An Old Dog and New Tricks

One of my favorite movies is A River Runs Through It. Anyone who likes Montana, Robert Redford, fly fishing or Brad Pitt will enjoy it. The movie is set in Montana with striking views of the beautiful Blackfoot River. Although the plot centers around a minister and his two very different sons, the thing that drew me in to the movie was the scenery and the flyfishing.

I've always been fascinated with flyfishing. My dad had an old rusty flyreel in our "smokehouse." I'd play with it for hours. Could never really figure out how it worked, but it was a lot of fun. I never saw my dad flyfish, don't know if he ever did. But He was the best fisherman I ever knew. It was common for him to come home with 40 in. pike, a 20 lb. catfish or a stringer full of bass. He taught me to love the sport, and through his tutiledge, I got pretty good at it.

One type of fish I never had any success with was trout. They're just different. Their diet is different. Their habitat is different. They are of one of the most beautiful, fragile, finicky fish around. The techniques I learned for other species, don't work for trout. I love 'em and I hate 'em. How do people catch them? They learn all they can about them and their environment: what they eat at a certain time of year, what types of water and cover they are drawn to, etc. And they are willing, moment by moment, to change their strategies: one presentation doesn't work, the next one does. One fly is the wrong color, the next one - just right. What works in the morning doesn't work in the afternoon. Sounds like a lot of work. Why do it? Only because you love it.

It sounds a lot like the mission Jesus calls us to..."I will make you fishers of men." I wish I were as intentional about those I'm seeking to reach for Jesus as a good flyfisherman is in his preparation and presentation. I wish I had shared the depths of my dad's love for fish and fishing.

I'm also on another mission. One commitement I've made to myself is that, this summer, I will learn to flyfish. Dad would think that was pretty cool.

Vision Development is a Long, Messy Process!

This email hit my Inbox this morning. It reminded me that we are moving and the vision that God has planted is taking tangible form. I won't attribute the quote but here it is:

"It was 1982 when I began praying for God to give the Boulder Church of Christ a heart for the hungry, the homeless, and the poor, locally and globally. I can't describe to you how good it makes me feel to see the involvement now of the BVCC: creating a Manna Foundation to oversee the Day of Prayer and Fasting, Haiti, Guatemala, Russia, John Meadow's Hunger Day initiative, Amy Jenkins connecting with local organizations, Van Alessandro's work with Boulder County Cares, ...

Of course there were always individuals involved in local and global efforts, but now BVCC as a church is opening its eyes and reaching out to the poor locally and globally. Incredibly enough this is a 180-degree change from the Boulder C of C of 1982. Of course some of the most active in this area have immigrated in to BVCC and some opposed have immigrated out, but some long-time members have also become much more active."

Insightful email. Vision has a way of drawing people in and sending others into other parts of the Kingdom where they will be used by God. It is not an easy or painless process.

Getting buy-in to a vision is difficult among a large number of educated, opinionated, gifted people. Some dismiss a vision because it wasn't their idea, some because it doesn't reflect their personal passions. Others reject it because they are afraid of the unknown. Some reject it solely because they don't like or respect the person they see as it's spokesman (i.e., troublemaker). Others reject the vision because it calls them to change or leave their comfort zone. Some because they believe it isn't spiritual or doesn't reflect God's heart.

At Boulder Valley we are more and more committed to "becoming like Jesus for the sake of others." We are learning to join God on his mission, in Boulder and around the world. God is forming in hearts a desire to join him in what he is doing in this world. But remember, "Here am I, send me" is an amazingly open-ended commitment.

Not everyone likes what's going on or understands it. Is it enough to know that what we are doing, "feeding the hungry, providing clothing for the homeless, providing medical care for the sick, inviting others to know God, and building relationships among those in God's family, loving and caring for children and offering hospitality to all" are closer to God's heart than you can imagine?

I agree with the writer of the email above, it has taken an excruciatingly long time. Yet, God's future is before us at Boulder Valley . . .

Brian McLaren on "Missional"

"I thought the word "missional" was awkward when I first heard it. My spell-checker still tries to correct it. But the word is here to stay, subsuming and replacing more familiar adjectives like missionary, evangelistic, and socially active. Mission in this sense includes missions , and more. It brings together evangelism and social action, "home" and "foreign." It integrates Christian concerns that range from racial reconciliation to ecological stewardship, doing good works and doing our daily work with goodness (which is an underrated fruit of the Spirit).

I was once talking with Dallas Willard about Islam. He dropped this little thought virus: "Remember, Brian, in a pluralistic world, a religion is valued by the benefits it brings to its non-adherents." The virus has taken hold in my thinking, bringing to mind sayings of our Lord, like "the birds of the air" nesting in the branches of the kingdom of God, people seeing the light of our good deeds and "glorifying your Father in heaven," "by their fruits you will know them."

How different is this missional approach to the "rhetoric of exclusion" that worked so well in modernity: "There are blessings to being on the inside. You're on the outside and so can't enjoy them. Want to be a blessed insider like us?" In contrast, missional Christianity says, "God is expressing his love to all outsiders through our acts of kindness and service. You're invited to leave your life of accumulation and competition and self-centeredness to join us in this mission of love, blessing, and peace. Want to join in the mission?"

Brian McLaren

You Only Have To Die!

A book recently caught my attention. The title stopped me in my tracks. It is a book by James Harnish titled: "You Only Have To Die: Leading Your Congregation to New Life." It is a paradox that we gloss over so easily. We've been living in the tension since our baptism: Death is the way to life. We must die in order to be born again. This is a lesson leaders need to be reminded of daily.

Harnish writes that congregations must be willing to die to all the things that keep us from being true disciples and making disciples of others. We have to die to a focus on our glorious past, to old habits, to self destructive behaviors, to avoidance of painful truth-telling, to antiquated structures, to old ways of decision-making, to traditional (habitual) but non-transcendent worship, to long-established programs that no longer accomplish our mission, to anything that does not contribute to our specific congregational calling.

To be willing to die in all these ways and more will be a painful process. Maybe you are feeling some of this pain right now. But only through such difficult and faith-testing losses can a plateaued or declining church make room for experience of resurrection. The road to life is a dark and painful road that ultimately leads "through death and back to life and health."

According to Harnish's experience, older congregations only experience transformation by understanding and investing in a new vision, striving to live out its unique calling in every phase of its existence.

In order for BVCC to really experience new life, we only have to die.

Looking to Jesus

Brian McLaren has granted me permission to post something he calls "The Jesus Creed" on this blog. It really is a great summation of my current approach to life as a Christ-follower. Here it is for your consideration:

We have confidence in Jesus who healed the sick, the blind, and the paralyzed. And even raised the dead. He cast out evil powers and confronted corrupt leaders. He cleansed the temple. He favored the poor. He turned water into wine, walked on water, calmed storms. He died for the sins of the world, rose from the dead, and ascended to the Father, sent the Holy Spirit.

We have confidence in Jesus who taught in word and example, sign and wonder. He preached parables of the kingdom of God on hillsides, from boats, in the temple, in homes, at banquets and parties, along the road, on beaches, in towns, by day and by night. He taught the way of love for God and neighbor, for stranger and enemy, for outcast and alien.

We have confidence in Jesus, who called disciples, led them, gave them new names and new purpose and sent them out to preach good news. He washed their feet as a servant. He walked with them, ate with them, called them friends, rebuked them, encouraged them, promised to leave and then return, and promised to be with them always. He taught them to pray. He rose early to pray, stole away to desolate places, fasted and faced agonizing temptations, wept in a garden, and prayed, “Not my will but your will be done.” He rejoiced, he sang, he feasted, he wept.

We have confidence in Jesus, so we follow him, learn his ways, seek to obey his teaching and live by his example. We walk with him, walk in him, abide in him, as a branch in a vine. We have not seen him, but we love him. His words are to us words of life eternal, and to know him is to know the true and living God. We do not see him now, but we have confidence in Jesus. Amen.

The Power of an Invitation

Even a casual reading of Scripture reveals that the role of an invitation in building the Kingdom is difficult to overestimate. In some ways, it is our mission. We often devalue an invitation because we only see it as an exercise of getting others to attend a church service, which sometimes (even for disciples), seems not to be that exhilerating an experience. We are so shrouded in the mundaneness of our everyday lives or burned out by years of doing church stuff that we have trouble seeing spiritual realities. One reality is that seemingly small insignificant acts have amazing possibilities when connected to the mission of God.

In the ministry of Jesus, the invitation is a call to encounter. Jesus invited people to engage Him. He said things like: "Come, follow me," "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me..." It is an invitation to understand the world differently. It is an invitation to grow in our understanding of who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him. It is an invitation to exercise our growing faith, to take the next step; even when that next step is out a perfectly good boat onto a stormy sea. Jesus' word to Peter was, "Come."

Those who encountered Jesus had a similar, seemingly spontanteous, response. They invited others to encounter Him. Nathanial's skepticism (Can anything good come out of Nazareth?) is met with Philip's invitation, "Come, and you will see" (John 1:39). A broken woman, after coming to believe in Jesus, goes back into a town that despised her and said: "Come and see a man who told me everything I had ever done." The result of that simple invitation was that the whole village came to believe in Jesus.

What does this have to do with inviting people to a worship gathering? It is one of the ways the power of an invitation can be seen at work in the Kingdom. What happens when God's people gather? One important thing that happens is that we encounter God again. We are reminded of who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him. Our encounter leads us to grateful worship of the one who loves us and gave himself for us. This is what happens when we gather. It's not really about doing something, it is about encountering someone. When we invite someone to join us we also invite them to encounter the one who loves them, and gave himself for them. We invite them to encounter Jesus, maybe for the first time. In that encounter, Jesus engages them - which is really what we are after anyway. It is that encounter that impacted visitors to assemblies of the early church. Their conclusion: "God is really among you."

From the last verses of the bible come this lingering invitation: "The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life." (Rev. 22:17).

If I understand this text properly, the word spoken by the church, through endless generations, into a broken world is an invitation, "Come."

Being on the cutting edge of what God is doing in this world can be as simple as offering an invitation.

Upgrading Our Worship

In his book Present Future, Reggie McNeal makes some thought-provoking observations about worship and God's mission.

"Worship, unfortunately, often occurs without a missioiologial perspective. Witness the church worship wars. These are the result of club members discussing their worship style preferences as stockholders and shareholders, not as missionaries. "Can non-believers really worship God?" or "Should our worship be seeker sensitive or seeker-driven?" as though worship is not a powerful evangelistic tool to express God's mission in this world! Non-believers are already worshipping, because people are built to worship something. Our challenge is to upgrade their worship to worship of the true God. The point is, absent a missiological center, North American theological reflections can easily drift toward figuring out who is right and who's wrong rather than who's going with the Gospel, who's listening, and who's responding."

In a few weeks, March 27th, more people who don't know Jesus will be attending church than at any other day of the year. Our friends, our neighbors... Will they be invited to spend that day with us? What would missionaries do?

Who is going with the Gospel?
Who is listening?
Who is responding?

Maybe we can help our friends, and one another, upgrade our worship!

Taking Our Faith for a Walk

Erwin McManus is one of my doctoral professors. In January I had a class with him called "Pastoral Leadership in the 21st Century." I came away impressed with his incredible passion and creativity. Erwin is one professor that is a sold-out disciple of Jesus Christ.

In his book, An Unstoppable Force, he writes:
"Unfortunately, for too many people, when the conversation is no longer about them, there's not much left to be said. We've been taught that we are the center of the universe, and evaluate everything on its ability to meet our needs. Some of the best communicators of the Scriptures I know have had people leave their churches for the express reason that they're not be­ing fed. I know that we are the sheep of God, and sheep require the Shepherd to feed them, but there must come a time when we become shepherds who feed others. Is it really all about us being fed? I think it might be important to remember that over 60 percent of Americans are overweight or even obese. Is it possible that this is also true in the arena of personal spirituality? Are we too much about us getting fed and too little about us exercising our faith?"

Let's do it. That seems to be one of the sentiments flowing from our first Missional Church Class. There's a growing desire to take our faith out for a walk . . . outside our comfort zone, outside the church walls . . . following Jesus into His mission in Boulder and around the world.

What will you do today to live out God's truth you already know? How will you "exercise your faith?"

God's Mission

Where did this missional church vision come from? Our leaders gathered and began asking questions like, What do we know about God's character? What is God passionate about? What do we believe God would have us be passionate about? Great questions, but they illustrate a conviction. Mission doesn't originate from human sources and is not a human endeavor. Mission is rooted in the nature and heart of God.

Mission doesn't start with the Great Commission ("Go into all the world and make disciples") by trying to guilt people into sharing their faith. Those passages are at the end of the Gospels, not the beginning. They are the mountain peak, not the base camp. We begin with what God has done. Passages like John 3:16 reveal the nature of God. "God loved so much ... that he gave." Everything else is response. We love because He loved. We sacrifice because He sacrificed. We reach because He reached. Mission is God's nature being reflected in this world in the lives of His people. Mission is God's heart touching this world through us. Without that understanding, mission is empty and becomes only a human endeavor.

Remember, God has always taken the initiative. Romans 5:6-8 says: "When we were unable to help ourselves, at the moment of our need, Christ died for us, although we were living against God. Very few people will die to save the life of someone else. Although perhaps for a good person someone might possibly die. But God shows his great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners." Therefore, we join Him in laying down our lives for others: the helpless and the needy; those who don't love us or God; those who, on their best days, don't deserve the gifts they receive. Why? Out of gratitude, because that is precisely what God has done for us.

Some Observations:

If mission stems from the very character of God, then . . .

• It cannot be neglected by His people.
• God is empowering and equipping us for the task.
• It is for God's glory and not ours.
• It cannot fail.

God's mission in this world cannot fail. I might. My methods might. But God's mission never will. God's mission will go on... will you join Him?

Missional Church in Boulder, CO

If you are confused by the term missional church, you are not alone. The word "mission" conjures up images of somthing "others" are involved in, not me. Church members pray and give so that others may go and serve. Just as churches have other programs, such as Children's Ministry and Worship Ministry, they also have a Missions Program. The word missions is viewed as but one expression of the church.

In the missional church, mission is more about "being and doing" than "supporting and sending." The missional church understands that although some may be supported as those sent to other locations, every member of the church is "sent." Mission is something all participate in rather than something we have someone else do as our representative. In this sense, every member is a missionary.

It's not that we, as individuals or as a church, have suddenly chosen to be part of God's mission. It is that God has chosen us. Jesus said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain..." (John 15:16). Mission starts with God. We can choose to live outside of God's intent for our lives. Yet, to live as ones chosen by Jesus is to be called and sent into God's mission in this world.

This means, all ministry and all of life is missional. As Jesus entered our world to love people, serve them, and share Good News; we cross the distance into the lives of others to be Christ with them.

I want to spend some time in the coming weeks writing about seven themes BVCC's leaders have identified as central to who God is calling us to be. Here they are as a reminder:

1. We will engage in God’s Mission in Boulder County and around the World.
2. We hold Jesus as the ultimate measure of our spiritual growth and development.
3. We pray that Boulder Valley, and each member, will be known for authentic, loving relationships.
4. We strive to be as inclusive as our Father in every area of congregational life, including our Sunday assemblies.
5. We call one another to love the marginalized and broken in our community.
6. We intentionally reach out to “those we run with.”
7. We will partner and live our lives with other faith families.

Called and sent - to be Jesus to one another, to Boulder and to the world.

God's Guest List

"God's guest list includes a disconcerting number of poor and broken people, those who appear to bring little to any gathering except their need." Christine Pohl

Jesus said: “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Luke 14:12-14 (NIV)

That doesn't look like any guestlist Pat and I have put together lately. This text raises several perplexing questions: How do I determine a person's value? What criteria do I use? What is my value, really? What do I bring to any gathering, except my need? How do I decide who gets an invitation? How can I begin to think more like Jesus? What would have to change in my life if I did? How do I make space for those with the greatest needs? Pohl is right, it is disconcerting.

Hidden Core Values

I read a great article this week in Leadership Journal titled: "Discerning Your Church's Hidden Core Values," by Angie Ward. It was very insightful. Often when we talk about "Church and culture" we're talking about the culture surrounding the church. Ward makes the observation that the culture within the church (attitudes, values and beliefs) are what ultimately defines its practices. Often the most powerful core values are the ones that go unstated and reveal themselves over time.

My second ministry position was for a fairly large congregation that seemed to have things together. Some of the elders were leaders that traveled all over the country teaching other elders how to do their ministry well. The church was well-organized, had an outward-focused mission statement and seemed to be forward-thinking. As we lived with that congregation for a few months, we realized that their outward focus was more verbalized than realized. The church wasn't growing, wasn't reaching out into the community, and in subtle ways it coddled those members who were the least mature and had the most narrow theology. The church culture didn't reflect the nicely worded mission statement esconsed on the marketing material.
There was a covert culture present in that church. One harder to define that only revealed itself over a period of months and years. It was a culture that, though ustated, actually subverted their well-worded vision. The unwritten rule went something like this: Don't rock the boat; Don't risk offending anyone; Don't take risks!Ward says that "'Don't rock the boat' seems to be a common ethos at many churches.'" Then she lists a few others:

• We can find something wrong with anything.
• The world isn't safe, so we will protect you.
• Visitors are welcome to come back, if they really want to.
• Saved by grace but living under law.
• Let's just have church and go home.
• We're better than you.
• Don't ask questions.
• Bigger is better.
• Christians don't have problems.

Then she says: "These core beliefs are rarely articulated, but they have enormous impact on the health and effectiveness of a church, no matter what its stated purpose. Culture takes a long time to create, and even longer to change. Melting the tip of the iceberg does not eliminate the ice below the waterline."

If you had to take a stab at listing BVCC's "unspoken values" what would they be?

If we can become aware of our unspoken values, we can put them on the table and see if they align with scripture, empower our mission or merely serve to protect the status quo.