Christian - Today - Love Your Muslim
Jesus loved everyone and challenged everyone. He ran with the drunks, the gluttons, the tax collectors, sexually promiscuous—all of them. That’s why He could challenge them, because He loved them. He ran with the people the religious leaders of the day condemned. He ran with the people the political leaders of the day condemned. He ran with the people no one else wanted anything to do with. He ran with the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated. He ran with them all. Therefore, everyone wanted to know how He could identify with his or her “opposition” or “enemy.” He saw in them something others didn’t see. Someone He created that needed Him. As a result in His manifesto in the Sermon on the Mount, He redefined relationships. He makes it real clear—it’s no big deal to love people who love us. What sets us apart as believers is that we love people who hate us and consider us enemies.
Matthew 5:43 You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? NASB How many of us really do this? This is a hard thing to do if we are honest about it. Could this not be the core of the “missional” life? Incarnation beyond relating and helping, but to a level of love for people that would harm us if not kill us. When I began to travel to Afghanistan and realized my life would be on the line, I began to wrestle with this passage. How do I love a Muslim? How do I relate to a Muslim? Would I put all Muslims in the same category as the men who did what they did on 9-11? I had to face my own …
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Missional & the Sunday Event
Can you reach seekers and be missional? Yes. Reaching seekers is missional! The challenge is how do you communicate to seekers, change their perceptions of God and church, help them find Jesus, and then help them understand we’ve been called to community to together live out the Kingdom. For those of you beginning on the journey, let me give you some simple things you can do to begin the transition. You don’t have to preach on it every Sunday. As a matter of fact, that is key, but if that’s all you do, it won’t be missional—it will be missions.
First, always, always, always have the “missional” elements present in your worship. Yesterday, we presented our new members from our last new member’s class. There was a 2-minute edgy video about T-Life on interactive relationship with God, transparent connections, and glocal impact. We then had people come forward and we prayed over them to be “missionaries” wherever they were. We commission our planters when they go out. We pray for teams when they are heading overseas. We recognize people that are doing local projects. One Sunday not long ago, so many things were going on, but we acknowledged them in different ways. It wasn’t a “missions” Sunday, but everything about it was “missions.” A visitor came up to me at the end of the service and said, “I’ve been here the past month. I’ve never seen a church where so many people are doing so much outside their church. How do you do this?” This person, by the way, was not a believer. Keep in mind, people seeking Christ want to see Him at work.
Second, when you preach, make your people the heroes. Always have an illustration or something in your sermon that will fit in about how someone is involved in something that is making a big difference. Or, a story about someone overcoming something and how God is using that person to? ? ?
Third, sing a lot about going, loving, following, serving. Too often, our songs of worship are directed at “me,” and how I feel about Jesus. That’s good, but it’s not enough. Jordan wrote this song I love called “Make My Life a Bridge.” Maybe sing that song and have people imagine who the people are for whom they are a bridge or a ministry that “bridges” to others.
Fourth, when you take …
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Gotta Run!
Don’t have time to blog. But, I felt I should ask you all to pray. We’ve had some great meetings here in DC. There is hope. There is no place on this globe beyond the reach of God, if we will only follow Him where He is working and respond to Him. Blackaby taught me that and it’s true.
Got up at 5am to pray, reflect, and then run. I’m in a hotel off the beaten path. When I started running, I found myself near the Iowa Jima Memorial, then Arlington cemetery, where I was running accidentally with dozens of soldiers. I told them how much I appreciated them. Every time I’d pass a group of 5 running with their back packs I’d say, “I appreciate you guys.” Running with them, them preparing for war, next to Arlington cemetery was surreal. They were happy, intense, and focused. I couldn’t stop saying it to them. They were close enough when I said it to one, the others would hear. So how could I say it to one group of 5 and not another group. One guy said before I could get it out, “Yeah, we know, thanks man.”
As Christians, how much will we risk to love others. Two ways to try to change the world. One is to bear arms in the armed forces - that isn’t most of us. The other is to show love in the name of Jesus. “For God so loved the world that He gave . . . ” Thank you God, there will be no cemeteries in heaven!
O Little Town of Bethlehem . . . how sad we see thee ????
OK guys, you want to engage society? You want to do it in the Middle East as Christians, yet respecting other cultures. What about where Jesus was born? No city in the world is facing more difficulty than Bethlehem. It’s the place where the wall is being built and it is that wall, not the extremist Muslims, which is causing Christians to leave because of economic difficulty. What would it look like to love the people where Jesus was born? Does God love Bethlehem? Should we help not only people of different faiths but our brothers in Christ who are trying to be a witness? So, Joe, let’s build some stuff. David, let’s publish some stuff? Why don’t you?
I’m with Chris Seiple and his new son, Liam, is awesome. He’s a hoot. We’ve been hanging out at his place talking a lot. Later today, we head into a lot of meetings. Chris and I were talking and he said something very profound. “The protestant reformation has about finished its course.” This doesn’t mean we ignore it, are not grateful for it, do not build upon it. It just means we acknowledge all the good it brought and now move in a different world. As Chris is fond of saying, “Aslan is on the move.” What does it mean to be a reformer in the world today? Back then, it was “sola scriptura.” What it is today is “worlda engaga?” From Paul, to Calvin & Luther, to Kuyper. As Chris would also say, we need to live in the crosshairs of the cross. The vertical is our relationship to God, and horizontal to man, but the question is, how do we engage both?
Gimme Your 2 Cents!
Many of you guys know that I believe the church starts with the disciple in society, mobilizing the entire body, engaging the domains through vocations to be salt and light in a fallen world. Core to this is an understanding of the power of the seed of the Gospel of the Kingdom that when planted it really makes a difference. This week I’ll be meeting with several people brainstorming, debating, evaluating what the best approaches for Christians to be a part of the solution and the not the problem in the Israeli-Palestinean conflict. I may not be blogging much - but I’ll be checking the comments - what do you think the church in America should do to be a part of “peace” in that part of the world?
Gimme’ Some Slack
When I was a little boy and would help my grandfather on his farm or my dad in some project where I’d be holding a rope or hose or whatever, the one who was doing the work would often say, “Gimme some slack.” What that meant was they needed more rope, more hose, more whatever and I needed to loosen up my grip and give them more to work with. Holding the rope was important, because if I didn’t it couldn’t be directed or they couldn’t work, but if I didn’t give them some slack and space, they couldn’t get the work done. I had to loosen my grip, and trust that they knew what they were doing.
When God called William Carey to be a missionary in 1792, he told a group of pastors, “I will go, but you will have to hold the ropes for me.” Some men and women held the ropes and as a result he went, and the rest is history. They had to give him a lot of slack. Theologically, not all agreed with what Carey did. One man, Bishop Ryle, stated, “If God wanted the heathen converted he will do it with you.” He was definitely a 5-point Calvinist! Practically no one had ever done what Carey had done. To take your family and move to a foreign field and live and die there? Family—his wife joined him only as the boat departed. (I wonder about this with Carey.) We could go on and on about the “slack” he had to have in order to do what he did.
I think we find ourselves in just such a situation today. Too many people are lobbing grenades at too many people. Emergent, traditional, house, building, seeker, 3rd space, on and on and on. . . The world has changed and as one of my friends likes to say we have to “contend” for the faith, and he’s right. However, much of our “contending” is about our religious culture and not theology or Scripture. We should affirm the different ways God is working in our world and culture today—not view it as competing approaches, but multiple approaches that will be necessary to reach everyone.
Jesus asks, “When I return will I find faith on earth?” Another question we might ask ourselves is “When the Great Commission is fulfilled, will it be done by a fragmented …
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What is Missional?
Ed Stetzer is really writing some awesome stuff. We need it pretty bad. Visited his post yesterday. He and I are friends and we dialogue a lot. Oh heck, let’s just be honest, we debate sometimes!!! I love Ed and value him big time, not just as a missiologist but as he speaks into my life. He approaches it as a theologian and missiologist—I from a pastor who is mobilizing a couple thousand people. I need what he says and writes because I don’t live in his world, yet, his world affects me and those I’m leading. I also think he needs me because of this “missional” stuff. It’s impacting churches we start and how we engage the world, and frankly to some extent how “missional” will look not just now but in this century. I was going to respond to a question he asked me and put this on his comments, but I’m going to have to write too much so it’s my blog today!
He’s dealing both with the history and theology of the word and concept missional. Missional really meant something until, perhaps, the past 5 years. It continues to mean less. I think it has to do with the way we “popularize” terms and jump on bandwagons without understanding what is being said. Because it has come to mean everything it means nothing. Missional has become watered down to merely being relevant in the pulpit and culturally effective communication in a worship service—or drinking a latte at Starbucks with someone with an ear piercing coming out their ? ? ? or a “service” project.
What makes missional to me? What is the role of the church in the whole missional debate? I believe the church is the missionary. Read my book Glocalization. I just believe churches are rejecting the call to be a missionary or rather to enter the Kingdom. I believe missional is tied not to the Great Commission but to the Kingdom of God. The Great Commission is the marching orders for every believer living in the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is what John the Baptist preached, it’s what Jesus came proclaiming. It’s what the Apostles focused on. It’s what Jesus taught the Apostles for the 40 days he was with them. I’m not speaking of the Kingdom as only an escatological issue, but as a Matthew 25 reality of it …
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Stop “Tinkerin” With the Church!
Everyone seems to think if we just get the right model, the right 5-step system and process, we’ll change the church and it will change its community and the world. Don’t believe it. History has never borne that. History is filled with stories of churches that God moved on, There was a “process” of how it worked for them, but when exported it lost its power. The aspiration becomes how close can we get to being just like this other group, model, or expression that is considered edgy. I fear we’re stuck in “model” mania, even though most claim theirs isn’t a model! How can we tell?
When the majority of our discussion and focus is how, where, when we gather, and what we do when we gather, we’re talking model. Be it sandals and candles or organs and Lexus.
When the majority of our budgets and staff and gatherings go towards only corporate expressions of worship, we’re talking model. Be it a 10,000-seat auditorium or Starbucks-type storefront.
When our moods, joy, pride, significance is tied more to how many showed up or how weird the ones were who showed up, we’re talking model!
Your church is only as good as your disciples—not your preacher! If you want to tinker with something, tinker with the disciple. How do we create a culture of the kingdom so people will engage it in a daily manner? What is a disciple? How do we move from information transfer to behavioral transformation—what we call T-Life at NorthWood? Tinker with the society if you want to tinker with something. How do we connect disciples and society? I’m obsessed with the Kingdom of God, the transformation that it brings. I believe this is what it takes to see the fulfillment of the Great Commission. We’ve thought it was the sinners’ prayer. It’s much more than that. It must be a transformed life that transforms others and communities.
Gene Getz taught me that old principle years ago—form follows function. Man, has the Western church forgotten that—both new and old. Form is the church. Function is the disciple. We think function follows form—we’re wrong.
You’ll read about this in my new book, The Multiplying Church, that’s coming out next February, but I’m convinced, based on history, our experience, and the church globally that I love so much, we should focus more on the disciple and the society instead …
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The Cross - For The Lost and Found
We have this young theologian in our church named Mark. He brought Carlos Santana to church Sunday. He brought his guitar and rocked the place. We’ve been studying the children of Israel and how they crossed over with implications of what does it mean for our church to cross over to the next phase, and what does it mean for us as individuals to cross over to a deeper walk with Christ. There are all kinds of metaphors and typologies of that in the Exodus out of Egypt. We were emailing about it and he said something really good, “The preaching of the cross isn’t just for the lost but for the saved.” I like that. For the lost, the preaching of the cross is to be received. For the found, the preaching of the cross it is to be lived.
Met two cool and prominent Dallas businessmen yesterday named Jim and Joe. They get transformation. It’s what they’re all about. They do critiques of various ministries generally in the DFW area in hopes of mobilizing people and increasing effectiveness. We talked a lot about moving the focus from preacher and church to disciple and society—they got it, they’ve had it for a good while! I’m so amazed at how we “preachers” have gotten so far behind the learning curve on all this. I don’t think it’s hard to understand why so much time is given to “our stuff” in terms of worship and ministries of the church that we can have all this really good stuff going on without ever connecting with the community.
The 1 and the 99 and the 1000
There’s a lot going on at NorthWood. It’s frankly really hard to keep up with it all—even as the Senior Pastor. That’s not true—it’s not hard to keep up with—it’s impossible. Our youth ministry continues to expand and is reformatting. Our children’s ministry has just done the same. Our global work has exploded and for the first time we now have boots on the ground which has sped up everything. We’ve just reformatted our church planting. Our members have really taken off with working in so many projects that they, not us, are driving. Our entire staff, not just me, is dealing with the issue of other churches calling and needing help in different areas, particularly in how we engage our community and the world. It’s exciting, and it’s also overwhelming. Needless to say, there’s been a lot of prayer, work, evaluation, restructure that has been going on to accomodate all God is doing.
Yesterday, I shared with our staff some of the unique things going on outside our church, but because of our church. I updated them, they updated me. We updated one another. Communication between staff, I’ve learned, is sometimes tough when your ministries are all growing at the same pace. We’ve never had competition among ministries at our church. I pray we never do. We’ve been one church on one mission serving one Savior in the context of teams, youth, children, recovery, worship, mission, etc.
Then we prayed . . . and it was rich. God was there. As we were praying and all of us realizing the scope of ministry we have before us we were praying for guidance and direction, wisdom and insight. We prayed for God to be alive within us, to keep us one, to be alert and effective in spiritual warfare. Then someone, or maybe two or three prayed - “Lord as we grow, to reach the thousands and organize to reach the thousands let us not forget the one.” That’s a good tension. Either extreme is dangerous. If you live for the one you never reach the thousands. If you focus on the thousands, church becomes a machine. It’s not an either or, but a both and. So how do you balance . . .
I kept reflecting on this all day yesterday. The story of the 100 sheep, they all belonged to the shepherd. One wanders off and He …
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