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.

From the Newsletter: The Great Missions Field Called New England

I think it’s safe to say that New England is in my DNA. My mom’s family has been in New England since the 1600’s, and they were some of the first people to move into Vermont. I grew up in New England, and God seems to be making it clear, that I will be a New England pastor for the rest of my life. When I was young I dreamed of going oversees to train locals for ministry because they know the culture that they are ministering to backwards and forwards, and at 18 I left New England and never expected to return. But at 23, something funny happened, God made clear that I was supposed to return to New England and go to Gordon Conwell. Since then he has been making clear that all along he has been making me someone who is built for ministry in New England. Someone from New England, who speaks it’s language, loves what it loves, mourns and cheers when it does, and bleeds when the Sox lose.

 

Which is why I look around and feel a deep sadness and excitement. I feel a deep sadness, because I see a place, in desperate need of the gospel. I was at a recent association meeting for the denomination, and  the speaker was Glynis LaBarre (LaBarre is a “transformation strategist” for the denomination, and the leading missional thinker in the ABC -as far as I can tell, the only one -we’ll get to the missional church next month), And at one point, she spoke about “the numbers”. She noted that the world that we live in has changed. It used be a world shaped by, and friendly to the church. 8 of 10 used to be in church. Now it’s 2 of 10 of ten, if... Soon it will be 1 of 10. LaBarre, who looked to me to be in her late 50’s, commented that “in the  generations under me, less than 1 in 10 has a significant connection with love of God”.

 

But, the facts on the ground are worse in New England. A 2009 Gallup poll placed the six states of New England in the top ten least religious states in the nation. According to the NETS Institute for Church Planting, all six New England states rank in the top 10 least religious states in the US. Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts make up the top four. Roughly 2% of New Englanders attend evangelical churches. One of every six residents of Massachusetts and Connecticut is atheist or agnostic, nearly double the national average.  Of the 27 most populous states, Massachusetts has by far the lowest percentage of self-professed "born agains." There is a higher percentage of evangelical church attendees in Mormon Utah than in Rhode Island.  That’s pretty mind-blowing. Furthermore, there is very little biblical literacy to speak of. According to a Barna poll entitled “America’s Most (and Least) Bible-Minded Cities” that came out this winter, 5 of the 6 least biblically literate cities are in New England.

 

As you well know, things are pretty grim here in New England, which is why New England has been designated an unreached people group by some denominations. As a native New Englander, my heart breaks when I think of the reality on the ground here. New England, as a region, fits the category of unreached people. The missions field is not just, over there. It’s here, in our backyard. And this is not new    info to many of us. We live in a giant mission field.

 

So that’s the bad news. However, and there’s the big huge however, at the same time, I’m excited. First, all the bad new means that we have an unprecedented opportunity. Paul dreamed of going and sharing the gospel where no one else had. We get to. We get to work, in almost untilled ground. You, and I. We are the people God has called to proclaim the gospel, and model the gospel to a place that desperately needs the good news of the gospel. That excites me. Will it be hard? Yes. But we get to be missionaries to a place that desperately needs the gospel. We get to walk out the door into one of the toughest missions field imaginable and take the gospel there! We have been called to take on this mantle. That thrills me. I dream of seeing God move here in New England. I dream of seeing revival in New England as in the days of Edwards.  I long for revival. For the day when the gospel is preached from pulpits, shared by friends at the coffee shop, over lunches and dinners, at work and at the ballgame, and wherever we go! I dream of a day when the ripe harvest that I see here in New England is reaped. The scary and awesome thing is that the bad news means we have an unprecedented opportunity to share the Gospel!

 

Furthermore, there are plenty of signs that God is at work in a big way. In the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, there are signs that Aslan is moving well before he is seen. Every part of Narnia buzzes with his presence. The rumor is passed with excitement, and the snow starts melting, and flowers bloom. Father Christmas returns. Throughout Narnia, there are hints, and whispers that the dark days may be ending, and here in New England there are signs that God is beginning to send long prayed for revival; signs that God is already doing something amazing.

 

Here are a few. First, I look around and see young pastors being called to New England ministry. A few weeks ago, Veronique and I attended an overnight retreat hosted by the New England Church revitalization network, and gathered with other pastors and their spouses doing revitalization work here in New England. Most were young, and all of us were telling stories of God working slowly but faithfully. There was a sense that there are shoots appearing both near and far.

 

Second, last fall, 1300 Christians gathered for the Gospel Coalition NE Conference. 1300 people! Some were pastors, but many others where faithful Christians who where there to be fed, energized, and equipped for life on the missions field of New England. 1300 Christians excited about living gospel centered lives, and caring enough to get to a conference in the heart of Boston!

 

Third, shortly after the Gospel Coalition Regional Conference an interesting article appeared in Slate, entitled, “Re-evangelizing New England  ‘how church planting and music festivals are bringing about a quiet revival”, and it spoke of some of the things that God is doing in New England, and pointing out that there is a quiet revival going on in New England that has been flying under the radar. It points out that “In Boston, though the population has dipped slightly below its level in 1970, the number of churches has almost doubled, and the number of people attending church has more than tripled in that same period”. Dozens and dozens of churches have been planted here in New England in the last 10 or 15 years; this article is just catching onto something that has been happening for awhile. 

 

Fourth, there are churches returning to Gospel faithfulness even in our own mainline denomination. Dale Edwards, the executive Director of VT/NH ABC was one of the speakers at the retreat Veronique and I recently went to, and he told us that most of the ABC churches in VT/NH are now somewhere on the spectrum of orthodoxy. In the ABC!

 

These are some of the reasons I’m excited. It’s a good time to be in New England. Shortly after the Gospel Coalition gathering in October, Collin Hansen, one of the speakers at the conference, wrote an article entitled, “The best of times in New England”, one line stood out to me above all the rest. These are the best of times in New England because God has raised up local church leaders who love their communities, who have committed to staying over the long haul as they trust Christ to change hearts and redeem souls. They understand the challenges. The have endured hardship. They have been tempted to hunker down but defied Satan to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to their neighbors and encourage fellow believers to do likewise”.

 

I look around, and feel a deep sadness, and great excitement. But the work is just beginning. I was speaking with a friend recently and I commented that I am feeling the weight of the great commission  more and more, and I’m sure it is because I know that in large part the work is just beginning.

 

My hope and prayer is that you do too. My hope and prayer, is that you feel the weight of the facts that lay before us, and that they break your heart. May they break your heart for New England, for Massachusetts, for Metro-west, and for Medfield. But I hope that as they do, that you will be excited about the fact that God has called us to be here at this time and place for this very reason. He is sovereign, and he has called you and I to such a time as this. May God use you to be about his work, to be one of those men and women, that look at the world, and hear the words of your Lord, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field (Matthew 9:36-37)." My hope and prayer is that you will be one of those workers, who shares the gospel, who hears the great commission, who hears the reminder that fields are ripe with harvest, and shares the good news of what Christ has done as you are going through the day to day parts of your life and live for the glory of his name.

 

Next month, I will talk about the Missional Church movement, which I believe is one of the fundamental church culture shifts that the American church, and especially the New England church, will need to go through, as we switch our gaze from ourselves, to the lost world around us. But for now, let me just ask you to do one thing. Pray, seriously pray, for revival. I dream of revival, I long for revival. I want to see that day with all my heart. But it starts, with prayer. It will not happen without prayer. As Stepehn Um, one of my professors at GCTS and one of the speakers of the Gospel Coalition NE noted “ God puts us into situations that show us we cannot rely on anything else but God who raises the dead." Not cutting-edge ministry methods. Not the memory of a Christian past. Not the social benefits of church attendance. Only the power of the Holy Spirit, the promise of union with Christ, and the persevering love of our heavenly Father”. Prayer is needed. We will not see any change, without prayer. Lots and lots of prayer, and so my request is that you pray, earnestly, fervently, for God to be saving souls, for God to be sending revival. The stats are all bad, but we serve the God who opens channels through the sea, who make the mute speak, and rose, in power. He’s the God who created all things, sustains all things, and holds everything in the palm of his hand. Long odds are nothing new for him, nor all that intimidating to him. So pray. Pray for him to act. Pray for your home region. Let your heart break for New England. My guess is that New England is in your DNA too. Pray for God to move once again in New England.

Is it the eggs? What’s Easter really about?

This weekend, many will gather with their families, and enjoy great meals and watch their kids hunt for Easter eggs and gorge themselves on to much candy. But what is the point of Easter? Is it just the eggs? What’s Easter all about? The Christian view of Easter is that it is a historical event that changes everything. Christians assert that after being killed by crucifixion, Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead, and that this historically event changes everything. Now, the sting of death is gone, and a whole new future lies before those who place their faith in Christ.

This seems like lunacy today, just as it did then. We often think that we’re a more advanced, enlightened culture than those in the past. But when you read the Bible, you realize no one was interested in believing it then either. But they had a problem, the facts were against them.

Here are the facts. On Easter morning, the tomb was empty. It was empty despite the fact that it was guarded by Roman soldiers; and as much as the authorities might have wanted to they couldn’t haul out Jesus’ rotting corpse because there wasn’t one to haul out.

Additionally, there were many eyewitnesses to the resurrection. One of the historical documents from the early church, 1 Corinthians, tells us that not only did the apostles see Jesus risen but that at one point after the resurrection 500 people saw him at one time. This was a letter to a whole church, a public document written somewhere between 15-30 years after the resurrection, and what St. Paul is basically saying is, “all these people who saw Jesus raised from the dead are still alive. You don’t have to trust me, you can go ask them”. He’s all but daring the readers to check the facts. He couldn’t do that unless most of these people were still alive.

 
Furthermore, there are the disciples changed live. This may be the greatest proof for the resurrection. When Jesus was arrested, his closest followers all fled and hid. How do these men who ran for their lives and hid end up preaching that Jesus is the savior of the world and telling everyone that he rose just weeks later? They saw the Jesus who said “I will die for all the sin and rebellion that you see, reconciling you to God if you place your faith in me and then rise from the dead to prove that I’ve paid the penalty”, risen. Apart from that, there is no logical reason to preach the gospel. Who suffers and eventually dies for something you know is a lie?

Everything about Easter says with one voice, it happened. Some will tell you that Easter is simply a symbol for death and renewal; that there is a circle of life, after death comes new life and after loss there is always gain. They point to nature, and say, “See the lesson of Easter, after winter there’s spring. From the death of the acorn comes a new tree. Therefore, we need to realize that there is always hope”. The problem is that this doesn’t line up with reality. Reality is that, as Tennyson wrote “Nature is red in tooth and claw”. In nature the strong eat the weak. The Easter bunny is a meal for the Coyote. The argument that Easter is just a symbol does an end run around your intellect, and is of little hope when you find yourself staring at a lost loved on, or a child in the ER.

But the Christian view of Easter is that God entered into the world, and changed history in the most counterintuitive way, he died on the cross as our substitute, and proved it by rising, and if you place your faith in Christ everything about your whole existence is changed. Your past is changed, your present is changed, and your future is changed. Everything changes. In the good and especially in the bad. In those moments of sorrow and hardship you can know there is hope because of what Christ did for you.

This Easter, my invitation to you is go to a church and hear about what God has done through Christ. He lived the life you should have lived, and died the death you should have died, and then he rose to show that everything is changed. I will be speaking about the death and resurrection of Jesus at First Baptist Church of Medfield, our service begins at 10:30am. I know there are many other churches that will be doing the same. Wherever you go, take the time this Easter to learn about what God has done for the world through the historical event that we celebrate as Easter.

Curse Motif of the Atonement, RC Sproul

He is risen, and that is glorious to behold

He is Risen. He is Risen indeed! The traditional call and response on easter is a wonderful declaration, one that always fires me up. He is Risen, He is Risen indeed! THis is the message that the gospel writers proclaimed, that the early church proclaimed, and that we still proclaim even to this day. He is RISEN! He is Risen indeed!

 

As we come to Easter, the declaration that He is Risen is a glorious, wonderful, awesome, overpowering thing to behold. It is an amazing truth that should grip our heart and warm us from the inside out because it says with a grand pronouncement, He has accomplished everything, because we could accomplish nothing, and we have to accomplish nothing, because he accomplished everything. It says, grace has been poured out on us, and declares that, as John Bunyan wrote “He wrestled with justice, that thou mightest have rest; He wept and mourned, that thou mightest laugh and rejoice; He was betrayed, that thou mightest go free; was apprehended, that thou mightest escape; He was condemned, that thou mightest be justified; and was killed, that thou mightest live; He wore a crown of thorns, that thou mightest wear a crown of glory; and was nailed to the cross, with His arms wide open, to show with what freeness all His merits shall be bestowed on the coming soul; and how heartily He will receive it into His bosom?”. Easter is glorious, because it is news that he accomplished everything he said he would , and while we may face pain, and tragedy, and suffering in this life, our sufferings are but for a time, our illnesses aren’t final, and in the end, as the apostle Paul wrote some 20years after the resurrection “we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:50-57).

 

As we gather together this easter season for worship on, lets celebrate Chrsit’s glorious work with Joy, and lets come preparerd to worship our risen savior, because he has shown great love for us. Lets invite our friends, and our families to gather and celebrate the joy that this brings, because it is finished! Christ, the resurrection and the life, is risen, and the result is that “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die (John 11:25-26).

Holy week, the resurrection, and us

Jesus birth literally divided history. The reason this fact is true is Holy week. From the jubilant triumphal entry, to the dark, heart breaking kiss of Judas, to the agonized cry of my God my God why have you forsaken me, to the moment that the veil of the temple tore in two, to the great moment of joy on the other side, the resurrection on Easter morning, it is holy week that tells you why this life mattered so much that it divided history. All of the gospel writers go to great pains to show you the importance of holy week. Over 30 percent of the gospels are devoted to this one week. Holy week is important. But what seals the deal on holy week is the resurrection. The resurrection is the signature moment when God revealed to the world that everything Jesus said about himself and his death, is true. Easter is that moment when the God demonstrated his power in an unparallel way, and showed the world that death was conquered, that Christ had  indeed triumphed over sin and evil, and that the world would someday be put right.
 

As we go through the month of March, and the weeks that lead up to holy week and Easter that Christians have traditionally called lent, I want to encourage you to think about five ways that this week impacts our lives as followers of Christ.

First, it means that our sin is paid for. On the cross, Christ paid for our sins. All our sin. Peter writes that “Christ died for our sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.(1Peter 3:18). That means all our rebellion, all our failure, all the cruelty, all the momentary indiscretion, all of it, every sin. Christ took it. He took our punishment, substituting himself before the wrath of God, while simultaneously giving his righteousness to those who look to him for salvation. This wonderful reality is what Luther called the great exchange. “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Second, we have no need to fear death. Jesus resurrection is the first fruits of the grave. He is in essence a down payment on what we all can look forward to, a glorious, renewed, perfected body. One with no aches, and pains, no tendency to sin, and mess up time and again, one that will be able to live in perfect relationship with God and others forever. With this in mind, we can say with Paul “"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1Corinthains15:55-57).

Third, adoption as sons. Ephesians tells us that “He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will (Ephesians 1:5)”. Galatians tells us that “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (Galatians 4:4-5). This is so often the overlooked treasure. We are not just saved from punishment. We are saved to something wonderful. Adoption. Now, because of what God has done through Christ, if we place our faith in Christ, we are his children. Adoption means that we have a new status. Before we were children of wrath. Now, our very status is changed, forever. This is incredible, and worth pondering. In Knowing God, Bible Scholar J.I. Packer notes that “The idea that all are children of God is not found in the Bible anywhere…” He’s absolutely right, it’s not. Instead it teaches that “the gift of sonship to God becomes ours not through being born, but through being born again. ‘To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or of a husband's will, but born of God.' (John.1:12-13)  Sonship to God, then, is a gift of grace” (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, chap 19) .

This is an amazing truth. Have you stopped and pondered it lately?  Looking at it, Sinclair Ferguson, the Scottish Bible scholar observed, “If we fail to see this truth, we will reject the power of our adoption… The notion that we are children of God, His own sons and daughters… is the mainspring of Christian living… Our sonship to God is the apex of Creation and the goal of redemption.” ( Sinclair Ferguson, Children of the Living God). Do you rejoice in this reality? This is the jackpot. There is no greater effect on you here and now than this, and how you view this truth, says so much about your walk with God.  J.I. Packer adds, “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how he much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. [Adoption] is the highest privilege the gospel offers (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, chap 19). Adoption is the jackpot, don’t miss it.

Fourth, living for the glory of God strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit. We were created to live for the glory of God, but if you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you know that this is just about impossible on our own strength. On our own we do everything but live for the glory of God. But now, the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead is living in us, through the Holy Spirit. Now, though the work of the Holy Spirit, it becomes possible for us to glorify God. Before, it was impossible, but now, as Paul writes “you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code (Romans 7:4-6).

Finally, we can be sure that God keeps his promises. This is simple, but amazing. God made promises to his people about the messiah, and he made promises to us as his children. His promises about the messiah, his son Jesus Christ, were kept, at a terrible cost. The cost of the death of Christ. If he kept promises about the messiah, Christ, which cost him everything, how much more, having paid that cost, will he be willing to keep his promises to you, to us, his children. Surely He will keep promises to love us, care for us, watch over us, do what’s best for us.  Sometimes that feels like pain. Sometimes it involves discipline, but it means that no mater what, we can trust him and be sure that he keeps his promises.

During Lent and the weeks leading up to Holy Week and Easter, stop and ponder what it all means to for you, personally. Stop and ponder the death and resurrection and be heartened by all that it means. Consider what they mean in your life, and allow yourself to be encouraged, chastened, and called to a life lived for the glory of God. 

Additionally, I would encourage you to plan on coming to Holy week services. We will be having a Maundy Thursday service at 7:30 on the 28^th, and then we will be having a Sunrise service on Easter morning at 6:30. This is tentatively scheduled for the Wheelock field. The location will be announced when confirmed. Then, we will be having our Easter morning celebration at 10:30. Plan on coming, plan on pondering the implications of the cross and resurrection. Plan on inviting friends to these services, and plan on sharing the hope of the gospel with them. Easter is the super bowl of the Christian Calendar. If Christmas is opening day at Fenway, Easter is the Super Bowl. Plan on coming, and plan celebrating all that God has done through the death and resurrection of Jesus.