emerging mosaic

Wayne Squires congregation coach over at Volunteers in Service had been blogging about his work ECN with helping some church in my neck of the woods to tart thinking and working together missionally. Her are a couple clips from his blog

What might change if we designed worship for the sake of others?
What might change if we taught the Bible for the sake of others?
What might change if we thought of discipleship as for the sake of others?
What might change if we created fellowship for the sake of others?
What might change if we used our gifts and resources for the sake of others?
What might change if we established budgets for the sake of others?
What might change if we considered vocation as a call for the sake of others?

Yes what if we look at all our practices and ministry from a missional perspective how would they change?

The church is not so much a rescue station for the lost as it is a demonstration of God’s saving purposes in Christ. She is a servant of the Gospel, chosen to bless the whole world and be a sign of God’s past, present, and future activity. This implies followers of Jesus are not called to go on a mission for God, they are called to join God in his ongoing mission.

This is exactly what I tried to communicate to the seminary students in the class I taught

On learning to be incarnational and do ministry with the community instead of to or for

It is not good for the church to be alone. Like Adam, who needed a partner to fully appreciate his identity and calling, the church has been designed for relational engagement with its immediate cultural context. Its sense of purpose (i.e. mission) is directly tied to this engagement.

God really is at work in the world bringing restoration and hope and invites his friends (his people) in particular neighborhoods and communities to join him. This means that partnership with God leads to appropriate partnership with others, and when local congregations try to conduct ministries on their own, in relative isolation from their communities, they are operating outside of their God-given design.

Check out Wayne’s blog and the VIS website

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Yesterday my wife Lissa and I did a tag team message in worship on following through. She has preached/talked during worship before at other churches I pastored by this was the first time we did it together, It followed three weeks of messages about eh connecting between money and spirituality and focused on how we follow through with our commitments to join God in mission in the world.

I have to say she did a fantastic job. Which is not surprising after all she is a college professor but she was nervous about it since she had never done it before. She talked about remembering who we are so we can remember to follow through with God vision for our lives and the church. She played of the scene in Lion King when Rafiki told Simba “you don’t even know who you are.”

It was an awesome privilege to have her participate in the ministry of our church plant in this way. I loved sharing this with her and I’d like to do this again real soon but she is going to busy with her doctoral work so it may need to wait for a while.

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As the some says “Its been a long while” since I’ve been blogging anyway. Besides leading my young church plant I had the privilege to teach a class on the missional church at a local seminary Missional Church GRTS MIN567. Still humbling asking why me? Teaching students at a seminary in intimidating enough but teaching about the missional church which I’m still developing and growing in my understanding was truly a great responsibility.

As I reflect on the experience there are some things I discovered along the way that I want to share here.

1. Many people think of the emerging church and the missional church as the same thing.
2. Mission is still seen as a program of the church rather than the function of the church
3. Mission is often discussed separate from the mission dei as if the mission is something the church develops rather than being some thing that God is doing that we join in.
4. There is a tendency to try to separate being missional from being incarnational and contextual
5. It is major paradigm shift for many of us raised in the church to begin to think missionally about the church, the scriptures and our lives

Well that’s a start on my observations I’ll probably have more in the future

BTW required reading for the class was

• The Mission of God:Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative - Christopher J. H. Wright
• The Shaping of things to Come - Frost and Hirsch
• The Missional Church: A vision for the Sending of the Church in NA - Darrel Guder
• Shaped by God’s Heart: The Passion ans Practices of Missional Churches - Milfred Minatrea

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