The End Of Missional

Nothing could be more important than clarity about the mission Jesus’ entrusted to us as his followers.

Yet nothing could be less clear, at least for the church of the affluent West.

Western clergy and theologians have been rethinking the nature of the church’s mission for over a century.

The journey began with the Student Volunteer Movement which morphed into the World Council of Churches. A dynamic, evangelical, missionary movement became a century-long talkfest, the fruit of which was the rejection of traditional missionary endeavour as evangelism and church planting, and the collapse of the progressive mainline denominations.

The mainline churches became captive to the spirit of the age which sidelined God, and placed humankind’s dignity, aspirations, values, and needs at the centre of the universe.*

Today, a new generation of evangelicals are going down that same path. They will face the same consequences.

Mission is increasingly about creating an economically just society on earth, and caring for the environment. Even starting businesses can bring in the kingdom of God. This holistic mission seeks to both transform society, and win disciples. Both are equally valid.

There are no priorities. Mission is everything the church is sent into the world to do. We are all missionaries now.

When everyone feeds the horse. The horse starves. When everything is mission. Nothing is. When everyone is a missionary. No one is.

*Christopher Little, What Makes Mission Christian?

(ht: Movements)

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The Great Paradox Of Life

“The great paradox of life is that those who lose their lives will gain them. This paradox becomes visible in very ordinary situations. If we cling to our friends, we may lose them, but when we are nonpossessive in our relationships, we will make many friends. When fame is what we seek and desire, it often vanishes as soon as we acquire it, but when we have no need to be known, we might be remembered long after our deaths. When we want to be in the center, we easily end up on the margins, but when we are free enough to be wherever we must be, we find ourselves often in the center.

Giving away our lives for others is the greatest of all human arts. This will gain us our lives.”

 - Henri Nouwen

(ht: Dream Awakener)

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We Already Have Christ

I used to think that growing as a Christian meant I had to somehow go out and obtain the qualities and attitudes I was lacking. To really mature, I needed to find a way to get more joy, more patience, more faithfulness, and so on. Then I came to the shattering realization that this isn’t what the Bible teaches, and it isn’t the gospel. What the Bible teaches is that we mature as we come to a greater realization of what we already have in Christ. The gospel, in fact, transforms us precisely because it’s not itself a message about our internal transformation but about Christ’s external substitution...."

by Tullian Tchividjian from Jesus + Nothing = Everything

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That Idol That You Love Doesn’t Love You Back

Everyone has to live for something and if that something isn’t the one true God, it will be a false God–an idol.

An idol is anything more important to you than God. Therefore, you can turn even very good things into idols. You can turn a good thing like family, success, acceptance, money, your plans, etc. into a god thing–into something you worship and place at the center of your life.

This is what sin is. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything (even a good thing) more than God. Do you know the idols you’re prone to worship? There are about four root idols that we tend to attach our lives to.

CONTROL. You know you have a control idol if your greatest nightmare is uncertainty.

APPROVAL. You know you have an approval idol if your greatest nightmare is rejection.

COMFORT. You know you have a comfort idol if your greatest nightmare is stress/demands.

POWER. You know you have a power idol if your greatest nightmare is humiliation.

Which one or more do you find yourself attaching to the most?

(ht: Crossway)

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Friends Are Free Gifts From God

“We need friends. Friends guide us, care for us, confront us in love, console us in times of pain. Although we speak of “making friends,” friends cannot be made. Friends are free gifts from God. But God gives us the friends we need when we need them if we fully trust in God’s love.

Friends cannot replace God. They have limitations and weaknesses like we have. Their love is never faultless, never complete. But in their limitations they can be signposts on our journey towards the unlimited and unconditional love of God. Let’s enjoy the friends whom God has sent on our way.”

- Henri Nouwen

(ht: Dream Awakener)

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A Sonship Which Comes By Promise

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6)

We are not the sons of God by nature in the sense here meant. We are in a sense “the offspring God” by nature, but this is very different from the sonship here described, which is the peculiar privilege of those who are born again. The Jews claimed to be of the family of God, but as their privileges came to them by the way of their fleshly birth, they are likened to Ishmael, who was born after the flesh, but who was cast out as the son of the bondwoman, and compelled to give way to the son of the promise.

We have a sonship which does not come to us by nature, for we are “born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Our sonship comes by promise, by the operation of God as a special gift to a peculiar seed, set apart unto the Lord by his own sovereign grace, as Isaac was. This honour and privilege come to us, according to the connection of our text, by faith. Note well the twenty-sixth verse of the preceding chapter (Gal. 3:26): “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

As unbelievers we know nothing of adoption. While we are under the law as self-righteous we know something of servitude, but we know nothing of sonship. It is only after that faith has come that we cease to be under the schoolmaster, and rise out of our minority to take the privileges of the sons of God.

Adapted from Charles Spurgeon, “Adoption—The Spirit and the Cry,” as published in The Sermons of Charles Spurgeon: Sermons 1-200 (Vol 1 of 4)

(ht: Blogging Theologically)

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Simple Dependence

But faith in Jesus is not simple agreement with his words in principle; it is dependence on him to such a degree that you renounce all other things in life that have occupied a place of supremacy. 

-Joe Thorn from Note to Self

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Would Anyone Miss You?

If you and your church were to disappear off the face of the earth tomorrow, would anyone in the community around you notice you were gone? And if the community did even notice would they say ‘we are really glad they are gone’, or ‘we are really going to miss them’?

-Tim Keller

(ht: Keller Quotes)

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