The Relational Mission

Recently, I've written a couple of posts about judgmental, antagonistic and critical Christianity. Back in the 1980s when Amy Grant was very popular she appeared on The Tonight Show . We had a guest speaker at our church, and while talking in the fellowship hall on a Sunday night over ice cream, I remember him very distinctly criticizing Amy for not being more bold about Jesus on national television, that she was compromising on the truth. I heard this speaker preach at least 50 times, but his comments about Amy Grant stuck in my memory more than anything else. Jesus said, " For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." However, it seems like now that we are waiting until the erreturn of Christ, that we in the church take the opposite approach.  Some might retort, "We, as Christians, know the truth, and we have the responsibility to tell the world what is right and wrong. Unless someone names the truth, mora...

While doing research for my first magazine article—which I never got published—I was interviewing a pastor on the East Coast. I asked him about his biggest challenges in a growing church. He quickly told me that he did not have enough leaders. Through the years, I’ve never found a pastor who told me that had enough. In fact, I’ve got book after book on my shelf that talks about the need for leaders, how to develop leaders, and how to empower leaders. Whether or not we need leaders is not the question. In fact, Jesus spent three years focusing on the development of a small group of leaders who would guide the development of the young church. The real question for us is this: Are we developing leaders to fulfill roles or are we developing persons who lead out of personhood? I’m writing this post from Stillwater, MN, one of the first cities in this part of the country. In one of the oldest buildings in this town, where now there are little shops and boutiques, workers once built cars ...

About three years ago, I was leading a small class on connecting with God. Honestly, I had never taught a class like this before. I just knew that I had to teach it. I think I was motivated to learn how to pray better. So I thought I would teach as a fellow journeyman rather than an expert. At first, I thought I would find some grand counsel from a book or resource that would open up the heavens and transport us into a heavenly relationship with God. I assumed that we would talk about a prayer pattern that would be helpful to all of us. But as I read various books, I came to another conclusion. I realized that most churches do exactly what I assumed that I would teach in that class. They promote and teach one primary way pattern for relating to God. For instance, in the church tradition of my childhood, I was taught the pattern of having a quiet time with God using ACTS, A-Adoration, C-Confession, T-Thanksgiving, S-Supplication. And we were taught that quiet times were best done ear...

The way we lead people is the way people will follow. If we lead in a programmatic way, then people will follow in a programmatic way. If you lead in a relational way, people will be much more likely to follow you into that way. Small groups, missional communities, cell groups, house churches, etc. are inherently dependent upon healthy relationality. So the question for us is: Are we leading in a relational way? In part, leading relationally depends upon the focus in our leadership. Sadly, I've found that we tend to lead groups and pastors tend to to lead group systems by focusing on a "what" instead of "whom." Let me explain: I've been working with churches to help them small group systems for over 20 years now. I've seen trends come and go. I've experienced models rise and dissipate: Cell church. Meta-church. Groups of 12. Church of small groups versus church with small groups. Semester-long groups. Church-wide campaigns. Missional communities....

Through the years, it has been proven that the majority of faithful followers of Jesus were led to the Lord by a friend, family member, co-worker or neighbor. In fact the statistics on this are staggeringly high, in some cases over 90%. While stranger evangelism can be effective at times and conversion experiences that depend upon mass events or multi-media presentations can be effective at the point of decision, relationships influence people the most when they are a considering whether or not they want to follow Jesus. The logical conclusion then is to train Christians in relationship evangelism. In contrast to things like door-to-door witnessing, handing out tracts, or organizing evangelistic rallies, the most effective evangelism strategy is relational. This is demonstrated by a book I read years ago entitled Making Friends for Christ. I've led seminars where I trained small group leaders to use a poster where group members would make a list of friends and neighbors for whom...

I'm working on my next book today. Here are a couple of paragraphs that I wrote about sharing meals. Any feedback? When I read the Gospels while asking the question “Where was Jesus?” I’m continually shocked by the fact that I read so much about Jesus eating and at parties. Food and Jesus came together. We also have evidence that the early church most often met over a shared meal. And we know that worship occurred in the early church with the celebration of communion, usually over a meal. In the life of Jesus, we see him relating to his disciples over meals, teaching them over food and even using parables about food. We see him engaging neighbors and networks over meals and parties. The most obvious is that party at Matthew’s house where many tax collectors and sinners had assembled. There is something about food that moves us beyond technical solutions to problems that we encounter in our small groups. Some things are better addressed by eating together than through strategy se...