What does it mean to be a Missional Church?

We hear so much lately about being "mission-minded" or becoming a "missional church"; but what does all of that mean? According to Alan Hirsch, most churches think they are missionally minded because they have a mission statement or they talk about the importance of mission. But a missional church is a community of believers who are more focused on moving outside the church and allowing God to work in and through a person in every sphere of his/her life. No longer are we to attract people to "come and see", but we must place our energies on "go and be".

Ray Oldenburg writes about "third places" in his book, The Great Good Places. First places are our homes. Second places are where you and I might work or the place where we spend most of our day hours. Third places are the informal settings where we enjoy hanging out and relaxing with friends. Places like coffee shops, restaurants, the mall, or fitness centers. All of these settings are "mission fields" design to share the Good News of the Gospel. Being missional is to be evident in the whole life of a believer in Christ, not just while they are in church.

Below is a link to a video that explains the way you and I are to be missional in our thinking both as an individual and as a church.

http://missionalchurchnetwork.com/missional-community-simple/

"Ordinary Time"

We are about half way through what the church calander call the Pentecost Season. Yet it appears that the further we move from the celebration of Pentecost during “ordinary time”, life within the church can appear to be dull and boring. Let’s face it, Advent, Christmas, and Easter Seasons are all so exciting. Our worship services are different with lively music and color. Even Lent is exciting because of the mysteries associated with sacrifice and prayer.

So why have the Church Fathers and Mothers designed our church year with such a long Pentecost Season? I believe one reason is that it gives you and me time to grow -- to dig deeper in our relationship with God. Remember Pentecost was the coming of God’s Holy Spirit to dwell within each of us. The book of Acts talks about how this indwelling of God’s Spirit was manifested in the lives of the disciple of Christ -- so too for you and me. Pentecost Season is a time for you and me to discover the ways in which God’s Spirit works in and through our lives.

God knows better than anyone what our deepest potential is in relationship to the larger picture of life. Our responsibility is to discern from God’s Spirit what God’s will is for us so that we can live into it. Another way to say this is that we need to cultivate spiritual discernment.

Spiritual discernment is the quest to discover God’s will in our lives. Jesus said in John 5:30 “I can do no thing on my own … I seek to do not my own will but the will of [the One] who sent me.” In today’s world, you and I are the body of Christ. Our purpose as Christ followers is to allow God to act in and through us as we live out our lives.

Spiritual discernment allows our rational minds to join with our intuition by allowing God’s Spirit to mysteriously reveal to us what we need to know and how we need to act. It is a prayerful informed and intentional attempt to sort out the voices we hear with in. By cultivating our spiritual senses, we develop a keener sense of what God’s voice sounds like within us. Our goal in spiritual discernment is in fact to find the mind of Christ.

Though prayer is a key component of spiritual discernment, it is not about saying prayers to ask God to guide us, but more of a sense of being still and listening with the ear of our hearts. It draws us in and harmonizes our lives with God’s plan. It requires silence and waiting. Practicing spiritual discernment quips us to be constantly alert to the presence and guidance of God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5)

Pentecost Season is long and ordinary because our focus needs to be within – growing deeper in our connection to God’s Spirit. It is a time to become grounded in our conviction that God’s Holy Spirit is an active presence in our everyday lives. God’s Spirit is eagerly waiting for us to open ourselves to God’s will. Can you discern that?

The Plumb Line

Last Sunday’s scripture reading in Amos 7:7-17 talked about God using a plumb line as a standard for the Israelite people. The simple plumb line is the oldest tool used in the construction trade. It is used to determine if something is or is not perfectly aligned or upright. God’s Word functions as a plumb line that tells us how the stresses of the world will make faulty human construction doomed to collapse. God’s Word is the Holy Scriptures, but much more. The Holy Scriptures are about God’s involvement in the existence of humanity. The Old Testament gives us the story of God’s presence and involvement through the Israelite people. The New Testament is the story of God’s Son, incarnate, living among us as an example of a life lived centered on (always pointing to) God. God’s Word is not only the written scriptures, but also the living Christ. Christ is our “plumb line” for living in this world. It is the measure by which you and I deem what is important.

The Church today finds itself, as Amos did, a reluctant prophet to the world reminding the world of the unpleasant realities of human crookedness. But as the Body of Christ, we, the Church, have a standard to follow that standard is Christ, himself. We are called to be in relationship with the living God always checking to see if we line up with God’s love, mercy, forgiveness and peace. When Christ’s followers live uprightly, then the world will be able to see its own crookedness.

St. Barnabas' Feast Day

Today, June 11th, is St. Barnabas' Feast Day. Since our church is named after St. Barnabas, it is a great day of celebration. Our church community will celebrate on Sunday, June 13th to honor our patron saint.

All we know of Barnabas is to be found in the New Testament. A Jew, born in Cyprus and named Joseph, he sold his property, gave the proceeds to the Apostles, who gave him the name Barnabas. He lived in common with the earliest converts to Christianity Jerusalem. Barnabas was instrumental in persuading the community in Jerusalem to accept Paul as a disciple. With Paul he brought Antioch's donation to the Jerusalem community during a famine, and returned to Antioch with John Mark, his cousin. The three went on a missionary journey to Cyprus, Perga (when John Mark went to Jerusalem), and Antioch, where they were violently opposed by the Jews that they decided to preach to the pagans. When a dispute arose regarding the observance of the Jewish rites, Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem, where, at a council, it was decided that pagans did not have to be circumcised to be baptized. On their return to Antioch, Barnabas wanted to take John Mark on another visitation to the cities where they had preached, but Paul objected because of John Mark's desertion of them in Perga. Paul and Barnabas parted, and Barnabas returned to Cyprus with Mark; nothing further is heard of him, though it is believed his rift with Paul was ultimately healed. Tradition has Barnabas preaching in Alexandria and Rome, the founder of the Cypriote Church, the Bishop of Milan (which he was not), and has him stoned to death at Salamis about the year 61. The apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas was long attributed to him, but modern scholarship now attributes it to a Christian in Alexandria between the years 70 and 100; the Gospel of Barnabas is probably by an Italian Christian who became a Mohammedan; and the Acts of Barnabas once attributed to John Mark are now known to have been written in the fifth century. Barnabas’ feast day is June 11. St. Barnabas is known to be an encourager, one who empowers others to use the gifts that God has given them. He was instrumental in leading many to Christ and strengthening them in their spiritual journey.

Why Go to Church?

There is a lot of talk these days about how going to church is no longer necessary. Our technology provides us with preaching on TV, Internet, Iphones and various other communication tools. We can fellowship on facebook, twitter, and other chat rooms. But the best reason that I think a Christian believer should go to church is because Jesus did! Luke 4:16 says that “as was His custom, Jesus entered the synagogue on the Sabbath” (emphasis mine). Jesus did not go to church because of what he could get out of it, he went because it pleased God. Our commitment to church every week is not based on if we feel like it or not, but it is based on what God gets out of our going. God wants us to be there – personally- because you and I are the Body of Christ and where two or three are gathered, God is in our midst.

There is much we have yet to learn about the spiritual function of gathering together to worship. Our “church” family is as important, if not more important, than our physical family. Anne Ortlund in her book Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman puts it this way:

Let me tell you about my friend Bruce’s family of schnauzers. We paid a visit when mamma schnauzer had her puppies. The whole family of them were in a playpen in the kitchen. That enclosure was their whole world, and those tiny pups snuggled to their mother for warmth, food, love – everything they needed.

They had no idea that they were totally dependent on a larger family, a human family – Bruce, June, and their children – who were (under God) the ultimate source of the provision of all their needs.

Your physical family can provide you with warmth food and love, but recognize that the true source of godly love, warmth, nourishment, and togetherness comes from a larger family – the eternal family – your faith community.

The Scriptures tell us to use our gifts to nourish the Body of Christ and to draw nourishment from the Body so that all of us (adult singles, young people without Christian parents, and married without spouses) will be able to feel cared for, loved and nourished in God’s beautiful forever-family. When we are loved, fed and prayed for in our church family, the relationships in our physical family are wonderfully healed and nurtured.

Paul holds us, the family of God, to be the highest of all human relationships when he says to the Philippians, “It is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart…. God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more.” (Phil.1:7-9)

In every one of our lives there is a can of worms. There are skeletons in the closet of every human being. We need Christ and we need each other to grow into the people God created us to be. It may be painful or even embarrassing, but God has given us each other to help us grow into the full stature of Christ.

Pentecost

Yard Sale

Recently our church hosted a “Yard Sale”. Actually, it was held in our parish hall, but still it involved collecting used items that people had in their homes that they no longer had need of. We received some very nice items that showed little or no use. We also received items that had shown much use and a lot of love. What amazed me about the items collected was the variety of “things” that people have in their possession. Some items were very useful in their function, other items were hard to determine what they were used for and still some items were beautiful and others plain ugly. For the people who donated the “things” in our sale, well, they no longer had use for them or they had stored them for so long that the space the item was taking up was needed for something else.

As I walked among the tables that held these “things”, I began to think of the old axiom “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure”. As I pondered this idea, what surfaced was how we as people see each other verses the way that God see all of us. For many, people are viewed as objects, what can be gotten out of another, what can they do for me, how will this benefit me. People, if they do not meet the criteria that a particular group sets, well then, they do not measure up and therefore are seen as “junk”. But in God’s eyes, we are all seen as precious treasures or another way of saying it – as collectibles.

There are two primary characteristics of collectibles: desirability and rarity. You have heard the saying that “God does not make junk”. This holds true to the way that God sees you and me. We are collectible. We are wanted because God desires you and me. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you” (John 15:16). You and I have been chosen by God – God desires us. But unlike the collectibles we have, God does not place us on a shelf to be admired. God calls us to go and bear fruit, that is, to share God’s love and caring with those around us.

Rarity, another characteristic of a collectible, is how God views us. No one on this earth who has ever lived is just like you. Oh, there may be someone who may look like you, such as a twin, but to be exactly like you – there is none. That is why people can be identified by their DNA. God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5) and  “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). God tenderly and lovingly created us. God could have just thrown us together with a snap of the finger, but no, God chose a delicate, intimate way of forming us in our mother’s womb. God has been completely involved in creating you and me as a rare creature designed to love and be loved.

One man’s junk may be another man’s treasure, but in God’s eyes there is only treasure to be found. For you and I are desirable and rare from God’s perspective.