Category: Missional
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Mission @ the Heart of God
There are the five parts of the Bible: The God of the Old Testament is a missionary God, calling one family in order to bless all the families of the earth. The Christ of the Gospels is a missionary Christ; he sent the church out to witness. The Spirit of the Acts is a missionary…
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Moving Toward Missional
Some questions I have wrestled with over time: Can someone live missionally without a conscious embracing of missionalism? I suspect “No”. It is possible to engage in activities, but without a conscious approach there is no “mission”. Such a life is more frenetic, aimless, and haphazard. Mission requires intentionally carrying out a preconceived plan and/or…
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5 Key Missional Questions
In this video Jonathan Dodson answers important questions like: Who are you? Is the Gospel dangerous? What does risk look like in following Jesus? How are we called and equipped for the risk that comes with mission? How does entertainment prohibit mission? How does the gospel compel risky mission? You can also read Dodson’s follow-up…
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The Original Missional Calvinist
John Calvin often gets a bad rap. But David Mathis offers us another perspective. In the Introduction to a book he co-edited with John Piper, With Calvin in the Theater of God, Mathis writes: “Calvin so believed in the importance of the everyday activities of Christian life and mission that he had a strange but…
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Our Walk with God is a Community Project
In this short video Paul Tripp powerfully confronts the Lone Ranger mentality that permeates our culture, and offers reason why transparent, authentic, relationships are essential. Tripp reminds us that genuine redemptive relationships are God’s design for our spiritual growth and vitality.
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Traditional Conservative & Missional Values
One of the fundamental principles of being missional is contextualization. In short, contextualization simply means to take into consideration the context where one lives and serves. With all the noteriety that missional practitioners serving in clearly post-Christian areas have gained, it seems some, desiring to follow the example of these leaders, all too readily foresake the principle of contextualization. It is…
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Unity, Liberty, & Charity
I was disappointed recently when I read an old post on the Aquila Report, You Will Hear Crickets. The author, Anthony Bradley, is a professor of Ethics at Kings College in New York City, and apparently has some aversion to the missional church movement. Bradley opens his article: So I’m beginning to wonder if it’s…
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Being a Transforming Presence
As followers of Jesus it is as imperative for us to fight every inclination toward dualism as it is to fight against legalism. While legalism is widely recognized as relating wrongly to the Law, the error of dualism is not as widely acknowledged in our Evangelical circles. Simply put, dualism is like split vision, seeing…
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The Presence of the Kingdom
Jacques Ellul offers a profound insight about how we, as Christians, are to adopt as a priority an Incarnational approach to ministry. Incarnational ministry literally means: In the flesh. It means going where people are, and understanding their real situations, rather than primarily trying to draw them to us with various forms of entertainment and…
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Distinct, Not Separated
John Stott offers a reminder of the task and the tension we, as Christians, must continually navigate when he uses the phrase: “spiritually distinct, but NOT socially segregated.” And here is a quote expanding this perspective: Your business and mine as Christian people is to be in the midst of this world and its affairs,…
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Get the Gospel Right
If pressed for a quick summary of my philosophy of ministry, I would probably express it something like this: Get the Gospel Right Get the Gospel Out Get the Gospel Out Right Without a message there is no mission. Unfortunately, it seems, many are so zealous to get about the mission that they make little…
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Lord Save Us
I spent this morning watching the documentary, Lord Save Us From Your Followers. I was prompted by a note from a friend and, despite it not being on my agenda for the day, I was intrigued. Once again, I am not sure where I have been. This film came out over a year ago. Some…
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To Be Or Not To Be Missional
Dave Harvey is an expert church planter and an astute observer of trends in church leadership. At the Spring 2007 Leadership Conference of Sovereign Grace Ministries Harvey assessed the strengths and weakness of the missional movement in an address titled Watch Your Mission: To Be or Not to Be Missional. One observation Harvey offers is that…
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Prophets, Priests, and Kings
An important concept to explore and implement in the ministry of the local church is the reflection of the Offices of Christ: Prophet, Priest, and King. This is known as Tri-Perspectivalism or Multi-Perspectivalism. I have written and spoken a little about this, but I am still far more a student than an expert when it comes…
