Category: Missional Church

Love, Acceptance, & Forgiveness

 Out of the hundreds of books in my library, there are two that I can identify as having profoundly affected the trajectory of my ministry. The first is thee subject of this week’s profile, Love, Acceptance & Forgiveness by Jerry Cook. In this slim volume (128 pages) Cook invites us to see beneath the surface of people to the Imago Dei that might be covered by layers of troubles and poor choices. He rebelled against the Church that chooses judgment, choosing instead to lead his church to practice love and forgiveness in all of their interactions.

Of the many vignettes that fill the book, the one that stands out as the most transformative is the story of the former pastor who is seeking a place to worship. He has divorced and remarried and, because of the adultery that led to this new relationship and the destruction of his previous ministry, he has been denied fellowship from other bodies in town. Cook recounts the heartbreaking conversation and the restoration that followed as fellowship was restored. As the Pastor, Jerry could have elected to practice judgment and barred the man and his family from entry into the body in the name of protecting his flock from their influence but instead, the transformation was ignited by the practice of love, acceptance, and forgiveness.  

This is but one of the numerous examples that Cook uses the emphasize his belief that the Church was not meant to play God in judging others and condemning them for their mistakes and choices. Rather, he correctly declares that the church is to continue the restorative ministry of Jesus Christ, who wades into the world and its problems and offers the one solution that works every time it is tried; the love of Christ, the acceptance of all by Christ, and the forgiveness gained by Christ.

This book has been in print since 1979 and it reads as well today as it did when first printed. This is a book for the pastor and the folks in the pews. Less a how-to than a polemic against the fortress mentality of many churches, Cook’s words may be just the thing that the Spirit will use to move your heart as well. Add this one to your library, you won’t be sorry.

The title of this blog was obviously borrowed from the title of this book. The tagline also comes from an epithet thrown at Cook’s church because of their habit of welcoming into fellowship all the human refuse cast aside by other congregations who are more interested in keeping the carpets clean, the drapes smoke free, and the sheep free of the influence of the fallen than they are in ministering to them. My consistent prayer for our church is to gain the same title – garbage collectors!

 

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Peace, Love & Understanding

Jesus didn’t leave the Church behind so that we would form these little fortresses of safety to keep the world at bay until He returns. Our mission was to continue His ministry among those who needed it the most. Let’s take a moment today to think about what it means to ‘be’ the church rather than just belonging to the church. Declan sings about our mission…

Recovering the Danger -The Forgotten Ways

When Hirsch refers to the church buildings in his book, I believe he is conferring the ‘ fortress mentality’ onto a recognizable structure and not criticizing the bricks of the cathedral. The fortress mentality arose in the period of Christendom where the chief organizing principle for believers was the church. It lay at the core of the social structure of the believers life and by necessity, as it was tied to its foundation, it was attractional. If you were not attracted to the principles of the church, you found yourself outside of the fortress walls. Hirsch correctly points out that with a few exceptions, this organizational model doesn’t work in the modern world.

It might be overlooked by the casual reader but the Stark quote that Hirsch employs to help explain the inverse shape of the missional movement is genius. From Stark’s For the Glory of God, he quotes:

Far too long, historians have accepted the claim that the conversion of the Emperor Constantine caused the triumph of Christianity. To the contrary, he destroyed its most attractive and dynamic aspects, turning a high-intensity, grassroots movement into an arrogant institution controlled by an elite who often managed to be both brutal and lax.

The return to the grassroots, high intensity community of faith is at the heart of the missional church. Rather than reliance upon the old attractional models of the fixed cathedral, the faith of mission grows legs and takes it to the very tribes that each congregation is most attuned to reaching. 

The Forgotten Ways

Scot McKnight over at Jesus Creed is prompting his readers to read along and discuss Alan Hirsch’s book The Forgotten Ways and I was moved to join the discussion. Hirsch tells the story of moving a moribund body backwards in time and tradition to a Church in which all participated, all were held to account, and all were so significantly countercultural that their lives became attractional, living invitations to other to follow Christ with them. Our church set out to do this and it has been quite an adventure. As we set forth, some found themselves too attached to the 10/90 model and dropped off. Others challenged the map we were following, slowing the mission but not stopping it. Meeting people where they are rather than demanding that they join us where we want to be is the most spiritually satisfying thing our group has ever done.

We Failed Arrested Teen

18 year old Addie Kubisiak sits in a Douglas County jail this morning, insulated from the bitter cold outside, but colder inside as she faces the consequences of a decision she made in the past (story here). Though the details about the birth and subsequent death of her baby have yet to be reported, her actions that followed and resulted in her arrest and being charged with first degree murder should reflect back on the Church with the intensity of the glare of the sun reflecting off of the icy snow. The abortion industry will point to the enormous shame and stress of the apparently secret pregnancy as justification for even greater access to their services.

Where were we? Babies do not spontaneously appear. A gestation period of nine months gave us more than adequate time for a follower of Christ to love as we are loved.  How does a troubled woman like this fail to gain our attention? Is it possible that the circle she ran in was totally bereft of Christians and their influence? The Church, especially those among us who adhere to the missional ideals, must apply ourselves to countering the historic judgmentalism that shunned people rather than loving them. All it would have taken is one Christian to come alongside this woman and shown her love and acceptance while supporting her through the trouble she was facing and we might not have been following this story today.

Where was I…

Jesus Loves Osama

Church sign

The red words of the Sermon on the Mount pose an incredible challenge, don’t they? Platitudes or a way of life for followers of Jesus? Read the article here.  With the high regard for scripture that exists in the missional church, the Sermon on the Mount demands that we be counter cultural since nearly every verse runs in opposition to the modern world into which we’ve been sent. Though we use many cultural accoutrements to reach our community, eventually we are confronted by the One that we follow with demands that cannot be softened by candles, video, or louder praise music.

Don’t Walk Alone

Lunching with my Barnabas (cf. Acts 4:36) yesterday reminded me of his value in my life. Walking the difficult, sometimes lonely road of mission church planting must not be done alone. The ups and downs, temptations and triumphs all need to be shared with someone other than your spouse. A true Barnabas is one who can speak into your life about these things and not just about them. It is a person whom you have total trust and respect in giving their words gravity and weight in your soul. Though the time we get to spend together one on one is short, its infusion of encouragement is immeasurable. Don’t walk any path in life alone…find your Barnabas.

Is Missional the New ‘Purpose Driven’?

The new issue of Leadership Journal is about to be published and Tim Conder has a probing column  that should be required reading for church leaders and members who have identified their communities as Missional. His assertion that numerous churches that once identified themselves as cell churches, purpose-driven, seeker style, etc. have now self-identified as Missional churches is valid but I think that it can be expanded a bit. These buzzword bodies tend to support their identification with programs or organizational structures; a Missional church is guided by a philosophy. That philosophy is defined by returning to mission as seen in the first century church, to be reproducing communities of disciples.

Many churches are driven by what goes on within their walls. There are programs and activities for the personal enrichment of those inside the battlements with only occasional forays into the world. The Missional church reverses this design and it equips and sends its members out into the world so as to restore the order of the world as God ordained it. In other words, one cannot simply slap the label Missional on top of their member-care programs and have it be so, it is something that has to be believed and lived from the core of one’s being.