Nickelback’s, “If Everyone Cared” stirs in my mind the possibilities of a tidal wave of committed followers of Jesus who see God’s Kingdom being ushered into this world; with his peace and wholeness reigning across the earth and in each heart.

“Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.“

— Margaret Mead

“When is salt not salty?”

That question has been floating through my mind the last several days. Of course, it comes from Jesus’ perplexing question found in Matthew 5:13, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”
My only question is, HOW can salt loose its saltiness? There’s absolutely no way! It’s chemically impossible for salt to become unsalty unless its bonds are broken…but then it isn’t salt anymore, it is sodium and chloride. This has got to be one of the dumbest statements Jesus ever makes!

This past weekend I went to the World Missions Workshop in Lubbock, TX. What an amazing time to meet new people; so many of whom are interested in God’s Mission! Specifically, I was able to bump into Marvin Crowson, Harding University’s point man for organic church, (a good Q&A with him here). He introduced me to a team who are looking at moving to Chicago in a year and a half to begin living missionally (they will all have day jobs) but they will live their Christian vocation out as missionaries to the city - planting simple churches in apartments, coffee shops, parks, and yes, even Sears Tower. You can imagine my excitement, meeting a whole team that is assembling (a mix from Harding and Lubbock Christian University) who have such a similar vision.
Beyond meeting cool cats, I found myself bouncing from conversation to conversation, discussing dreams different folks had regarding what the church could look like outside the traditional walls. More and more people are beginning to see this way of living as a legitimate option for church; and that makes me truly excited. Missionaries who have seen organic church as a means for spreading the gospel all over the world are “clicking” as they realize that if it can work around the world, and it works in the New Testament, maybe it can work in North America too.

So when is salt not salty? What about this salt shaker seen here? Is the salt in it salty? How do you know? How can you prove it? Truly, no one really knows if salt is salty unless they taste it. So why does Jesus talk to us about salt loosing its saltiness? Because it is our nature to hang out in the salt shaker! We’d rather sit pretty with all the other salt, bickering over who is the “purest” salt crystal of the bunch, while the world dies of hunger. The world is hungry for something that tastes good - something that awakens their appetite for God. When we fight and complain over meaningless arguments (find one here), we totally lose sight of where Jesus wants his Church - out of the salt shaker and into the world!  If we stay inside the church - we are GOOD FOR NOTHING.
Maybe that’s why I liked going to WMW so much - it reminded me that for too much of my life I have stayed inside the salt shaker, moaning about how all the rest of the salt doesn’t look tasty enough.  Maybe I should get out of this “bubble” and start meeting people I can “get salty” with.

Living as an incarnational expression cannot be done alone.  If we as the church TRULY ARE (not just symbolically, but tangibly) the body of Christ in this world, then as a COMMUNITY we are called to live incarnationally.  As this will inevitably bring great glory to God, living this way also produces several inherent problems.

First, much like any kind of group work, it’s tough to get over the lethargy of an unintentional community.  People who are at rest, tend to stay at rest.  Leaders of faith communities will be charged by God with the responsibility of speaking to the dry bones, and encouraged by God to speak prophetically about what THIS portion of Christ’s Body could like in THIS context at THIS point in history.  Brainstorming, dream casting and carving out opportunities to grow into a more missional incarnation will be essential for every group of God’s called-out ones.

Plan a time to get together and draw up any number of wild, hair-brained ideas.  Nothing is discarded at first, and everyone has something to contribute, because everyone who has accepted the Lordship of Christ has his Spirit living inside him or her.  View this as a “holy experiment” and set a specific, time-bound goal (like experiencing a full day of Sabbath together for six weeks, or choosing to meet and worship at a local coffee house for the remainder of a semester).  Find opportunities throughout the experiment’s time period to reflect on the incarnational praxis.  Afterward, do an group discussion and evaluation.  What sorts of things did we learn?  What things would we do better, or not do next time?  How can we tell others (who know Christ, and who don’t) about our experience together?

A second problem arises when we see the “incarnation” as a “lowering of self”.  It is at this point that the great analogy of the incarnation begins to break down.  We, unlike Jesus, are not descending from our heavenly culture to the dirty, sinful culture of the “other”.  We are learning to traverse cultural and parallel chasms, not descend holy mountain tops.  We are just as marred by sin as anyone else, (even though our minds tell us differently).  Most of the time, this can be done by allowing people opportunities to share their hearts honestly with people of the new culture.  Hate and prejudice comes through fear, and fear comes through ignorance.  Breaking down walls of separation through friendship (done in community) is essential for incarnational living.

Holy experiments are essential to incarnational living.  And going into those experiments with a humble mindset will allow the community to enter a culture as Jesus would: as a humble learner.

I have been fully engaged this morning in reading a book on the Missio Dei (mission of God).  I was reminded that God is first and foremost a missionary God who came to Earth to announce the good news of an arriving Kingdom, and that his will is to see us not planting churches, not spreading the message of Americo-centrism, but making disciples.  The earliest missionaries moved from a periphery like Jerusalem, and arrived at the center of power: a spiritually bankrupt Rome.  For so long missions has been about “sending”, now it is about “going”.  And truly, even more than “going”, because we are always on the go in this culture.  It is while we go that we make disciples of Jesus Christ.  It is in the midst of life that we group together with a band of disciples and live out the subversive, provocative lifestyle that God have designed for us.

I’m not interested in “missions” as something we do during our summer break, or support financially, or even make a career out of.  I will not rest until it is everything that we are and do.

Now I think about Abilene.  In many ways it is out in the periphery of the world.  It is the desert, physically and politically speaking.  My wife and I are heading to Chicago.  In many ways that is the cultural and economic center of the country – and in many other ways, the entire world.  The great cities of our nation are going to be infiltrated with revolutionaries of The Way, and we aren’t going to be preaching a health and wealth Gospel.

It is the small things that make the biggest difference.  Right now people from all over the world – people who just one generation ago heard the Gospel message for the first time from an American – are now migrating to the US to “make disciples”.  African groups like the Nigerian Redeemed Christian Church of God hold vibrant worship, and are connected with home churches all throughout Florida and the Southeast, Christian groups from Ghana are now holding bible studies in the World Bank in Washington D.C., and Asians are grouping together to head for locales a Westerner could have never gained access to.

The shift in God’s mission is taking place – now there is no one center of mission.  We now see an interplay of the Gospel being passed back and forth in a network of cultures and societies.  Each supporting the other, these groups committed to a center-less religion are watching the Spirit move in fascinating ways.

I want to be a part of that network.  I renounce my desire to be the center of power.  I commit to finding myself in the dangerous and amazing mission God has created for his disciples.  Praise be to God!