Staying on Mission Through Community

“What is community?” is a natural question unfolding from the understanding of the emerging North American postmodern culture. Leonard Sweet states that “relationships are the ecology of God’s kingdom…In the modern era, people came to church and asked, ‘Who is God?’ But today, if people come to church at all, they ask, ‘Who are God’s people? How does Christianity cash out in community and practice?’”[1] Sweet is not alone in highlighting the relationship between community and ministry. Jimmy Long writes, “The key theological concept in the building framework for ministry in the postmodern world is biblical community.”[2] Humanity has been created for community. This in not only evident in the creation narrative within Genesis regarding the relationship between man, woman, and God, but it is also accentuated in the ministry of Christ. Many times Jesus demonstrated a life of service and commitment to a small group of disciples in whom he poured out his life; creating a model of community for deep-spirited friends. Long mentions that Jesus portrayed a picture of community for his disciples both present and yet to come.[3] Within this cultural shift, the church can become an example within culture of a place that models authentic friendships and community. “The church has a surprising new mission: to establish a cultural space for the birth and supported practice of friendship.”[4] People who belong to such a community want to belong to it-they cannot imagine worthwhile life without it. Such a caring and consensual community is a place, a collection of relationships, where interdependence creates holistic environments, people of all capacities and fallibilities are incorporated, quick responses are possible, creativity is multiplied rather than channeled, individualized responses are characteristic, care is able to replace service “and active citizenship rather than passive client hood is made possible.[5] A healthy community can provide space for people to desire to belong as well as provide space for people to use their passions and gifts to serve on mission rather than simply expreience "passive" clienthood. I long for Journey to be one such community--A community modeling deep spirited friendships, caring for one another, and being on mission for the purpose of unfolding of God's dreams and desires within this world.



[1] Leonard Sweet, Out of the Question and Into the Mystery (Colorado Springs: Water Brook Press, 2004), 93.

[2]Jimmy Long, Generating Hope (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1997), 84.

[3]Long, Generating Hope, 91.

[4]Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1996), 205.

[5]Clapp, A Peculiar People, 247.

Staying on Mission through Listening

The missional community is commissioned to continue to be the blessing to the world by befriending the disenfranchised, by modeling forgiveness and mercy, and by being a people who live out faith in the world. The missional example negates a life of faith withdrawing from the world, but it gives attention to the affect the Christian community can have on everyday life situations.

N.T.Wright refers to this when he wrote, “The way of the Christian witness is neither the way of quietest withdrawal, nor the way of Herodian compromise, not the way of angry militant zeal. It is the way of being in Christ, in the Spirit, at the place where the world is in pain, so that the healing love of God may be brought to bear at that point.”[1]

Listening opens up the community to hear and experience the pains of the world. Listening draws a missional community to the crossroads of pain and healing. In this setting, healing can work both ways — for the faith community as well as for those in the margins. The missional approach teaches that the relationships between believers and nonbelievers are reciprocal. “The gospel brings blessings to all, adherents and non-adherents a like.”[2] This was evident in the Celtic understanding of mission: “Sometimes the mission context serves not only as a theatre for adapting the presentation of Christianity; it also serves as a catalyst for recovering something essential and precious within Christianity.”[3] The preservation of nature and the importance of it were essentially recovered within Christianity through engaging with the lives of the Celtic people.

The missional community should approach ministry with a humble and open mind, being willing to listen and learn, as well as lead and teach those not yet committed to faith. This reciprocal approach provides the space needed for dialogue to happen between people of diversity. The art of listening provides an opportunity for the recovery of something "essential and precious within Christianity." Are you a part of a community of faith willing to listen to the voices from outside — voices on the fringe, and voices that have been marginalized? What is it that you/we are hearing? What are you/we hearing that is essential to the Christian community that has been suppressed or overshadowed within the past? Are you/we listening for the places of healing?

[1] Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, 189.

[2] McLaren, Generous Orthodoxy, 111.

[3] Hunter, The Celtic Way of Evangelism, 85.

Staying on Mission through Simplification

Henry David Thoreau ("Where I Lived and What I Lived For" Walden) Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify, simplify! ... Simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.

I am just wondering how much of my purpose and my mission is weakened or ineffective due to lack of simplification in my life. How can there be any room to be open to growing deep-spirited friendships with others when the complexity of my schedule fills my time? How can I be open to the impulses of God's leading and guiding when there is neither room to listen nor room to maneuver?
Sometimes the greatest understanding and the deepest connection with God comes when I am living simplistically. When silence and stillness has a rhythmic pattern in my life, I am more keen to hearing and listening to a greater or elevated purpose in my life. I have to believe this would be true for a community as it is for an individual. I wonder how much more "in harmony" we would be as a community of faith to our mission and purpose if we collectively learned to live simply fending off the temptation that the new school year and the upcoming fall season brings . The temptation to fill our schedules without time for space to create, to breath, to rest, to dream or even to pray. I had breakfast a while back with my dad and our discussion on simplicity inspired me to write the following:

Simplicity

Greed for the senses a gluttony of sort,
Taking it all in drowning in wastefulness and busyness
Greed for the senses a gluttony of sort,
Looking for everything yet observing nothing.

Missing is the view of a flower in bloom,
A plant growing an inch in a day.
Missing is the view of new wrinkle,
The pleasure of hearing a laugh.

Greed for the senses a gluttony of sort,
Taking it all in drowning in wastefulness and busyness
Greed for the senses a gluttony of sort,
Looking for everything yet observing nothing.

Missing is feeling breath on a new morn,
Elated from time standing still.
Missing is the silence in friendship,
Opening up treasures in history.

Greed for the senses a gluttony of sort,
Taking it all in drowning in wastefulness and busyness
Greed for the senses a gluttony of sort,
Looking for everything yet observing nothing.

Missing is a walk on a cool eve,
Listening to the quite hum of crickets.
Missing is an evening rest,
Rocking as the waves from the sea.

I hope that simplicity or simplification in our lives will help us see the elevated purpose that God invites us to join in on.