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Text of the page (random words):
are questioners philip does not begin their conversation with a lecture but with a question this shows great respect for the lives and real concerns of the people around us our assumptions and judgments crush the people around us and we try to choke them good heartedly of course with the pearls of our bible knowledge little surprise then when they turn and bite us the treasurer too takes a chance and asks philip the question that scripture has sparked in his mind at some point if we are living missionally people around us will have questions like this maybe not scholarly questions about isaiah 53 but questions about theology and mission and identity unless they trust us they will save their questions and get their answers from the cracked cisterns of pantheism self help and televangelists which brings me to the most missional statement of the passage beginning with this scripture he told him the good news about jesus listen the good of the whole creation requires that god be known and praised as creator as the centerpiece of his self revelatory mission god is now to be known to all humanity through the unique humanity and self offering of jesus the messiah wright 125 it is not our mission it is not our story we who have been caught up in the grasp of the great and eternal god who owe our eternal lives to his compassion and mission must tell with our words our hearts our lives the story we ve been caught up in changing the story telling about ourselves telling about all the things that we try and tell people instead of just telling them about jesus makes our gospel anathema no gospel at all the mission of god is wrapped up in the identity and mission of jesus of nazareth philip and candace s treasurer pledge their allegiance to that mission and spend their lives in his service let s remember that between us and our neighbors is a great deal more commonality than difference the god who loves us loves them our commission is to show them that love let s get to work in his love nick 3 comments posted in uncategorized posted by michaelhanegan november 17 2008 life in the jesus way i have struggled for some time now with the problem that comes from using terms that while they may express biblically and theologically sound principles automatically become suspect or heretical because of the new and or unfamiliar vocabulary this has certainly been my struggle with the missional conversation it has begun to take on its own vocabulary missio dei contextualization context s liminality incarnational i m sure there are at least another 25 words out there my point is this if the missional life is really the christian life that has been able to correct some of the reductionisms of the gospel that have resulted from thr christendom project did you catch the two special missional words in that sentence then why does it need to be couched in language that causes it to become suspect or ignored it is because of this struggle that i want to begin writing and creating a resource and materials under the title life in the jesus way so if you were to teach a series write a book or create some type of resource to help people fulfill their missional identity without ever using the word missional or the other language that is associated with the conversation what would you say here are a couple of initial thoughts as to how i might organize such a resource any suggestions would be much appreciated life in the jesus way in the life of jesus this is why i was sent understanding the mission of jesus you have heard that it was said but i say to you the upside down kingdom savior what is salvation according to the life and teachings of jesus servant the first will be last and the last will be first lord the creed of the early church how this reality shapes all of life life in the jesus way in the life of the people of god a k a the church the greatest commands as scot mcknight calls it the jesus creed the mission of the people of god you will be my witnesses the witness of the people of god what is the message we are proclaiming the fruits of the spirit the body our ongoing death burial and resurrection romans and sanctification these topics are not necessarily in order of importance or organization what else needs to be included what approach would you take to creating such a resource is it even needed 4 comments posted in ministry resources tags missional transition spiritual formation theology posted by weswoodell november 15 2008 no church building pros and cons from a simple church planter phil mccollum a los angeles based simple church planter or as i like to call men like him a little a apostle left a very thoughtful comment in response to the questions posed in my last post on this blog read more of phil s writings over at wayoflifevillage org my questions were as follows 1 since they re not going away what are some suggestions for how church buildings property can be used missionally 2 what would christianity look like if church buildings didn t exist here s phil s response wes i like your two questions for now i ll let churches with buildings think through the answer to 1 i like the ideas presented so far though answer 2 is similar to another question someone recently asked me what if churches weren t exempt from paying taxes to the government and therefore had less financial resources available to them i m not sure how big of a financial hit u s churches would feel from this but the point my friend was trying to make was this if churches had far fewer dollars available to them it might actually be a good thing meaning if we didn t have enough money to maintain and renovate our buildings employ our pastors and keep all our church programs running it might motivate some of us to live differently as christians no longer would we be able to count on ministry staff to spiritually feed us on large worship events to define us and on big programs to spread the gospel and meet felt needs in the community those needs would have to be met without staff and buildings and the leaders who run the programs they d have to be met by every jesus follower living missional lives in their own communities the point we often to refer to our buildings and resources as a blessing from god but they sometimes distract us from fulfilling our role as jesus folllowers for two years we ve been church planting in la without buildings and paid preachers there are pros and cons to this approach but in our case the pros far outweigh the cons downsides to not having a building include it s a foreign concept in the u s to have a church without a building even unbelievers come to the table with preconceived ideas of what a church is you learn to be patient and retell your vision over and over in some cases it has been too foreign for religious folks to accept other pastors and already christians have the hardest time with this it s difficult for them to accept us as a legitimate group or take us seriously they raise an eyebrow to us and continue to ask us to pray that god will help their groups to find a bigger or less costly venue for their worship services they also complain how tired they are from keeping all the programs running naturally our top priority prayer requests are different and there is a disconnect upsides to not having a building include it has freed us to be more adaptable to people s changing needs home churches can change venues and times as needed and still be church it has allowed us to be a church on the move and take church to the people kingdom lifestyle not fortress lifestyle because we are not tied to the concept of getting everyone to come to us it has helped new and veteran christians to see more clearly from our practice not just our lip service that church really is a people not a place or event not having a building with an office has forced us to show the community we are a legitimate church by our actions and lifestyle rather than by pointing to an address in john 13 34 35 jesus said the world will know we are his disciples by loving one another the way he loved us not by our ability to rent purchase buildings pay a preacher and start a myriad of programs more upsides not having a static place to meet each week has forced us to blur the lines between the sacred and the secular in a good way now we realize god wants every moment and place to become sacred we get to live out more fully the romans 12 teaching that worship is a sacrificial way of life not an event on sunday without the overhead costs it has freed us to pour the majority of our offerings into foreign and domestic missions and serving the poor and have more on hand to give directly to people as needs arise in the u s we find people who are turned off to traditional churches and religion are often more open to pursuing god in the context of a home park coffee shop or other everyday place the biggest benefit though is that it is easier for a new church community of jesus followers to see themselves reproducing more churches if they don t have to rent purchase and manage a building or provide for the living expenses of a preacher and his family to do it we unnecessarily burden new christians and hinder the spread of the gospel when we imply or flat out tell people they can t be a real church or start a new church without a building or paid pastor for me it s not about it s not about whether or not to have buildings or paid pastors it s about what s indefinitely reproducible for the spread of the gospel and it s also about who gets to make those decisions like will we get a building i say that is better when we leave it up to the new believers themselves to make those calls why impose our culture or preferred ways of doing church onto people when planting the gospel let s just plant the seed and allow the spirit to grow it up however he wants with or without a building with or without paid staff etc when we plant the gospel and help bible study groups to transition into home churches we re not trying to prove the viability of a house church model neither are we trying to disprove the viability of a brick and mortar church we go into it acknowledging that some of the home based laity led churches we help new believers to start will remain home based and laity led other churches will decide they want to get a building and become big church similarly some will decide they want to compensate one of their own to be a paid pastor some of the new churches may morph into a variety of different models as time goes by and their situations change we plant the seed gospel not buildings as the seed grows it may involve buildings sometime in the future or it may not our job as missionaries in los angeles is to make disciples and teach them to obey all the commands of christ we teach obedience based discipleship that sees disciples reproducing disciples leaders reproducing leaders and churches reproducing churches we don t tell them how to put church together in their culture rather we teach them that the word of god is the teacher and train them to discern from god s word and the guidance from the holy spirit how their obedience gets expressed in their context this means church gets put together differently in different cultures and at different times but obedience remains the same while part of me is tempted to imagine a world where all churches have no buildings i d rather imagine a church where we are committed to planting the seed alone let s preach jesus not jesus __________ fill in the blank with our preferred ways of doing church let s train people in obedience based discipleship to jesus christ and let them figure out for themselves if their obedience would be better expressed right now with or without a building paid staff or tiny communion cups or this or that worship style we can work with the indigenous leaders of the new churches and serve as a guide to them in the process but let s not shortchange them by making those decisions for them good questions wes let s keep imagining in jesus name now that s worth reading right there phil thank you very much for your thoughtful response i have a deep respect for what you re doing and the motives driving your methodology bless you brother anyway i m feeling a bit cheeky so i ll leave you with this i dare you to show that at your next building committee meeting ha 2 comments posted in contextualization culture ministry theology tags hating church buildings some more lol posted by dvdbrumley november 14 2008 you can t handle the truth without a doubt one of the all time most memorable lines from cinema in the past twenty years came from jack nicholson in the movie a few good men when pressed in a court martial hearing about the practices of the military jack nicholson s character bellows out you can t handle the truth he was referring to the fact that while all of us want to feel that we are safe in this world because our military protects us this security comes with a price sometimes things have to be done that many of us don t want to know about and would not want to get our hands dirty doing it is a thankless job that is done not for gratitude but for purpose in luke 17 our loving jesus reminds us that we as christians have a duty to serve him and his purpose in our lives we don t do this job to receive gratitude from him our master but for purpose in verses 7 10 jesus explains that our life is one to be spent in service work for him jesus reminds us that this is a thankless work in verse 9 and that we are foolish if we expect payment from him prior to his needs being met even then we are not worthy of payment because we are simply doing our duty this sounds so different than the prosperity gospel that is so prevalent today today and i fear even in the church of christ people are being taught that they simply need to be baptized come to church and quit their bad habits and that jesus will pour his blessing upon them i call foul this teaching is not in line with christ s teachings christ is using the parable in luke 17 to forewarn us that if we expect to meet him it s time to get to work our mission is one of duty not namesake if we want to be member s of christ s kingdom it is time to get to work so the question then arises over why are we not teaching this from our pulpit s mission fields christian publications and sunday school classes i fear that the answer is that like jack nicholson s character in a few good men we are telling believers and non believers alike that you can t handle the truth are we afraid that if we really tell people what is required of them after baptism that our numbers might drop is our faith in jesus really so weak that we believe we have to withhold the actual truth about the narrow gate in order to get people to accept him have we allowed the gospel to become so sugar coated with political correctness that our churches are now full of members who will walk out should we tell them they are not doing enough to a...