imagining how the church can reorient around mission

Sept 14th- 9 am-1:30 pm – Free lunch included – hit the barcode below to register

This event, hosted by the Pacific Northwest Movement (PNWM), is free and open to all Pastors and Christian leaders interested in what church planting would look like in a rapidly changing culture.

“Church planting is not an end in itself, but one aspect of the mission of God which churches are privileged to participate”

Stuart Murray

Church planting is a dynamic and purposeful endeavor that involves establishing new Christian communities within specific cultural and social contexts. There are three ideas that will prove to be very important as guiding principles for success. read more

It was a sunny, breezy, end-of-summer day eight years ago when I stepped foot on Whitworth’s campus for the first time as a student. I remember like it was yesterday the confidence I had as I waltzed around campus with my nerdy lanyard–student ID card in full view for all to see. I don’t want to be unnecessarily hard on myself, but I do remember feeling like I was pretty cool already, like I was going to take this university by storm. Just like high school, I was going to get all the jobs and leadership positions, make a ton of friends, do all the right things, and you can bet I was going to stuff my calendar full of all the right activities. (Yikes!)

I would run into friends around campus, and at times I’d find myself sort of bragging about how busy I was. A full plate and a growing resume of success, however small, were badges of honor. I think I was a little blind to the love around me, and of course, I was also blind to the suffering around me. I was living in to a twisted theology that said I was loved only when I really proved myself. Busyness and a good reputation were my idols, and the unsustainable approval from my community replaced the unconditional love of God. read more

This is a webinar from Exponential featuring Rob Wegner and Ralph Moore…and hosted by Daniel Yang as they discuss the power and beauty of the dispersed church. I just wanna say that I am all in on this and always have been. Those in the early days of New Community will hear language in this that is similar or identical to that we used then.

It is the very center of what I hope for at Immanuel Spokane. read more

I have begun to describe myself as “post-deconstructionist.” That is not to say that I am done deconstructing ideas, because they are ever-evolving and refuse to behave, but I am observing what seems to be a sort of an addiction to deconstruction.

My friend, David Swanson wrote this a couple of years ago on FB: read more

I posted a blog last week about the desperate need in the church for a reawakening to the Holy Spirit’s presence and power. Some might call that a revival. Perhaps that is the right word, but what I do know is we cannot hope for the supernatural work of God by employing human strategies and maneuvers.  Listen, we are not gonna out organize, out build, out cool the world. Even if we could, it would not bear fruit that remains.

I will say that something amazing is percolating at Immanuel (the church I am part of), and in some ways, I cannot even tell you why. It isn’t like we are doing anything really different. Maybe it is just us keeping our ears and eyes a little more sensitive. I will let you know more as things unfold. read more

“Being missional means moving intentionally beyond our church preferences, making missional decisions rather than preferential decisions.” ― Ed Stetzer, Comeback Churches

I got the privilege of meeting with a young church planter from a mainline denomination yesterday. She is charming and passionate, though somewhat doe-eyed, seemingly not completely sure what she was getting in to (though, she is quickly arriving there).

I met her last week while teaching a track on the Missional Church at the Whitworth Institute of Ministry. While during the introductions, I came to find out about her dream and calling to church planting (got me excited) and how she was an embedded planter in a mainline church here in Spokane (got me even more excited, because I believe an embedded approach is the healthiest model to embark on the challenging journey of planting).

Anyway, that all led to us connecting yesterday. After some small talk, I began to ask into the “why?” and the “how?” of this new project. While I was thrilled to hear the church plant was being initiated, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut that those who were helping her hadn’t fully calculated the cost, nor were they clear on how to pull it off.

Part of the dilemma is that the local church she is embedded in and will supposedly send her out is in somewhat of self-protected posture. In other words, they like they idea of birthing a new church, but they don’t want it to cost them anything. There is already an apparent pulling back of support because they fear they will lose members.

Ok, listen carefully to this next part: You cannot do any form of mission, particularly church planting, without risk. Because the denomination she is a part of is dying, and the church that wants to send her is an aging congregation and apparently not robust, there is a contraction of resources…which is the very worst thing a denomination or a local church can afford to do.

If you want your church to flourish, you must have the courage to release resources – both money and people. It is not the churches job to try to keep people. If a church goes into protective mode, the very people the church wants to participate will not stay. The people who correctly see “life as mission” will go somewhere, where the church is not trying just to stay alive, but to a place where the church will give itself away for the sake of the Kingdom.

What happens is, to keep from dying, all resources flow toward vital systems, which seem logical and even natural. Yet, in the Kingdom, there is a counter logic. We hear Jesus say all of these crazy, counter-intuitive things like, “If you want to live, you have to die. If you wanna be great, you have to submit and become a servant.”

If a church, or a denomination for that matter, cannot transition its identity from a “container” for Christian people (Christendom orientation) to a missionary community, it will eventually come to an end. I know, those are hard words…sorry. Why? It will come to an end because the church is living counter to what God intended it to be…a community on mission.

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I have long felt like my calling in life has been to help change the mind of the church. Jesus made it clear that he came to proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of God was near. The imperatives related to this declaration were for his followers to believe and repent (Mark 1). Repentance, while it means many things, at its simplest, most rendered definition it means to change one’s mind. I believe that is what the church in the West must do – change its mind regarding its identity.

Part of repentance means to turn from one direction to another. The negative side of the turning happens by deconstructing what has become of the church in what many would call Christendom. Though it is not the thrust of this post, the church must turn from its over-reliance on power and cultural control, it's political co-opting, and it's baptized mimicry of a consumer driven society (Have you visited many churches lately? IMHO, most churches are discipling people further into the consumer life, all the while Jesus actually calls us to deny ourselves and to daily take up our cross). read more

 One of the Psalms I used this morning for prayers was Psalm 66:4

“Come now and see the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people.” read more

Gallop just published it most recent poll of religion and American life. They discovered that almost 40% of Americans go to church. WHAT? Where? 

  read more