The Relational Mission

Does believing in the Trinity have any import in life, in the church, in our leadership? Of course it has direction implications on our statements of faith and in some of our sermons, but is that it? Let me pose it this way: If we did not espouse the Trinity, what would change about the day-to-day life of the church? Theological reflection about the Triune God opens up a new imagination about who God is. It moves us beyond our man-made images of gods to see what has been revealed in the Incarnation and through the sending of the Spirit. John Franke puts it this way: "The statement 'God is love' refers primarily to the eternal, relational, intratrinitarian fellowship among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who together are the one God. In this way, God is love within the divine reality, and in this sense, through all eternity, God is the social Trinity, the community of love. (Franke, The Character of Theology , 67). But what does this have to do with anything?  Beyond ...

Provide Group Leader Training Small group leaders need training. Whether you are overseeing traditional small groups or innovative missional communities, those leaders need training. I've found the following levels of training provide a great framework that can be adapted for your context: Level 1: Introductory training for new or developing leaders. This is a basic initiation into the role and responsibilities. Most new leaders won't remember what you have to share if you give them too much information. In my experience, most new leaders are primarily asking how they can lead a good meeting. That's why I suggest that you start there. There are tons of great materials on this subject. In my first book, Cell Group Leader Training I summarize the basics of leading group meetings in the first four sessions. Level 2: A supplemental resource that provides general information about most aspects of leading a group. There are more books on this subject that you can count....

I really like this book, especially the first half. We need more theological reflection about the mission of God and the church. And Ross has given us a gift to help us along this journey. The strength of this book is found in some of the individual nuggets throughout, especially those that speak to a missional understanding of God's nature. I found myself wanting more for a theology for how this plays out in the midst of culture and therefore a more developed pneumatology, but then the book would have been twice as long. Because my book is marked up throughout, I thought one of the best ways to highlight the perspective of the book is to list some of the quotes I found most helpful. Instead of a normal review, this is an "un-review" but through this, I think you will get a feel for the point of view the book takes.  “The working out of this coinherence of the works of the divine persons in the church will ensure that its mission is reimagined as commitment: to being ...

I wrote this post and then I deleted it by accident. So here's the second post. I think it turned out a bit better. I've found that most Chrisitan know that they are supposed to pray. But I've also found that prayer can be a very frustrating experience. This is especially true when we view prayer as a something we have to make happen. You know the kind of thing that we do by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and we do out of effort and discipline. I've been there, oh so many times. I've prayed ACTS, through the Tabernacle pattern, and by walking through the Lord's prayer. I've journaled my prayers. I've forced myself to get up far too early in the morning. And I've copied the patterns of those held up as prayer warriors. Effort, effort, effort. Trying to make prayer work can be exhausting. Over the years I've found that prayer can be a joy when I don't focus on trying to make it work. Instead, I allow a different way of praying to ...

American Christians are more known for what we are against than what we are for . This seems to be more true of Evangelicals than any other group. The shining example of this occurred when Reformed Christian leaders came out against Rob Bell's book Love Wins . Their ranting against Bell's message propelled that book up the bestseller list. I see this happening all over the place, especially in social media. It seems like the most popular blog posts are those that are coming out against something or someone. Like cats fighting, we know how to be antagonistic. I've only recently seen the problem with this against mentality. For years I was blind to it because my Christian imagination was formed by it; it was the water in which I swimmed. As a kid growing up as a Southern Baptist, I was more known for what I did not do than for what I did. Good Christians do not smoke, chew or go with girls who do. We were against abortion, against invasive government and against homosexu...

Foster Environments for the Re-Socialization of Jesus Followers that  Results in Community & Mission  Developing small groups that live in community and on mission is about helping people live in a way that aligns with the life that Jesus demonstrated when he walked on earth. He came not only to save us from the penalty of sin. He also opened a door of freedom so that we might freely live in a new and different way, what Jesus called “abundant life.” This abundant way is a revolt against the “principalities and powers of this world” that do not line up with God’s ways. They include patterns of this world such as individualism, nationalism, sexism, and racism, just to name a few. These are ingrained patterns that shape our thinking and are so common that they go unnoticed. We have been socialized by these patterns, which means that we have “picked up” disciplines that reinforce the life according to these patterns. When I say that we “picked up” or socialized, I mean...

What's the source of our identity? What is the root of our being? What is the ultimate being of our life? What is the ultimate cause of our being? These are questions that are raised by the philosophical discipline called ontology. Rene Descartes asked these questions and came up with cogito ergo sum which is Latin for "I think, therefore I am." He determined that his ability to reason is the source of his being. As I've reflected on how we do life today, I think there are many other options that lie at the source of our being. While most of us don't think about these things in what we might call an ontological way, we all live according to a certain ontology. For instance,  I feel, therefore I am. I have fun, therefore I am. I work, therefore I am. I have power, therefore I am. I make money, therefore I am. I possess, therefore I am. I'm sure we could add to this list. For those of us who follow Jesus, we might add something like, "I love, ther...

What does it mean to live in community in small groups? Or as a part of a church? Or in missional communities? Or with others who are holding us accountable, i.e. groups of two or three? When we think of community, too many times we think of it in terms of preferential love, which means that we will relate to others as long as they are pleasing to us. I've been reading and rereading Soren Kierkegaard's Works of Love recently. He has some challenging insights and reflections on what it means to love our neighbor. "Thus the neighbor is the person who is nearer to you than anyone else, yet not in the sense of preferential love, since to love someone who in the sense of preferential love is nearer than anyone else is self-love—'do not the pagans also do the same?'" The neighbor, then, is nearer to you than anyone else. ... 'the neighbor' is what thinkers call 'the other.' that by which the selfishness in self-love is to be tested." (21) This ...

Develop Coaches (or Better Stated "Elders") From the embryonic days of small group ministry, leadership oversight and coaching has been a crucial component. Every small group resource on my self speaks to the importance of establishing oversight structures. Even the house church movement sees the need for oversight. I’m not going to get into the details of these structural patterns, as that has been done many times over, including in two of my own books. Coaching structures tend to be a big focus when we talk about coaching. Instead, I want to talk about what group members and group—not just leaders—actually need in order to move into a new way of life. In a nutshell, they need elders.   Coaching & Eldering One of the common responses to the idea of coaching goes something like this, “My group leaders don’t want the input of a coach or a pastor. They find the extra meetings a waste of time. They lead groups quite well on their own.” Research states just the opposite...