation in Christ without participation in God’s mission in the world. The church in North America to a large extent has lost this memory to the point that the mission is but a single element in multi-faceted, programmatic congregations serving the needs of it’s members. The gospel is now a religious message that meets the needs of self-actualizing individuals. But the North American Church is being invited by the boundary-breaking Spirit to discover once again its nature as GOD’S missionary people. This will mean going against the stream of most church life at this moment in time.”#3 Dr. Ken Callahan offers us this prophetic word:We spend too much time trying to get people to come to the church building. We need to invest more time being the church – with the people – in the world. How many times have you heard it said (and with pride), “We were there every time the church doors were open? I would guess you have heard it far more often than: “We were there to help when a person experienced hurt and hope. The locus of the church in a churched culture is the church building. The locus of the church on a mission field is at the front lines of human hurts and hopes.”Australian writer, Alan Hirsch describes the current day with these words:“A good church upbringing will do many wonderful things for you. Unfortunately it will also teach you that Jesus is to be worshipped, but not followed..”#4 (parepidemos) as Eugene Peterson reminds us: is a word that reminds us that we are people who spend our lives going someplace, going to God, and whose path for getting there is the way, Jesus Christ. The future of the Christian movement lies not with offices and organizations, but with the pilgrimage of common people …… traveling together as house, cell, class or cyber-fellowship.The primary reason churches begin to plateau is because we begin to function as institutions tied to a location rather than a movement that is portable enough to follow Jesus wherever he goes. We begin to expect people to come to us instead of following the example of Jesus and going to them. #5 Alan Hirsch writes:“Engagement with Jesus must move us beyond being spectators to participants. If we wish to become like him, we must learn to participate in Jesus, actively applying him and his teachings to our lives. We cannot be disinterested spectators when it comes to following Jesus. In fact, in the encounters described in the New Testament, the desire of people to remain neutral observers is in a sense the real sin (ie the rich young ruler and Pilate) The Pharisees want to “check him out,” objectify him, line him up against their understandings of the faith, and because of this they are judged for their hardness of heart for holding themselves back from what God is doing in Jesus. It is those who allow Jesus to get into their hearts and heads who end up entering the kingdom.” Right Here Right Now pg 110#6 Alan Roxburgh and Scott Boren note:“Our rock-bottom conviction is that the Spirit of God is among the people of God. By this we mean that the Spirit is not the province of ordained leaders or supernatural people; instead the Spirit is in what we call the ordinary people of a local church. Furthermore, we don’t believe that this requires people to become like the super-spiritual. Instead we mean that the Spirit is actually at work in our ordinary, common lives. This means that God’s future – putting into action God’s dream for the whole world – is among God’s people. At one level this may sound obvious. It is not! When choosing among politicians or entertainers or when selecting a new pastor, we look for someone out of the ordinary – someone who is bigger than life. This is NOT how God is creating a new world. God works among ordinary, everyday men and women….Very practically, a missional church is formed by the Spirit of God at work in the ordinary people of God in the local context. A practical implication is that this imagination changes the focus of leadership. Rather than having plans, programs, strategies and goals they ask how they can call forth what the Spirit is doing among the people. When this happens the potential for discovering the wind of the Spirit is exciting.” Introducing The Missional Church pg 122 #7 Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost write: “We are the people born of the Missio Dei. This means the church is the result of the missionary activity of God and not the producer of it. The church is therefore defined by its mission and not the other way around. And this mission of redemption is not yet fulfilled, therefore, we are still on the Journey…..We are the missional people of God, and we have a job to accomplish that only we, as Jesus’ people, can do. The Church doesn’t have an agenda, it is the agenda. The church doesn’t have a missional strategy, it is the missional strategy. Therefore, to be the Church as we are meant to be is of utmost missional importance in our day. But herein lies the rub: Christianity has been on a long-term trend of decline in every Western cultural context that we can identify. Part of the reason is that we now live in a post-Christian, post-Christendom world – the result is that seventeen centuries of “Western Church” have effectively inoculated our culture against the gospel.” The Faith Of Leap , pg 21#8 Michael Frost defines “Missional Church” in this way: “And so I’m still using the “M-word” , despite the fact that some people tell me how passé it is. But I’m using it steadfastly and resolutely to describe the wholesale and thorough reorientation of the church around mission, a mission that includes evangelism, but more: a mission that is anchored in the task of alerting people to the rule of God through Christ and which can never be reduced to the recruitment of new attendees at our meetings; a mission that hopes in the ongoing work of God to redeem all things and set everything right in accordance with his will; a mission that by its very nature must be lived out incarnationally, in close proximity to those to whom we’ve been sent; a mission that is cross-shaped and calls its followers to the disciplines of sacrifice, service, love and grace; and a mission that delights in beauty, flavor, joy, and friendship; that lifts us up and fills us with that same fullness of life we see in Jesus.” The Road To Missional, pp 145-146 #9 Reggie McNeal recently offered the following in a blogpost…. Not long ago I spoke to about 350 church leaders in a mid-westerncity. They are part of a prayer network aimed at fostering unity amongthe various churches involved as well as being engaged in the prayereffort itself. “Pray on your own time,” I told them, only partlytongue-in-cheek. “Do something to help somebody!” To press my point Ichallenged them: “Why does any child get out of elementary schoolwithout reading at a third-grade level (the critical point identifiedby many as the threshold for literacy) when your congregations arefull of people who can?”Generational and institutional poverty is not solely the result offailed government programs; it exists also because the church hasrefused to be the church Jesus imagined. That perspective is whatdrives me to push church leaders to get out of the church business andinto the people business. Those two businesses are not the same thing,sadly. Church business consumes roughly $100 billion a year on churchprogramming and real estate, and sports a scorecard that measuresalmost exclusively church- centric activity (attendance, offerings,program participation). People business, on the other hand,focuses on quality of life issues—job rates, literacy, health care,and yes, spiritual development.Jesus had little patience for self-absorbed religion. In one of hismost famous parables he took church leaders to task for ignoring theplight of the needy. In the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus paints apicture of church people who don’t get it while a racially andculturally despised person reflects the heart of God. The priest andLevite in the episode met their religious scorecard—they didn’t riskbeing disqualified from their religious duties by coming in contactwith a dying (unclean) person. The Samaritan traveler is the only onein the story who met God’s scorecard. In this powerful tale Jesusradically altered two prevalent ideas governing religious behavior inhis day. In characteristic fashion he obliterated well-definedboundaries that had been fashioned to insulatechurch people from responding to others’ needs. First he redefinedneighbor as someone—anyone –in need. This inclusive approach flew inthe face of prevailing contemporary notions that a neighbor not onlyshared geographical proximity but held similar religious and culturalconvictions. Loving someone just like me is not nearly so tough a challenge as caring for someone who I find off-putting or even repulsive.Secondly, Jesus refused to let the discussion of eternal life (thepresenting question of the religious leader) drift to concerns about the life here-after. He focused on here-and-now expressions of compassion as the way to be properly positioned for eternity. Jesus’ stance here is in keeping with another of his famous declarations. Contrasting himself to other religious leaders, he proclaimed “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10b, NIV).” The old KJV rendered the word “full” as “abundant.” If Jesus was serious and not just making up scripture, itappears that working to help people attain a better life now ishelping to answer the plea in the Lord’s Prayer that God’s will wouldbe done on earth as it is in heaven—“thy kingdom come!” Maybe that’swhy Jesus came on the scene both proclaiming the kingdom of God anddemonstrating that kingdom by healing the lame, the blind, the lepers,and all manner of disease. I think it’s important to reflect on these truths for a couple of reasons.First, if the church will follow Jesus in this regard it may save thecountry. And, second, taking Jesus seriously will be the only way tosave the church. Let’s start with the second assertion. The church is in real trouble in the USA. The latest Pew Forum on Religion reports that one in fiveAmericans now prefers “non-affiliated” as their spiritual identity (upfrom one in six just 5 years ago!). Among young adults (18-29) the“nones” comprise a staggering one in three—up from one in four 5 yearsago. A lot of handwringing and tongue-wagging greeted these soberingstatistics and the precipitous disaffection of Americans withorganized religion they reveal.I suggest that the only expression of church that will be recognizedas authentic and embraced by our culture is a church that demonstratesa commitment to helping people live better lives. Yes, people needJesus, but they also need jobs, access to health care, food, shelter,and education. How dare the church even pretend to be on the job whenour communities are disintegrating! If we have $100 billion dollars tospend on ourselves, why does any child in America lack adequate schoolsupplies, or food for the weekend? The church abandoned this culture long before the culture abandoned the church. A century ago the church built hospitals, schools, orphanages, and nursing homes, along with soup kitchens. It was heavily invested in meeting basic human and social needs,not just serving as a vendor of religious goods and services for religiousconsumers. Unfortunately, the arrival of the Fundamentalist movementin the early 20th century introduced forces that radically altered thechurch’s engagement with our culture. Fundamentalism’s view that “theworld” was evil and antithetically opposed to God provoked a schism inthe American Protestant church. Mainline denominations, though staying socially engaged, droppedtheir spiritual emphasis as a reaction to the harsh dogmatism of theFundamentalists. The new Evangelicals, on the other hand, retreated from the social arena to focus on spiritual teaching and proclamation, believing this to be the way to help people navigate this fallen world. Both approachesfailed society. Neither met the biblical admonition thatJesus-followers are supposed to share the truth in love (Ephesians4:15). One group loved people without telling them the whole truthspiritually. The other told the truth, but failed to love peopleadequately. Truth linked with love, taught and demonstrated, providethe only authentic way forward for the church to regain itscredibility and appropriate missional agenda. Let’s return to the linkbetween the church’s obedience to Jesus and our nation’s future. Thechurch’s emergence from missional amnesia, learning to love ourneighbors as ourselves, represents the country’s best chance foravoiding an American twilight. Just as in the Good Samaritan story,all around us people are bleeding out, having been beat up by anynumber of thieves—job loss, health issues, natural calamities. None ofthese conditions will be addressed if the church keeps passing by onthe other side of the road. However, the church is the largest bundlerof social assets in our country.If it can get up off its assets, and release them into and for thepublic good, great things can be accomplished. I am happy to reportevidence that more and more congregations and individualJesus-followers are getting off their donkeys to offer real help andto move the needle on big issues for individuals and for wholecommunities. One congregation in South Texas is leading efforts toraise a million pounds of food on Easter, not just focusing on raisingthe dead. Another has declared war on illiteracy in their city. Stillanother is planting comprehensive after-school programs near everyTitle One school in their community, offering kids a chance to have a safe place to play, help with their homework, and access to enrichment activities like art, music, and sports. Individual Jesus-followers are taking initiative aswell. One woman has raised enough attention to asocial ill that she is able to convene a cross-domain (faith,business, government) summit on combatting sex trafficking, along withraising money to construct homes for kids to have an escape route outfrom that dark world. Hers is a global vision. Others have a moregranular approach. A young man has quit his job to work full-time tomentor young boys in a crime-ridden part of his town, all in hopes ofaltering the typical trajectory toward drugs, crime, and prison. Hisapproach offers hope one boy at a time. Theseare ordinary people doing extraordinary things to deliver help topeople who desperately need it. They are unwilling to wait onWashington, their state or local governments, or anyone else toaddress these concerns. By throwing themselves into the problem they,along with a growing multitude of others, are providing the bestexample of what it means to be the church.It’s time to dismount! Missional Church An On-Going (Non-Exhaustive) Bibliography For The Journey……….Introducing The Missional Church by Alan J. Roxburgh and Scott BorenMissional Map Making by Alan J RoxburghMBIN (Moving Back In The Neighborhood) by Alan RoxburghMoving Off The Map by Tom BandyThe Christ Of Every Road by E Stanley JonesSimply Christian by N.T. WrightThe Great Omission by Dallas WillardThe Divine Conspiracy by Dallas WillardLeading Beyond the Walls by Adam HamiltonSo Beautiful by Leonard SweetI Am A Follower by Leonard SweetReclaiming The Great Commission -Bishop Claude E Payne/Hamilton BeazleyThe Jesus Way by Eugene PetersonUntamed by Alan and Deborah HirschThe Forgotten Ways by Alan HirschRight Here Right Now by Alan Hirsch and Lance FordUnLeader by Lance FordOrganic Leadership by Neil ColeThe Shaping Of Things To Come by Michael Frost and Alan HirschReJesus by Michael Frost and Alan HirschThe Faith Of Leap by Michael Frost and Alan HirschThe Road To Missional: by Michael FrostIncarnate by Michael FrostSurprise The World by Michael FrostMissional Communities by Reggie McNealMissional Renaissance by Reggie McNealGet Off Your Donkey by Reggie McNealVital: Churches Changing Communities & The World – Jorge AcevedoNatural Church Development – Christian SwartzHoliness Of Heart and Life by Stephen SeamandsBuilding A Discipling Culture by Mike BreenMultiplying Missional Leaders by Mike BreenCovenant and Kingdom by Mike BreenLeaving Church by Barbara Brown TaylorAn Altar In The World by Barbara Brown TaylorBishop by William H WillimonWho Then Will Be Saved? by William H WillimonSent by Jorge AcevedoFurther Missional Exploration Online…….. ................
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