The Relational Mission

Yesterday, our second son lost his tooth. He was acting like a dog biting a towel and his brother pulled it out. Immediately they both yelled that his tooth came out. I guess it's the little stuff like this that matters most. When I decided I would give my life to some form of pastoral leadership, I envisioned all the great stuff I would due to impact the world. All the sermons, the miracles, the conversions, and of course the big church to go along. But today God was in the midst of a lost tooth. And the reality is that on most days I find that God is actually moving in the little, the insignificant, the easily missed. In the simple conversation with a child I find the wonder of life and the mystery of God. But these little "whisper" moments are easily overlooked. Since God is big and the problems of the world are enormous, we tend to assume that the things that God wants to do are grand in nature. After all, it is big programs and creative ministries t...

Lead People from their Current Reality into Community & Mission Thirty miles north of Dallas, you will find hundreds of acres once owned by my grandparents, who operated a dairy farm. My grandfather sold the property in the 1960s. When I was a kid, my father rented the land from the new owner for raising beef cattle. We also raised sheep, chickens, and even rabbits at one point of my childhood. We cultivated wheat, oats, and hay as well. Through my veins runs the dirt, sweat, and tears of generations of farmers. I learned a lot on the farm. For one, I learned that it is hard work. While I'm not medically allergic to farm labor it sure felt like it. But there is another lesson that that shaped my imagination, one that applies to my work now as a pastor. I learned from my father that caring for animals begins by working with what you have, not what you wish you had. What exactly does this mean, to work with what you have not what you wish you had? If you grew up on a far...

Focus on Discipleship Most small group systems focus on the development of small groups. But the small group systems that stand the test of time are not founded upon small groups at all. They do small groups for the sake of discipleship. Their goal is not small group participation. Instead, it’s helping small groups of people confront the typical American life so that they can be formed or discipled into an contrasting pattern of life. These churches are aiming to generate an alternative way of life. Small groups for the sake of small groups will always blow in the wind of the culture. But small groups for the sake of discipleship have a deeper, transformational, and missional purpose. Elizabeth O’Connor writes of the missional experience of The Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. She states, “This deepening of the spiritual life is not spontaneous. People do not just become great Christians. They grow as they make certain purposeful responses to life and to the grace of God. W...

I read tons of books. Literally. Through the years, I've found that I naturally I put books into one of five categories. Books to ignore. These are just not worth the time. Books to argue with. These help you see that with which you disagree and therefore help clarify convictions. Books to enjoy. I tend to put novels here, but I also find good non-fiction works fall into this group. Books that inform convictions. I have about 20 books to which I return consistently to help guide my thinking. Books to ingest, absorb and allow to shape me.  There are very few that fall in this last group. These are the kind of books one reads, re-reads, and reads again every couple of years. These are books to live with and live out. These tend to speak to the "heart" first and the head second, whereas the "inform convictions" books tend to speak to my "head" first. On my list include books like Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Works of Love by Kierkegaar...

On our family farm in North Texas, we raised everything from cows to chickens, rabbits to turkeys. We stayed away from pigs and horses, but just about every other farm animal called our farm home at some point. The one species that seemed to impact our lives the most were the sheep. While we owned more cattle, the small flock of sheep were are part of our lives more than any other. Unlike cattle, sheep require up-close-and-personal care. For instance, sheep lack the ability to regulate how much they eat. If food is out, they will eat it. And if they eat too much, they will die. In addition, they have very sensitive stomachs. Therefore a shepherd is required to feed them the right amounts of the right food. Sheep have no ability to protect themselves. They are frail and slow, and they cannot kick, claw or bite. They are easily spooked. They will scatter easily in panic and then once cornered they will sit petrified while staring at their predator.  Therefore a shepherd is requ...

I've lived most of my life in the Bible Belt. And while Christian leaders like to talk about how various authorities (i.e. media, education and entertainment) deride Christianity, it seems to me that Jesus and church are still alive and well in America. Yes, the stats are gloomy about the growth patterns in the church, but I drive around and I see churches all over the place, and lots of them are full. I go to Target and see all kinds of Christian books being pushed. The best-selling hard-back book of all time is The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren. There seems to be an ongoing degree of respect for things connected to Jesus. After all what's not to like about Jesus. Here is the man who healed the sick, raised the dead, fed thousands and ultimately gave his life for the world. We celebrate him at Christmas and fill churches up on Easter. It hit me last Christmas as I was driving through a light show with our family. It included a display that celebrated Jesus' birth...

Last week, I got my preview copy of Difference Makers, which comes out in June. It was kinda fun to read it just to read it, without any thought of ways that I could make it better. I found myself encountering what I wrote as if for the first time. (What does that say about my memory?) With this book, I aim to offer an alternative way of making a difference. Most of the time, when we think of difference making, we think of doing something, taking on a cause, standing up for justice, or taking radical action. While I don't have an issue with taking action or the specific actions taken, I've found that when we focus on the actions themselves we fall short of being difference makers. There is a huge difference between doing stuff that makes a difference and being a difference maker. The being will include the doing, but when we focus on the doing part the being may or may not follow. In Difference Makers , there is an emphasis on both being and doing. This means that we ca...

Facilitate Presence Small groups meet in all kinds of places. Today, hundreds of small small groups will meet in schools, offices and on playing fields. One of the key tasks of small group pastors is to hold up the vision of what makes small groups of God's people distinct from all the other kinds of small groups that meet. There are a lot of things that we can do as small groups that are unique to being the people of God. We can worship. We can grow as disciples. We can study the Bible, reach out and live in community. But none of these really defines what makes us distinct. We are distinct because God's people are characterized by the fact that they know and follow the presence of God. Without God's presence, we might have a good small group. We might even fulfill all of the purposes that God has given to the church. But we will miss out on what makes us truly distinct. I am convinced that we have become so accustomed to leading groups in North America that we don’...

How do you communicate to the average person in the church what it means to be on mission with God without using the word "missional"? I've found that most of what has been written about being missional aims at the church leader. Most of the people  worshipping in our churches want to make a difference in this world, but they don't want to learn all the theological language of being "missional." So in my writing over the last couple of years, I've sought to talk about being missional in a way that relates to everyday people. The results will hit the shelves next month in the form of Difference Makers . My aim was to write about a theme in a way that relates to the average person, the kind of person who goes to work everyday — as an accountant, a teacher, a factory worker — and does not have the time or the energy to read thick books about what it means to be a "missional" Christian. The approach taken here is multifaceted. The chapters ...

"Blessed are the merciful," Jesus said. To get my mind around his words, I have reflected about the opposite of merciful. From my perspective, it's being judgmental, by which i mean putting myself in the seat where I'm the judge of others, the one who determines the rightness and the wrongness of others' actions and motives. When I put myself in this seat, I become the evaluator of everyone and everything. To boil it down, I become the critic of others actions and motives. I criticize their looks, their choices and their way of life. Of course a critic assumes that his or her perspective is correct. In more ways that one, this has become a way of life of many in our world. Just listen to ESPN right now and listen to the critics of various athletes. The airways are full of opinions about Dwight Howard right now. And even more have opinions about Jason Collins. We have made criticizing others a common language. We have put ourselves in the seat of evaluation and...