mbjones

Yesterday (Friday) was our first outreach day. I’ll back up a minute — during CPx, every week we have two day of lectures and 3 of outreach where we go into the communities and practice what we have learned. Masiphumelele (Masi for short) is the community that Juli and I will be working in. We are definitely excited about working here for several reasons — for one, it is where we have worked in the past so there is some sense of it that kind of feels like home and for two, it is the type of community we envision ourselves working in long term. This isn’t to say that Masi is the community we will forever work in (for various reasons, we aren’t expecting this) but it is the atmosphere and type of community that tugs at our hearts.

Anyways, yesterday was our first day of getting into the community for outreach and the our first opportunity to practice all that we had learned. We’ve been broken up into d-groups of 6 or 7 for these outreaches, and further divided into 2s and 3s and 4s for the purpose of ministering (a group of 7 is rather intimidating to people — we aren’t wanting to gang up on them!). For this and future trips, we are really focused on planting simple churches and so we were looking for peaceful people — people that would open a community or network of people to the Gospel as well as finding people that would intentionally gather their friends and families for little “Bible Studies.”

This last part is key (and in many ways paradigm shifting). When we’ve been here in the past, we’ve focused pretty heavily on finding as many people as possible and grouping them together. Often the people aren’t in any way relationally connected which makes the groups dependent on the outsider for gathering and providing the special sauce that makes the people stick together. This time though we are intentionally not doing that but rather getting locals to gather their people. For more about this, keep following my blog.

Back to the story of outreach numero uno. I went with two other guys — our coach Munya (who is from Zimbabwe) and Lucas (who is actually from Masi). We went out and pretty immediately found 3 different guys who told us that they (a) were interested in studying the Bible and (b) were interested in gathering their friends and families. And they were interested enough to give us their phone numbers so that we could SMS them to remind them. The last man in particular (Richard) we felt particularly good about. He not only seemed interested but also excited.

As we were leaving Richard’s place, we passed a house where a woman called out to us. She had heard about us (or people like us) and had some questions about faith and wanted prayer. We shared with her about Jesus and answered her questions and told her testimonies of His love in Masi. We then prayed for her and it seemed incredibly impactful — she was in tears when we got done and immediately asked us to come back to study the Bible with her (and that she wanted to do the same as the guys: gather friends and family). So we were quite encouraged by this point. I wasn’t expecting quite this response. I knew Masi as a spiritually hungry place, but expected a bit more resistance to the gathering concept. And we may run into it — we’ll find out next week if anyone is “gathered” but I have a lot of hope.

I know I would have probably been thrilled if this was the end of the story for the day but it wasn’t. Our next encounter was with a man named Eddy. He was also from Zimbabwe and was just passing through Masi. We still got an opportunity to share with and pray for him though. And he was another person left changed by the love and presence of God. He’d been struggling with pretty serious neck pain for several months. When we first met him he actually couldn’t move it at all. But we prayed! And Jesus healed! And the pain went away and he could move it again!

And this isn’t even the end of the story — we had two more significant encounters with people! They both revolve around a Zimbabwean house church that meets in another part of Masi. Susan, a woman in it (but who lives elsewhere in Masi) took us to her home and had us pray for her pregnancy. I felt like the Lord was asking me to pray Isaiah 40:31 for her (which I did) and she was really touched. She is even wanting to try and gather her neighbors to start a Bible study (which we were all surprised and excited about since she is already a part of the other). After this, we got to teach the Zimbabwean house church how to facilitate meetings and pray times without us which is significant — prior to this they had been reliant on us outsiders for meeting times and facilitation.

Anyways all that said and done — we were really excited about our first trip into Masi and can’t wait to see what else God does with our time there.

This is the text of what I taught at HouseChurch this past Sunday. Juli and I will likely be giving an updated version to a Sunday School in San Antonio on Dec. 20th. If you are in SA, come check us out!

1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. 1:2 The Word was with God in the beginning. 1:3 All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 1:4 In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. 1:5 And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.

1:14 Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.

1:18 No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.

John 1:1-5; 14; 18

It’s Christmas time and generally in church we talk about the birth of Jesus and all that surrounded it. I want to do that here too, but from a slightly different angle; this is something that kind of has to be done if you are using John as your primary Christmas text. You see, John starts out with a completely different Christmas story than Matthew or Luke. Instead of the details of the events surrounding the Nativity scene (including wise men and shepherds and a baby in a manger) we get a wholly different view of Jesus and His entrance into the world. In much the same way Genesis 1 poetically describes GOD imaginatively creating this world, here in John we are given a picture of GOD imaginatively entering into it.

The first few verses of John make is abundantly clear who Jesus is — He is the Word — the LOGOS — who has always been with GOD and who actually is GOD. Not only that — it is by this WORD that all things, all of us, everything we see — hear — feel — were created.

The parallel of these first few verses with Genesis is also quite important (and intriguing). In these verses, we have a deconstruction of the creation event, giving more details to the original story and hinting that something new and different is happening. We immediately come to find the power in GOD’s words at the beginning of time, “Let there be light!” This power is the move of Jesus into our world and it connects immediately what was (creation and history pre-Jesus) with what will be (Jesus bodily arriving as the inaugural event of the coming Kingdom of God).

This is important to keep in mind; we see throughout the Old Testament GOD’s desire to be in relation with people. He walks and talks with Adam and Eve in the garden. He covenants with Abraham. He wrestles with Jacob. He divinely intervenes upon hearing the cries of His oppressed people in Egypt. He fights on their side against the Godless. He identifies one of our heart’s (David’s) with His own. He loves them enough to send messengers to direct their footpaths back to Him. GOD desires a people to call His own, who number as the stars in the sky, and live righteous and just lives before Him.

Looking back to John, and its parallels to our beginnings, it’s GOD as written word that first comes to the Israelites in the form of the law. This didn’t have the desired affect of creating a nation centered around GOD, living righteously and justly before Him. It certainly produced knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20-25) but not life and the people He desired.

His people continued to live selfish lives centered on themselves, missing entirely the spirit of the WORD of GOD for its letter. GOD in WORD only and not flesh was not having the desired affect. Something else had to be done. The mission of GOD, carried out through His WORD acted out via His people was not sufficient.

And this is the part we get back to one of the most excited verses in John (at least to my ears). John continues on with his narrative of the creation event saying that the WORD became flesh. GOD, in the person of Jesus, was moving into our neighborhood. We were finally able to see the glory of GOD with our own eyes. No longer was His presence restricted to a temple or His WORD to a confining — not freeing — law.

This truly was (and still is) a radical change. John tells us that know one ever before had truly seen GOD; in the past people have glimpsed His glory but no one has truly seen Him. The shadow we’d known was coming into clear focus in the person of Jesus — God made flesh.

It’s so exciting to think that in doing this GOD changed the course of history forever. GOD’s mission had a new central expression: incarnation — becoming flesh — moving in with us — being one of us.

A natural question that stems from this is “How does the incarnation — God becoming flesh — affect the ministry of Jesus?” It’s easy for me to say that incarnation is a new expression but if it doesn’t have any affect than it really shouldn’t matter to us. There are two specific affects, thought, that build upon each other and are worth exploring now.

The first affect of the incarnation on the ministry of Jesus is that it made GOD Radically present among His people. No longer did He have to speak through priests and prophets. No longer was His presence confined to one room of a temple. He was actually one of them, living how they lived and doing what they did. For the first 30 years of His life in fact, He blended into the culture.

The second affect builds from the first one. Because Jesus was radically present, He was able to clearly speak directly to the needs of the people. This isn’t to say that before Jesus, GOD didn’t know their needs and didn’t intervene on their behalf or make Himself known; the OT is rife with examples of God meeting the needs of His people. Rather, the lack of distance and religion, and the creation of a relationship, allowed Jesus to directly speak into the hearts of people. No longer was approaching GOD a systematic, religious act but an actually encounter with a living, breathing person that spoke and acted and talked as one of them. The people who believed knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that GOD in Jesus was seeing the deficiency of their lives, specifically where they lacked HIM, and Jesus could directly fill them with His life.

So why should the incarnation and its affect on the ministry of Jesus matter to us? Primarily because Jesus demands incarnation of His follower. John 17:18 says, “Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.” This is in a prayer of Jesus to His Father about His disciples in which He goes on to include all that believe in Him throughout the ages.

And this might seem scary and hard. We aren’t GOD and we aren’t magically going to be born into a new culture. So how do we go about incarnational mission? Their are some keys to this which lay in an important passage of Paul but first it’s important to discuss the starting point.

To that end, it starts with God and His work in us, of course. John 20:21 reiterates that His people are to be sent people, living in the world as Jesus lived in the Jewish world. It goes on to say that Jesus breathed onto them and they received the Holy Spirit. God is forever our only source for anything we do, particular for that which is done in accordance with His mission. His Holy Spirit, living within us is a must and the source of any “power”, “ability”, “wisdom”, or “knowledge” that we may have.

And Paul goes on to lay out how Jesus did it and how we can follow Him in it:

You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, 2:6 who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, 2:7 but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. 2:8 He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross! 2:9 As a result God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 2:10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow – in heaven and on earth and under the earth – 2:11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Phil. 2:5-11

It starts with an emptying of ourselves. We must be willing to give up all that we are and take on all that Jesus was, sharing in His emptying of Himself to become human. This means getting rid of our own modes of classification. It ceases to be an us/them thing, becoming only us. It ceases to be about our culture versus theirs, instead letting Jesus bleed into the cracks of theirs. Economics no longer matter. Skill or intelligences ceases to be a deal. Even Gender ceases to be a big issue. Incarnation levels the playing field so that God can meet people wherever they are at.

It also means an attitude of service. Paul says Jesus took on the form of a slave and the gospels detail clearly His service to those all around Him. He washed His disciples feet, healed the sick, forgave sins and fed miraculous amounts of food to extremely large crowds. Everything He did and everything He shared was done in an attitude of service to the people He was born into and loved.

He was also obedient to the point of death on a cross. Obedience characterized His mission. John says obedience starts with the Son doing as the Father does (5:19;30) and that Jesus did what pleased the Father (8:28). It goes that we should do the same. And it’s got to be something we are so sold out in that we are willing to even, as Jesus did, give our lives to it.

And there we have an admittedly brief look at the incarnational mission of Jesus and how we are called to participate in it. It leaves me with a few questions worth reflecting on:

1. For starters it’s worth asking, “am I obeying Jesus and walking in His mission?” It’s not just something that people are called to do by moving overseas. In most cases, at least at the beginning of our walks with Jesus, we don’t need any other calling than that Jesus said “do it”. There are people and groups and cultures all around us that need Jesus and need someone to actually be Him where they are at. Think of your workplace. Or your school. The cool, local coffee shop. Perhaps the local homeless shelter or the street or apartment complex you live in. We are surrounded by people everyday that need Jesus’ love just as much as you do.

2. If you are walking in His mission, is there a group of people you are particularly called to? It could be someplace or community you find yourself regularly involved in now.

3. And finally, if so how are you (or how could you be) incarnating Jesus into the lives of these people?

Julian the Apostate was the Roman emperor from 361 to 363. He’s called the Apostate because he converted from Christianity to theurgy and is considered the last Pagan emperor (he revived paganism in Rome as a counter to the thriving Christianity).

He was the author of many letters. In particular interest to me, he comments on the popularity of Christianity:

“These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapae, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes.”

“Whilst the pagan priests neglect the poor, the hated Galileans devote themselves to works of charity, and by a display of false compassion have established and given effect to their pernicious errors. See their love-feasts, and their tables spread for the indigent. Such practice is common among them, and causes a contempt for our gods.”

Variation from here. Originally heard in the sermon Jesus and Politics by Tim Keller

• For the interested, agapae = unconditional love.

It’s interesting to think that agapae towards the poor, both “ours” and “theirs”, was one of the primary identified catalysts behind Christian adoption (it’s no wonder there are over 2000 Biblical passages dealing with those on the margins of society). One can only hope we continue to re-discover that catalyst—over the past few months especially I’ve found it to be at the heart of missional living.

Yes. This was another old post.

This describes one of the more life changing events in my life. It happened 3 summers ago in Mozambique. I thought it pertinent for this site as my wife and I prepare to embark full time to Africa.

Every week without fail, Luis makes two trips: one to the Maputo jail and one to an AIDs hospital. While staying at the orphanage, we had the opportunity to join him in these missions. Today I’ll turn your attentions to our time at the AIDs hospital. Looking back, it was one of the more impacting times for myself (and I think that I’m not the only one of the eleven of us who would say that).

About the Hospital

The hospital was actually in the town we were staying in, Matola. It is divided into gendered floors, the bottom couple being for the newer patients and the upper couple for the highly contagious terminal patients. We rode a chappa to the hospital and upon exiting were met with an interesting site. The building itself looks kind of like any other bland government building – honestly there is not much to set it apart. It is surrounded by a fence with a gate but security wasn’t an issue. I expected to have to go through something in order to get in, but we just walked right on through the gate (I don’t think the security booth was even being manned by anyone at the time). Upon entering the hospital we were met with drab, dark halls on the bottom floor. It was rather depressing – in comparison our hospitals look like amazingly bright and cheery places. I remember the colors as gray scale and just blah. The second and third floors weren’t much better although numerous windows made for a much brighter atmosphere. On these patient floors, the stairs emptied into a kind of common room that had tables and chairs setup (it was here we talked to and prayed with the patients). On either side of the common rooms were the halls with patient rooms.

About the Patients

All of the patients here had AIDs. Most had other, secondary diseases as well, the most common being tuberculosis. Generally speaking, its not AIDs that kills people – its the opportunistic secondary diseases that their bodies can’t take care because of immunodeficiency. The onset of these diseases is generally what takes people to these hospitals to spend their final days. The patients on the two floors we couldn’t go onto where in their final stage of life. The highly contagious form of tuberculosis is mostly what we heard they had. The plan in future years is to bring HEPA masks and robes so that we can go onto these floors but lack of appropriate safety equipment kept us from talking with these patients this time.

The patients on the two floors we could go onto where dieing as well, some from diseases other than tuberculosis, I would guess. Many of them looked too weak to even be up and moving around, but come out they did. I remember praying for one woman, my hand on her shoulder as we generally did, and quickly moving my hand off in fear that I would break her. It felt like i was touching bone (and that’s all most of these individuals were – skin and bones).

Sharing and Praying

All eleven of us did not descend on the hospital at once; rather, five went the first week and six the next. I went in the first group. We had originally thought that we would just be going around to rooms, chatting briefly and then praying with the occupants. The common room was a surprise to us (as was Luis telling us that someone needed to stand up and share). I decided that I would take the opportunity to do that on the guys floor and felt led to share briefly and broadly about what I was reading in Isaiah and how their lives were important to us and more importantly, were important to Jesus. We then paired up and prayed for everyone of them. We next went up to the girls floor and did the same. As the “have something to share” thing to our group slightly by surprise, none of the ladies with us had anything in particularly to share so I once again took the lead. Rather than talk about the same thing I did on the guys floor, I decided that it’d be much more worthwhile to talk about Hosea. Don’t ask me why – it was a last minute change as when I stood up the Isaiah bit was still on my mind – but Hosea it was and it seemed to go alright. And after the sharing we followed the same routine, praying for everyone individually.

The Aftermath of the Visit

There were several important aspects of this visit. If I haven’t said it before, I’ll say it right now – this was one of the most important things we did in my mind. At least, it was one of the most impacting things we did to me. For one thing it was one of the more emotional things we did. I’m generally not an emotional dude but it was impossible not to tear up, standing in front of these hopeless, dieing people and not tear up. Their environment just felt wrong and depressing. They really had no hope to ever leave that hospital. They knew there days were numbered and that there was pretty much nothing that they could do about it. And what where we to do? How where we to pray knowing that it would take one crazy miracle of God to ever get them free of that hospital? It’s important to be able to look deep inside of the dark and hopeless places and know that the light of God can penetrate even there and that’s what we were there to do, and what Luis is there to do week after week. It’d be easy to find places like this here in the states but we shelter ourselves off from it for no good reason. That’s definitely one thought I took away.

Other things I took away were much more trivial (or at least they feel trivial compared to the above). One – God will give you the words if you trust. Two – I want to be given the words more, I need to put myself in that kind of situation more, however you want to word that. Three – One of the oddest sites I have ever seen occurred on the ride to the hospital (because it happened on the way there, and with everything else going on, it’s automatically lumped with the hospital experience in my brain even though it doesn’t necessarily deal directly with it). As we were driving past a poor village, one much like the one I’ve posted pictures of with dirty roads and small poorly built houses that lack what we consider basic needs (running water, etc), I never expected to see a brand new, blazingly clean and white, four door Mercedes sedan pull out from its dirty streets. The contrast of rich and poor was never clearer (or more inappropriate, or so it felt). That will be a fuller conversation for another post yet it is tied intimately to the whole hospital experience, which is why I mention it here.

I would post pictures but I don’t have any of the hospital. It is illegal in Mozambique to take pictures of government building, monuments and officials and not knowing if the hospital falled into one of those categories I decided against whipping my camera out. Better a post without pictures than time in a Mozambiquan jail I think. The lack of color in this post is more fitting anyways to the environment of the hospital I think.

This is something I wrote many moons ago…again — edited for spelling/grammar and not much else.

Some time ago I defined missional as:

Being bent on making Jesus the number one priority and because of this seeing his/herself as sent on mission for Jesus.

Now, from that simple definition its obvious that Jesus is to be at the heart of missional living but worked out, what does this look like?

God’s Story In History

At a fundamental level, a missional heart looks towards God’s working in history. There are several broad motifs that can be used to describe God’s work: creation, fall, redemption and restoration. Creation of course refers to the formation of this universe and everything in it ex nihlio. Ex nihlio means “from nothing” and is important because it really is solely God that is the catalyst for all. John 1 says that all things were created through Jesus and that His life is our light (which parallels the creation event in Genesis). This is also important because right from the beginning man was created to enter into God’s story. Unfortunately though things weren’t just happy with no end. In spite of things being perfect originally, sin entered into the world — the fall happened. Man disobeyed God and unleashed a destructive force into the world that is tearing it to bits. Luckily, though, this isn’t the end either. In order to restore man and creation to Himself, God became flesh, moved into our neighborhood and died at our hands — the perfect sacrifice through which we have redemption. It seems like this is the end of the story for a lot of individuals and groups. God, though, wants to see all of creation restored unto Himself; according to His word — in the end it will be. In the meantime we are charged with taking the redemption He has granted us everywhere we go, seeking the restoration of all. We are to aid the restoration of broken places until His parousia (the return of Jesus).

This isn’t a pattern that just comes with Christ though — it is evident in the earliest pages of the Bible. When God called Abram (Gen. 12) and he followed, God ended His conversation with Abram letting him know that all peoples on the earth would be blessed through Him. Even before the redemption of Christ is understood, God’s heart to see His creation redeemed to Himself and restored is clearly visible.

Sodom and Gomorrah

To illustrate this more vividly, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah makes for interesting reading. We all know the story, right? These are wicked cities where no man cares for righteousness. Truth be told, “evil sexual deeds” are what they are most known for (and really, nothing else). Abraham pleads with God to stay judgement, dependent on righteous men being found within the city. Of course none are and the cities are destroyed (along with Lot’s wife who looked back upon it).

Nine times out of ten when you hear people talk about Sodom today it’s in regards to homosexuality and other such sexual deviancy (at least in my experience). While it’s true that this was a periphery issue which led to its destruction, sexual deviance was merely symptomatic of a much, much worse underlying problem (one we’d do good to make note of in our society). To flesh it out I’m heading to the prophets to see what they have to say about the nation of Israel in relation to Sodom.

49 “This was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were proud, had abundance of food, and enjoyed carefree ease, but they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and committed abominable crimes before me. So, when I saw it, I removed them. 51 Samaria has not committed half the sins you have; you have done more abominable deeds than they did. You have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominable things you have done. 52 So now, bear your disgrace, because you have given your sisters reason to justify their behavior. Because the sins you have committed were more abominable than those of your sisters; they have become more righteous than you. So now, be ashamed and bear the disgrace of making your sisters appear righteous.

Ezekiel 16:49-52

This tells us several interesting things about the state of Sodom prior to its destruction as well as what directly leads to its destruction. Pre-destruction, Sodom was a nation incredibly blessed — they had an abundance of food and enjoyed “carefree ease” which tells me they really didn’t have a concern in the world (and sounds a bit like other nations I know of) — it seems people had everything they needed. God’s blessing though terminated on themselves (one way to think of this — no restoration occurred) and unfortunately this seemed to lead them down the path of pride which led directly to the unrighteousness that gets them destroyed. I find it interesting that the first piece of the unrighteousness puzzle is that they didn’t help the poor and needy among them. If we are to take the prophet seriously — this is one of the first warning signs of this deeper heart issue: pride. As we fill ourselves with pride our focus is drawn more and more inward until there is no concern for anything else. This resultant focus inward also ultimately leads to the “abominable crimes” before God as we only become concerned for our own personal desires/needs/wants.

There is one major point to take from these verses in regards to walking in God’s story in history and it is really quite simple: God’s blessing shouldn’t ever end with you. Everything you have and everything you are shouldn’t just flow inward — it should naturally be flowing out. You can’t/won’t do this if you have a proud and haughty heart towards God and those around you so don’t let that happen. At a very base level, we must check ourselves against pride. If we take these verses seriously this means asking (a) am I doing what I can to support the poor and needy of my neighborhood (either spiritually poor and needy or physically poor and needy)? and (b) am I performing any “abominable crimes” before God?

Ezekiel isn’t the only prophet that speaks of Sodom. Isaiah in numerous places echoes the words of Ezekiel and expounds upon them. Starting in chapter 1 at verse 10 Isaiah calls Israel Sodom and Gomorrah and continues to get seriously in their face. According the Isaiah, the Lord basically says he’s tired of their sacrifices and that He doesn’t want them. He says that He can’t tolerate their festivals and sabbaths and assemblies. God says He looks the other way when they pray. All of this would be pretty incredulous for the Israelites to hear as God had instituted it all and expected it of them. The fact remains though that they were doing all this while tainted with impure blood. Outward they had all the workings of redemption but inward they were vile, sinful beings. God’s blessing was extending no further than themselves. What does God call them to?

16 Wash! Cleanse yourselves! Remove your sinful deeds from my sight. Stop sinning! 17 Learn to do what is right! Promote justice! Give the oppressed reason to celebrate! Take up the cause of the orphan! Defend the rights of the widow!

Isaiah 1:16-17

First and foremost — repentance from all the sinning. Secondly though they are to take the restoration they know with them and develop some since of a social conscience. In other words, their redemption doesn’t terminate with themselves; instead, they should turn it into restoration for others.

This though certainly isn’t the only place this theme can be found. Isaiah 58 is another great passage that speaks directly to this. It starts just as the Isaiah 1 passage calling into question the outward religious actions (this time chiefly fasting) when inner hearts are as black as night.

3 They lament, ‘Why don’t you notice when we fast? Why don’t you pay attention when we humble ourselves?’ Look, at the same time you fast, you satisfy your selfish desires, you oppress your workers.

Isaiah 58:3

Just as before the problem is that everything is turned inward — it’s their own selfish desires that they are fulfilling. God’s blessing is ending solely with them. But what does God want?

6 No, this is the kind of fast I want. I want you to remove the sinful chains, to tear away the ropes of the burdensome yoke, to set free the oppressed, and to break every burdensome yoke. 7 I want you to share your food with the hungry and to provide shelter for homeless, oppressed people. When you see someone naked, clothe him! Don’t turn your back on your own flesh and blood! 8 Then your light will shine like the sunrise; your restoration will quickly arrive; your godly behavior will go before you, and the LORD’s splendor will be your rear guard. 9 Then you will call out, and the LORD will respond; you will cry out, and he will reply, ‘Here I am.’ You must remove the burdensome yoke from among you and stop pointing fingers and speaking sinfully. 10 You must actively help the hungry and feed the oppressed. Then your light will dispel the darkness, and your darkness will be transformed into noonday.

Isaiah 58:6-10

It’s the same theme repeated: restoration to those that need it. We even get echoes of the Great Commandment part 2 here: love your neighbor as yourself because they are your own flesh and blood. They are no different than you are.

Concluding Thoughts

To kick this discussion off I wrote that a missional heart is one joined with God’s working in history and it really is. The drive towards missional living comes from this understanding that we are a part of God’s story and that redemption doesn’t end with us — there is a clear drive towards seeing restoration around us. In the passages I used from the Old Testament this looks likes working towards getting ourselves straightened out (rooting the sin out of our lives) and then taking care of the poor and needy and sick and orphaned and widowed — essentially all of those on the margins of society. It’s important to note here though that this isn’t something we have to do (as if our own redemption is dependent on it). Rather it is something we should be driven to as it lies at the very heart of who we are now as redeemed beings. If we aren’t taking the redemption we’ve been given to those around us (seeking the restoration of all to God) we have some pretty serious questions we need to be asking ourselves.

As an aside, this developing heart I see in those around me is exciting. It excites me to see those in my community and like-minded communities join together to see actual change in the surrounding areas. It’s exciting to see money going straight to missional work and bringing Jesus to those that don’t know Him rather than padding ourselves with multi-million dollar buildings and technology systems that in the end don’t really matter all that much. It’s exciting to see the focus taken off of ourselves and placed where it should be: the cross of Christ which can then filter it to others. The cross is like a prism — focusing on it doesn’t render a reflection of ourselves, rather it refracts it to wherever is necessary. And I’ll end with that at the moment knowing full well that this topic of “missional” isn’t one that will be decided in just a couple of posts. Look for more coming in the future.