What I found particularly helpful in this video was the discussion about “attractional” vs. “missional”  churches.  I like how they both avoid allowing the conversation to degrade into a rehash of the all-too-familiar culture wars debate between the hymn singers and the head bangers.

Check it out.  It’s worth your time. But, what I’m really interested in is your thoughts after watching it.  This is a topic that the American Church MUST engage in.

Ed Stetzer & David Fitch – a missional conversation from Missional Tribe on Vimeo.

[tags]ed stetzer, david fitch, missional, attractional, video, church[/tags]

We do not worship a dead God. This is not a memorial service. We worship a living Jesus, who is alive and well in this very moment.

What does this mean? It means that there is nothing that our God cannot do! No sickness that he cannot heal. No sin he cannot cleanse. No debt he cannot pay. No fear he cannot assuage. No opposition that he cannot overcome. No fleshly compulsion that he cannot abate. No enemy that he cannot destroy. No life that he cannot save. No soul that he cannot win. No city that he cannot conquer. It simply means that you have nothing to fear but the Lord.

[tags]easter, resurrection, jesus, amena brown[/tags]

Jesus came, in the likeness of men, on a mission to reconcile the world to God. (2 Corinthians 5:16-21) That mission was entrusted to us by Jesus just prior to His ascension. (John 20:21) The question for us is whether or not we will enroll ourselves in His mission.

So much emphasis is given these days to “finding your destiny in God” that I fear we have forgotten the starting point. We take spiritual gift tests, read books, hire Christian life-coaches/pastors, and attend conferences to figure out how to live a happy and fulfilled life. And rarely do we ask the question, “What’s Jesus’ mission?”

How are we to discover where we fit and who we are if we don’t begin with Jesus?


Ed Stetzer gives three characteristics of a missional church. I think you can also translate these into characteristics of a missional christian (after all, the church is people right?).

1. Incarnational – Jesus came as God in the flesh to live with and befriend sinful humanity. He did it without being a jerk or being tainted by sin. We are to be the same for Jesus in our communities.
2. Indigenous – The world should look at us and see people that look just like them, but live very differently. This is a hard one because most churches have their own self-perpetuating culture that looks nothing like the community surrounding it. In fact, statistics have shown over and over that most Christians actually live just like the world. So the Church is doing the exact opposite of Jesus’ teaching: Look totally different from the world, but live the same.
3. Intentional – Who have you been sent to? What group of lost people most easily relate to you? What lost people are you around the most? What can you do to use that God-given influence to introduce that group to Jesus naturally?

When we fail in one or more of these areas, we lose our credibility and we compromise our ability to fulfill our mission. In short, we stop representing Jesus and begin representing something else. If we aren’t impacting the world around us, it’s because we are not representing Jesus. Maybe we are representing our church. Maybe we are representing our opinions and traditions. Maybe we aren’t representing anything but ourselves.

[tags]missional, christian, ed stetzer, outreach[/tags]

1. What are you most afraid of?
2. What do you long for most passionately
3. Where do you run for comfort? Anger?
4. What do you complain about most?
5. What angers you most?
6. What makes you happiest?
7. How do you define yourself to people?
8. What has caused you to be angry with God?
9. What do you brag about?
10. What one thing do you want the most
11. What do you sacrifice for? (sacrifice = worship)
12. If you change one thing in your life, what would it be?
13. Who’s approval are you seeking? Is it anyone other than Jesus?
14. What do you want to control or master?
15. What comfort do you treasure the most?

[tags]idolatry, questions, tim keller[/tags]

The more I think about the sin of idolatry and the more I study it in the Bible the more convinced I am that this is the benchmark issue of our time. This is the issue that will either send the Church deeper into impotency or, if overcome, drag it from the shadows as a culture-changing, kingdom-advancing influence. It’s so easy to put other things in the position of preiminence in our lives. We are created to worship and so often we find ourselves worshipping created things instead of the Creator.

No wonder Americans struggle so terribly with depression and anxiety. We are constantly being told that we don’t have enough money and the stuff that goes with it. If we can get enough stuff then we will be happy (or at least happier). Then we achieve that next level of stuff-collecting only to find disappointment.

Ever get the post-Christmas blues? You know how it is. The day after Christmas when all the presents have been opened, toys played with, batteries run down, family gone back home and you find yourself sitting on the couch watching a rerun of Oprah giving away make-up kits to crying single mothers. Your life is no different than it was on Christmas Eve. The only change is that you now have more stuff and a lingering feeling of disappointment.

Could we do something different this year? Could we destroy our false idols and put Christ in His place of Glory in our lives? Could we remember that we really are rich and blessed? Could we fight against the steady barrage of marketed lies this Christmas season that tell us that the answer to life’s biggest questions can be found in an iPod, an iPhone, and a gift certificate to Starbucks?

Nooma – “Rich” (a partial clip)

[tags]nooma, rich, christmas, jesus, materialism, idolatry, worship, youtube, Rob Bell[/tags]

I’ve been personally convicted about this for some time now. I can see times in my life when I have been so blinded by my own perceived needs that I practically ignored other important people in my life. I’m learning that my insecurity is merely the outward manifestation of a deeper problem. The problem is pride. But, then, isn’t that ALWAYS the problem?

It’s the thought of Jesus’ incarnation that so humbles me. The very idea that God would come in “likeness of man” is mind blowing. Then we killed him. We killed God. Stuck Him on a cross and killed Him. That He allowed us to touch even a hair on his head in violence so that we could exchange our sin for His righteousness takes the humility of Christ to an incomprehensible extreme.

I think this helps us understand why God says such strong things about pride in the Bible. Consider these, for example:

• Prov. 6:16-17 and Prov. 8:13
• Prov. 16:5 and Prov. 16:18
• James 4:6 and I Peter 5:5

It’s only through Jesus’ example and then His enablement that we can grow in humility. We can’t even see our pride (because we are prideful) lest He show it to us. Since Jesus is the source of humility, it’s only through Him that we can find it.

In the end, we are all in process. No one can claim humility. All we can say is that we are pursuing it. But wait! Just admitting that requires humility, doesn’t it?

Amena Brown – “You”

[tags]humility, pride, Jesus, amena brown, you, youtube[/tags]

They falsely accused Paul and through political pressure against Rome had Paul put under a Roman form of house arrest. Your commentaries will tell you that this meant that Paul would have been literally chained to a soldier. The soldiers would have done this in shifts. The scripture says that Paul rented his own home under arrest for 2 years. I’ve read estimates that say that Paul would have been chained to thousands of soldiers over that 2 year period. All this time people continued to come to see Paul from all over and he continued to preach the gospel to them.

Now what do you think Paul did with those poor soldiers chained to him? How many of those soldiers met Christ there in his home? How many left there to continue spreading the gospel from within the Roman empire?

Would Paul have said that he was chained to a soldier or the soldier was chained to him?

All of us are chained to something. Something that we look at as a curse, a bad twist of fate or bondage. Maybe it’s a job we hate. Maybe it’s sickness. Maybe it’s an annoying relationship that just won’t go away. Could it be that what we call bondage is actually where God has sent us? Maybe instead of constantly waiting for God to release us from our chains so that we can at last be free to do what we are called to do, we should live sent right where we are.

What is it that they say? Bloom where you’re planted.

[tags]Paul, apostle, bondage, freedom, live sent, Acts[/tags]