The Relational Mission

On Friday, I ate at an Indian restaurant by myself. I chose not to pray before I ate. Not sure why. I probably didn't do it because I have been rather litigious about that in the past. When I was in college, I started praying before meal at restaurants. I was motivated by the desire to be a good witness and resist the fear to be intimidated by others. After not praying at the Indian restaurant on Friday, it hit me why I might actually pray before a meal. I pray not because I want to influence others. I pray not because I want to combat any fear of judgement. (At least not now) I pray because Jesus people are thankful people, because Jesus people recognize the source of food. Prayer is not about other people. It's about being who I am. If that impacts others then so be it, but that's not my motivation. A "witness" only needs to demonstrate what is true. A "witness" does not have to be more than that to make an impact. I think this also relates to what...

(This is the fourth entry in my series entitled "Leading Missional Small Groups." I want to move forward and develop my constructive alternative to "doing mission," but before I do so, I need to challenge one more aspect of how "doing" has pervaded our life in the church. Maybe I need to write this for myself so as to exercise my own "doing missional" demons. From what I read in various books and what I have observed in church life (and actually participated in, sadly) much of our ministry in the world has turned people into projects. Whether involved in evangelistic outreach, in social justice agendas or planting churches, I've observed that we use project language that focuses on accomplishing goals, articulating an abstract vision or reinforces something like a purpose statement. We measure these projects in the number of people who get saved, the number of people involved in a project or the number of churches we start. But we are talki...

I've not read Rob Bell's book. I'm not sure if I will any time soon. My list of books to read is far too long and I'm no where close to being caught up on the research I need to do right now for the various projects I am writing. But all the hubbub about this book has caused me to reflect on the way various leaders in the church have responded to it. Today, I read on Twitter that a few Christian bookstores have even refused to carry the book. The reaction of reviewers is fueled with a great passion and very strong opinions, both for and against. While sitting back and watching all of the "conversations" I began to ask a different set of question: What would happen if church leaders responded as passionately to books that promoted a heretical Gospel that clearly embraced American consumerism at its core? What if we responded just as strongly to teachings that promote individualism and personal success that seem to come out under the banner of "Christian...

Based on the feedback I have been getting from readers, I thought it might be a good idea to develop a study guide to help group leaders introduce my book Missional Small Groups to their group members. In Appendix A of the book, I wrote a basic outline for 13 weeks of meetings, but it is very skeletal in nature. The study guide that I have developed is much more substantive. It includes an introductory reading for each week, a summary of the 21 different practices that I introduce in the book and a simple process that will guide a group to choose three of those practices so that they can get started on the missional journey. Download it by clicking here and please tell others about it. It's free. Also, if you have feedback on ways that I could improve the study guide, let me know. I want to make it as helpful as possible.

Doing mission is part of my church tradition, as I've tried to illustrate over the last two posts. Over the last few years, there has been a large set of literature that has encouraged the church to shift its emphasis from a focus on internal ministry to external ministry, but as I look back on my experience, I cannot remember a time when this was not the focus of ministry. We were always looking outside the church to do ministry in some form or fashion. And if one really looks at how small groups have been developed over the last 25 years, there has been a constant focus in the various books on reaching out beyond the confines of the group to a wider community. Having a focus on reaching out in various ways is not new to the church, so one might assume that we can simply apply this experience to the development of missional community. All we need to do is continue with our experience in prayer as a group and building community and then just add the outreach or a "missional...

Fifteen years ago small groups were something only renegade churches tried. Now small groups, house churches, mid-size (20-50 people) communities and other forms of organic/relational gatherings are so common that it's hard to find a church that doesn't do some form of groups. In addition, if you go back fifteen years, the concept of "missional" was only a term being bantered about by a group of six authors who were asking big questions about what it meant to be the church in North America. Their work resulted in a landmark book entitled Missional Church . I've been editing and writing on small groups for nearly 20 years and on missional for the last five. To do this I have had to keep track of what people are writing and saying about these two areas. And to be honest, I cannot keep up. There is just too much being written and too many conferences about these two hot topics. Now of course the conversations about these two topics have merged. If you follow any of...