The Relational Mission

Last week, I wrote a post that challenged the practice of complaining about the things we see wrong . Most specifically, I challenged the habit we have in the church of complaining about stuff over which we have no direct influence. We like to complain about our concerns and we get stuck there. But this raises the question: What do we do with our concerns? Or What do we do about the things we see going on in our world over which we have little to no influence? Besides re-posting something on Facebook, is there another option? The answer is found in one word: Lament. But we don't lament in our culture. We don't lament in our churches. We don't even talk about lamenting and how central it is to the a biblical imagination. Just read the Psalms or the first chapter of Nehemiah. It's all over the place. We understand complaining. But we don't understand lamenting. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn." This is the most paradoxical of all the b...

God is a missional God. The Spirit of God is moving across creation to restore all things. There is nothing beyond the reach of God's redeeming touch. God calls his people to join him in his mission. Some churches (and small groups) step into the flowing river of God's mission. Others don't. In this post I want to identify one of the most significant things that keeps God's people from joining God in his difference-making venture. I call it "Attacking Easy Targets." Ultimately we are complaining ourselves out of mission as we place blame and pick fights. Like a bully at a playground who picks on those who cannot fight back, there has been much ink used and tons of rhetoric spoken by church leaders attacking these easy targets. These easy targets fall into the category of things about which we are concerned but over which we have little to no influence. Target #1: The Culture The first set of opinions can be grouped under the label “There’s a problem wit...

In my previous post , I offered three different ways that people commonly "imagine" the missional conversation. Our imagination works as a kind of interpretive grid or pre-understanding that we bring to the subject. So when we hear a word like "missional" we see what we expect. Here is a quick summary of the three common interpretive grids that I've observed are: A Redeemed Society-The church possesses truth that outsiders need and the mission is conceived as getting outsiders to become insiders. In some ways this is a bit like an enclave that could be escapist , where insiders have truth and outsiders are welcome, as long as they believe and behave like the insiders. A Redeeming Society-The church on mission is primarily viewed as action, what we do for the sake of the world. This imagination is characterized by energy , expressiveness, and enterprise. It's about getting the mission done and making an impact. A Redemptive Society-The mission is viewed ...

In Missional Small Groups , I introduced the four stories of small group life, which provide a way of talking about the vision for how we live in community and on mission that gets us beyond church structures and strategies. Instead I identified four common stories that describe typical patterns of life in the church. They are: The Story of Personal Improvment The Story of Lifestyle Adjustment The Story of Relational Revision  The Story of Missional Re-creation In most of the churches with whom I work, the desire is to experience the latter two, but the reality of most people in the church reflects the first two. There are many strategies that can move us into relational wholeness and missional engagement. However before we jump into the middle of answers related to the question of "What do we do?" it is important to talk about the imagination that we have when we talk about things like community and mission. I've found that it is quite easy to use the same word...

Last June, we  moved back to Minnesota after almost two years in Houston. I've been so busy writing about other things that interest me that I've not jotted down this fyi. Now that my revisions are done on my next book, I thought it time to send this out. We  thoroughly enjoyed our Summer and Fall and we have endured the long cold of a great MN Winter. At first, our time was full of beaches—yes Minnesota has lots of beaches—swimming in the pool, walks, and a day at the MN State Fair. Then we got into school and playing in the snow. Over the last eleven months, we've connected with old friends as if we never left and developed new friends that have made life rich. What are we doing up here? It's a combination of various things: Education I've started a doctoral program at Luther Seminary in Congregational Mission and Leadership. Church We are participating in the life of Woodland Hills Church. While I do some contract work with them, we are primarily focuse...

For almost 25 year, I've been meditating on a passage found in in Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "Spiritual love will prove successful insofar as it commends Christ to the other in all that is says and does. It will not seek to agitate another by exerting all to personal, direct influence or by crudely interfering in one's life. It will not take pleasure in pious, emotional fervor and excitement. Rather, it will encounter the other with the clear word of God and be prepared to leave the other alone with this word for a long time. It will be willing to release others again so that Christ may deal with them. It will respect the other as the boundary that Christ establishes between us; and it will find full community with the other in the Christ who alone binds us together. This spiritual love will thus speak to Christ about the other Christian more than to the other Christian about Christ. It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Chr...

One of the best things about my work is the fact that I serve churches across a variety of traditions. I find it a great honor to enter into the life, tradition, and culture of different streams of faith to see what God is already doing amongst a local church and help them develop small groups that fit them. Last week, I had the honor or worshiping with, leading training sessions for, and interacting amongst the leaders of Church of the Incarnation in Dallas, TX. I participated in their high church service, their contemporary Uptown service, and their very Anglo-Catholic evensong service. Then I attended the morning service on Monday at 7:30 am. Because I wanted to understand them so as to help them shape small groups that fit them, I needed to pray and worship with them.  Their buildings which are under construction are pictured above. This is a far cry from the low-church experience of most of my life. The picture below is of the church where I worshipped. I must admit, I...