The Relational Mission

“[W]e preach Christ crucified, which is a scandal to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” —1 Corinthians 1:23 CEB The Bible is the most unique book ever written. The reasons for this are many, but the fact that it claims to be the word of God and that the central figure claimed to be God, but that God was killed on the cross makes this the most unusual kind of story ever. As Paul wrote, it is foolishness and a scandal. This one attribute, the reality that God died on a cross, while the most shocking claim in history, reveals a God that is at work in this world in ways that we cannot predict or control. It reveals truth that comes to us from God, not something that we could ever drum up. This foolish truth of the Bible must cause us to ask: What kind of book is this? Of course, we often read the Bible by domesticating it. The truth of the Bible is so beyond what we expect that we try to fit its message into already conceived notions. We read it to confirm what we already believe. Li...

John 3:16: by far the most famous passage of scripture in the Bible. It was the first one I memorized simply because I heard so many sermons quoting it. Up until a few years ago, there were those infamous banners that seemed to show up in the end zone of every NFL football game. This scripture contains in a nutshell the entire Gospel message and it reveals the heart of God toward us. Read it again: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." --John 3:16 However I think I became overexposed to this verse that I failed to get what it is saying. As I have reflected on how I viewed God's attitude toward me, I did not picture him as looking upon me in a way that reflected the meaning of this passage. In some ways I heard this verse as saying something like this: "For God was so exasperated with the world because we messed things up so much that he sent his Son as a last ditch effort ...

More than anything else, my view of God's love has been transformed by the experience of being a father. Being a father is by far the hardest thing I've ever done, but it is also the most rewarding. It is wild to experience such deep things for my kids. It blows my mind how I willingly give my life up for theirs in little ways every day. While waiting for pediatric check up, I read that the average child will have their diaper changed about 3700 times. This means that Shawna and I will have changed about 15000 diapers before it is said and done. Before our first child was born, I honestly never changed a diaper. But these kids belong to me. They are mind and I am theirs. All kids are special, but mine are different, at least to me. I wonder if this is how God sees me? Since becoming a father--I'm still quite a novice at this--I've recorded experiences with my children that have revealed to me the truth about God's love. I have used the following words of Jesus as ...

If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body [to hardship] that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. --1 Corinthians 13:1-3 My kids have a worship CD that we play in the car. Almost everyone of the 16 sons is about God's love, God's goodness, or God's nearness to us. It’s cool to see our six- and four-year-old boys sing about God’s love for them. This made me think about how we sang "Jesus Loves Me” when I was their age. But I realized something else: from what I remember about church, we tended to only sing this song it as a part of kids' meetings or events. We didn't sing about such emotional things with the adults. The songs there were about much more serious...

Love in the English language has many uses. This one word is used describe such things as affection for a sporting team, a one night stand, feelings teenagers have a school dance, the desire for our favorite food, and of course the devotion found within a marriage (at least some of them). When I was a teenager the band Chicago sang of love, or at least a form of it, and their words shaped many minds and hearts about that topic. Their song "Will You Still Love Me" spoke of feelings of destiny, the longing to be with another "for the rest of my life," and the inability to "go on" if this destiny did not transpire. The topic of love is everywhere in our culture. There are those who got it, those who run from it, those who long for it and those who wish it would be different than what they actually have. This word falls off our lips so easily, but their is probably no other word in the English languagee that actually represent a concept that is less understo...

Saint John of the Cross said "Mission is putting love where love is not." I write about this in my forthcoming book Missional Small Groups. But here I want to reflect on a different angle. If love is central to mission then must we actually experience a God of love? Without such an experience how can we put love anywhere? Agape love, the Apostle John tells us in his first epistle, is revealed through Jesus on the cross, through self giving so that others might live. But there is a problem. I've probably listened to about 30,000 sermons in my 40 years on earth and many different themes stand out to me. But I don't recall much ever really being said about God's overwhelming love. I recall a lot more talk about what I needed to do to line my life up with God or how I needed to be faithful. I just don't remember much about encountering the God who loves. The themes that stand out seem to focus on the things that I need to do. And I don't think I'm uniq...

I'm writing curriculum tonight for a 7-week series we are doing at our church called Scandalous Love. It is a focus on the radical, free gift love that God has for us. I often wonder if this kind of radical love is something that we think we need to outgrow. It seems as if we feel the need to grow up and be independent of love, to become self-sufficient as Christians. When I was a new Christian, I knew that I needed to experience the love of God on a daily basis. But over the years, the direct knowledge of this love seems to wain. And this seems to be a quite common pattern. But what if a sign Christian maturity is the growing knowledge of this love that cannot be measured.