From the Newsletter: Holiness and Resolutions

For a long time, I have been a fan of the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. At a young age, he committed himself to live for God. He starts his list of resolutions with the words, “Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of man-kind in general. Resolved, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever. The list includes 70 resolutions that he makes, and taken as a whole, it’s a commitment to personal holiness, to living for God and the furthering of God’s kingdom with his face turned away from sin.

 

Time and again, scripture calls us to holiness. Paul writes, “Among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving (Ephesians 5:3-4). Peter says, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil de-sires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy (1Peter 1:14-16)”. Most importantly, all the way back at the exodus, God declares, 'Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. (Leviticus 19:2).

 

From start to finish, the holy creator of the universe says, “I am holy, and you are to reflect My holiness”. This goes way beyond clean television and keeping our noses clean. It goes beyond being nice and kind. It is those things, but it’s way more. It’s a call to live lives that are turned away from sin, and to God. Its living lives that are marked by a deep de-sire to reflect the goodness and perfection, the rightness of the heart of our creator. This is the call that lays before us. This realization led Jonathan Edwards to write “As God delights in His own beauty, He must necessarily delight in the creature’s holiness which is a conformity to and participation of it”

 

Unfortunately, our lives are not marked by this kind of commitment to the things of God. I found myself thinking about the contrast between Edwards’s resolutions to live as one holy and commit-ted to God with a heart saturated in the gospel, and the observation that writer and theologian Os Guinness made in passing during his recent trip to Med-way. He commented that one of the main problems that the American church has is that “we are worldly”. We should be holy. But we are worldly. It’s a hard and true word. Unfortunately, there’s all kinds of evidence to back that up. That’s another article.

 

But why is that the case? I think in part, it’s because we often expect that things of faith, and the life of faith will come easy, and holiness is hard. We tend to like the path of least resistance, and the comfortable path. But you don’t just end up holy. Theologian D.A. Carson observes in his book, “The God of Promise and the Life of Faith” that “People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” (D.A. Carson. The God of Promise and the Life of Faith. Crossway Books, 2001, p. 99.)

 

So what does this mean for us? As people who seek to live for the glory of God in this world, and to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us (Matthew 28:20). It means that the resolution of our hearts must be to delight in God’s beauty, and seek to conform our nature to the nature of the God we love and serve, remembering the words of 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit”. It means that we must seek to continue the struggle for holiness, looking to the cross, and remembering that our deepest motivation for holiness come from seeing what God has done for us in Christ. And, it means that as we gaze upon the cross, we must continue to see the invitation of the cross to live holy before the Lord. “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, the writer of Hebrews says, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Holiness requires great effort. You don’t drift into holiness; you don’t drift into living for God. You drift into worldliness. We must be resolute in our commitment to being people who are holy to the Lord.

 

Every year, millions of Americans make resolutions. “I will do this, or that. Lose weight, read that book, accomplish that mission. Be a better parent, husband, wife, employee… this is the year I will…” As you face the coming year, and think about what you hope to see happen, and make your own resolutions, my invitation to you is, take stock of your life and resolve to live a life committed to living a life of holiness, a life that seeks first the kingdom of God and the things of God, and runs from the things that don’t honor God. Look at your life, look at scripture, and say, how, in 2014, can my life reflect a heart for the things that God loves, and an abhorrence for the things he hates? How can I be seeking His kingdom and His righteousness, and living for His glory? How can I be furthering the kingdom of God, and not living for the fading pleasures of this world, but for “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you (1 Peter 1:4)”? How can I be living such a good life here in this post-Christian culture that they may see my “good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:12)? How can my life be marked by a commitment to live holy to the Lord? Be pondering these and many other questions.

 

In this season of resolutions in the face of a new year, my call to you is be holy. Make that your resolution. Live holy to the Lord. Seek to honor him with your all. As you do, remember that you cannot do this without God’s strength. Don’t forget that Ed-wards starts the resolutions by writing, “being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help.” But as you ponder the great salvation God has provided in Christ, may you hear the words of scripture  calling you to holiness, and resolve to live holy to the Lord. And when you stumble, as we are all often prone to do, may these words by America’s greatest theologian echo in your mind. “Resolved, Never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.” Pastor Jonathan

Open Letter on the Interfaith Service

To the Congregation of First Baptist (and anyone else interested),

As many of you have heard, I have reached a decision that I cannot take part in the Medfield interfaith service in good conscience. As you all know, I have taken part in it since I started as your pastor. I did so because it seemed to be something that our church had been part of, and a duty of the position. However. I have always felt uneasy about taking part, and over this last year, came to this decision. I feel I owe you an explanation for discontinuing my involvement. Here are my reasons.

First, there has been increasing pressure to avoid the mention of Jesus. For example, last year, in the meeting preparing for the service, a strong objection was raised to the passage in Luke where men come and show thanksgiving to Jesus for healing them. In fact, anything specifically that mentioned about Jesus is viewed as unacceptable by some of those participating in the service, and this has led to an increasing pressure to avoid referencing Jesus and His saving work. If Jesus is all but taboo, and if there is a strong pressure to make Christ disappear, what am I doing there as a Christian pastor? If I, as a Christian, am asked not to pray in Jesus name, or preach about my Lord and savior Jesus Christ (and that is, in fact, the request), lest I offend someone, it seems clear to me that I’m at the wrong service.

Now, on one hand, it makes sense to say, “well, why don’t you, and we (first Baptist), fight to put Jesus back in it”. Here’s the problem. The whole logic of interfaith dialogue and interfaith worship flows in this direction. The idea is to highlight our commonality, and downplay the things that divide and make one distinct. But to do that, we have to give up the things that make us distinct, and that thing that makes us Christians distinct is Christ. The good news - that there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all and that Jesus is the way the truth and the life - is not welcome at the interfaith service. How can I take part in that in good conscience?

Second, it’s syncretism. Syncretism is “an amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought”. Think of it this way, it’s pouring all the traditions together and calling them the same thing. But what’s left when that is done is that we (those taking part), have stripped off everything distinctive, and what we are left with is a focus on the act of giving thanks, but a deliberate avoiding of clarity about to whom thanks is being given. It’s just “Thanksgiving for the sake of Thanksgiving”, because if you can’t agree on the concept of God (and that is the case Unitarians, Christians, and Jews don’t agree on their doctrine of God), you are giving thanks to what, collectively? The point of the service is to express thanksgiving… to whom? To God? How is God defined and understood? In what meaningful sense can Christians, Jews, and Unitarians (or for that matter, Hindus and Muslims, Buddhists, or any of the other many different religions) come together for an “interfaith” service? We are unable to agree on the concept of God. We can’t agree on what we are declaring the “worth-ship” of (since that is what worship is, declaring the worth and value of something)? What is the point? We aren’t praying to the same God. We don’t even share the same conception of God, which means that at best it’s a thanksgiving to the nebulous sense of “deity”. But more accurately, it’s just “Thanksgiving for Thanksgiving sake”. It's clearly not a service of thanksgiving to the God who has done more then we can ask or imagine through the saving work of Christ. Both the Old and New Testaments are filled with warnings against idolatry. I cannot take part in that.

Third, and most importantly, I believe that I may be damaging my Christian witness, and the Christian witness of First Baptist, by sending a confusing, dangerous message to the world around. By taking part in this interfaith worship and  by standing sholder to sholder with religious leaders of other religions (not other Christians- other religions- those that do not claim Christ as Lord and savior in any way), some might fairly infer by the fact that I am there that I (or First Baptist) feel there is agreement on essential matters of faith. And why wouldn't they? When we gather and worship in this way, aren’t we saying, in essence, that we all agree in faith, and are brothers and sisters in faith. Aren’t we saying that all religious traditions and spirtualities and faiths are equally valid and that “it’s ok to believe whatever, as long as you are a person of faith”? That is the message we send when we worship together in this manner, and this clearly is not the case.

Remember, not long ago (last winter), a local Unitarian “church” (Milford), was hosting a "medium connection"? For $25 you could attempt to chat with the dearly departed. Great. Another word for that is séance. It’s witchcraft, pure and simple. Now, to be fair, that has not happened here in Medfield. But to even allow someone to think that we are of “like faith” with those who might call the actions of this Unitarian church acceptable, and call those in that “church” “brothers and sisters in faith” is to create a confusing witness. Christians are not brothers and sisters in “like faith” with Unitarians (or Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or whatever other faith might get added in). “What harmony is there between Christ and Belial (2 Corinthians 6:15)?” None. There is only one name in which salvation is found, and to take part and possibly confuse the watching world around is a failure to be salt and light. It sends a dangersous message, and it damages my witness, and the witness of First Baptist. The more I think about it, the more I believe it. Some who take part in the service are brothers and sisters in Christ. But other “churches” and religions are not, and we send a confusing message that “it’s ok to believe whatever, as long as you are a person of faith”, when we worship together in this manner.

Now, I know that some of you have some objections forming in your mind. 

First, didn’t you work with the Episcopal church and the UCC on the VBS? Yes. I worked with Christian churches on a Christian VBS. Churches that at the very least, could agree on the top level issues without which you cannot be a Christian. And furthermore, I insisted that it be a Christian VBS right from the start (and may I say, we were all in agreement- lest anyone take this to mean that we had any disagreement on this- To my knowledge we were all on the same page from the start). So it was not interfaith work, it was ecumenical work- all were Christians, partaking in a Christian VBS that pointed kids to faith in Christ.

Second, so what about ecumenical worship? Christians worshiping together as Christians of a variety of Christian traditions. I have no problem with that, in fact, I think it’s absolutely acceptable and honorable to worship alongside other Christians traditions. In that, we are expressing that we are brothers and sisters “in Christ” (This is probably a watered down litmus test but the question I ask is, could they recite the creed’s of Christianity in good faith. Could they say, with you and I, “I believe in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our lord? Could they confess the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and that someday he will come to judge the living and the dead?). But this is not ecumenical worship, this is interfaith. And that’s where the rub lies.

Third, for a church trying to reach the community with the hope of the gospel, doesn’t this cost us influence? Maybe, but I don’t think so. In fact, I think it will actually heighten our influence. When we say, we are Christians, we worship as Christians, and we do so, because salvation is found in no other name, it will push some people to consider the claims of Christ in a new and fresh way. To think through the message that we proclaim to the world: To consider the message of Christianity. God made the world. He made it perfectly, with us ruling under His authority, and living in relationship with Him. But then something terrible happened. Our first parents, Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying and rebelling against God. They wanted to run things their way, and sought to be their own Lord and God. The result was that they brought God’s judement on themselves and all humanity. Everyone was marred by their sin, so that all follow their steps, sinfully rebel against God and bring God’s just judgment on themselves. That’s the bad news. But in his love, God sent Jesus Christ, the second member of the trinity, God in the flesh, to live perfectly and sinlessly, to die as an atoning sacrifice paying the price that God’s justice demanded for this act of cosmic rebellion, and reconciling us to God if we place our faith in Chirst. Christ rose again on the third day, proving he accomplished all that he claimed he would do. He now sits on the throne of heaven, and someday He will judge the world. We are called to repent and believe the good news, and worship the triune God who has provided this great salvation.

If that message is banned at the interfaith service, if we are not going before our saving God with thanks, I think that it is far more preferable, to not take part and find venues that allow for the message of the gospel to be stated clearly. 

Fourth, does this mean that I feel that I am above the fray, and that we Christians at First Baptist are better than others? Do I think Christians are superior people to those that do not believe that salvation is found in Christ. No and No. I am not saying that Christians are superior or better people than those that are not Christians. It may be that a Unitarian, or Jew, or Hindu, or Muslim is in fact a kinder, nicer, more compassionate, just person than many Christians. Being a Christian does not mean that you are proud because you are a better person than someone else, in fact, the logic of the gospel strikes at the very root of that attitude. It calls us to recognize that we are sinful people in need of salvation because of our deeply flawed, sinful nature. That’s the entrance fee to Christianity, if you will. So we aren’t saying that we are better than others in any way. 

Furthermore, we are not saying that we don’t want to interact with those of other faiths, or no faith at all. As a Christian, I believe that I, First Baptist, and other Christians are called to enter into our community, loving the community, serving the community, and declaring, we are here for the good of the community as Christians. We can work and serve for the good of others, Christian or not. We are not partisan in wanting the best for others. Do unto others as you would have them to you, Jesus says. “Seek the good of the city”, God says through Jeremiah. “Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7) We aren’t just here just for ourselves. But to seek the best for all humanity, and certainly Medfield. Hear me on this. I’m not trying to be mean or exclusive, or make our church mean or exclusive. I think it’s one thing to work alongside of someone, or be friends with someone. Christians can work alongside of anyone for the common good, and be friends with anyone. Anyone. And we can talk with anyone. There is no one from whom we withdraw and say, I can have nothing to do with you. But worship is different. When it comes to worship, we must not engage in syncretism and damage our witness, as one writer put it, "genuine witness in the public square can take place through discerning dialogue and engaging conversation as well as acts of human care and mercy. We witness in the public square, but we do not worship there. "

So those are my thoughts. I am not partisan in wanting good for all, and I do not want First Baptist to be some partisan “holy huddle” that looks out for its interest alone. I want First Baptist to be loving and serving the community, seeking it’s good as I and it proclaims the distinctly Christian message that there is hope in a hopeless world, the gospel. But when it comes to worship, I do not believe that I should be taking part and helping lead this service. I am not a religious leader, and Christians are not religious people, or people "of faith". I am a Christian Pastor, and First Baptist is a Christian church, and we are all about worshiping the God who has done more than we can ask or imagine in providing salvation through Christ Jesus. To pretend we’re all the same waters down or worse, eliminates our distinctively Christian message that salvation is found in Christ alone, and thanks belongs to God alone for our provision, hope, and life itself. Christians must not send any other message to a world desperately in need of the hope of the gospel. I must not send any other message. 

I have no quarrel with those of other faiths who do what they wish to do. They can worship as they wish, and we can have sincere disagreements, and live at peace with each other. I don’t begrudge them their worship or practice. But let’s not kid ourselves, we are not all in agreement in faith. A nebulous sense of the “holy” is not the God of the Christian bible, and we must not send any other message. Christians should not pretend something that is not true, is true so that everyone can hold hands and sing. 

As I say this, I’m not trying to be a mean curmudgeon, or arrogant; I’m trying instead to be logical and wise. And the more I've thought about it, the more convinced that my participation in the interfaith service sends the inadvertent message that I believe it’s ok to believe whatever - even if it's contrary to the Gospel - as long as one is a person of "faith”, and while I am not so proud as to think that I can come to the end of any subject, I’m with Luther in saying that “unless I am convinced by scripture and plain reason” this is the position I will hold. I leave it to you and your conscience to do what you feel is right regarding your participation in the interfaith service.

But as you consider what to do, let me point you to the words of one of my favorite bloggers and writers, Kevin Deyoung. He captured part problem with interfaith services a few years back when looking at the inauguration of the president. He wrote “Imagine it's early in the first century, in and around Palestine. A new emperor, or local governor, has come to power. As a nod to the diverse religious traditions of the land, there is a prayer service to the gods on behalf of the new leader. In the mix we find worshipers of Asclepius, priests of the Artemis cult, believers in Hermes, leaders in the local fertility cult. Would we find any Jews there? What about Jesus? Can you imagine Jesus participating in such an event?  With the warnings of Israel's history and the seriousness of the Ten Commandments, is there any way Jesus, would possibly agree to participate in such a ceremony? We aren't talking about giving taxes to Caesar, or praying for the Emperor in synagogue worship, or living out your faith in public. We are talking about a worship service where the "God" worshipped is the "God of our many understandings", to borrow a recent phrase. and the tacit assumption is that we can all share in genuine spiritual fellowship. In Revelation, as best as we can tell the context, Jesus rebuked several of the churches for simply going along with ritual meals to various gods in the guilds of the day. What would he say about sharing a worship service? Would the Apostle Paul, who warned his churches of syncretism and idolatry so often, consider for even a moment participating in a worship service where several different gods were invoked? The same points all stand in relationships to interfaith thanksgiving services. I leave it to your consciences to make the choice about whether you participate in the interfaith service of Medfield.

Your Pastor,
Jonathan Chechile

P.S. Here are some articles that helped me clarify my thinking over the last month as it became clear this would be an issue.

Salt & Light: Syncretism? - Prof. John T. Pless 

WWJD and Interfaith Services  -Kevin Deyoung

The Problem with Interfaith - Nadeem Abdul Hamid (a Muslim take- Very interesting)

Why Interfaith Services Don’t Work - Ray Pritchard  

Interfaith Prayer Services - Dr. Albert Mohler (Audio Interview)

Are interfaith worship services appropriate for Christians - Ray Pritchard

When No One Is Wrong: A Response to the Interfaith Movement - Lynne Thompson  

Morning Musings: The fall of Satan and our own foolish thoughts

Why did Satan fall? This morning, I was reading Ezekiel 28, which describes the fall of Satan, and it's a fascinating passage, and it answers the question of what made Satan become the archenemy of Satan. The answer is shocking. Pride.

 

The passage starts as a statement to the king of  Tyre, but you quickly realize that its talking about the power behind the king of Tyre, because we're told that he was in Eden, the Garden of God.

 

So what do you see? First, you see a being that is blessed in every possible way. In the description of Satan in Ezekiel 28, you see that he is the model of perfection. Full of wisdom and beauty. Adorned with all kinds of precious stones. Anointed as a guardian cherub. Ordained by God. He walked among the fiery stones. I don know what the fiery stones where, but I'm betting they where amazing.

 

But then look at what he said. "I am a god. I sit on the throne of God." He looked himself and he wanted the same status as the Creator. He wanted his standing to be equal with God. He forgot that he was a created being rather than the creator, and claimed the prerogative of God.

Here's the thing that struck me. Do we not do that when we seek self autonomy? Do we not do that when we think "I can handle this. I got this, I don't need God for this." Is this not us much of the time? "I am in control, I can handle things, I don't need God for this. He can take care the big things I'll take care of this".

 

If we're depending on him for out very breathe how can we say this? If we acknowledge that he orders and numbers our days, and is sovereignly in charge of all creation, how can we say this with a straight face? He is God. He is in control. He alone rules all things. May we not be so foolish as to think that we are in control. May we not be so proud as to think that we've got this. Only God "has this", only God most high is in control.

 

So here's my final though and prayer (my prayer for myself, my family, my church, and for everyone who reads this). May we see at all times that God is God, and we are not. And may we be on our knees crying out for God to work through us what is pleasing to him. May we see that there's nothing that we can do apart from him that will have any real value. All we do is sinful to the core. It's filthy rags. We need Him to be at work. May he be at work for His glory and not ours, and may we acknowledge that he's got this (whatever this is) and we do not.

Resourcing

The Bible never envisions disciples who don’t make disciples. It never pictures or presents a situation where one two, three, or even a percentage of the church are the ones doing most of the work of the kingdom, and everyone else stands back, and watches. It shows elders leading and teaching, and equipping all the saints for mission. We are told that God gave different leaders with different gifts “to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up”. The more we know God’s word, the more we sense this.

This summer, I started getting requests, please give us resources for evangelism, and in light of that, we crafted the fall Bible studies around this need. In addition to the Bible studies, I want to tell you about two other outreach training resources that I would like to invite you to be part of.

The First is a Missional Church Learning Experience (MCLE) that the Boston Southwest association will be hosting. What is an MCLE? Basically, it’s a group of churches gathering together to form a learning community to ask what God is saying to the Church today, and how can we best serve God on mission in this rapidly changing culture in a group context. The Boston Southwest Association is bringing in Glynis Lavar (the ABC’s lone missional thinker of note- as best I can tell) for three training sessions to help us think through how we can begin to impact our community as a church that is living on mission for God. We have been asked by the Association to put together a team of people who are interested in exploring the future of Christian faith in America, who will take what they have learned, and begin to help the church implement the things they are learning. The commitment that is required is that you be willing to set aside the 16th of November, the 8th of March, and 28th of June 2014, the dates Glynis Lavar is coming to lead the workshops. If you are interested in learning more about the MCLE, email me, or check out the ABC's MCLE page.  

 

The other thing that I would like to mention is coming up quickly. On the 27th of October, Roger Haber, one of the pastors in the area, will be coming to put on a workshop for the Billy Graham My Hope training at 6:30 at the parsonage. What is My Hope? It’s a national outreach program being run by the Billy Graham association, and we are participating. What we are looking for is people who are willing to do what Matthew did. He invited some people over to meet Jesus. The idea is that you invite people over, have a great meal with them, show a video presentation by Billy Graham, share how you came to Christ, answer questions and have a conversation about the gospel, and invite your friends to know Christ. The Billy Graham Association is launching the outreach in November. For more information, check out the video, email me, or check out Billy Graham's My Hope Page. 

 

 

From the Newsletter: Missional Church - Part 2

We live in a mission’s field. The day has passed when the mission’s field is “over there” somewhere across the sea. It is here. New England is a mission’s field by just about any imaginable standard, and that means that we need to start thinking of ourselves as missionaries, and it also means that we need to shape our church and our life around the mission of God, and seek to be a church and people that live on mission for God as missionaries here in Medfield and the Boston metro. We have to. As Jared Wilson has noted that  "The need for Gospel- Centered Missional Churches throughout New England is Dire. We have to. And that brings us back to the subject of the missional church.  

Last month, I started to talk about the subject of the missional church. I noted that throughout the church world, there has been a lot of discussion about the missional church. What it means to be a missional church, and how to be missional, and I looked at two questions. What is leading the missional church discussion? I noted that what was driving the discussion is that we no longer live in the world of Christendom, where the culture helped “Christianize” people. Now, we are people living in a pluralistic, pagan society, where we must see ourselves as missionaries, rather than people in a converted culture. Second, I asked “what are the theological motivations for missional church? I tried to show some of the theological foundations for the argument that the church should be shaped around mission, and I noted that God is a missionary God. He is the ultimate missionary, and we are sent, as the father sent the son. This month, I want to look at two more questions. What is a missional church, and how do we become a church that loves and serves our community missionally?
 

First, what is a missional church? What exactly does it mean to be missional? What does a missional church that is sent to the world look like? In short, it’s a church aimed outward. It seeks to point its nose outward rather than inward, and incarnationally serves the world, as the Son served the world, because it’s shaped by a love of community. It sees that God loves people, we are made in His image, and that means we are shaped by a love of the community, not just the landmarks, but the people in it.

Different writers give different lists, all with big overlap. According to the Gospel and Our Culture Network, one of the original team of missional thinkers, there are at least 12 hallmarks of the Missional Church: 

• First, The missional church proclaims the gospel. It contextualizes the gospel (Contextualization is about making the church as culturally accessible as possible without compromising the truth of Christian belief), but it does not skimp on the gospel, or compromise the gospel. 
• Second, “the missional church is a community where all members are involved in learning to become disciples of Jesus”. It is reproductive by nature. It seeks to grow people in the gospel. Since it understands that those involved are missionaries on the front lines, it seeks to train people as Disciples of Christ who are prepared to live on mission for Christ.
• Third, “the  Bible is normative in the Missional churches life”. It has authority and shapes the life of the church. 
• Fourth, “the missional church understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ”. 
• Fifth, “the missional church seeks to discern God’s specific missional vocation for the entire community and all of its members”. It goes into the cultures and learns who is in its community and culture, and seeks to minister there. 
• Sixth, “a missional church community is indicated by how Christians behave toward one another”. 
• Seventh “a missional church is a community that practices reconciliation”. It doesn’t just talk about repentance and reconciliation, it practices it. 
• Eighth, “People within the missional church community hold themselves accountable to one another in love”. We call our brothers and sisters on their sin, and seek to push each other towards holiness. 
• Ninth, “The missional church practices hospitality”. Not just the occasional meal, but really practicing hospitality, getting in each other’s lives often. Tenth, “worship is the central act by which the community celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God’s presence and God’s promised future”. Eleventh, “The missional church community has a vital public witness”. It is visible to the community. It doesn’t hide in its church. 
• Finally, “There is a recognition that the missional church itself is an incomplete expression of the reign of God”. This world is fallen, and will remain fallen till the day that Christ returns. It can’t be put right by us. But someday, Christ will make it right, when he comes to rule and reign in glory.

Now, if you’re like me, none of that seems all that radical. But let’s take a look at what Keller highlights about things that mark a missional church. Here is where the ante goes up. 

• First, discourse in the vernacular. In Christendom, there is little difference between the language inside and outside of the church. For instance, the documents of the early U.S. Congress, for example, are riddled with allusions to and references from the Bible. Biblical technical terms are well-known inside and outside. But in a missional church, however, terms must be explained so that all understand what is being talked about, The missional church avoids 'tribal' language, stylized prayer language, unnecessary Christian jargon, and archaic language that seeks to set a 'spiritual tone.' Furthermore, the missional church seeks to avoid talking as if non-believing people are not present. Keller argues that “If you speak and discourse as if your whole neighborhood is present (not just scattered Christians), eventually more and more of your neighborhood will find their way in or be invited”. This approach has a great deal of respect for people who do not believe. It understands what it like not to believe, and allows this understanding permeates every aspect of ministry.
• Second, Keller says, we need to enter and re-tell the culture's stories with the gospel. “In "Christendom" it is possible to simply exhort Christianized people to "do what they know they should." There is little or no real engagement, listening, or persuasion. It is more a matter of exhortation (and often, heavy reliance on guilt.). In a missional church preaching and communication should always assume the presence of skeptical people, and should engage their stories, not simply talk about "old times." To "enter" means to show sympathy toward and deep acquaintance with the literature, music, theater, etc. of the existing culture's hopes, dreams, 'heroic' narratives, fears. The older culture's story was--to be a good person, a good father/mother, son/daughter, to live a decent, merciful, good life. Now the culture's story is-- a) to be free and self-created and authentic (theme of freedom from oppression), and b) to make the world safe for everyone else to be the same (theme of inclusion of the 'other'; justice).” So what does it mean to retell the cultures stories? “To "re-tell" means to show how only in Christ can we have freedom without slavery and embracing of the 'other' without injustice.” 
• Third, we need to theologically train lay people for public life and vocation. This is big. In 'Christendom' you can afford to train people just in private world skills- prayer, Bible study, evangelism -because they are not facing radically non-Christian values in their public life--where they work, in their neighborhood, etc. but in a missional' church, the laity needs theological education to 'think Christianly' about everything and work with Christian distinctiveness.  
• Fourth, we need to create Christian community which is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. In Christendom, 'fellowship' is basically just a set of nurturing relationships, support and accountability. That is necessary, of course. In a missional church, however, Christian community must go beyond that to embody a 'counter-culture,' showing the world how radically different a Christian society is with regard to sex, money, and power. We understand that because of the gospel, everything is different; we have a different mindset, and different approach to all of life because of the gospel. Furthermore, he argues that “in general, a church must be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice than traditional liberal churches and more deeply and practically committed reaching those that don’t know Christ and leading them to saving faith than traditional fundamentalist churches. This kind of  church is profoundly 'counter-intuitive' to American observers. It breaks their ability to categorize (and dismiss) it as liberal or conservative. Only this kind of church has any chance in the non- Christian west.”  
• Fifth, it practices Christian unity as much as possible on the local level. He argues that we need to focus on what unites us, and seek to co-operate where we can with other churches.

These are a few of the different attempts to define what a missional church looks like. As you can see, it’s faced outward, but it’s also deep, because it’s preparing missionaries, and not consumers. As I’ve thought and read, what I’ve seen is that these things just scratch the surface of the picture. Let me get at some of the things that I closer to the ground.

• First, being mission involves having lives shaped by the gospel, and recovering some of the personal spiritual disciplines that have shaped Christian life, for centuries. Personal spiritual disciplines, both internal (such as meditation on the word, prayer, fasting, and study), and external disciplines (such as simplicity and frugality, stewardship, holiness, submission, service, solitude, evangelism, hospitality, and chastity), and corporate spiritual disciplines (such as prayer, the preaching of the word, confession, worship, service, hospitality and fellowship, guidance, and celebration). In all this, there has to be a commitment to having the DNA of the individual and the church shaped by the gospel, and then continually growing deeper in our understanding of the gospel and its implications, rather than the values of our community and culture (such as success and standing, , career and money, hobbies, or even family) 
• Second, being mission includes asking what God is doing, and how can we be a part of it? Where is God working, where are the needs, where is the brokenness, and what is God calling us to do in that place? 
• Third, being mission involves becoming people who actively analyze as missionaries. Missionaries think before they act. This means we need to analyze our culture and the people around us to really understand who they are and what makes them tick. It also involves analyzing the media, and entertainment that we see, and rather than just enjoying it, think about what it is saying to us. What message is it communication, and how is it shaping us, and those around us? Should we accept that message, reject it, is it redeemable? We need to actively think through everything we can. 
• Fourth, being mission includes radical service to the world around, as we seek to incarnate the gospel to the world around. We should not expect that people will just be drawn to church. Non Christians will not just walk in and decide to follow Christ. The reality is that the world has changed. This is not 1955 or even 1975. Most of our neighbors have already decided they will never ever step foot in our church buildings as long as they live, which means that if we want to see people come to Christ, we must get out of the building for as long as possible, and serve them, and paint a picture of the Christian life for the world to see. Most people need to see a picture of the Christian life before they will be willing to consider the gospel, but if they do, it can be transformative. The biggest things that led to the growth of the early church was the way they served the world around and painted this picture. One Caesar lamented that the “Impious Galileans” didn’t just take care of their poor, needy, and hurting, but also the poor, needy, and hurting of pagan Rome as well, and that built incredible standing and credibility for their message. We need to do the same. We must go, and serve, and incarnate the message, and to take the gospel to the watching world.  
• Fifth, being mission requires that we seek to make disciples, rather than grow the church. When we try to create or grow our churches, we rarely get disciples. That's because disciples don’t just happen. Disciples are formed, loved, invested in, sacrificed for, raised up and sent . . . to do it all over again themselves. And that raises a question I was confronted as I have thought through the missional church material that I am getting from the denomination, and from my reading. How many of us have been discipled? I mean, like Jesus discipled the Disciples? Have you been? If you are one of the few rare followers of Jesus who have been, you know that in the time when that occurred, you grew more as a disciple than in all your other years combined. The early church got this, but we’ve forgotten it. And the result is that we’re not growing reproducing disciples, which is leading to the death of countless churches. We need to be seeking to make disciples for the sake of Christ, rather than building our church, because ultimately, it’s not about our church, but about God, and seeing people know and worship God. “Mission”, John Piper said, “exists, because worship doesn’t”. Building our church is a fading glory, building disciples who know God and live for his glory and honor, and then build more disciples, who build more disciples, is what we should be seeking… it’s not about getting people into church, but out of the church, so that we can take the news of the gospel, and evidence of the kingdom of God before the world continuously. 
• Sixth, being mission means that we need to grow deep community. Our community must be more than countercultural, it must be deep. It has to go beyond just saying hi at coffee hour, but involve actively being in people’s lives, helping each other, serving each other, living lives that say we care about each other. Think acts 2:42-47. This will involve laying down rights and privileges, and not seeing ourselves as autonomous, self made, self focused individuals, but as people living in community for the sake of Christ. This also includes loving each other deeply. One of the statements about the early church was, “see how they love one another”. They practiced forgiveness and reconciliation, and hospitality, inviting the friend and the stranger into their homes, and so must we. We must practicing these things as we seek to show that we care about each other because of the gospel. And here’s the thing, community is key to making disciples. As people see the community, and see the lives of the members of the church community, they are attracted (or should be), that allows them to talk about what’s going on, and process the gospel within community. As I’ve thought about Dennis coming to Christ, it started with him getting dragged to church, where he got introduced to people, and then as he came into community, and got to know people, he heard about the gospel from multiple people, and he heard preaching from me, and others that were recommended to him, and eventually, he came to trust Christ. Ultimately, the introduction to people in the community and building of relationships leads to the sharing of the gospel in a much more organic way that so much of what has passed for evangelism does, which makes deep community all the more important.

Will moving in this direction be easy? No, it will be messy and hard, what is easier by far is coasting along unchanged, affecting nothing. Satan would like nothing more than a church that just coasts, I promise you that. But that’s not what God is calling the church to do, and the call to missional church is a call to see that we are the gathering of the redeemed sent to participate in the work of Jesus in this world. It’s not to huddle together for warmth. It’s not to just pour most of our time, energy, money on serving ourselves or our loved ones. It’s to go out as sent ones. I’ve been seeking to paint this picture for awhile, because I believe that we need to see ourselves differently, not as a club, but as a community of people whose very purpose is to be people who go as “the sent ones” into our communities to be salt and light. The call of the missional church, the call that has been grabbing at me, and I hope you, is that we need to be shaped by the need for reaching the world rather than the comfort of those in the pews, because the church is not primarily about us, but about God’s mission in the world. 

Now, let me be clear, this all feels like it will be a massive deconstruction of how the church approaches things. It may even feel like a deconstruction of the institutional church. it’s not. Some say that deconstruction is the right road. But I don’t, and neither do any of the serious and best missional thinkers. Instead, this is a critique of the approach that hangs up a shingle, and waits. It’s is a critique of the seeker sensitive movement, it a critique of the fact that as Christendom ended, and it’s a cry, led by people who love God and love church, that we need to get in gear, and reach those around us. It’s a scream, for us to recognize that we are missionaries, and to start thinking like missionaries, learning to understand those around us, learning how to serve and care for them, and love them, because God loves them, and wants them to know him and then grow as his disciples.

Ultimately, being a missional church is not about being one style of church or another. It’s about galvanizing into distinct movement, understanding that you are sent into an irreligious world to live as a Christian and to lift up and proclaim the good news of the Gospel. It’s about seeing that every believer is sent on this mission by God just as Jesus was sent on this mission (John 17:14-16, 18; 20:21). It’s about seeing that if the people outside of the church will not relate to anything we are currently preoccupied with protecting, we need to shift. It’s about being a theologically-formed, Gospel-centered, Spirit-empowered, united community of believers who seek to faithfully incarnate the purposes of Christ for the glory of God. 

The mission of the church is found in the mission of God who is calling the church to passionately participate in God's redemptive mission in the world (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 1:8).

Remember that this goes so much deeper than just having a missions program, and being “missions-minded” A missional church is a church that sees mission as being not just one part of what the church does, but instead, finds that the church’s mission shapes and forms its identity, lifestyle, strategy, priorities, spending, leadership, structure, and decision-making and has a focus on missional outreach. This mission is based upon the life and mission of Christ. Every member of the church is “sent”. It’s not about “sending and supporting” missionaries. It’s about “participating here” rather than having someone “represent you there”. It’s not a program – but the very essence of the church.

So, how do we become a church that loves and serves our community missionally? How do we become what might be called a missional church? We don’t do it to be cool, but to be faithful. So how do we get there? Honestly, that’s where I’m the weakest, in large part, because that’s the 64 million dollar question that everyone is trying to figure out. It’s pretty clear, that with culture as diverse as it is now, it’s not one size fits all. There is no church in a box, silver bullet solution. If there is one thing that I have found out as I have read, and read, it’s this.

As I have indicated, I think it starts with shifting our thinking. We need to understand that this is not a program, slap it on, and we’re good to go. Ultimately, being missional is about how we see ourselves, and that requires a change of mind, asking, ourselves, are we people who see Christianity as one ball to be juggled, or as people who are shaped and defined by the gospel, and then live out of the gospel in every area, as we seek to bring the gospel to the world around. And are we doing it because we want the church to grow, or because we want people to know the savior who has radically transformed our lives.

Second, I think it includes dealing with some things. We have rifts that need to be healed. It occurred to me, as I reflect on my time here, that there have been countless skirmishes and battles, and that we do not love each other the way that we should. Division has marked my time, and that saddens me. But then I reflected more deeply, and realized that this is the history of the church. We need to repent of our sin, especially when it comes to our rights, and expectations, and selfishness (remember that one part of those founding First Baptist were driven by not wanting to pay taxes, that strand of selfishness is still in our DNA), and ask for forgiveness of those we have wronged, and those places where we have insisted on our rights, and really seeking to love one another with deep Christ-like love, so that the town of Medfield will say, “see how they love one another”. Then we need to be in each other’s lives, showing that we care about each other.

Third, I think it requires that we stop lamenting the end of Christendom (I’m talking to myself as I say that). Christendom made the church a cultural captive. Because it was the arbitrator of culture, it couldn’t call culture on its systemic sins, it could only confront the private sins. But if Christendom is gone, and that releases us from cultural captivity, allowing the church to not be the arbitrators of the culture, or even the cultures morality, but to call people to run against the grain, and live lives marked by the gospel and the disciplines of Christina life.

Fourth, I think it includes understanding that this will take time, and is dependent on God. This is more of a process, like growing a garden than starting a machine. It’s not church in a box. Furthermore, only God brings revival. I can’t promise that we will succeed in anything we try; only God grows the fruit. I plant, Apollos waters… God makes it grow.

Fifth, I think it includes really connecting to those in our community, and getting to know our neighbors, and really seeking to know them. And asking what are the challenges people are facing. What are they struggling with? What’s happening in their lives? It also involves asking, where can we find ways to bless our town, in Jesus name, because we want to love them as Christ loved them? It starts with finding ways to partner with others in our community, to serve Medfield, and Metro-west, and meet its needs, simply because God loves this community.

Furthermore, I think it includes thinking theologically, biblically and missionally about how you live, and how you can be someone whose live is a powerful witness to what God has done in your life.(Acts 4:32-34). It includes regarding yourselves as “Ambassadors” of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17-20), and guard your heart against syncretism (worshiping things other than God- looking to what Keller calls counterfeit Gods) and sectarianism (huddling away from the community). It includes looking at everything we do through the prism of the gospel, and not visa-versa (Acts 10). It includes loving God, His mission, and His people, and having your own life shaped by the gospel. It also requires that we do everything we can with excellence, in a way that says, we care about the community, and that includes even the little things like taking care of the building. The list is endless.

But there is one more thing that we can do as we seek to become a church with this missional instinct. The Boston Southwest Association has invited Glynis LaBarre, one of the denominations few missional thinker (as best I can tell), to lead any churches that are interested in a “missional church learning experience (MCLE)”. It’s not a perfect program, but it’s designed to allow our church to work alongside other churches, and try to take baby-steps in serving our community and incarnating the gospel.

Ultimately, this will require everyone working in the same direction, and learning together I’m going to admit upfront, I can’t turn make this shift happen on my own. I can’t save the church, as many hope that I can do. Furthermore, I think that we need to stop worrying about saving the church, and reaching Medfield with the gospel. We need to understand that success is measured in people knowing Christ, not saving the institution. And for this, I don’t have a complete roadmap for success. I’ve got suggestions, and lots of thoughts. I have freely barrowed from many sources in putting this together (If you would like a list of some, email me, and I will provide you with some things to chew on), but I don’t have a ten point plan (intentionally). I don’t want to present you with a top down plan of, here is how we do this. Instead, my hope for all this, is to jump start a conversation about how we can reach our community and region together.

I know it will require sacrifice, and that we might be tempted to reject the task because of the cost. But I also truly believe that we all want to obey God and see lives changed by the gospel, and that’s the reason to go through what looks like a daunting transition (daunting even for the change pastor). In the end, it all comes down to the desire to further the kingdom. To see people know Jesus, and become his disciples. To obey our king, serve our king, and follow our king. To be sent, as He was sent. We know that the world is changing, that Christendom is past, and we face a new paradigm for ministry. We know we’re not alone in feeling like the world has turned upside down. We know we’re one of a hundred churches that feel the same way, just in the Boston area. From seminary presidents, to denomination officials, to pastors and church leaders, and church members, everyone is struggling to find the answers. We’re going through the biggest cultural shift since the reformation and enlightenment that led to the rise of modernity. Everything is out of balance; we’re all being bombarded with change that is requiring personal, systemic, and cultural transformation inside and outside of the church. And yet in this, God is acting, and we need to be working together to see lives changed by the gospel.

So how can we bring the gospel to people in such a time as this? What is he calling us to? Lets spend the summer talking about this. If He is a sending God, how can we be living on mission together in a way that reaches Medfield and Metro-west and makes disciples? That’s the conversation I hope to get you all involved in. As I ponder this, I know that I am still a relative newcomer. This was your town and region first; all of you know this community and region far better than I do. I have no doubt that you see things I miss. Reaching our community is going to require all of us working together, and I need your help, as together we seek to hear from God and follow God, and live for the glory of his name. Consider these last two articles. Consider the Mission field of New England, and of Medfield and Metro-west, and consider what that requires of all of us, together, as we seek to live as people sent on mission. My hope is that wherever God is taking First Baptist, and the greater church community, that we will go through this change well, and that that the result will be that the kingdom of God is furthered, and that people connect to the gospel, grow in the gospel, becoming mature disciples, serve from the gospel, share the gospel, and that all are truly changed by the gospel.

From the Newsletter: Missional Church- Part 1

We live in a mission’s field. The day has passed when the mission’s field is “over there” somewhere across the sea. It is here. New England is a mission’s field by just about any imaginable standard. And the New England church, by and large, is not reaching New England as missionaries.

So how do we approach the community that we live in, and seek to be salt and light? How do we minister in such a way that we bring the gospel to bear on people’s lives and make disciples? It starts by seeing ourselves as missionaries, by seeing ourselves as people who have been sent on mission, and by shaping our lives around this reality. But it also includes shaping our church culture around this reality. And this brings me to the subject of the missional church. Throughout the church world, there has been allot of discussion about what it means to be a missional church, and how to be missional, and so I just want to look at four questions, two this month, and two next month. What is leading to the missional church discussion? What is the theological motivation for missional church? What is a missional church? And how do we become a church that loves and serves our community missionally?

So first, what is leading to the missional church discussion? The motivation for missional church is that Christendom is failing, and the church has by and large, failed to adapt to the new reality on the ground. For nearly 1000 years, the west has lived in a world where the culture, was known as “Christendom”. The Church and the society where fused together, and “the institutions of society Christianized people, and stigmatized non Christian behavior”. The problem, notes Tim Keller* in his article Missional Church, is that “Though people were "Christianized" by the culture, they were not regenerated or converted with the Gospel”. In this culture, the church's job was then to challenge people to come to a living, saving faith in Christ. There were huge advantages and huge disadvantages to 'Christendom' that existed side by side. The advantage was that there was a common language for public moral discussion, which allowed society to debate and define what was ‘good’, and ‘not good’. “The disadvantage was that Christian morality without gospel-changed hearts often led to many problems, severe cruelty, and great hypocrisy”. Many people who claimed to be Christian lived lives that were anything but. Furthermore, “under "Christendom" the church often was silent against abuses of power of the ruling classes over the weak. For these reasons and others, the church in Europe and North America has been losing its privileged place as the arbiter of public morality since at least the mid 19th century”.

The decline of Christendom began to accelerate significantly after World War 2. Tim Keller observers that in 1950, the British missionary Lesslie Newbigin went to India, and while he served there, he was involved with a church living 'in mission' in a very non-Christian culture; when he returned to England some 30 years later, he discovered that now the Western church too existed in a non-Christian society, but it had not adapted to its new situation.          

Though public institutions and popular culture of Europe and North America no longer 'Christianized' people, the church still ran its ministries assuming that a stream of 'Christianized', traditional/moral people would simply show up in services, taking what some have described as the attractional “if you build it they will come” approach. Some churches certainly did 'evangelism' as one ministry among many, notes Keller, “but the church in the West had not become completely 'missional'--adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in worship, discipleship, community, and service--so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it”.

There are many reasons for this, but a big one, according to Missiologist Ed Stetzer, is that North America (and Europe) was not and is not seen by the Christians that live there as a missions field, or it is seen as a reached field only in need of an evangelism strategy. The problem with this, Stetzer argues in Breaking the Missional Code, is that we need to realize that we there is a core difference between evangelism and missions. “Evangelism is telling people about Jesus; missions involves understanding them before we tell them”.

Most American churches, and certainly most New England churches, aren’t there. We still assume that the average people outside the church thinks as they did under Christendom, and are looking for a church, and know they should belong to one. But by and large, they don’t. And we still struggle to get that. The result is that the church, rather than being salt and light, is a smaller and smaller minority that seeks to survive and outlast the onslaught of changes in our culture, while lamenting that we no longer have home court advantage. In this environment, many churches are just happy to be alive, the mantra of a group of people who feel incapable of relating to the changing environment becomes “We’ve stayed alive another year, praise the Lord”. 

Add to that the fact that many have become consumers of church, retreating into the comfort of our sanctuaries, encouraging one another, helping one another, hoping that what is going on in our little boxes will attract those on the outside, and the fact that we have all been infected by the seeker mentality (A seeker mentality that is fiercely pragmatic and consumer driven, that starts with the assumption that the church is a business that produces goods and services to a market and therefore, the demands of the market determine the message and ministries and even the mission of the church), and you can see a problem. Consumerism was met with a product sold by churches whose goal was a larger and larger market share. The old attractional model was put on speed. But the problem was that often, the seeker churches often just pulled from other churches, while not reaching the un-churched and secular society around with the gospel.

In the face of these dynamics, the church has failed to develop a 'missiology of western culture' the way it had done so for other non-believing cultures. This is sad, and ironic. The church has put innumerable hours into thinking about how to reach the world around us, but has not thought long and hard about how to reach our communities. We assume that if we do a little evangelism, then everything will be all right. But the result, notes Stetzer, is that “many churches fail to reach people in the shadow if their own steeple.”

Now, in some places, the church is still thriving, especially evangelical churches. In the Deep South, and in many and places in the Midwest, it has not experienced the same massive decline as the Protestant churches of Europe and Canada, in large part because of the remnants of the old 'Christendom' society. There the informal public culture (though not the formal public institutions) still stigmatizes non-Christian beliefs and behavior. But those places are slowly disappearing, and even there, most traditional evangelical churches still can only win people to Christ who are temperamentally traditional and conservative. The reality is that this is that every church will have to learn how to become 'missional'. If they do not, they will decline or die. As one writer, Scott Thomas, put it, “Since Christianity is a minority voice in the postmodern culture, the church must adopt an approach to ministry learned from the foreign missionaries who communicate and relate in understandable ways to the godless inhabitants in their respective cultures (1 Cor. 9:22).”

So the situation is bleak. We get that. Is that enough? What’s the bible say? The call that you are making is that we should aim at being a church that is mission. Why? What is the theological motivation for missional church? The reality that God is a God on mission. The missional church is a church that is shaped by the fact that God is a God on mission, a God seeking and saving of the lost, making of disciples, and displaying His glory over all the earth. From the very beginning of scripture, we see that God is a missionary God how propels himself out as the Ultimate Missionary. In Genesis he sends out His Word and creating. He creates the world. Later, He creates Israel, choosing a man and making a covenant with him, and declaring that though this man He was going to bless the world.

Throughout scripture, we see that God is constantly sending himself. The history of Israel is a history of God’s “sentness” Israel’s great discovery was that God does not live in a temple. They encountered God in Babylon, Nineveh, and bottom of the ocean. The Sending One is always moving outward after His people.

For over 20 years, an ever-growing movement referred to collectively as the Missional Church Movement has been make in call for churches to re-orient themselves from their own wants, needs and desires, to the agenda of mission, arguing that the mission of God, the Missio Dei, should be the organizing principle around which all other things are organized. The starting point for the missional church movement is that man is not the center that needs to have a program for every felt need, but instead, understands that God is on a mission for His purposes, and that the churches mission is to become enlisted in that purpose to the world. David Bosch writes in this book, Transforming Mission, that “The term mission presupposes a sender, a person or persons sent by the sender, those to who one is sent, and an assignment.”

The very doctrine of the Trinity bears this out. Scripture makes clear that God the Father sends God the Son to redeem a lost world. In Luke he declares that he came to “seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10), and in John, we see repeatedly that he was sent, He says "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accomplish His work." (John 4:34), “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (John 5:30)” “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (John 6:38)”. Jesus was sent. This sentness is the thing that sends us as well. After the resurrection, Jesus comes to his disciples and says, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, even so, I send you.” His sending becomes the basis for our sending. Being missional is a response to the fact that God is a sending God; it’s an imitation of His impulse as a sender, and an acceptance of the fact that we were created and chosen for His missional purposes. Jesus said, "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 of the Father in my name, He may give to you" (John 15:16), God is the one who sends us on mission, we didn’t choose the mission, God chooses us for the mission, and we are invited to take part in the mission He chooses for us. Mission is not something we do, it’s not a program, it the essence of the church, our central mission is God’s mission, to “seek and to save what was lost”

The sending of Christ gives us the how of the mission as well as the reason for the mission. “As the Father sent me, even so, I send you”. The way that we are to go, is shaped by the way Christ went. As people who are being conformed to His image, we are to carry His image out the same way that He carried God the Fathers out. We are to live as He lived, love as He loved, pursue what He pursued, as we seek to accomplish His purposes. So how did Christ come? Speaking, declaring, sharing, but also loving and serving. He cared for the sick and the needy. He touched hearts and minds, and brought healing, and He served humbly, not because He got anything out of it, but for the blessing of those he ministered to.  And He spoke. He proclaimed the gospel. Boldly. When we look at Christ, we get a sense of how our own mission is shaped.

Now, none of this is new, and that’s the point. The early church was shaped by this kind of mission-mindedness, and the proponents of the missional movement make clear that what they seek is a return to the mission-mindedness of the early church, a mission-mindedness that many churches have at their beginning, but lose as they became more inward-focused and move “missions” to a separate category altogether. But being missional is not an extra for the church, it is the church, and it’s about bringing the church and mission back together and seeing the mission as the core, overarching, motivating logic for all that we do. The church exists neither for itself nor its parishioners, but for the kingdom and mission of God. As Jurgen Moltmann, the German theologian notes, "It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the Church." There is Church because there is mission, not vice versa)… the Church is participating in the mission of God. The church's mission is a subset of a larger whole mission.

Next month, we will come back to this subject, and look at our final two questions. But for now, I ask you; think about what it means for us. If God is a sending God, what does that look like for us as individuals, and as churches?

*NOTE: I have quoted freely from many sources. Sometimes I have attributed, but not always. This was originally a newsletter article for the church, not a research paper.

From the Newsletter: On the day that darkness comes home

I think everyone in the Boston Metro is going to be able to tell you where they were and what they were doing when they heard about what some have referred to as “the Boston Massacre”. The act of homicidal evil perpetrated by the Tsarnaev brothers shook the Boston metro and brought it to a standstill. No one was unmoved. People moved on pins and needles, and fear infected hearts. It was a day that darkness came home to all that live in the Boston metro; a day when it became so real that you could taste it.

 

Some things jump to the head of the line. This is one of them. This was a hard moment for Boston, one that should not go unexamined. What should go through our mind when evil happens, and how should we respond when evil is perpetrated on us? Not just when bombs go off, but when other terrible and tragic things are done, both around us and to us? Here are five things I would encourage you to think about on those days when darkness comes home to your life.

 

First, remember that our world is fallen and therefore we should expect evil things to happen around us and sometime even to us. Haddon Robinson, my professor of preaching, began the first class by saying “I believe in two things, the sovereignty of God and the depravity of man”. No words are truer. This world is broken. It is not as it should be. It bears the marks of sin, everything in all creation groans under the weight of sin, and our lives groan under the weight of the evil we bring upon each other. There is no one that is not sinful and corrupt by nature. When Adam sinned, we all sinned with him, and the result is that every one of us is corrupt and sinful by nature, we are hostile to God from birth. “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5-6) David writes. When we look around, with honest eyes, we see this. G.K. Chesterton, the British scholar, once wrote that original sin "is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved." At our core we know that to be true. We like to say that we think people are naturally good, but let’s face it, the reason people move to places like Medfield is that “we are looking for a safe place to raise our kids”. We inherently know that something is gravely wrong with this world. Events like the ‘Boston Massacre’ remind of this. But so do those other moments. Those moments when you find out a corrupt stock broker blew up your investments, or your grandkid got mugged, or, or, or. We should never forget this world is evil. We should expect that evil things will happen around us or to us.

 

Second, do not doubt the sovereignty of God. Thankfully, we can’t stop with recognizing that the world is evil. We can know that God is sovereign. He created the world. He sustains the world. He holds all things in his hand. He’s not an 80 pound weakling who’s begging for us to like him. He’s over all things. There is nothing that happens that can thwart his will. He is the God who knows all things and controls all things. Scripture says that he numbers your days. He holds all things together, and yet he knows everything about you, even the number of hairs on your head. He is in control of all things. And yet, He is at work for your good. He is the God who says, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11), and makes clear that “all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). He is sovereign, nothing can thwart His will, and He is working for your good.

 

Now, does He allow sin to be at work for now? Yes, it’s a result of the fall. But even so, while he gives us free will and allows sinful rebellion, He does not allow our free will to run and evil hearts to run unchecked. He restrains our conscience, and upsets the thwarts the plans of the wicked. Scripture says that “He frustrates the devices of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success”(Job 5:12). Think of how this worked out last week in Boston. As I mentioned several times after the event, it’s worth pondering that only 3 people were killed in the bomb. Many were wounded, but only three were killed. That’s amazing. Think of how few died, compared to how many probably would have if they hadn’t done this so close to where all the medics were. Now three deaths is a tragedy. All deaths reflect the fact that this world is not as it was designed to be since the fall. But for them only to have gotten three is amazing to me. Yes, he allowed these men to exercise their free evil will, but he also thwarted the plans of the wicked. Not only does He thwart the plans of the wicked, but scripture makes clear that someday every wrong will be righted and everything sad will come untrue. Someday Christ will return and deal with evil once and for all. He came and went to the cross, so that someday He could destroy evil once and for all, without destroying us. Someday, He will return and deal with evil totally and completely. He will return with power and glory, not as a humble baby in a manger but as the King of Kings who comes on a white horse with a sword and garments dipped in blood, having tread the winepress of the wrath of God. He will destroy evil once and for all. God is sovereign.

 

Third, know that God doesn’t leave us alone in the middle of hardship and pain. Scripture makes clear that Christ is with us in the middle of our hardship. We have a savior who was tempted and tested and tried, who suffered, died, and rose in glory, and declares "I will be with you always, even to the end of the age". When hardship comes, we can rely on God.  Psalm 46 tells us that “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” Even when things seem terrible, when things seem hard, and painful. Even when bombs go off and you feel like huddling at home under the bed, He is with you. And that does not guarantee that bad things will not happen around you or to you. But it does mean that you are not alone in the hardship and pain. He is with you, walking beside you, going ahead of you and forging the path. You are not alone. Fear not. Even when bad things are happening around you or to you.

 

Fourth, keep in mind that we bear a message of hope to preach to ourselves and to others. God is at work. In the midst of this broken world, He is redeeming for himself a new people who are called by His name. A people who are marked by His grace. A people who bear scars, but know that their savior bears greater scars, and no matter what pain enters your life, your savior took greater pain, so that this pain cannot destroy you. Yes, darkness came home to Boston. But on the cross, darkness came home to his life, as the ultimate darkness of eternal wrath crashed down on him. Now, He brings healing and hope to us. There is freedom and life and grace, even in the mist of darkness. There is restoration and salvation in the midst of darkness. We tend to look around and say. The world is falling apart. But that’s the wrong attitude. Carl F. Henry, the founder of Christianity today, notes that “The early Christians did not say ‘look what the world is coming to!’ but ‘look what has come into the world!” We bear a message of hope. Look what has come into the world. Redemption! Salvation! A new power, a restoring power. This message is hope for all. Freedom and life and grace is offered and available to everyone, even the vilest of sinners, even Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It’s an across the board offer. The sweetest grandmother, the vilest offender, the kindest child, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, all are offered Gods saving grace. There is hope that is held out in the midst of darkness. Are times like the last week hard? Yes. But there is hope; hope of healing, of restoration, of his presence, and life and light.

 

Finally, understand that there is joy in Christ available in the midst of hardship. The reality is that we live in a fallen world. One that has been and will continue to bear the marks of the fall. But the gospel means that because Christ died and rose you can trust him and rely on him in the middle of dark days and even find real joy in the middle of it all. Will tragedy happen? Yes. Will the sovereign Lord of all be with you? Yes. And in the midst of it you may find great joy. In his book, Margin, Richard Swenson writes of A Vietnamese pastor who was thrown into prison, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves. The family’s home was taken, so that the destitute wife and children were forced to live on an open balcony, exposed to the drenching rain. And yet, she was full of joy in the Lord for His comfort and care. She wrote, "When we experience misfortune, adversity, distress and hardship, only then do we see the real blessing of the Lord poured down on us in such a way that we cannot contain it. I do not know what words to use in order to describe the love that the Lord has shown our family. I only can bow my knee and my heart and offer to the Lord words of deepest thanks and praise. Although we have lost our house and our possessions, we have not lost the Lord, and He is enough. With the Lord I have everything. The only thing I would fear losing is His blessing! She concluded, “As far as my husband is concerned, I was able to visit him this past summer. We had a 20-minute conversation that brought us great joy” (Cited by Richard Swenson, Margin [NavPress], pp. 188-190.).I don’t know if I could say that, but she knew that God was with her in tragedy and hardship. She encountered His grace and sustenance in the middle of the hardship. She was able to say with the psalmist, in the middle of darkness, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever (Psalm 30:11-12)! “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy” (Psalm 126:5).

 

Last week may have been unprecedented, or it could be (as some commentators and pundits are suggesting) the new normal. We don’t know. But I promise you, hard times will come into your life. Times that make you sob will assault you. Be it terrorist bombs or something that is ten times less scary, and still real and hard. In those moments you are not alone. There is hope. There is joy. There is the presence of God at work even when the darkness comes home. Evil is real. But God is sovereign, and even though hell itself pour down on you, if you have placed your faith in Christ, He is with you. When the day of darkness comes crashing down, do not forget this.