"We need less mission statements, we need to join God on His mission."

- Ed Stetzer at subtext forum [#subtext ]

"Most churches make the mistake of selecting as leaders the confident, the competent, and the successful. But what you most need in a leader is someone who has been broken by the knowledge of his or her sin, and even greater knowledge of Jesus’ costly grace. The number one leaders in every church ought to be the people who repent the most fully without excuses, because you don’t need any now; the most easily without bitterness; the most publicly and the most joyfully. They know their standing isn’t based on their performance."
-Tim Keller

I’ve been reading the book and am challenged on a number of levels. My soul and mind resonate with the subtitle: “A radical reshaping around Gospel and community.” 

A helpful quote from Chester:

One of our catchphrases is “ordinary people living ordinary life with gospel intentionality.” It means doing the chores, having meals, watching sports, and so on with an intention to talk about Jesus, to pastor one another with the gospel, and to share that gospel with unbelievers.

May God allow us to serve in the church with this trajectory.

But changing methodologies and adapting to culture is in the open hand. (It can change.)

Keeping that in mind will be helpful when giving younger leaders are given opportunities to lead in the church.

Mark Driscoll briefly discussed this in preparation to the 2006 DesiringGod conference. He makes a point that if younger men feel stifled and are not able to venture out and lead in creative ways, well, they will probably leave.

[HT: Carey @ Paul+Timothy ]

Be a Paul and raise up a Timothy, pouring out your life into him, and knowing that he will probably do things a bit differently.

The publisher gives a summary:

"As two pastors outline the biblical calling to make both the gospel and community central in the Christian life, they apply this dual focus to evangelism, social involvement, church planting, discipleship, youth ministry, and more, urging the body of Christ to rethink its perspective and way of life."

Here’s a sampling from chapter one, a quote I sent this morning to a friend about the both/and of being Word-centered and Spirit-centered (not either/or). I think they nail it on the head.

"Spiritual experience that does not arise from God’s word is not Christian experience. Other religions offer spiritual experiences. Concerts and therapy sessions can affect our emotions. Not all that passes for Christian experience is genuine. An authentic experience of the Spirit is an experience in response to the gospel. Through the Spirit the truth touches our hearts, and that truth moves our emotions and affects our wills.

This also means that Bible study and theology that do not lead to love for God and a desire to do his will — to worship, tears, laughter, excitement or sorrow — have gone terribly wrong. True theology leads to love, mission and doxology (1 Timothy 1:5, 7, 17 ). We should not expect an adrenaline rush every time we study God’s word. We all express our emotions in different ways. But when we study God’s word we should pray that the Spirit of God will not only inform our heads but also inspire our hearts.

Part of our problem is that we often assume an experience of God will be some kind of revelation — a dream, an inner voice, a guiding sense of peace, an encounter, a word. This assumption is reinforced by mysticism and existentialism. But we have no reason to need or expect a revelation from God. God as revealed himself in his Son and in his word. And God’s word is whole adequate and sufficient. But the Bible does lead us to expect other experiences of God through the Holy Spirit — love for God, love for others, assurance, joy, confidence, peace, and so on. Word and Spirit give us a new desire for God (Romans 8:5-9; 4; 17 ; Galatians 5:17 ).

True Christian experience is experience that arises through the Spirit from by the revelation of God in Jesus contained in the Bible. God rules through his word, and the Spirit applies that word to our lives. The Spirit opens blind eyes to see the truth and melts cold hearts to respond to God’s word. The word of God comes in the power of the Spirit (Acts 10:44; 1 Corinthians 2:4; 1 Thessalonians 1:5-6 ). If we want to see the Spirit of God at work, we must proclaim the word of God.

We might say that being word-centered is synonymous with being Spirit-centered. The difference is that we cannot control the Spirit. We cannot determine or even predict when and how he will work (John 3:8 ). Our role is to read, hear, proclaim, teach, and obey the word. The Spirit’s role is to do the work of God through that word. Through the Spirit our words become the living word of God (2 Samuel 23:2 ). And so we center our lives and ministries on the word of God while praying that God’s Spirit will do the work of God through that word."

- Tim Chester & Steve Timmis, Part 1: Gospel and Community in Principle, (ch. 1) "Why Gospel?", Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community (Crossway, 2008), pp. 31-32.

• Find out more from the publisher
• Also, both authors were in the U.S. in August for the Total Church North America conference
  • Church planter Jonathan Dodson has some good reflections on the gathering

If you’ve been involved in “church life” for any extended period of time, you surely know that people are not casual about their preferences. We’ve all heard the horror stories of churches splitting over the color of carpet. Some of you may have actually lived through that. Yet most of us are willing to overlook matters like the color of the carpet, but don’t you dare sing too many “contemporary” songs, or “traditional hymns,” depending on which side of the argument you come from.

One of the things that breaks my heart in this discussion is that, for a good many people, the more theologically informed we become, the more picky we become, when I’ve come to believe it should be exactly the opposite. For many people, the more theology they understand and become convicted of, and as they begin to formulate positions, many of those positions become boundary markers of what their idea of church should be when in reality, there are godly men and women on the other side of that theological conviction who just as strongly believe otherwise. In other words, many of our theological convictions are simply strongly held personal preferences, just (hopefully), with Scriptural backing.

Makes me think.

I have a handful of convictions I’m willing to die for, but many silly preferences that muddy the water making it look like those are more important.

Let’s not make good things into ultimate things. Christ is the one supreme treasure in all the universe.

Is HE my preference?

—

Brent and his family recently planted a church in the Phoenix area.

A couple excerpts:

"Every church has a ‘size culture’ that goes with its size that has to be accepted. Most people probably have a size-culture that they prefer. However, many people ‘moralize’ their favorite size culture and treat other size-categories as spiritually and morally inferior. They may insist that the only Biblical way to do church is to practice a differ size-culture despite the fact that the church itself is much bigger or smaller than they desire it to be."

"Generally, in small churches, policy is decided by many and ministry is done by a few while in the large church, ministry is done by many, and policy is decided by a few."

(HT: Jonathan Dodson + Steve McCoy ).

(All of the audio, video, and perhaps notes, will be available after the conference sometime.)

Monday, February 25, 2008

• 2:00 pm Session 1 – Mark Driscoll – Text & Context: Humble Incarnational Ministry
• 4:00 pm Session 2 – CJ Mahaney – Text & Context: Pastoral Character & Loving People
• 7:00 pm Session 3 – John Piper – Text: Why I Trust the Scriptures

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

• 9:00 am Session 4 – Jim Gilmore – Context: Fear and Trembling in the Experience Economy
• 10:45 am Session 5 – Matt Chandler – Text & Context: Preaching the Gospel in the Center of the Evangelical World
• 1:00 pm Session 6 – John Piper – Text & Context: How My Pastoral Ministry Shapes my Pulpit Ministry
• 7:00 pm Session 9 – John Piper – Text: How Do I Distinguish Between Gospel and False Gospel?
• 9:00 pm Q & A with John Piper

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

• 10:00 am Session 10 – Jim Gilmore – Context: Decoding the Future, the Phoniness, and the Shifting Sands
• 11:20 am Q& A with Jim Gilmore
• 1:00 pm Session 11 – Mark Driscoll – Text & Context: Preaching Jesus Christ To Pagan Culture
• 2:15 pm Q & A with Mark Driscoll

Drew Goodmanson writes:

Why are America’s Most Innovative Churches also some of the largest in America? Northpointe, NewSpring, Saddleback et al are nominees for the award in 2008. Is this like when Taco Bell wins best Mexican food because it’s the most voted place in town? Aren’t there small churches who are doing innovative things too? It seems like smaller churches should have more freedom to be innovative. House church movements? Harbor’s multi-site, multi-congregational non-video venue model? Soma’s multi-congregational, involved discipleship (street walking) and dialogue based services? How about people who are doing amazing mercy ministries, changing a city, Tentmakers, re-thinking church structures based on changing paradigms?

Hmmm…according to the survey these aren’t considered as much as podcasts, blogging, websites, social networking, film production and video venues ….

Good point, Drew.

That reminds me of a short phrase I heard from an recorded message by Rick McKinley of Imago Dei Community. In light of the trend to seek to be relevant in our churches so much is done in music and messages and architecture, while forgetting that “the way to be relevant to people is to genuinely love them.” Amen.

Which brings me to Molalla. Kari and I recently moved back to her hometown, to live with her parents while finishing up seminary. So many factors led to this transition and innumerable blessings certainly are and will come out of this season of life. One area is fusing together our seminary with helping our local church — Foothills Community Church, which gathers in downtown Molalla. This week we will be meeting with pastor Dale Satrum to talk over what our involvement in the vision and mission of Foothills could look like in the coming months and beyond.

In our visits over the past couple of years we have grown to love and respect the leadership of Foothills and certainly have enjoyed observing the spiritual growth we have seen in so many who call it their church. Certainly the vision and impetus of Foothill’s whole purpose in the community is innovative, and on so many levels. The people of Foothills love the people of Molalla, and the surrounding area. In fact, there are more than 10,000 unchurched people within 10 miles of Molalla, and Foothill’s vision is for the church members to personally reach them with the love of Jesus Christ. Innovative, relevant, loving.

Yet, by the standards of innovation as mentioned in the survey above and critiqued by Drew Goodmanson, Foothills apparently is not with it. There is no real podcasting, no blogging, the church website isn’t exactly the coolest, there is no online social networking that I know of, at least not on the corporate church-wide level, and not a real emphasis on the use of technology. (Perhaps the survey/list title needs to be changed to focus on “technologically savvy” churches or the like, for it seems that is what it really is.) In these areas I would love to spend some time and revamp some of the ways Foothills utilizes technology, particularly with its website and content … for the purpose of reaching people in deep and personal and meaningful ways with the Gospel. And, helping believers to grow in Christlikeness and biblical community.

To be relevant and innovative to people means to love them. The focus is the innovative part — to the glory of God. Technology can be used to that end.