Somehow, one of my posts on the Chicago Spiritual Map made it to the Chicago Sun-Times.  If anyone knows how, let me know! :)  You can see the article here.

I’m beginning to think more specifically about strategies for sharing the gospel with those God has put in my life here in Chicago.  The first few months seem to have been marked by our getting settled, and being awake to who God was putting in our path.  So many have come and gone - friends came in to visit virtually every week since we moved in!  But who are those who God is strategically placing in our life share the Good News with?

Thinking organically about mission, how much initiative does the missionary take?  Where does the efforts of the missionary stop and the “divine appointments and connections” of God begin?  Is that a false question?  What I’m wondering is: how much do I involve myself in “advertising” what I’m doing to an anonymous audience (flyers, public events, etc) to find those who are ready to take the next step, and how much do I simply let those interested find me?

My instinct says, “wait - just let your good deeds shine,” but I’ll be completely honest, either I don’t have many good deeds, or that strategy doesn’t actually work - because no stranger or friend has ever come up to me and said, “Wow - you’re such a (nice) (just) (generous) guy, I think I’ll become a Christian.”  Another instinct I have is to cast the nets wide, and pull in any fish that get caught, then let God do the sorting (as to who I’m to invest in).

I think about a farmer - when sowing seed, he throws it everywhere!  He “broadcasts” his message to the ground, his seed, saying, “Grow this, if you can!”  Then he nurtures the earth that shows progress - the other ground he either ignores or plants something else.  Is the same true with the work of the missionary? Then again, once the farmer has done all the work he can, all he can do is sit back and wait for the Lord to deliver.  See my previous post on work and provision here.

What if I posted flyers for a discovery bible study?  What if I hit the streets and held up a sign offering prayer?  What if I hung out at a coffeeshop with a note on my table saying, “I’ll buy your drink if you tell me your story?”  What if I performed at a ’spoken word’ messages of Christ’s love?  What if I became more candid in my conversations with co-workers about my relationship with God?  What if…

…I spoke with words and life the profound message…the alternative story…of God’s salvation?

Goes without saying, but then again, maybe it needs to be said now more than ever:   God’s love for me (or anyone involved in serving him) is not wrapped up in my works for him.  He loves his children even before they are born, before they can do anything to earn his love.

Now as one called to share the gospel, I will put my whole heart and mind to the task!  And engage God’s love and counsel every step of the way.

I enjoyed spending some more time with our friends/co-workers at Reba Place Fellowship.  We are continuing to see how we can partner with them in following the Lord together and sharing the Gospel with new people groups around the city.  Allan Howe, one of the leaders of the fellowship met with us today, along with several from Good News Partners, an inner city homeless ministry.  As is usual when talking to those on the edge of Kingdom life, the question of “how will this be funded” floated to the surface.

This issue has been on my mind for quite some time now.  It seems that too many people have a desire or a vision for a radical work or ministry, but too few have the capacity to see it come to fruition.  Underfunding could stem from any number of reasons.  Whether its an issue with the skill of vision casting, or a dreamer’s desire to be so radical that it leaves him/her unaccountable to the larger body of Christ, or maybe its an issue of spiritual warfare, or its just that God’s timing for a ministry is not quite our own… It seems that ministries increasingly will have to pay attention to their funding if they are to remain sustainable in effective ministry.

Some have concluded that they cannot receive funding from congregations or missions organizations and instead feel called to “tentmaking.”  Tentmaking is just a fancy way of saying that you use your job to pay for your vocation, and that your business fuses organically with God’s mission.  The apostle Paul, Priscilla and Aquilla did that, and so have countless others.  Others believe that support from churches is where they need to be.  That’s cool too.  “A worker deserves his wages,” Jesus said, and spent time as a mason as well as receiving his living wage from women who had rich husbands (some of which were in business with Herod himself!).  Others still find a workable blend of both roads.

A few books that have shaped my thinking on this are Getting Sent: A Relational Approach to Support Raising, by Pete Sommer, No More Mondays, by Dan Miller, Missions and Money: Affluence as a Missionary Problem, by Jon Bonk, and Profit for the Lord: Economic Activities in the Moravian Missions and the Basel Mission Trading Company, by William Danker.

While I think that those called to a missionary must learn that the world does not revolve around them and their ministry (and that we must learn to become accountable to the larger body of Christ in relational and financial ways), I also think that each ministry must seek eventual self-sustainability.  In order to do this, we must allow the “creative starter” giftings of the missionary to encourage entrepreneurial capital ventures, but keep it from becoming a means of significant distraction from their real work of training leaders to plant churches.  It is not a bad thing for students training to be missionaries to take some key business classes to help them get their arms around economic enterprise.

At the same time, I would hope that financial ties to the rest of the Body of Christ would never be completely severed.  Much like a biological family - even after the children are grown, they help each other out when times get rough or share resources for special interest projects (like a family reunion, or supporting a needy member of the family).

Reba has found that when a group shares resources, more risks can be made - both in ministry and in business.  It’s easier to start a business when you instantly have nearly 100 people financially backing you!

Ultimately though, we work and sweat and prepare - and then we must wait for the Lord to provide.  Right now I work part time at a restaurant in the neighborhood.  I run around like crazy setting the place up in hopes that when we open the doors at 5:30, there will be people interested in eating there, receiving my work, and (mostly unbeknownst to them) supporting urban missions!  There’s an interesting passage in Isaiah 40 that says,

“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

“Waiting” on the Lord includes lots of work!  But their strength comes from the Lord, and from knowing that ultimately the Lord will be their resource.  When it comes to financial life and ministry today, not much has changed.

I look forward to the day when, like the apostles in Acts 6, I can hand off “waiting tables” to others.  For the time being however, I am learning in my job what it means to earn a living, and seeking humility as a server even as I reach out to those I work with as one who has found the Peace that changes lives.  I’m thankful that Jesus gave us flexibilty in this area of funding missions - and I learn so much from others who are much father into this experiment than I am.

Finding myself drinking coffee more and more these days.  I’ve begun to call it my “liquid intelligence,” but I’m not sure if I like that.  Journaling, coffee, prayer, and an active imagination are the things that usually fill my mornings.  Also, I’ve been gravitating more and more to Pandora’s rockin’ Trance station.  Check out all my fave stations and rock out with me here.  I love the digital age!

I’m finding more and more in the city and region who are experimenting with communal discipleship, organic church planting, and the like.  Yesterday I traveled out to West Chicago and had spent most of the day at the Wyclife Bible Translation center with other church planter types.  Joe Hernandez with CityTeam Ministries was there, leading the discussion.

I notice that in this whole church planting conversation, there are two emphases at least that fill the air.  One group sees house churches as a means to develop more authentic community.  Where you take the programs, clergy, and other obstacles out of the way and just have family life together.  The problem I see with this approach is that these groups usually bring in many more Christians than those unsure of their relationship with God.  And more often than not, these Christians have such baggage from their previous church experience that you spend all your time deconstructing and sometimes criticizing the “institutional church” (as if there is ever a “un-institutional church” - a fallacy) that little gets done in the way of loving neighbors, or transforming lives into the image of Christ.

Besides that issue, there’s LOTS more “authentic” expressions of church than just meeting in a home!  If you want to see a good picture of deep, holistic Christian community, check out Reba Place Fellowship, or L’Arche Communities, or so many other intentional Christian communities.  Why stop at just being “family” when you meet together for worship?  I find that most Christians meeting in house churches either come to it expecting to become the superstar of their little group (thus defeating community), or they are just on the way to the next step of a more full-time intentional expression (like living in a house together, or sharing finances).

These are all awesome journeys to be on, and some days I wish I could have more than one life to do them all.  But in this life I feel called to go the second path in church planting: the path that brings the profoundly lost into a transforming relationship with Jesus Christ.  Joe Hernandez (like Neil Cole and many others) are focused specifically on this goal too.

I’ve seen it happen.  Whole communities come to Christ because one person in their group found something amazing in Christ’s teaching.  She found it because someone showed it to her.  Someone planted the Gospel in her heart, then SHE plants the church in her own group of friends!  This is where the organic church has something healthy to contribute to the emerging church landscape in America, and around the world.  Plant the gospel deeply into multiple contexts, worldviews, and people groups (not holding it in just one, and not keeping it for the Christians weighted with baggage.)  It has been almost 180 years since the last real explosion of church planting on this continent.  It’s time to start praying for God’s power to flood our lands again.

We had a great Chicago mission team retreat over the weekend.  It gave us some new perspectives on our philosophy of “team” and I believe the Lord spoke to us through Kent Smith about the importance of putting first things first…

…Many of the passionate followers of Christ I have come across in America are avid ministers.  They pursue missions and ministry with all their heart.  They believe that we are to “love as we have been loved” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”  But strangely enough, it is not uncommon for these same well-intentioned disciples to end up losing their family, or hurting people for the sake of “ministry”.

Many others enter into a life of service to God and leadership among God’s people for the pursuit of true community.  They see God as the triune, perfect community, and they believe it is part of the Christian life to experience that same communion with brothers and sisters.  The only problem is, my definition of community is almost always incongruent with your definition of community!  Therefore we’re always fighting each other in order to obtain that ideal community that never really existed in the first place.

These two things - ministry and community, quickly become idols in the minds of many disciples of Christ.  They are important and godly, but they are not God himself.  There’s something more central that ties these two things together - IDENTITY.

Finding one’s true identity in Christ is essential to truly entering into meaningful ministry and community.  Jesus shows us this in his own life.  He is affirmed in who he is at his baptism BEFORE he does a single miracle, preaches a single sermon, or rounds up any disciples.  His Father says to him and to all others listening, “Behold, this is my son, I love him, and I am well pleased with him!“  What that would do for so many mission teams and even your average Christian if they knew that they were deeply loved by a Papa who knew them first and foremost as his beloved child; BEFORE they ever did anything for him.

But we can only find this identity when we are living in intimacy with Father.   Jesus found regular space in his life to connect and love his Father.  They loved each other uniquely, madly, and constantly.  It was out of this cultivated, intimate relationship that Jesus was able to find his identity, and participate in ministry and community in powerful ways.  Jesus says, “I only do what I see my Father doing.”

Alongside connecting one on one with Father, he found it helpful to hear the intimate words of his God through a band of brothers; Peter, James and John.  These guys knew Jesus inside and out - they spent more time with him than any of the other disciples, and saw him through thick and thin: the night he cried in the garden before he was betrayed, the mountain where he was transfigured into a glorious presence, and there for miracles of resurrection…

I know I’m desperate for this kind of fellowship.  I admit that its more elusive than I ever realized.  People…I…am far too selfish.  I don’t want to commit to anyone else - I want to be my own rugged cowboy, going it alone.  I pretend that I can hear God and participate in life with him all by myself - and that just isn’t true.  There are times…often…that I can’t hear from God.  That’s when I trust on brothers who’ve got my back and help me with the manna from heaven; God’s continual words of LIFE.  It feels as if this kind of community comes and then goes before you know it.  “Either you’re moving, or everyone else is moving around you,” a good friend of mine once said.  It’s sad but true.  I feel like this is a hinge point for North American missions.  If we can’t find meaningful ways of finding intimacy with Father, both on our own and with a small band of disciples, then we will fail.

Jesus’ intimacy with Father continued into a large, wildly diverse community.  The crowds, the disciples, the townsfolk that new him…they were a part of how Jesus connected with God.  This is the choir of coordinated voices singing their love song with God together.

But thank God, there was no formula - no set of principles for us Americans to decipher.  Jesus’ means of connecting with God and becoming intimate with him was in constant flux.  I’m guessing that that bible reading plan you started Jan 1st is already slacking.  Maybe God’s ready for you to find another way to connect with him.  Ride a bike, write a song, meet someone new.  Whatever it takes to find deep, lasting connection with your Creator Father.

Thanks to Kent for pointing some of this out to me.  It is a goal of mine to live in the reality of my own identity in God.  I pray that missions in my life will flow not out of a sense of ungodly jealousy or sense of guilt, but out of who I truly am, and my intimate connection with Father.

Thoughts on the diagram?  Others?

Last night was my first “missional learning party”. I’ve never been to a learning party before - apparently its a lot like a world cafe. There were lots of Jesus followers all talking about how they experienced God’s Kingdom breaking in - and how in other ways we have tried to live the Kingdom life and have failed miserably. The coffee shop we met at was covered in butcher paper, from the walls to the tables, hopeful of getting creative ideas drawn or written down. We shared with complete strangers in God’s family the missional impulses of our hearts…it was great.

We watched a few videos, including the incredible “Escape the Circus” video which I wrote on here. But the MC of the night introduced me to Sigur Rós, an Icelandic ambient band that has an eerily compelling sound. Their song Glósóli sent chills up my spine. Before starting the video, we were asked, “Where do you see ‘mission’ in this music video?”

I’d love your thoughts on this.