A Fragile Life

I'm not a big fan of football, but I do tend to watch Football Focus on a Saturday while we have lunch. Maybe it's tradition, maybe it's because I like sport and it was always the introduction to Grandstand for many years.

I watched it last Saturday.

If you did, then you too will have listened to Gary Speed talk about football. Like me you would never have thought that the following day you would wake up to the news that he had apparently decided to end his life. I sat stunned. Was there anything he said, any body language that gave away any sign that this was about to happen? No. Not that I saw. One rarely does in these circumstances.

I'm not about to pontificate about suicide and faith. There's no need. We do not sit in judgement on anyone who chooses when and how to die. Life may be precious, but God is a God of grace and mercy. If anyone understands the depth of human emotions and how we respond to them, then surely our creator does.

No, for me it's the numbness one feels when hearing such news, even when you never knew the person. I've only been involved with the suicide of one person. After a long illness, they decided that they had finally reached the point where they could no longer face the daily struggle.  But the numbness doesn't only arise from the sense of tragedy and loss, but also from the realisation that life is so very fragile.

We are a complex arrangement of emotions and feelings. We live in a fallen world that besets us with our own failures and insecurities. A world that constantly seems to push us to breaking point with deadlines and expectations. It is, to me, no wonder that for some the pressure becomes unbearable and that they choose to bring it to a premature end.

And what about faith? My faith doesn't protect me from such feelings, from the pressures. There are times when the hope it offers seems a very long way from the reality in which I find myself. Truth be told, sometimes my faith makes it even harder. Because of my faith I choose not to say what I really want to say or do what I think I really want to do. Because I choose to seek to be obedient to the call and example of Jesus there are times when the pressure makes me wonder if my heart isn't going to explode as I bear the weight of all that see and feel.

My life is fragile too.

The one thing I do know is this: my fragile life is in God's hands.

A friend and I were talking many years ago about Christians and suicide. For many Christians suicide is unforgivable, but in the end I'm not so sure. Perhaps we ought to think more about grace than judgement. Perhaps God's response to the person who chooses to end their life prematurely is simply to say, "You're early, but you're still welcome."

Dealing with uncertainty

How do you approach uncertainty? I think my preferred approach might be to hide inside a wardrobe until its all sorted itself out! I think part of the problem with uncertainty is that it brings with it a sense of powerlessness. Some of rise to the challenge and set about determining our own destiny. And that's okay, maybe even for followers of Jesus it's okay to take some control and plan and determine what to do next. But where does faith fit?

The problem with an uncertain future, one you cannot describe in detail backed up by evidence, is that no matter what your present looks like, you are about to swap something you know for something quite unknown. To others it might look very exciting, but they aren't the ones who will have to live with he consequences of the decisions you make and the outcomes you experience.

Our future is uncertain. We are making plans, but we'd be foolish to suggest that we are certain in any way about the absolute rightness of the choices we're making. Maybe this is where faith steps in and plays its hand.

I guess you might say that we are trying to make open choices and not to box God into a corner where he has to do what we want in order for our faith to be satisfied. It's an exercise in disciplined thinking and faithful obedience.

While the wardrobe offers a safe place to hide, and maybe even the possibility of another world (think Narnia at this point), it's not going to much of a walk of faith. More a crouching insecurity, a paralysis of faith, a timidity of heart. So I'll leave the wardrobe to be a place to store clothes and not a place to wait for the future to write itself.


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Doing what?

As I promised, here's the outline plan for the future such as it is. The more I talk about this idea, the more it seems to become real, but it remains a long off right now.

We have begun to look at houses not too far from where we are at the moment. We've made friends with some folk beyond church and in all honesty I don't want to give up those friendships and start all over again in yet another new place. I'm tired of doing that. When you move on from a place everyone talks about staying in touch, but few rarely do. Life is busy for us all, and although we can pick up the 'phone, send an email or even a letter, we don't. I don't!

So, living somewhere with easy access to Canary Wharf will be good for Anne's commute. But what am I gong to spend my time doing? I could spiritualise this and get all holy about it, but the bottom line is that I could make a case for prayer and other valuable spiritual pursuits as priorities, but I also need to be doing something that contributes to our household income. So I've decided to explore becoming a Sports Massage Therapist. It will take me a year to train, but while I'm training I will be doing some practice (any willing volunteer clients?). There are therapy logs and case studies to do. The course is one day a fortnight over about 11 months.

At the same time I'm going to do a short course on nutrition and maybe have a look at some life coaching stuff. In my ideal world this will provide me with opportunities to work flexible hours and leave sufficient time to explore how to do church organically and simply. This is a true expression of bi-vocational ministry. It's not full-time ministry on the cheap for the church that cannot afford it, but ministry done in partnership with others who all bring their gifts to the table and share fully the responsibility for leadership.

So there it is in the proverbial nutshell. A new adventure in a new area of skills with a new focus but the same heart to serve God. Hopefully that will never fade away. Perhaps it might even be renewed as the pressure and expectations of ministry fall away.

At the O2

Not the best photo in the world, but it wasn't easy to take pictures! This is the view at the O2. That's Andy Murray to the right, prowling around the court on his way to losing to David Ferrer this afternoon.

We saw a good game of doubles first up and then the singles. We had about five minutes between the two matches, so no real time to do much except stretch and sit down again.

After the Murray match there was a presentation to Roger Federer of the fair play award and the fan's favourite player award.

It was certainly a very good venue for tennis. I wouldn't have minded trying the court, it looked like a very nice surface to play on! Had to settle for the all-weather courts back home in the evening where I won my mens doubles match 6-2, 6-4!

A New Adventure?

It is now public knowledge that Anne and I will leaving our current church setting in a few weeks time. It's been a hard decision to make in many ways, but the truth is it was probably the only decision to make. I'm not about to dissect what has been happening that has brought us to this point. It's enough to say that things haven't really worked and it's time to recognise that.

The question is: What next?

The answer is: We don't know!

What we do know is that it's unlikely that we will be going to another church with me as the minister. We're not leaving the church or rejecting the church or losing our faith or anything of the like. God has, or at least I think he has, been challenging us both about the nature and expression of what it means to be the church. We've tried to explore this in an established church seeing, but it's become increasingly difficult to do so.

So, before we get too old, it's an opportunity to explore simpler, more organic ways of being church. I'm going to retrain in order to become self-financing if possible, and we're going to look to settle into a community and put down some roots.

This post is by way of introducing the plan, such as it is, and to open the way for me to share thoughts and conversation with others about the journey we are about to take. There is much that scares us. Finding a house, getting a mortgage, learning new skills, getting a job or starting a business/practice (I'll blog more about my ideas later), are all big things. But probably scariest of all is setting out on an uncharted journey without any maps and no familiar landmarks by which to navigate.

At the moment we feel very much alone in this, but by God's grace we will meet others who will join us on our journey, keep us company and keep us sane! As news develops I'll try to reflect on it through my blog. Please feel fee to enter the discussion through comments.

Shallow answers to deep questions

There's a man on the radio proposing a simple strategy about giving up your car. He is not saying that everyone should do this, or that it is practical that everyone should. He is not saying that a car is a bad thing, an unnecessary bit of equipment that destroys the environment and a danger to life.

But you'd think he had from some of the immediate responses. "Try living in rural West Wales without a car," was one text. "How do you go shopping with a family?" was one question asked. I grew up in a village with a limited bus service. We survived and we didn't even have our own dedicated telephone line. Shopping trips were made by bus and were a day out not a daily excursion.

My point is this: how easily do we get angry and upset with an idea primarily because we fail to engage with the idea beyond a very superficial level. We think we understand way before we actually understand. We open our mouths before our brains have done any useful listening and reflecting.

The lesson is simple. We must slow down, and listen more than we speak. It's always easier to produce a knee-jerk response to any question. And that is never more true than in deepening our discipleship. There are no shortcuts to a deeper walk with God.

Been away

So we've been away for a short break in Portugal. All very nice. Played tennis, walked around the marina, sat in coffee shops talking about the future and most importunely on a holiday like this... picking out a shortlist of villas and apartments to buy! If only we had the money!

That'a the thing about holidays, you can dream about what it might be like to live in a place without actually doing it. I don't know if we'd really want a place on the Algarve or in Spain or somewhere similar. Truth be told, I could list a whole lot of places I'd like to spend my unlikely early retirement years.

Anyway, let's not get all melancholy about it. A week away was certainly what we needed, and it came at just the right time. Now we're back we need to begin the process of focussing on the shape of our future. Before we left we'd made the decision with the church to step down from leadership. We will finish in December in terms of all the public stuff and then we will have several months to sort out where to live and what to do next. At this point we are not thinking about another pastoral role in an established church setting.

Quite what shape the future will take is uncertain, but I'm looking at retraining in order to be financially independent, which in turn might enable us to explore new ways of being church that doesn't require starting with an established congregation meeting on a Sunday morning to sing songs and listen to a monologue. But things are far from clear at this moment in time.

Now we are back, and now it's publicly known that we are leaving our current setting, I can blog a bit more about what's been on my heart and where that might take us. We are not giving up on church, and we are not giving up on ministry. We're just stepping out of what we've been doing for the past 20 years and into a new adventure.

The Protesting Church?

It's both fascinating and sad to watch the story unfold at St Paul's. Sad because of the distraction form the issues raised outside the building because of the events inside the building. and there's the sign that keeps popping up on the news bulletins: "What would Jesus do?"

What would Jesus do? Would he join the protesters outside in their campaign, would he sit inside the building teaching those inside about the implications of what is happening outside? What would he do?

Would he provide Latte's and Panninis for the gathered crowd? would make enigmatic comments about paying tax, taking responsibility and the dangers of increasing pay gaps and inequity in the workplace?

I don't know.

Maybe the only thing we might be able to say with any certainty is that he probably wouldn't be looking to the legal system to address the issues.

Who's paying the price?

So, directors pay at the top companies is up 50% in the last 12 months.

It does rather beg the question how does that reflect the present government's mantra that we are all in this together, sharing the burden of the financial woes, now doesn't it?

Taking up a new challenge

I have a friend called Phil. Phil is another maverick kind of person who believes that the church needs to change, but that's not all he is. Phil suffers from a condition that has seen his sight deteriorate over many years, but that hasn't really stopped him. Last year or earlier this year, I can't quite remember circumstances changed as Phil's sight disappeared completely.

He's blogged about how this has affected his life and the changes he's had to make. But here's the thing. He's become a sportsman! Encouraged by others, Phil is now taking part regularly in sport. Ask him yourself and you will find out that it's the last he expected to be doing. But just taking part in sport isn't the only reason that he's become captain of the NRSB cricket team.

He reflects on it all here, and it's worth reading if you need a bit of inspiration to take up a sport, or if you are wondering about how to increase your connections with folk who are far from God (one of my reasons for taking up tennis last year). Maybe he wouldn't use quite the same words that I use, but like me Phil is putting himself in close proximity to people Jesus misses, and he's enjoying it too! If Phil doesn't do it, who will? If I don't do it, who will? If you don't do it, who will?

Both he and I are doing something we love in a way that, by the grace of God, might just make a difference in someone's life. Neither of us would ever say that we set out to play sport in order to do evangelism. That would be the worst of reasons. I'm glad Phil is enjoying the friendship and enjoyment that comes through sport. So am I. And I'm considerably older than he is!

The point I'm making is simply this. Why do we always seem to want to reach people on our terms, inviting them onto our turf, to do things our way at a time that's convenient to us? Why don't we occasionally try inconveniencing ourselves for the sake of the kingdom?

Speaking of which, it's Thursday and I need to get down to the tennis club for a fun morning of doubles.

All power to your elbow Phil.

Now but not yet

I saw a link on a web feed that said: "Jesus helps a woman with a "Personality Disorder". Now I don't want to disrespect what Jesus has done for this lady, praise God for any healing she has received, but it did make me smile as I thought to myself, "given some of the Christians I've met over the years, this hardly sounds like headline news!"

On a serious note it also reminded me of my friend Keith. He died at a young age from complications that arose when his appendix ruptured. He refused treatment from a lady doctor because he was a man and she was a woman and that didn't seem right to him. He took his Bible very literally and once told my wife that if she wanted to work she should sell cloth because that was what Lydia did.

Keith was a bright, intelligent young man who had gone to university but who dropped out when his schizophrenia began to surface. I don't know enough about the condition, but apparently someone spiked a drink with a drug of some sort and that either precipitated his illness or exacerbated an underlying condition. Irrespective of his condition, Keith's faith was deep and personal. If you looked closely, and past his illness and the effect it had on his personality, you could often see the inner struggle he faced, you could almost see the battle raging in his mind.

The great thing about our faith is surely this: one day I will see Keith again. He will be sitting somewhere in heaven, maybe under a shady tree, and he will be at peace. His mind will be clear and the battle will be over. Jesus will have set him free, totally free from everything that held him captive through those difficult years. During his life-time he never experienced the full release and healing that might have been, but now he has.

Maybe that's the deeper message of these two stories. Some people get to be healed now and enjoy the blessing of that experience of the power of the kingdom, others wait. In the end though, everyone who trusts God will experience it one side of heaven or the other.

It's Monday again!

It's Monday morning. Two pigeons are sitting on the wall opposite the house. One sits quietly, the other edges closer. He's probably a male of the species trying to sneak up on a female as pigeons are prone to doing. I think they are just as confused by the unseasonal weather as the rest of us.

A crow and a magpie are having a dispute about where to sit on the roof of the house beyond the wall, and apart from the quietness being broken by the sound of a passing aeroplane, nothing much is happening out there.

A take-away coffee cup lies in the gutter, unmoved by passing traffic and of little interest to the pigeons who have left the scene, only to reappear on the grass verge pecking at the ground. Perhaps they are just friends and there is no amorous intent from either one.

It's a quiet start to the week!

The reality of life is that is actually mundane most of the time for most of us. We go about our daily routines with the expectation that tomorrow will be just the same. It's pretty difficult to imagine living a life of significance in the middle of normality, in the middle of the simply ordinariness of life. But this is where God has placed us. Perhaps even those who we secretly envy for their dynamic and large-scale ministries, who have amazing stories to tell about how they helped this person find faith and how God spoke to them and directed them to make this stop on their journey, perhaps even they get up most days to an ordinary life with ordinary struggles and ordinary falling short of goals. Maybe their to-do list never ends just like yours, and their disappointments accumulate just like mine.

And yet, it is in the very midst of all this ordinary living that we are called to serve an extraordinary God. To offer our lives as living sacrifices, to take up our cross each day, to bear burdens, share good news, weep with those who weep, mourn with those who mourn and laugh with those who laugh. Called to weep for the lost, for the cities.

I hope and pray that your day, and my day, unfolds into a canvas upon which we draw with God the story of our lives as we interact with him and with others. I pray that today God will use me to sow seed, to water the ground and to bear kingdom fruit.

Tim's Goliath thing!

Not quite sure how to introduce this, but here's something Tim from our church wrote. I'll let him fill in the details.

As I sat listening to my church minister talk about the story of David and Goliath, he drew out some key points that I had never heard before. In that moment I felt as if God dropped a concept into my mind. I’ll begin with a paraphrase of what my minister was saying;

Saul was a man chosen because he was head and shoulders above everyone else. He was Israel’s ‘Big Man’. When the Philistines drew up their battle formation they called forth their ‘big man’, Goliath. Goliath called to Israel ‘Bring your best warrior to fight me!’
What Saul saw as a man too big to defeat, David saw as a man too big to miss!

The concept that fell into my thinking was this: Today’s modern church has a ‘Saul’ mentality about it. The church used to be looked up to and respected, and like Saul has a reputation to defend. It was once a proud institution that commanded the respect of people and leaders and kings. But over the years ‘Goliath’s’ have risen up to challenge the church and it has shrunk back behind its battlements in fear. Pride and tradition and misplaced expectations have crippled her. A failure to see with eyes of faith for what God can do through obedient humble people will bring the mission of Gods church to halt.

And then along comes David. The runt of the litter, the boy, the shepherd, the youngest, who brings in supplies for his brothers. With eyes of faith he sees this target that he cannot miss and asks permission to bring down this blasphemer. But look at what Saul does! He tried to put David into his armour!

This is what the church has done to modern-day Davids! Anyone who sees with eyes of faith and desires to take a stand has rightly sought the wisdom of the elders and been told, ‘this is how you must do it.’ But those ways WON'T WORK. That armour is too heavy. It isn’t that David is not yet big enough or old enough. The simple truth is, he can’t win a battle with human wisdom and human strength or by human tradition! David fought in the name of the Lord, and there are young people rising up in faith and we must let them take their stand or the church will be overcome by ‘Goliaths’.

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Psalm 119

As I continue to read through the psalms, I find myself consistently being challenged about the quality of my devotional life and the impact it has on my lifestyle choices. So often the things we choose to do are at odds with what we know to be biblical, yet chose to ignore because it's simply inconvenient. Perhaps issues surrounding the environment are not the only inconvenient truths with which we must contend!

Take today for example. As I'm wandering through Psalm 119 I came across the following statements:

My comfort in my suffering is this: your promise preserves my life

And:

You are my portion, Lord;
I have promised to obey your words.
I have sought your face with all my heart;
be gracious to me according to your promise.
I have considered my ways
and have turned my steps to your statutes.
I will hasten and not delay
to obey your commands.

If you read that and think, "So?" then read it again, slowly. Have I made and kept that sort of promise? Have I really sought God at that deep and intimate level? Am I that quick to obey?

These are the questions that arise immediately in my mind, and many more. In the Old Testament, seeing the face of God meant certain death. If it meant you would die, would you still seek it?

No wonder Paul spoke about having been crucified with Christ and yet still living.

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Ongoing thoughts about discipleship

A couple of interesting things from a book I'm currently reading called Growing the church in the power of the Holy Spirit.

People need to be incorporated into the kingdom of God by being born again. The fruit of the Spirit needs to be cultivated so that people are transformed into increasingly Christlike character. Unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God must be nurtured, growing people in their understanding and in their personal relationship with Jesus. And men, women, and children need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit so that they can be empowered to do everything that Christ commands, each playing their unique roles as members of the body of Christ. 

This sums up the early chapters of the book rather well, and the foundational argument of the book as a whole. But it's also an important summary of the fundamentals of church.

Later there is a compass point illustration which is rather helpful:

N: New life (incorporation)
S: Sanctification (transformation)
E: Empowerment
W: We (fellowship)

As I continue to think about discipleship, these things are proving helpful along the way. I was listening to an interview with Bill Hybels the other day and he said something very interesting. The Reveal Study has been on the receiving end of some harsh, and unwarranted criticism, over the years since Willow first shared its findings. But I've often wondered if that is because it revels exactly what we've actually known deep down inside.

People don't tend to grow through a programme, they tend to grow through active personal involvement and engagement. Not that might be over simplifying things, but I've watched and participated in a lot of personal evangelism training and I don't see any great improvement in my ability to share the gospel or in the church's engagement with mission. I've prepared a lot of Bible study notes, but I'm not sure that I've seen much actual spiritual transformation taking place as a result. I've preached a lot of sermons, but I cold count of the fingers of one hand the number of times anyone has accurately reflected the content of a sermon back to me.

Anyway, the thing Bill H said was how he would remind the congregation that they were responsible for their own growth. "We can't read your bible for you, we can't say your prayer for you," is a paraphrase of what he said. That isn't to say that the church as an organisation doesn't have a role to play, but spiritual growth depends on the desire of the individual to grow not on the range of courses offered.

Disciple-making

A couple of weeks ago Mike Breen posted the first part of a series of posts about discipleship. It caused a bit of a stir, mostly because it forecasts the failure of the missional church movement and people seemed to have latched onto that. Read the article carefully and you will clearly see that the point is that any model of church without discipleship will fail, not just those who call themselves missional.

Through the series the process of discipleship and its importance is discussed. We cannot ignore the validity of Mike Breen's point. His analysis is surely correct when he states that:

The reason the missional movement may fail is because most people/communities in the Western church are pretty bad at making disciples.

It's not the type of movement, its the basic structure of most Western models. Have we not learnt this lesson form all the studies and reports and analyses we've had over the past 20 or more years? We simply are not making disciples. People are not becoming whole-hearted, fully devoted, followers of Jesus Christ. We are making users more than we are making disciples.

If one was being cynical, you might say users are easy to spot. They are the ones who ask if tithing is really important and did God really mean 10% and is that before or after tax. Users are usually familiar with Bible stories but can't paint a big picture of the biblical narrative. They are, to put it plainly, biblically illiterate. Users are often more interested in what they get out of church than what they put into church. More interested in how their needs can be met than it how God's mission can be implemented. For users discipleship is an inconvenience that disturbs their essentially selfish pattern of life. It is too demanding, too time consuming, too life altering and too costly to comtemplate. "Just give me forgiveness and assurance and let me get on with my life", might be their motto.

That might seem harsh (re-reading it and it does seem quite harsh), but maybe it's time we took a long hard look at the reality. It's time to ask ourselves some tough questions. When was the last time you took stock of your Christian life? When did you last try to answer question like:

• How is Christ being formed in my life right now?
• What am I learning about God through my daily interaction with him and his word?
• How am I partnering with God in his mission to the world he loves?
• What things are holding me back from full commitment?

None of us really like being asked these kinds of questions, but how are we supposed to grow as disciples if we won't ask the basic questions we need to ask? Have we really reached a point where we actually think that tomorrow we will wake up more committed than today without doing a thing to grow?

It won't happen.

I rant, or appear to rant, simply because I know myself. I know how much I resist asking the tough questions and avoiding the honest answers. Yet if I truly want to grow, if I want to develop the spiritual capacity to walk with Jesus, sensitive to his prompting and obedient to his mission, then I simply cannot afford ignore my discipleship.

Articles to read

I have a confession to make. I believe I'm far from alone in this confession. My confession is this: much of my life is shaped by irrational beliefs that make no sense. So, just because I make a mistake or someone criticises me, I drift towards believing I'm a terrible person destined to fail forever.

If you never feel this way, then bless you. But I do, and I'm not alone from the evidence of conversations I have.

There's an interesting and helpful article, particularly for church leaders that discusses three irrational beliefs that I certainly recognise in me and maybe you will recognise in yourself. Read it here.

A second article is more of a short review of Michael Quicke's book Worshipless Preaching. The book looks interesting. The review article is a bit short, only really introducing the idea and illustrating it. But it's enough the make you stop and think for a while about the place of the sermon in worship and the place of worship in the sermon.

I've long since wondered what we are trying to do when we preach. My formative Christian life was in a church where the preaching was very much the teaching focus of the church. That extended into the para-church organisation with which I was connected. Over the years I've come to realise that the church teaches a lot and sometimes does something with it. Much preaching seems to feed the mind but fails to inspire change.

I have my theory about that and the reasons why it is so, but I won't go into that now!

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Taking your church Missional

Taking your Church Missional is a downloadable paper from Leadnet.org. It makes interesting reading. The focus of the paper is the cost to the church leader. Here are some of the more challenging quotes to whet your appetite:

In his book, The Present Future, Reggie McNeal warns, “It takes enormous courage to give spiritual leadership in the North American church culture, because the church is increasingly hostile to anything that disturbs its comfort and challenges its club member paradigm.

“The biggest thing to realize is not to model yourself on the traditions of the past, but on Christ—what he did, how he would love people and talk to people. And that gives validity to the model,” says Lee Clamp.

“For years we have trained our congregational members to come to the pastor when the system becomes off- balance—a personal problem, a complaint, a boiler issue, a janitorial issue. Becoming missional means spinning off small satellite clusters of folks who offer their assets to the larger group. It is a cost because people have grown accustomed to running to the pastor. Redefining the call of the pastor finds new ways of working together, with Christ—not the pastor— being the centrifuge that keeps the system turning.”

“Leaders are shifting away from being the doers and concentrating on leadership development. God puts the passion in people—we’re not going to do it for them. Well-meaning churches have had the hired gun mentality, but now we are equipping people for works of service. It’s a transition from catching people to releasing them, and getting people to see their own personal mission.”

“Going missional sounds risky, doesn’t it?” Reggie McNeal. “That’s because it is. You will bet your life and ministry on it. But you may also discover that committing your life to the missional journey will help you find it.”

So there you go. I'm not commenting on the validity of these comments, but I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to get your head around some of the issues that face you as a leader as you seek to shift your ministry towards a missional focus.

You can find the paper in the resources section of the website. It's free and there are plenty of other papers worth a browse too.

Jeff Vanderstelt on being missional

I'm often asked questions around why I am so passionate about the need for the church to change, for the church to grasp the fundamental idea of what it means to be missional, to be in partnership with God in his mission in a whole-life way. Trying to help people grasp that mission is not something we do but something we are is quite a shift for many in the established church.

One way to help is to keep trying to expose ourselves to new ways of thinking about church and understanding this language. Somebody who I find really helpful in doing this is Jeff Vanderstelt of Soma Communities.

Here's a short video interview with him where he talks about being missional, what it means, how it applies and what the journey for an established might look like. Listen out for his definition of missional life in terms of family, missionary and servant and for his observation on the problem of the traditional church model. You might not like what he says, but personally I think he's absolutely correct in his analysis.



Jeff Vanderstelt // The Meaning of Missional from Newfrontiers USA on Vimeo.

Psalm 113

 1 Praise the LORD.
   Praise the LORD, you his servants;
   praise the name of the LORD.
2 Let the name of the LORD be praised,
   both now and forevermore.
3 From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
   the name of the LORD is to be praised.
 4 The LORD is exalted over all the nations,
   his glory above the heavens.
5 Who is like the LORD our God,
   the One who sits enthroned on high,
6 who stoops down to look
   on the heavens and the earth?
 7 He raises the poor from the dust
   and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
8 he seats them with princes,
   with the princes of his people.
9 He settles the childless woman in her home
   as a happy mother of children.
   Praise the LORD.

"Praise" occurs five times in the first three verses. Do you think the psalmist is trying to draw out attention to something important?

As I read this I almost said out loud, "I think we get the point!" I wasn't angry, I was just smiling and thinking to myself how easily we forget to praise God. I wondered when the last time was that I started my day with praise rather than lament or petition. When was the last time I responded to something with praise and worship as my first instinct. Maybe we need to train ourselves to do this, to make a disciplined choice to start with adoration as the old ACTS acrostic reminds us so to do.

Did you start your day with praise? Are you willing to stop now and put that right?