Imagine several silos. Imagine that each silo is representative of subcultures or interests. You may imagine a silo for politics, one for sports, one for entertainment or one for music. You may get more specific and imagine one for fottbal and another for basketbal and baseball or one for movies and another for theatre and another for television.
The point is to imagine silos. Some are filled all the way up some are partly filled up. Did you imagine a silo for church or religion? I hope that we are never church centric, that the end is people at North Church. I hope that we are not about trying to get people to come to us but instead we would go into the world. I hope that we would climb from the church silo and go get into the basketball silo or the music silo.
There is a single mom in the church of a friend of mine. This mom just had quints. That is right, she had five babies and is single. A lady in the church is coordinating ministry to this single mom. The single mom is not a Christian and does not go to the church. Someone came to the woman who was coordinating the effort to reach out to this single mom and told her that she would like to go and pick this mom up once a week and take her to lunch and disciple her. A great concept. But the coordinator said, why don't you skip the lunch and the discipleship and go and fold diapers and do housework with her. Go to where she is and live life with this woman and physically help her, engage her in real life conversations.
In short why don't you get out of your church silo and go get into her raise 5 kids by yourself silo.
A Few Questions
Here are a few questions for you to ponder. I have answered the first one to give you an idea about it.
1. What is the mission of your life? The first mission of my life is to daily surrender to my God and worship Him. The second is love and lead my wife in biblical ways. The third is to model a life that is continually being changed by the Gospel for my children. The fourth is to pastor the people of North Church. Last is to build relationship with people who do not know Jesus Christ.
2. Who are you building relationship with inside the church and outside the church?
3. Are you willing to take your life to an uncomfortable place for the sake of someone who is far from Christ?
I would really like for you to respond with answers to the first question.
1. What is the mission of your life? The first mission of my life is to daily surrender to my God and worship Him. The second is love and lead my wife in biblical ways. The third is to model a life that is continually being changed by the Gospel for my children. The fourth is to pastor the people of North Church. Last is to build relationship with people who do not know Jesus Christ.
2. Who are you building relationship with inside the church and outside the church?
3. Are you willing to take your life to an uncomfortable place for the sake of someone who is far from Christ?
I would really like for you to respond with answers to the first question.
Some things on the horizon
Three things that are in the near future of North Church.
1. Forums:: We will do a few of these in 2008, the first coming in late February. Forums will be half day Saturdays with discipleship/missional thinking as the themes. Our first one will be about being intentional in building relationships and be led by John Ryan.
2. Food Drive:: We hope to connect with a North County Food Bank and go into our community collecting food for those in our community who are hungry. Still working on what this look like.
3. Men's Retreat:: This will be a weekend event in the late winter/early spring. There will be outdoor activities (fishing, hiking and golf), unity building and some teaching.
Stay tuned to this blog and the website and in service announcements for dates and more information on these events.
1. Forums:: We will do a few of these in 2008, the first coming in late February. Forums will be half day Saturdays with discipleship/missional thinking as the themes. Our first one will be about being intentional in building relationships and be led by John Ryan.
2. Food Drive:: We hope to connect with a North County Food Bank and go into our community collecting food for those in our community who are hungry. Still working on what this look like.
3. Men's Retreat:: This will be a weekend event in the late winter/early spring. There will be outdoor activities (fishing, hiking and golf), unity building and some teaching.
Stay tuned to this blog and the website and in service announcements for dates and more information on these events.
Missionary Part II
God has called you to be on a mission on this planet. There is no getting around that fact. And Jesus is our model of a life that was always on undistracted mission.
People were always coming to Jesus saying and doing things that could have distracted him from his mission. But he was always about that mission. Jesus said that he came to earth to seek and save the lost. Giving his life away meant that on a daily basis he would consider others more important that himself (Phil 2) and on the ultimate level when he died on the cross.
This instance of Jesus serving others comes from the Gospel of John and is just prior to his death. Knowing what was in front of him it may have been easy to have been distracted from his mission, but Jesus was not.
From John 13::
3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? 7 Jesus answered him, What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand. 8 Peter said to him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you have no share with me. 9 Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head! 10 Jesus said to him, The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you. 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, Not all of you are clean. 12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
God has a mission for your life. You are God's missionary in the exact time and place where you are. Your school, job, family, friends, neighborhood and city are all places that God has put you to be on mission. Ask God to show you what it is and give you the strength to rise to it.
People were always coming to Jesus saying and doing things that could have distracted him from his mission. But he was always about that mission. Jesus said that he came to earth to seek and save the lost. Giving his life away meant that on a daily basis he would consider others more important that himself (Phil 2) and on the ultimate level when he died on the cross.
This instance of Jesus serving others comes from the Gospel of John and is just prior to his death. Knowing what was in front of him it may have been easy to have been distracted from his mission, but Jesus was not.
From John 13::
3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? 7 Jesus answered him, What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand. 8 Peter said to him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you have no share with me. 9 Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head! 10 Jesus said to him, The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you. 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, Not all of you are clean. 12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
God has a mission for your life. You are God's missionary in the exact time and place where you are. Your school, job, family, friends, neighborhood and city are all places that God has put you to be on mission. Ask God to show you what it is and give you the strength to rise to it.
Missionary Part I
If Christ is in you, then you are missionary and you are told to be on a mission. There is no getting around this.
"In John's gospel alone, Jesus told us no less than 39 times that he was a missionary from heaven who came to minister incarnationally to an earthly culture. Further more, Jesus has called us to be missionaries in culture as he was. (John 20:21'as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.') The Father sent Jesus into a specific time and culture as our example."
- Mark Driscoll from "The Church and the Supremacy of Christ
A few of those 39 times are:
John 4:34 Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
John 5:23 Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
John 5:30 can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
These are just three of the times in the gospel of John where Jesus talks about being sent by God. Know this, God has placed in you the time and the place where you currently find yourself for a purpose. That purpose is to live a life sent by God. That is what being a missionary is, one who is sent on a mission. God has sent you on a mission and Jesus is your model.
"In John's gospel alone, Jesus told us no less than 39 times that he was a missionary from heaven who came to minister incarnationally to an earthly culture. Further more, Jesus has called us to be missionaries in culture as he was. (John 20:21'as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.') The Father sent Jesus into a specific time and culture as our example."
- Mark Driscoll from "The Church and the Supremacy of Christ
A few of those 39 times are:
John 4:34 Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
John 5:23 Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
John 5:30 can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
These are just three of the times in the gospel of John where Jesus talks about being sent by God. Know this, God has placed in you the time and the place where you currently find yourself for a purpose. That purpose is to live a life sent by God. That is what being a missionary is, one who is sent on a mission. God has sent you on a mission and Jesus is your model.
Thought Provoking Christmas Quotes
God himself shows up, the hope, reality, liberty of God is breaking into the world. In the middle of day to day living, God is breaking in, He is coming near. That is the baby in the stall, that is Christmas, the infinite one who could not be contained by a thousand galaxies, born in a feeding trough.
-Jonathan MacIntosh
Bring your peace into our violence
-Chris Rice
With the poetry of the season you can think yourself to silence.
-Alister Beig
Son of God, love's oure light
Radiant beams from Thy Holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord at Thy birth, Jesus Lord at Thy birth.
-Joseph Mohr
-Jonathan MacIntosh
Bring your peace into our violence
-Chris Rice
With the poetry of the season you can think yourself to silence.
-Alister Beig
Son of God, love's oure light
Radiant beams from Thy Holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord at Thy birth, Jesus Lord at Thy birth.
-Joseph Mohr
