The Relational Mission

I sent the manuscript for Missional Small Groups back to the editor today. It feels good to have it out of my hands. But I have a problem. Within the hour I started working on my next book. It was like an inner compulsion was propelling me to start writing. Actually I have already written about 25% of it written. It will be a book on Luke 14-15 that demonstrates how the parables of these two chapters reveal the missional nature of Jesus. I am discovering that my story of Jesus and the fact that the evangelical point of view of Jesus is not one that is missional in nature. Actually it is a story that reveals an unreal Jesus that we have to try to become like. It is a Jesus who asks us to travel to him, a distant Jesus who came to appease a distant angry Father. The evangelical Jesus of my history is one who stands on the stage, tells about Jesus dying on the cross because we are such idiots and God has to do something to reveal his glory and power. Of course this Jesus tells this with...

When Shawna was pregnant with our first child, we had many friends repeat the exact same words to us: “Everything is going to change.” We had been married for almost five years and we had become accustomed to life as DINKs (double income no kids). I would scoff at the comments about the change coming our way, but the change has been larger and more comprehensive than I could ever imagine. One of the first things that changed with the advent of Deklan into our lives, was our sleep patterns. No longer was sleep a luxury that we could control according to our convenience. We had a little baby in our house that required feeding every three hours and he let us know about it. During that first month, I was up after his feeding at about 2 a.m. I was tired but he had the hiccups and could not sleep. My sleep habits were in shock. My body cried out for sleep, but there was something within me that kept my body awake. It was something bigger than the physical need for sleep. This was my son and...

I am wired in such a way that causes me to be prone to highly value productivity. Multiple-tasking, checking completed tasks off my list, and focused, hard work, when combined into pa day, all mix together for what I automatically assumeto be a "good" day. I have had to make a few adjustment with the arrivals of our kids. Things just take longer with them. But this is especially true with Jensen. He just turned 2 but already it is obvious that he is a quality time person. He simply wants to be with. And be close. Today I was doing some writing and he brought me his snow pants to put on five times, which meant that he brought them to me to take off also. I think it was his way of interacting with me, maybe trying to get me off the computer for a few minutes. He looks up, bats his 3 inch eye lashes and says "uhhhh." Time takes on a new meaning with Jensen. He lives in a diffrent world of just being with. The only time that he seems to value is time together. And I...

It's late and out 10 month old daughter would rather stand at her bed and scream than to simply lay down and rest. She can't breathe well as she has a bit of a cold. She is waiting for my hand. You see, in times like this she has gotten used to my hand rubbing her back. She has a cold and can't breathe well and she is to young for meds. She wants to be comforted back to sleep. Part of me is afraid of spoiling her, and there are plenty of books out thereto support this fear. But there is another part of me that wants to show her that she will never outgrow the need to be comforted back to sleep. I'm not sure we really ever get to old for the comforting hand of Father. Think about it. Afton is 10 months old, which is about 1/50 of my age. By comparison if I live to be 100 I would only be 1/600 of the age of the earth, assuming a young earth theory. And of course Father is a lot older than that. So when he looks down on me now with my hand on Afton's back he sees two p...

What can we learn from the explosive growth and radical transformation that we see in churches in other countries? Of course the obvious example is that found in the house church movement in China, but there are more. Since the 1960s experts have been trying to understand the phenomenon that is Yoido Full Gospel Church in S. Korea. Others have gone to El Salvador to try to extract and import principles from the world's second largest church, Elim. When I worked for TOUCH, we published quite a few books on the church model called Groups of 12 which was based on a huge church in Columbia called International Charismatic Mission. Before that, we partnered with Faith Community Baptist Church in Singapore and distributed the materials from that church. Now I am helping a friend write a book on grass roots movements in Southeast Asia, where explosive conversion growth is occurring through the reproduction of viral house churches. In the past, I despised the fact that I was an American an...

A friend of mine is engaged to be married and is planning a reception at which there will have a pig roast. Her father, a Caucasian Christian, is taking a a class on the Hebrew Torah and he sent her a long list of passages which forbid the eating of pork. Her question was why is he so enamored with the Torah. This conversation revealed yet another way that we gravitate to other eras and cultures as a way to romanticize our way out of dealing with the reality of the here and now. We look for some kind of secret pattern or mystical genius to life that will unlock the blessing of God. The focus on the Torah is but one example. Others include the way we tend to idealize the first century church. So many are seeking to return to the early church as if their experience was some kind of panacea. But as one of my New Testament professors once said, "It seems to me that the New Testament churches failed to live up to any great expectations just about as much as our churches today." ...