The Relational Mission

I grew up in small church in rural North Texas called Foote Baptist Church. The pictures below depict the actual building restored back to it's early 20th century look. When I say "I grew up" I mean that. I spent a ton of time in that old school house church building. It was just part of my childhood. And listening to sermons was part of my childhood. There was not children's church. That was the day when we sat with the adults. As I've reflected on the sermonizing of my childhood, I realized that there was a basic pattern to them. It went like this: Part 1: The Passage and What it Said—In this part, the pastor would identify the passage and explain what it was about. Part 2: The Meaning of the Passage—Here would come the interpretation. Part 3: Application—Here is where we were challenged to implement the passage to our lives. This approach to sermons was based upon something called decision-based ethics, which assumes that when we hear the truth that we ...

As I survey the landscape of church leadership training—including that which comes from a "missional" perspective, I get concerned about how the focus seems to center around the need to experience some degree of success in church life. By "success" I am not referring to it as an antonym of "failure", which is how we typically view success. I am not espousing some kind of church victim mentality where we revel in failure. Instead, I'm referring to success that we achieve through a form of triumphalism, the kind that comes when we take control and we make things happen for God. The kind that comes when we put the mission of God on our own shoulders so that we can avoid suffering, pain, and deep questions that stir our souls. It's a subtle lie, one that arises when we talk about grace when we preach, but the rest of church is something we as leaders assume is our responsibility so that we can make church work. The only remedy to this kind of triumph...

Does believing in the Trinity have any import in life, in the church, in our leadership? Of course it has direction implications on our statements of faith and in some of our sermons, but is that it? Let me pose it this way: If we did not espouse the Trinity, what would change about the day-to-day life of the church? Theological reflection about the Triune God opens up a new imagination about who God is. It moves us beyond our man-made images of gods to see what has been revealed in the Incarnation and through the sending of the Spirit. John Franke puts it this way: "The statement 'God is love' refers primarily to the eternal, relational, intratrinitarian fellowship among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who together are the one God. In this way, God is love within the divine reality, and in this sense, through all eternity, God is the social Trinity, the community of love. (Franke, The Character of Theology , 67). But what does this have to do with anything?  Beyond ...

In the mid-1990s, I relocated to Vancouver, B.C. to study with Gordon Fee so that I could develop the exegetical skills and a background in first century history in order to effectively teach and write about the nature and practices of the first century church. Well, I've yet to write that book, but I become well-versed in the best titles available on the subject. In the exploration of the vast number of titles, I've found that most of the more accessible resources—some of which have become popular—have an "ax to grind." In other words, they grab hold of one or two aspects of historical research that supports the kind of church they want to see manifest today and they limit their presentation of the data on the first century church in such a way that it supports their preferred model of church life. For example, those who advocate for the house church model find all kinds of support for the house church and therefore determine that the house church is the intended u...

God is a missionary God. "From all of eternity, mission has been a part of the Divine life." Do we understand God's missionary nature? If we don't, we will try to be on mission in a way that God is not. We do good things apart from the character of God's mission. Here's John Franke teaching on this. Worth your time to watch.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post asking if your small groups are theologically sound. Now it is time to pose and address some more questions along this line. Let me lead by stating that I am not asking whether or not the topics discussed in our groups fit within the bounds of orthodoxy. There is a place for that, but I want to invite us to think about a theology of community and therefore a theology of small groups, not just about what is doctrinally correct to discuss in our groups. Nor am I trying to establish a theological or biblical foundation for doing small groups. That argument has been made many times over from many different angles. At this point, you might be wondering what need there might be for a theology beyond these two concerns. And let me say that there is are a tone of theological questions we should be asking about small groups, cell groups, house churches, missional communities—whatever you want to call them. We need to move beyond labels and brands and actua...

As I read books, articles and blog posts on small groups, I don't often read much that points to theology. Most of the time, I find information that is highly pragmatic and aims at helping you and I with the practical questions of how we develop effective small groups. And to tell you the truth, I learn a lot from what I've read over the years. I am a better leader for all the pragmatic information I've gathered. However, I've thinking about the disproportionate focus on pragmatic issues when weighed against the almost lack of theological reflection regarding small groups. Now I know that most of us have a basic theology of "why" small groups in our back pockets. We all can give one of the two standard reasons why we do small groups. The first being the Trinity and the second a list of the "house to house" scriptures from Acts. But I'm not talking about a "why" theology for small groups. I'm talking about a "what," ...

This morning I was in Wal-Mart and saw once again the popular books that continue to be on the best-seller’s list about heaven and the after life. We are fascinated with questions about the hear after. We want to hear the story about 90 Minutes in Heaven and want to know if the little boy can tell us if Heaven is for Real . Is it true that Love Wins or are we just Erasing Hell ? Americans are fascinated with the afterlife. I guess I should not be surprised by this phenomenon after watching the frenzy of book buying that occurred with the Left Behind series. So much of American Christianity has been built upon the question of what happens after death. This made me want to write a book with the title 90 Years of Heaven on Earth or Heaven on Earth is for Real . But as soon as I say that, I wonder if the conservative contingent out there will automatically pigeonhole me into some kind of liberal camp. Nonetheless, I cannot get all wrapped up in this afterlife ranting. To a Jew listeni...

I have begun to ponder the fact that most of our theological conversations have been shaped in the age of Enlightenment, which has been shaped in a large way by the agenda of individualism. After 300 years of imagining life as centered around individuals instead of around a community. Our imaginations are shaped in a way that we think first about the benefit to the individual and then for the wider community.  This directly impacts the way we read the Bible. For instance, Paul says in Gal 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." All of the pronouns her are first person singular. So when we read this today, one might assume a way of reading and interpreting Paul that makes this about his personal salvation and personal relationship with Jesus. This seems like the obvious common sensical reading of this verse. However, when you...

For most of my life, I have had a narrative going on in my mind about being a thinking person and the call to ministry. It was always easy to see how it was good to be a thinking person in the realms of science, liberal arts and even the business world. But in the Christian world--at least the one I was exposed to--the emphasis has always been on the practical side of doing something and not spending too much time thinking about it. What has been celebrated in my tradition is production. I remember one speaker talking about pastors and missionaries having a slew of theology books and how they spent too much time reading and not enough time doing ministry.  As a result, I have always felt conflicted. I was drawn to a contemplative, reflective and even cerebral way of interacting with God and the church. But many of the people I respected in the church denigrated such things. I remember my first position on staff at a church was that of an interning for a youth pastor who had not had any...