The Relational Mission

The experience of missional community in small groups, in mid-size groups or in networks of small groups is a journey, not a destination. The journey is one of "growing in love" so that we become a community that puts love where love is not. This short video speaks to this and introduces some of the key concepts that I write about in the opening chapters of Missional Small Groups . One of the keys to journey of missional community is the shift from treating people as objects to treating them as loved by God. What do you think? What's the difference between between treating a person as an object and treating a person as if they have inherent value as a creation of God?

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule." (The Message) Recently, I read a writer about his take on the beatitudes. He tells a story about a woman he met who's son had walked away from Christianity because he was a successful businessman and he did not want to have to live out Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount. The writer then goes on to explain how this self-reliant businessman did not have to embrace the beatitudes as his own. Instead proposes that Jesus' words were exemplary, in that he was pointing to the Jewish crowds that surround the mountain who were obviously poor in Spirit. He was using them as an example to teach the disciples about the fact that they were blessed because God's kingdom is for them.  By contrast, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about what it meant to be a disciple. He stated, "They [the disciples] have neither spiritual power of their own, nor experience or knowledge...

Life is a dance. We can dance according to one of two rhythms. Our dance steps can be conformed to the rhythms of this world or they can be transformed to the dance of God. Romans 12:1-2 reads: Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. The rhythm that follows the pattern of this world is something that we dance quite naturally. These are the patterns of life that we simply do because they go unquestioned. We live the way we do because that is just the way the culture around us does life. Most of us grow up dancing these rhythms without our ever knowing it. When the dance floor is the world you were born into and everyone around you is dancing the dance of the...

"Blessed are ..." What does Jesus mean? If we fail to ask what he meant by "blessed" then it's so easy to insert our own cultural meanings into this word. Yesterday, I received a copy of a new book by Intervarsity Press entitled Sermons on the Beatitudes by Gregory of Nyssa . This is a great paraphrase of the insights of one of the Church Fathers that helped to set the agenda for what we call Trinitarian Orthodoxy. (For previous post in this series on the beatitudes, click here .) In it we read, "I understand blessedness to be a state of unconditional happiness and contentment. Sometimes it is easier to learn the meaning of something by comparing it with its opposite, and such is the case with the meaning of blessedness. The opposite of blessedness is extreme unhappiness, which is the undesirable experience of anguish that is the result of unbearable misery. The attitude of a person experiencing blessedness is significantly different from that of t...

When I first started meditating on the beatitudes a few months ago, the reality that Jesus calls "blessed" that which we do not assume to be blessed hit me out of the blue. I had never seen this fact before, primarily because I had always tried to merge Jesus' blessings' list with the common way that we see blessings. (See previous post on this subject if interested.) I had never seen the beatitudes as a contrasting way of life to the common way of life that we assume to be blessed. So I comprised a list of of things that we commonly hold up as praiseworthy in our culture, so that Jesus' alternative would be more clear to me. This is what I came up with: (Add the word "Blessed are ..." before each line.) Jesus                                              ...

I have been spending a lot of time with the beatitudes over the past few months, words that I heard so many times in my many years in the church have finally come to life. (See Part 1 of this series here .) One of the things that has stood out to me is just how much these blessings of Jesus stand in stark contrast to how we commonly talk about blessings today. As a part of my research, I've done some reading on how church leaders talk about the "blessings of God" on our lives. I've looked at themes like "the goodness of God," "the best life that we can have now," and even those who explicitly write about "the blessed life." (I'll refrain from actually naming books because I'm not here to critique any specific author. Instead, I'm looking at a trend.) In almost every case the focus of the teaching relates to how we can have financial success, how we can have a positive attitude and how we can be winners in this life, which is u...

Jesus led the disciples out of the crowd up on a hill and from there spoke what we now call “The Sermon on the Mount.” Of course there are many different ways that this sermon has been interpreted in the history of the church. I’m trying to read this sermon according to the narrative laid out by Matthew. This Gospel is known for its emphasis on discipleship. It is broken up into five sections of Jesus’ in action followed by five sections of Jesus teaching. This great sermon, maybe the best ever, is part of the first teaching section. Because the primary audience is the disciples, and this Gospel as a whole emphasizes discipleship, we must take seriously that the sermon and it’s opening words, historically called the “beatitudes” are directly related to discipleship. The beatitudes in other words do not describe a universal ethic of what it means to have a good life. These are not rules to follow that replace the Ten Commandments that Moses got up on Mount Sinia. This is not a how to ...