"Is Everything Sad going to Come Untrue"?

Yesterday I got to preach something that inspires me every time I have the privilege to study, think and then speak about: the hope Jesus offers the world in the face of its pain. Let me share some of those thoughts that seemed to challenge and encourage many people yesterday.

One of the most profound resources Christianity offers the world is its unique message of hope. Unlike Secularist theory, that there is nothing beyond death or history, nor like some Eastern mysticism which speaks of our individuality being swallowed up in the All-Soul, or even the religions that speak of a consolation in Paradise. The hope Jesus offers is different. Its unique. That God is one day going to reverse the pain, and more than consolation he is going to bring about restoration.

He is one day going to take the pain, death, drowning, loneliness, hurt, doubt, and fear of our lives, and will reverse it all. Unlike those who perpetrate a prosperity gospel the Bible never says we will always be happy, protected, healthy and wise. The Bible says that those things are not necessarily God's ideal for us, but that when that is our experience we are to take comfort in the fact that they are happening under the sovereignty and lordship of Jesus. He is in control. The Lamb is on the throne (Rev. 5).

In the final book of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King, the hobbit Samwise Gamgee sees that Gandalf the Wizard is not dead when he thought he was, and he says to him "Your alive! Is everything sad going to come untrue?" Its a great question. A profound one. And the answer Christianity gives to that question is “Yes!" God is going make everything sad come untrue. One day he will wipe the tear from our eyes, there will be no more pain, sickness, sadness, or death (Rev. 21.4).

But more than just reversal of fortunes the Bible speaks to a deeper mystery here. The death and resurrection of Jesus points to a profound reality: that the eventual glory of that day of reversal, and the eternal experience of those who trust in Christ will somehow be greater for having once experienced brokeness and lostness in this life. "For the sufferings of this present time" Paul says "are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Rom. 8.18). The hurt, pain, and suffering we face will somehow be put into context in the new creation and make sense in a way which we cannot right now even fathom.

My wife often has bad dreams about me, in fact she informed me this morning that she had another one last night. Sometimes, in the dream, I get hurt, or even die. She experience a profound sense of loss and pain. Then she wakes up and sees me sleeping beside her, and she is overwhelmed with a profound sense of relief and appreciation. When that happens she tends to appreciate me more (at least for a little while!). Why? Because her joy, and love for me as been enriched by her nightmare; it makes me all the more glorious (so to speak). This is the promise and hope Jesus offers to those who entrust their life to Him. Glory on the other side which will do more than console us about the life we never got to live, but restore us to the life we were always intended to.

All of which is why the Apostle Paul says, in 1 Thess 4, that though we mourn in this life, we do not Mourn like those who have not hope. It is a different kind of mourning, a cruciform mourning with anticipation attached to it. An anticipation of something coming.

Which is the reason at least one lady I heard of, buried beneath a large 150-year-old Oak Tree in rural Louisiana, has only one word carved on her tombstone: "Waiting."

That is the difference Jesus makes.

Discipleship of the Mind

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12.2)

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12.30)

If we want to reach and change the world we must reach their minds. Not many Christians are saying this today but I believe it is essential. People are what they think. And the gospel must change the heart, yes, the soul, yes, and the strength, yes - but it must change the mind or else it will not stick or change the life of a person. 

In 1980, Charles Malik came to speak at Wheaton College about evangelism at the grand opening of the Billy Graham Center. He said this:

"At the heart of all the problems facing Western civilization—the manifold perversions of personal character; problems of the family; problems of economics and politics; problems of the media; problems affecting the school itself and the church itself—at the heart of the crisis in Western civilization lies the state of the mind… The true the task of the evangelical world is not only to win souls, for if you win the whole world and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover you have not won the world. Indeed it may turn out that you have actually lost the world.”

The Gospel is not about one aspect of a persons life (i.e., their "soul") but offers a new mind as well - because it is all connected, God is redeeming it all - body, soul, mind - everything you are. He promises to do nothing less. 

This is why it is so important to know, teach and hold to sound doctrine. Paul says to Titus "teach sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it" (Titus 1.9). Why is this necessary? Because we are teaching people how to think, we are constructing a new worldview for them and that is a very serious, fragile job, especially because both outside and inside the church doctrine is always under attack. It is amazing therefore that evangelicalism, while certainly being aware of the so-called 'culture war' has marginalized the mind so much. It says 'doctrine is under attack!' and yet it does not focus on discipleship of the mind. What it does focus on, often times, is a discipleship of the heart (which usually expresses itself in sentimental sermons, studies, and leaders), or the soul (which expresses itself in sentimental evangelism) or the strength (which expresses itself in an emphasis on 'works').   

One could say that nothing the church does is more important than teaching doctrine, theology, and the Bible. Some say, 'No the most important thing the church does is helping others.' But, we don't know how or why to help others unless the Bible is first explained. If the Bible is clearly and properly explained, helping others will naturally flow from what our minds are being trained to do. 

Mark Noll begins his excellent book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, by saying "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind." He 

goes on to rightly critique the church for abandoning the universities, the arts, and other realms of 'high' culture. But it wasn't always this way, he says. "Most of the original protestant traditions (Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican) either developed a vigorous intellectual life or worked out theological principles that could and often did sustain penetrating Christian intellectual endeavor. The Puritans, the leaders of the nineteenth-century evangelical awakenings like John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards (who Noll calls 'the greatest evangelical mind in American history with no intellectual predecessor') all held that rigorous, diligent, intellectual life was a way to glorify God, certainly not the only way, but an important way precisely because they were evangelical Christians." 

One of the reasons for the shriveling of the Evangelical Mind, I submit, is, sectarianism. We are so afraid of the culture we live in, that we run from it, and dare I say, hide from it. We have trouble effecting and influencing the not-yet-Christian culture around us (being salt and light) because we are busy creating our own Christian sub-cultures among already-Christians. Schooling our children in Christian schools and home schools and protecting ourselves from the gates of Hell; meanwhile the imagery of the gates of Hell not prevailing against the church is meant to convey the fact that Hell is playing defense against the church, not the other way around! 

These subcultures we create are not particularly intellectually or artistically stimulating (i.e., Christian Book stores are filled with junk, Christian music is again sentimental and one-dimensional). On the education front men such as Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, despite the absence of formal educational credentials, establish Christian universities. This is not to say what happens at these Universities is not good, needed or used by God unto his glory, or that Christian schools or home-schooling is bad (see here for the latest numbers on home-schooling education vs. public school education) - much that happens here is great, I just think they serve as examples of how the Evangelical Mind has arrived in the present state.

What Do We Do?

We must focus on nurturing the life of the mind. Making disciples is what Jesus told us to do, which literally means "learners" - so in this context we are commissioned to teach (Mat. 28.16-20). Doctrine is important, so the church must not abandon theology and doctrine for fluffy stories and principles. We must not shoot for the lowest common denominator, while at the same time we must be sensible to non-Christians who are seeking and asking questions. But we must not be afraid to have as one of our goals to teach people how to think and what to think. Again this is what Paul calls Titus and Timothy, and every Pastor since, to do: Preach the word, teach doctrine! And when people, like someone I met recently, react negatively toward that concept (calling it 'brainwashing') we must remind them that brainwashing and indoctrination is what is inescapable - it is what rational discourse is. People convincing, and influencing others to think and act in a particular way for a particular reason. It is happening all the time, everywhere we go: every song, every billboard, magazine, classroom, book, internet site - its all unashamedly preaching a worldview; a set of assumptions, beliefs, values and convictions about the world. So why wouldn't the church unashamedly do the same? It is not bad to try to indoctrinate someone, it is the very nature of all discourse and conversation. We must embrace this and seek to train up the life of the mind in people toward the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

Secondly, we should start reading and making more prominent not only evangelical fiction (i.e., Left Behind and not only because I disagree with the theology, which I do, and the Ezekiel Option) but start listening to, reading, and engaging the amazing thinkers within evangelicalism that are developing the life of the mind and bringing credibility to the church through their scholarship: J.I. Packer, John Piper, C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Donald Bloesch, Ronald Sider, N.T. Wright, John Polkinghorne, Alvin Plantinga and these are just a few within the last 60 years or so! 

I know popular and more simplistic writing is easier to consume for the masses, and I am not condemning it, but I do wonder about the future of Christian thought if Christians are exposed to this kind of writing and thought exclusively. I wonder about Christian scholarship sometimes, and whether preachers, teachers, and congregations will be able to handle such a thing after a generation has gone through a church-cycle which never developed the life of the mind, but only catered to the heart and left people unchallenged and thus unchanged.

Reflections (so far) on Revelation 1-3

Last week we started a new series at DSF (the evening service at South Delta Baptist Church) - The Jesus Letters: Revelation 1-3. This section of scripture is so interesting and intriguing on so many level. I intended the series to cover one church, of the seven, per night/sermon but realized as I worked on the material that there is too much rich theology and practical instruction here; that we need to take our time on these letters. So the first message was, The Cosmic Jesus, covered Revelation 1.9-20 - the amazing presentation of Jesus Christ as the Son of Man. 

Among the many things that came out of this (watch here / listen here) - was the idea that this presentation of who Jesus is (the son of man dressed in a robe, a golden sash, fiery eyes, white hair, feet of bronze, two-edged sword, face like the sun) is the presentation of who Jesus is now. That in John's situation of pressure and tribulation and persecution and temptation the Jesus of the Gospels would have been helpful: the one who change water into wine, and calmed the seas etc., - but that is not what God gives him here - that in addition to that portrait of Jesus, he, and we, need something else - So when God pulls the curtain back to reveal reality as it now is in the heavenly/spiritual we see Jesus in this amazing vision and we realize that this is Jesus Christ as he is now. 

Cosmic Jesus: Continuity/Discontinuity 

Jesus is different now than he was, but in many ways, he is of course the same. The continuity is that he is the same person, and that he will now be human forever, limited in that sense, which is important when we think of the eternal cost of the incarnation. He will, many think, still have the marks of the crucifixion on his hands and side when we see him in glory (though that is not mentioned here, reflection on Revelation 4 may hint at it). But there is a discontinuity between this Jesus and the one who ministered around Galilee as well. Here he is fully sovereign (holding the seven stars in his right hand), he is resting in his finished work (sash around his chest), his eyes are blazing fire. In fact there is a scandal here as well: the images and description of YHWH and the Son of Man from the Old Testament get fused together and applied to Jesus here. In Dan. 7 YHWH has white hair but now "the son of man... his head and hair were white like wool, white as snow" (Rev. 1.14). This is Jesus as he now is: triumphant Jesus, the cosmic ruler of the universe - this is what the church needs to hear both in John's day and ours. 

Wicked Men

As I read, prepared for and preached Revelation 2.1-3, in the second message of this series, I was struck by one encouragement to the church in Ephesus in particular: "you cannot tolerate wicked men" (v.3). Jesus is congratulating them that there lives and heart and minds are progressively more and more saddened and frustrated and grieved by the evil actions of the world around them, and that this is a sure sign of their sanctification; their growing in Christian purity and maturity. Can we cry out with the Psalmist: "My eyes shed streams of water, Because they do not keep Your law" (Ps. 119.136). He is pained by the disconnect of God and humankind. He is so close to God that when someone works against God and his purposes it pains him, like if someone offends a spouse or friend we are pained. Is this our experience?

The flip side is true as well however: if we do not find ourselves becoming more and more upset, and saddened, and maddened by the evil around us, the sin, the idolatry; then maybe we are not growing at all. If we are not more bereaved now then we were two years ago, than maybe we are not becoming more holy, more other, more set apart unto God and his purposes in our lives, but we are staying the same. This is not good. This is not what we were meant for as humans - we are never static, we are always growing one way or the other. There is no neutral ground, Lewis pointed out, and its true. 

The balance to keep is this: be upset by the evil, be upset and saddened by the sin - but we have to find ways to engage it - we can't leave it unto itself to just continue being evil - evil men are evil because they have not been touched by the light. Followers of Jesus can never forget this. As John Stott pointed out years ago you never blame a room for being dark - when you walk in to a dark room you ask one question: Where is the light? 

Sent: The Missional God

God sent because we needed him to. The God expressed most fully and finally in Jesus of Nazareth is not the god of deism who sits back and watches as we live our lives, uninvolved. He is not the god of Graeco-Roman mythology, waiting to punish us if we mess up in life, which we do everyday, which is not to say He has no wrath or anger, He does, which would be expected if He were real - with the injustice and perversion of a world like ours, where, for instance children are raped, kidnapped and sold into a sex-trade which is more pervasive than any of us wants to admit. Where genocide still flourishes, where poverty still kills millions, where wealth is so unequally distributed. God is angry about all of this be sure.

But instead of just dealing out death and judgment to each of us who is guilty and deserving of it, this God, the one true God, full of grace and truth (John 1.14), does something else: He satisfies his wrath and anger by sending his Son - Why did he send him? To die in our place; because of us, for us and instead of us, so that if we come under that sacrifice by faith the just condemnation no longer gets applied to us, meted out on us, precisely because it was applied to him. This is why 'it pleased the Lord to crush him' (Isa. 53)l not because God oves to punish and hurt his Son, but because He knew what that punishment was actually accomplishing. Salvation for the world. 'God has sent his only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through him...this is love: that God loved us and sent his Son, and whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him' (1 John 4.9-15).

God rescued us, we did not rescue ourselves, no matter what the 'myth of progress' preaches at us everyday from internet, TV, and film-screen. God is the ultimate missionary, the first mover, the Father running out to embrace the prodigal. We live because he died and rose again in our place. Al of this because He sent. He got involved. he became part of this mess. Death by love.

The missionary/sending nature of God is central in to his character.

This is seen amazingly in the Gospel of John. The Fourth Gospel begins with the incarnation, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1.14), in John 3:16-17 the Father sends the Son, and the book ends with Jesus sending his disciples in John 20:21. Beyond these three passages Jesus sees himself as one “sent by the Father” astonishingly more than twenty-five times:

John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, so that whomever should believe in him shall not perish but have everlasting life."

John 3:34
“For he whom God has sent utters the words of God.”

John 5:23
“He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”

John 5:24
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life.”

John 5:30
“I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

John 5:36-38
“These very words which I am doing, bear witness that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness to me.”

John 6:38
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.”

John 6:44
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

John 7:28-29
“But I have not come of my own accord; he who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I came from him, and he sent me.”

John 7:33
“I shall be with you a little longer, and then I go to him who sent me.”

John 8:18
“I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me.”

John 8:26
“He who sent me is true.”

John 8:29
“And he who sent me is with me.”

John 8:42
“I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.”

John 9:4
“We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day.”

John 12:44-45
“He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And he who sees me sees him who sent me.”

John 12:49
“The Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment what to say and what to speak.”

John 13:20
“He who receives me receives him who sent me.”

John 14:24
“The word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.”

John 14:26
“The Counselor will teach you everything and will cause you to remember all that I told you. This Counselor is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name.”

John 16:7
“If I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

John 17:3
“And they have believed that you have sent me.”

John 17:18
“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

John 17:25
“They know that you have sent me.”

John 20.21
"As the Father sent me, now I send you"

So, we must listen, and embrace the Son that God sent for us, by faith in his finished work on our behalf, and then embrace our own sent-ness - our own missional calling, sent by God to love, care for and minster to people from a gospel-centered life. This is a sending that is not for super-disciples, not only for those traditionally called "missionaries", but for every follower of Jesus. Send to love and proclaim in our work-place, our schools, our relationships, our families. Sent to and for the ones you live and move beside.

If you are a follower of Jesus, one who has believed and confesses him as the Son of God who died for the sins of the world, you've been sent.

If this is you the question is: 'Am i embracing my sent-ness' ? Am I acting sent?'

Up: An Adventure for the History Books

Every once in a while a movie comes along, that is so good that it is hard to explain it to people. Up is one of those movies. People ask me about it, and I find it hard to contain my excitement. It is just brilliant on every level. It looks great (colorful, bright, graphically stunning), but more than that, the story is great. It reminds us that nothing can trump a good story. 

Not all the graphics in the world can trump good writing and stories that transcend and touch all people. As we will see later this summer when Transformers comes out (already breaking box office records with pre-sales) and is full non-stop, mind blowing visual effects, but is completely void of any story whatsoever (not surprisingly confirmed by Empire Magazine who has seen the film and wonders if it was shot by a 13 year old boy because of its gratuitous obsession with Megan Fox's torso (see here), among other problems.

Up though never looses itself in effects (even though it is Disney 3-D); they are a supporting role to the story. Classic Pixar. Characters we love, adventure and action, funny and above all applicable and touching. It is about the human experience; never getting to go and do the things you and your spouse always promised to do, and then it being too late because life has a way of just getting in the way. Finding love and caring in the most unlikely places. And living so as not to regret. Up is the direction ones heart soars while watching this movie, through the pain and sadness it opens with right on through the laughter to the humbling ending.

When I last checked the film was rated 88/100 on Metacritic, the highest rated mainstream film of the year, and it deserves it.

Why Plant Churches?

If you are interested in following the development of the church campus we are starting in South Surrey we have started a blog that I will update - the site is http://southsurreychurchcampus.blogspot.com/ 

It includes community news links, and church planting resources as well. Below is the latest article I have written, which comes from the strategic plan the Church Planting Development Team put together in early 2008.

__________________

The following is a list of the 6 reasons[1] that SDBC’s leadership (Pastors, Directors and Elders) decided to make church planting a central part of The Mission of our church in January 2008.

It is Biblical: In the Great Commission Jesus lists several tasks relating to congregations: going, baptizing, and teaching. These are the ways, Jesus says, that the church is going to make disciples. The “earliest church believed they were fulfilling the Great Commission by planting new congregations. The Great Commission calls us to evangelize and to congregationalize.”[2] Also, the church in Antioch committed itself to sending leaders from their congregation to plant churches in other geographic areas (Acts 13-14). This is why church planting authority Ed Stetzer says “The New Testament points to the fact that new churches and church planting are direct and inevitable consequences of believer’s involvement in witnessing and proclamation.”

To reach the lost: Studies show that “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches.”[3] It has been shown that established churches make greater progress in kingdom evangelism by initiating new daughter churches. “New churches are more effective than large churches, particularly in evangelism. On a per-capita basis, new churches win more people to Christ than established churches.”

Bruce McNichol explains the findings of his research in Interest Magazine:

-       Churches under three years of age win an average of ten people to Christ per year for every one hundred church members.

-       Churches three to fifteen years of age win an average of five people per year for every one hundred church members.

-       Church over fifteen years of age win an average of three people per year for every one hundred church members.[4] 

Tim Keller, lead pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, known all over North America as an inspiring model of a church that plants churches, says “no single church, no matter how large and active, can all by itself change an entire area. We must saturate areas with gospel-centered new churches. This is the only way to truly insure the transformation of our cities that we so much desire.”[5]

To develop new leaders: Like Jesus developed the twelve and like Paul developed Timothy, Titus and other Elders and Pastors, new churches have the opportunity to develop people who would not otherwise have stepped up to lead, serve or minister because those roles are already filled.[6] This helps SDBC to accomplish one of our other main goals which central to The Mission: to train and develop new leaders for the Church within Canada. Central to this is the idea that we train and send more and more people to plant churches in our immediate area and beyond, our “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1.8) – a paradigmatic text for both Acts and for the church in general. Our vision to be an Antioch church, which is not afraid to send our best (Paul and Barnabas).

 To grow the Kingdom of God:  Ed Stetzer says, “A maturing kingdom awareness is more important than a local church mentality…Leaders who are unwilling to make organizational sacrifices for the benefit of the kingdom become stunted in both growth and in understanding God’s larger purpose.” This kingdom mentality has always been central to SDBC, and is seen in our global mission focus; this will help us direct those efforts toward a local mission focus. This is why one of the visions of the book Discipling Our Nation: Equipping the Canadian Church for its Mission, published by Outreach Canada, is that each local church plants “at least two daughter churches: first to replace itself and second to extend the Kingdom.”[7] There is great wisdom is such vision for the local church.

Growth and Health of SDBC: Studies show that Mother Churches often experience a surge of energy and excitement from the existing congregation when they plant a church because they see God’s people sacrificing and multiplying and because they are seeing the kingdom grow. Tim Keller points out that planting new churches is “perhaps the best way to renew and re-vitalize older churches and enhance all ministries.” He says, “The mother church usually experiences a surge of high-esteem and an influx of new enthusiastic leaders and members. There is usually an increase in numbers and confidence.”[8]

 Churches who have church planting as part of their DNA attract leaders. There is a church in Vancouver which began about 4 years ago with 20 or so people which always had church planting at its heart. It is now over 600 people, and there are multiple church planters who intern at the church to be sent out. This church also hosts a gathering of church planters once a month for teaching, equipping and prayer. 

 Part of that growth and health comes back to the priority of leaving a lasting legacy: Our lead Pastor (Paul Johnson) often says that planting new churches will “help our church have a legacy long after we are dead and gone. A hundred years from now there could be churches existing all over BC because of our efforts.” We can be a part of stamping Canada and reaching beyond the geographic boundaries of where our local churches exist.

To increase the number of evangelical, Gospel-centered churches: In an age of bad doctrine, and theological challenges to the historic Christian faith, our denomination (Fellowship Baptist), and our church specifically, need’s to extend its influence. We are responsible for what we do with who and what we have, and cannot assume that other churches are preaching the Gospel and doing Gospel-centered ministry.

 This is the aforementioned reasons The Fellowship now has church multiplication as a top priority. The director of the Fellowship, Dr. Jon Kaiser said in his 2007 address to the Fellowship: “What is the best contribution we can make? I believe each region should see it’s calling as growing and multiplying healthy churches. We should be involved in leadership development, community outreach, and church multiplication.” The more churches that carry the gospel into different areas the better. This is why it is necessary that “the local church DNA comes to believe that every church should plant churches.”[9] In this sense we can set the tone and inspire many other churches in The Fellowship to follow our lead as we follow the lead of Dr. Kaiser and others.

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[1] More reasons can be explored in Paul Beker and Mark Williams, The Dynamic Daughter Church Planting Handbook.

[2] Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age, 33.

[3] C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for Greater Harvest, 11. See also Tim Keller, Advancing the Gospel into the 21^st Century, 3: “New Churches are by far the best way to reach (1) new generations, (2) new residents, and (3) new people groups. Studies show that newer churches attract new groups about 6-10 times better and faster then older, established churches do.”

[4] Cited in Aubrey Malphrus, Planting Growing Churches for the 21^st Century, 44.

[5] Tim Keller, http://www.redeemer2.com/rupc/rupc/index.cfm.           

[6] See Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches, 322; Tim Keller, Advancing the Gospel into the 21^st Century, 3.

[7] Murray Moerman, “Discipling Canada and the Nations” in Murray Moerman ed., Discipling Our Nation: Equipping the Canadian Church for its Mission, 7; see also Murray Moerman and Lorne Hunter, “Saturation Church Planting: Current Needs & Recent Progress,” 20: “Every church, in fact, must contribute to these emerging church planting movements by planting at least two new congregations while it is able” one to replace itself, because, like humans, no congregation lives forever, and a second to extend the Kingdom” (14). He goes on to point out that at the end of 2003 evangelical churches in Canada existed at the ration of 1 for every 3, 189 Canadians.

[8] Tim Keller, Advancing the Gospel into the 21^st Century, 3: “I know of a small congregation in our area who had filled 100 seats twice to max 4 years in a row. Finally they sent 50 people out to a new town to form a new church. Just two years later there were 350 people coming to the daughter church and the mother church had filled its seats back up in three weeks.

[9] Murray Moerman and Lorne Hunter, “Saturation Church Planting: Current Needs & Recent Progress,” 17. 

DSF Live - Internet Stream

Many people are connected to the SDBC/DSF community around the world via media such as Podcasts and internet downloads - as many as 6,000 downloads a year for DSF sermons alone! As a gift to whoever is interested in it, we are now steaming DSF live for the benefit of those who can't join us on a Sunday night in Delta. Both those who are not a part of our church community and those who are but who are in far off in places like the Northwest Territories, Ontario, Chile, Bolivia, Germany, Wisconsin, and beyond. 

The DSF service (every Sunday night at 7pm) will be live over the internet at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/dsf-stream - please join us! By God's grace we use this medium in the spirit of 1 Cor. 9 - that we would use all means necessary to reach as many people as possible with the gospel of Jesus.

 

The Regular Joe Missionary

How do we cultivate Christian communities that see themselves as full-time missionaries where ever God has placed people? We have a problem in the Western church - our people do not view themselves as missionaries. This must change. A flurry of books in the last decade have been sounding the alarm about this trying to get church leaders to emphasize the need to cultivate a missionary-spirit in their people but is it helping?

I am not someone, as some people do, who sees "programs" as always a bad word but we do tend to rely to heavily on them as churches - they become the go to plan when it feels like we aren't "doing enough" as the church. But of course the reason we don't feel like we are doing enough is because often we are not seeing life transformation or conversions among us thus we need to keep the Christians we have busy and feeling like things are happening. Is the sin here a lack of trust in God that if we strip the church down to a few simple things we will loose people? Maybe.

Here is the shift I am thoroughly convinced needs to happen in the church and the present difficult situation we find ourselves in: idolatry - a good thing (Christian ministry) has become an ultimate thing (what we get our value and significance from). The problem that stems from this idol is that the Christians in the church are staying way to busy doing Christian ministry and being together and not enough (if any!) time with the unchurched. We are not hanging out with our non-Christians family and friends to show them the love of God in Jesus. We are not spending time in our communities, instead we create Christian subcultures that keep us from the culture (both the good and bad) among us.

This is a functional rejection of something central to Christian life and practice: incarnational ministry. The word Incarnation is the word to describe God becoming human in Jesus - coming to us in all our sin and ridiculousness - to love us, to call us out, to live among us, die in our place for the forgiveness of sins and rise again to save us. He became one of us - "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1.14). As C.S. Lewis said it would be like becoming a crab or slug for us. Why? Because we are more than that - we are higher beings. Such is the scandal. Do we live this out in our lives? Do we spend enough time bringing the church to the world. Living out our calling among the nations - being missional in every way? Or are we spending our time in Christian communities exclusively? Doing Christian ministry, staying busy ministering to the already saved? 

One way we cultivate this in our Christian communities is to highlight, talk about/to and emphasize not only the lives of super saints like formal "full-time missionaries" to other cultures and countries but to focus on the lives and mission of the regular Joe - people in their everyday lives; nurses, teachers, business owners, pipe-fitters - the followers of Jesus who are living out their faith in the marketplace (the Agora; Acts 17). We must learn how to tell their stories so people stop waiting to "do missions" or to "begin ministry" at some point in their lives - it one way to show that such lives and mission is actually worthwhile. One of my teachers, and more importantly a respected missiologist around the world, Charles Ringma, in his book Catch the Wind, says this:

Why is not thought given to establish what church members are already doing in their neighborhood and places of work. No attempt is made, for example, to identify the medical practitioner who has changed the approach to patients by providing counseling and practical support rather than just curative care. No attempt is made to identify the local public official in the congregation who is tackling certain important quality of life social issues in the community. No attempt is made tp support the lady who is conducting an informal neighborhood Bible study group. No attempt is made to support prayerfully the teacher who has just started work in an inner-city school with many pupils from broken families. And no attempt is made to see one family's care for their disabled child as a ministry worthy of the church's support of prayers.

The mission is where God has you be it China, or an office in Vancouver or New York or even raising a family - the church must get that reaching their friends, family in their local places of life is their mission - it is their Jerusalem (Acts 1.8), their immediate place of influence and if they are not spending time in the places of normal life where regular people hang out, spend time and who are distant from Jesus than we will never be effective in our mission. 

We must organize church so that we don't suck up all our people's time doing "ministry" that takes people away from these places, people and experiences - we have been sent on to reach as many as possible with the gospel of Jesus (1 Cor. 9)