The Relational Mission

What is the church legacy that you will pass down to your children? What kind of church will you bequeath to them? Are you only investing in the short-term success of your church? Or are you fighting to establish the kind of church that will endure, that will flourish naturally? Recently, Bret Eastman of www.lifetogether.com interviewed me about my books MissioRelate and Missional Small Groups and he asked me what it is I hope will result from my writing. This question caught me off guard and something within me spilled out that I did not fully realize. I saw how I have this deep passion to ask difficult—and often unpopular—questions about the church and small group life that goes beyond the pragmatic questions of How do we make this work? or How can we grow our groups? While I can answer those questions, the real driver within me is to ask deeper questions about God, his church, and the kind of community that makes a difference in the world. I do this because I want to pas...

Last week, I picked up another new book that sprays its anger at the institutional church. Hurt, disappointment, and broken promises stir up this anger within authors and readers of such books, websites and blogs. As a result, people castigate the need for "bricks and mortar" churches. Sitting in rows to listen to a sermon is of no real value. Sweeping statements about the current church structure are made, basically saying that Satan is behind them all. Now let me confess, I've been angry at the church. When I was in college I had a radical encounter with God. I realized that while I knew all about God from my church experience I did not actually have a relationship with God. I had been a youth ministry intern in Houston. I was sent as a youth missionary to a church in Germany. I was being considered for a church staff position in a large church. I had even been mentored by the pastor of the second largest church in town. But I realized that I did not know God. My li...

The following is the foreword which I wrote for the excellent book Small Group Vital Signs by Michael Mack. For those of you who don't know, he is the guy who founded www.smallgroups.com about 20 years ago. He is an experienced pastor, and he knows what it takes to develop healthy groups. Let me bottom line this: Get this book on small groups and read it. You won't regret it. BTW-You can also take a free online assessment that helps you measure these vital signs in your group: Here's my foreword: Small groups are part of life. I cannot remember a time in my life where there was not some form of small group. From the Kindergarten classroom organization, to lunchroom experience where we sought out the place where “my” people sat, to team sports . . . small groups are everywhere. And from my experience they were always a part of church life too. It just happened in what we called Sunday school. We also had home Bible studies and committees. Because small groups are p...

I know that it's cool to quote N. T. Wright. Nonetheless, his writings have been shaping my thinking since the mid-1990s when I was doing my degree in New Testament at Regent College. He offers us a combination of intelligent thinking, disciplined research and accessible writing that is rare. While doing some background research for a friend on the topic of the Bible I revisited Scripture and the Authority of God. There Wright makes three observations about the Bible and it's role in our lives. It: Reveals the character of the God who communicates Reorders our lives according to an alternative way of thinking/living Reinvigorates for mission While I don't see this as incredibly inspiring or at all controversial, it is clear, direct and helpful. In a day when the role of the Bible is questioned at ever turn, sometimes we just need a simple framework that points the way ahead. I think that this does that for us. "The role of the Bible within the church and the in...

I spoke with a pastor yesterday who has given over 20 years of his life to pulling off the attractional church model. He was schooled and reproduced the seeker model in multiple locations. Then about ten years ago, he tried to merge the seeker model with a relational approach to small groups. In other words, the seeker service was used to lure them in and then they tried to group them in relational settings that moved beyond programmatic small groups. But he said that the seeker model was too much work and drained all their leadership from the energy needed to develop the relational wing of of church life. Now he is burned out on programmatic church but remains committed to the church. I commend him for this. Many get to this place and just get mad at the church. He wants to participate in something relational and organic that is not dependent upon massive programs. He wants to quit splitting up the family in the church into life-stages and allow the family to seek God together. Hope...

When I was a youth intern, we took our kids to an event at Baylor University. Before the kids arrived, all the youth pastors and leaders gathered for some meetings. It was two days of super-charged energy, something of a competition to see who could display the most passion, at least this is what it felt like in retrospect. One night, I walked to the local convenience store to purchase a snack and met a homeless man. I spoke with him, bought him some food and told him about Jesus. He even prayed the prayer. Who knows? He could of done it to get me to leave. After all, I was on the passion drug and was probably rather pushy. This hyped up my passion even more. It was as if I had crossed over some kind of Rubicon. Even though I had led others to pray the prayer before, I was jumping through the ceiling. Now I was a real Christian because I a witnessing machine and I was not ashamed of it. Looking back, I realize how I made the act of telling others about Jesus more about me than abou...