check out this video about organic churches planted and mission flowing from listening to God.
my friend hobby chapin (who tells me he convinced his wife to marry him by reminding her that “everybody needs a hobby”, wah wah wah) tells the story of how he has learned through experience that mission flows more freely out of listening to the missionary God than us simply trying to exhort people to live missionally.
There’s lots of conversation these days about becoming “missional Christians.” But, how does this actually happen. Where does the motivation and direction come from?
Our experience in Brighton, CO (north of Denver) has shown that teaching people to listen to God’s voice is more effective than exhorting them to be missional. As they learn to listen, mission (church planting, evangelism, etc.) occurs spontaneously.
Here is a video interview with me posted by John White on storiesfromtherevolution.blogspot.com
I hope to flesh some of these stories out in the near future :)
very well done video intro to the missional church.
here’s the comment i left at the blog (missionalchurchnetwork.com) which originally published the vid: .
great video. really well done. actually, your blog is very thoughtful as well and a great resource.
anyway, i’ve been so excited to see the missional renaissance that we are experiencing here in north american church thinking. what a breath of fresh air for all of us who have been a part of the church calling the world to come to us but rarely seeing our identity as a community of sent people or people on mission. my only critique or push back against the missional church is that often the focus has been on us being cultural geniuses who exegete our cultures and therefore know what we are to do based upon what is the most appropriate way to contextualize the gospel. while this can work at times i believe that Jesus laid out for us the key to understanding His ministry in Jn 5:19 when He said He does nothing of His own initiative but only what the Father shows Him. it is my thought that in light of Jesus’ own statement about His utter dependance on the Father to set the agenda, that we need to be people who simply live our lives as those who listen to God, do what He says and teach others to do the same. as we do, i expect we will see greater missional fruitfulness as the byproduct of us being first and foremost the listening church, than we ever would if it was up to us to be missional by our own strategic planning. your thoughts?
husband, father, friend, neighbor, simple church planter and coach, hopeful aqua farmer trying to listen to God, do what He says and teach others to do the same.
