I read this quote a little while ago, and just couldn’t agree more. I have lots of thoughts on it, lots of ideas how this should shape us. But I think my thought’s will convolute the power of this simple quote. So all I would say is this: we should read this thought, and let it drive us into action because its true.
If a local Church falls into indifference as to what is going on in the rest of the world, it is certainly not a Church. John D. Zizioulas
Thoughts?
A lot of discussion about being “missional” focuses on doing. Being missional means partnering in what God is doing all over the world, and in your neighbourhood. Being missional is about remembering that Christians are geared for mission – to serve, love, and change lives. And being missional matters.
Many of the seminars and speakers I’ve heard focus on some great actions to get us out into the community and caring. Things like throwing BBQ’s, being a real-life blessing to those around us, and caring for those who are hurting in our communities. Great stuff.
But I think the real art to being missional isn’t about doing, but about seeing.
The truth is God is already active all around us. God is doing things in our neighbourhoods, families, and communities right now. We follow an active, and dynamic God. A God on the move.
And so while certainly it is important to move and “do mission” with God – the most important practice is to first learn to see where God is moving. We, as Christians, need to become experts at spotting the initial moves of God’s Spirit in our lives, communities, and neighbourhoods. We need to become so in-tune with God’s Spirit that we catch his harmonies in conversations, that we sense his movements in the lives around us.
It’s important to act, but first it’s important to have “eyes to see” where God is already moving.
So how do you do that? Well sometimes the best answer is the simple answer. Start to pray. Pray as you walk around your street. Pray as you talk with neighbours and families. Pray that God will give you eyes to see how he is already moving around you, and how you can join him.
And trust me – this is a prayer God not only will answer, but I think one he wants to answer.
No expert can tell you how to best love your neighbour…Only the Spirit can guide you into faithful presence, which is the love of Christ. Paul Sparks, Tim Soerens, and Dwight Friesen
I think that this quote is just so – challenging and true. We know as Christians we are called to move out into our neighbourhoods, and love our neighbours. If we aren’t loving our neighbours well, we aren’t following Jesus well. That’s just true.
But the difficulty is in how to do this. We often at least in Christian circles, look to experts to tell us this. And if you don’t believe me, just look at how popular conferences and seminars on “How to Be Missional” are. They are everywhere (and I’ve led some…).
The point though is that no expert can adequately tell you how to love your neighbour. And to love our neighbours well, we don’t need more experts, we need a change in focus. We need to focus on Jesus and his Spirit.
It is only Jesus that can truly lead us into loving our neighbours well. It is only through listening to his Spirit that we can discern the right ways and the right times to show love in practical action. In all honesty what we probably need is less experts in our lives, and more dependence on Jesus. This isn’t a knock against practitioners, experts, and people who are inspiring us to live like Jesus. But that’s just the point, they can only inspire us to live like Jesus. It is only Jesus Christ himself who can direct us to live like him, who can transform us into his likeness.
So loving our neighbours is crucially important. And experts and practitioners are important too. But what is most important is learning to listen and follow Jesus and his Spirit well – because that’s the true first step in learning to love our neighbours well.
I had the unique opportunity with working with two different churches outside of my denomination, and normal connections in the past month. Both times working with the church was the first time I’d encountered or met them. But the two encounters couldn’t be more difficult.
The first was difficult, at times troubling, and it was draining. The second church was gracious, open, and quite life-giving.
What I noticed was this. Life around the second church seemed to flourish, whereas, life seemed to wilt around the first.
And of course, there could be a whole host of reasons why at this particular time one church seemed more life-giving than the other. Bad days, imperfections, and mistakes happen to us all.
So I’m not judging either church, but instead thinking about how we should judge or evaluate churches.
Traditionally churches measure budgets, buildings, or numbers. What if instead we started measuring the flourishing of life around the church?
Isn’t that a better metric? A truer metric?
Jesus says he will bring life. So it seems to me that if Jesus is being followed deeply, truly, and freely – life should flourish.
I think it’s a good question to ask about the churches we lead, participate in, or are a part of. I also think it’s a great question for us to ask personally, as people who are the church. Is life flourishing around us? Do our neighbors feel like we are a drain, or a welcome part of their lives? Is Jesus so active in our lives, that life seems to spring around us?
The point is simple: life flourished around Jesus, and it should flourish around his followers as well. It’s not always easy, but it is something to strive for. Something I know I want to strive for in my life and in my church. What about you?
Let’s be honest, we evaluate everything. We do, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously. The trouble is rarely do we evaluate what we are evaluating. Let me explain, as this is particularly problematic with church.
We do evaluate church, and it happens all the time, and I know you do it too. On the ride home you talk about how the sermon was maybe good or flat. You talk about the worship and whether it was anointed or off. We evaluate and measure things.
My contention is not with evaluating the church, it’s with what we evaluate the church by. I would say that in the pastor world the standard three things we evaluate the church on is this: budget, buildings, or attendance. Is our budget growing? Are our facilities top notice? Is our attendance growing? And then we start evaluating how we are doing by our programs (i.e. preaching, worship, youth min. etc)
And none of these things are intrinsically bad. We need to be thinking through our budgets, buildings, people, and programs – but these are not the best criteria to evaluate the church. These are not the best criteria to make sure that our church and communities are pointed in the right direction. Because hear me clearly, what the world needs is not bigger budgets, better buildings, more churchgoers, or cooler programs. What the world needs is more devoted followers of Jesus. We need more disciples.
Neil Cole writes this:
Ultimately, each church will be evaluated by only one thing – its disciples. Your church is only as good as her disciples. It does not matter how good your praise, preaching, programs, or property are; if your disciples are passive, needy, consumeristic, and not moving in the direction of radical obedience, your church is not good.
Cole is seeking to take our focus off of the things the church often does (programs, preaching, etc) to the thing the church is called to make – disciples. And I think this is how we need to be looking at our churches. I think these are the kind of questions we need to be asking:
And rather than just using our budgets, buildings, or numbers to evaluate where we are going, what if we ask this simple question: how are we doing at making disciples? Because for the church to be faithful to Jesus, it needs to be faithful to its calling – to make disciples.
And I think if we ask that question it will point us in the right direction. It will help us to be more faithful. It will help us to not get caught up in all the good things around us and miss out on the most important thing – making disciples.
And so it’s a hard question as a pastor to ask, but I think it’s the right one. And I think it’s one that points in the right direction, because it points to Jesus and the church’s calling. And I think that matters.
Here is a problem I’ve noticed. It’s cool to be “missional”. You might not know the term, but trust me it’s the new “cool term”. Just look at how many books are on the topic. Just look at how many Christian workshops there are about it. Just look at how often people talk about it…or blog about it (yes I know I’m blogging about it and have many times before).
Now I’m not against the missional movement at all. I’ve led workshops on it, I’ve created resources for it, and I wrote my thesis on it. What I’m worried is that we tend to “consume missional-ness” rather than practicing being missional. So we go to trainings, read books, buy more books, go to another training, and leave our “old churches” to do something cool and new. And in the end rather than being missional, we end up being consumeristic and “consuming mission”.
Jason Clark puts it this way:
“This is how we consume church. We read book on missional church, attend missional events, leave existing churches to be revolutionary, and at the end of the day we end up ‘consuming’ mission rather than doing the dirty work of bringing about a concrete church and mission”.
And the truth is it’s easier to consume church, rather than truly being missional and committing to a location for a long-term. It’s easier to read a book, go to a training, and start something new rather than investing, planting yourself, and saying, “God use me here.”
I am in no way against new things, or the church moving into the community. This needs to happen. I just want to make sure the motives are right for why it’s happening. Because the truth is this: it’s too easy to jump to the new cool thing, it’s hard to do the faithful thing. And I believe being faithful to God means being missional. It’s just that it’s so easy to try to “be missional” not from a desire of faithfulness, but a desire of rejection and consumerism.
I think Jason Clark’s question is a good one for all of us to think about, “are we ‘consuming mission’ rather than doing the dirty work of bringing about a concrete church and mission”
I just think Jason Clarke’s point is wise. Are we consuming mission, or living out God’s mission? Because especially in being missional, motives matter.
I don’t normally review books here. It’s not that I don’t read books, it’s just that most of the books I read I don’t really think most people would like. The reason I say this is because whenever Krista sees what I’m reading she says, “Andrew…why?” I figure her reaction is pretty much standard for most people.
But I recently read a book I really enjoyed, called The New Parish, by Paul Sparks, Tim Soerens, and Dwight Friesen. And there was one line or idea that I really appreciated (among others). It’s this:
The gospel bids us to the seek the flourishing of life for all. The New Parish
I just think that line is beautiful. The Gospel bids us to seek the flourishing, extending, and growing of life for all – all around us. I think this is a beautiful mission statement for Christians. You are to help life flourish in your community, your neighbourhood, your family. You are to be not only a source of life, but a catalyst for life all around you.
And this idea is deeply rooted in Scripture, because Jesus came to give us life abundant (John 10:10). I don’t think that was just so we could experience life, that was so we could share life.
So my question for you is this: how can you seek the flourishing of life for your community? How can you be a catalyst of life to grow in your neighbourhood? How can you share life with your family?
And the beauty of those questions is that they don’t have to be hard things. They can be simple but life giving things. What about throwing a party so neighbours can actually get to know one another? What about cleaning up a park so kids can play? What about mowing a neighbour’s lawn? What about dropping off food for your sister? What about watching your brother’s kids?
These are simple, but they are life giving things. And as the authors of the New Parish remind us – the gospel is about giving life for all, and the flourishing of all.
I read this in a book a few weeks ago and its really lingered with me:
Love is the great equalizer. One cannot love from a higher position. Love requires personal abandonment, a divesture of the social, economic, political, or hierarchical artifices we think make us somebody of worth. Only love does that, and the loving requires the divestiture, the humility. It descends, never condescends. This is what God is teaching us in Jesus. Phil Needham
Yeah I don’t have anything to add to that, other than that this is true and worth reflecting on. To help try reading Philippians 2:5-11 a few times, I think it will resonate really well with what Phil Needham wrote.
At this year’s Regional Gathering (our denomination’s annual conference) the speaker Caesar Kalinowski made an interesting and very true comment. He said this:
“Very little discipleship happens sitting in seats”
He was referring to Sunday morning primarily. And while as a pastor, clearly Sunday mornings are a large part of my job, I wholeheartedly agree with him. Because here is his point: following Jesus requires movement, practice, and action.
Often on Sunday mornings we learn about Jesus, but discipleship happens when we follow Jesus. Discipleship happens when we get out of our seats and let Jesus start to transform the totality of our lives. And yes, to follow Jesus means you need to learn about Jesus, but it is possible to learn lots about Jesus and not follow him. Caesar’s point is that discipleship breaks down when the learning gets separated from the following.
This doesn’t mean that Sunday morning services don’t matter. They do, and I put a lot of prayer and effort into mine. But what I know is that Sunday mornings aren’t the endpoint of discipleship, but the starting point – the sending point. We gather together to get reminded of what following Jesus looks like, and get sent out to live that in a new way that week.
So Caesar is right, discipleship doesn’t just happen in seats, which is why each week we gather as the church, to be sent out as the church into our communities.
And this is just a reminder that discipleship is a process, a journey, a sending, but most of all a following. So as you live, work, and play this week – remember who you are following and how you are learning to live like him.
I came across a quote a little while ago that has really stuck with me. Richard Rohr says this:
“Theological training without spiritual experience is deadly”.
And I think that is bang on. Whenever our theological knowledge outpaces our practice we have problems. And in general, as has often been said, I think so often our Christian culture is educated beyond their level of obedience. And this is deadly. Whenever we know more than we practice, our knowledge can become sharp and hurtful. Our practice can seem weak and hypocritical.
Now if you know me, I’m not against theological training or knowledge at all. My wife says I have a “reading problem” (which means I have too many books to keep in our house). So I’m not against learning, depth, and training. But learning, depth, and training that doesn’t flow out into practice becomes stagnant, stale, and sometimes toxic.
So all of this is to say one thing: learn more, and practice more. Let your faith grow deeper, and let your practice grow truer. Because people who know lots about Jesus don’t change the world; the world is changed by people who know, and follow Jesus.
Plattsville Church 
