Sustaining Missional Living

This week I'm in Holland at a Learning Community with Paul Maconochie and Rich Robinson. The teaching and input which they give is excellent but sometimes it's difficult to engage with as I've heard it so many times before! However, I do find that God often highlights one little aspect of something I've heard again and again to pinpoint an area of my life where he wants to bring revelation and change. This week it was the teaching on the semi-circle and having a rhythm of abiding-fruitfulness, rest-work, Covenant-Kingdom. (You can find more on this in the various 3dm books, as well as in other posts on this blog.) The semi-circle is an important part of sustaining missional living.

The past term has been crazy and exciting and very busy for all of us in the team. For me, many things have felt overwhelming, stressful, and pressured. I've felt like I'm going to drown, have thought there's no way I'll make it through and have definitely questioned whether I was doing the right thing!*

In the middle of the storm, it's easy to forget who God is and what he says about me. I forget he's in the boat. I forget the vision he's given me. I forget that he has called me for such a time as this. I forget that his promises are to never leave me or forsake me. I forget that it's in his strength that I can do all things. I forget that his grace is sufficient for me. I forget so many things when I'm feeling buffetted by the wind and the waves.

The trouble has been that I've been trying to write these things on my heart in the middle of the storm. What I've realised is that by then it's too late!

I need to take the time to abide, to remain in him, to listen to God's voice and allow him to transform my mind BEFORE the storm comes. When there are less busy times I need to make time and allow God to change the way I think so that my behaviour is different when it's time to act. I need to talk with those around me about the prize that Jesus is setting before me so that they can remind me of it when I'm running just to keep up. And even in the midst of the busyness, before I head out into the fray I need to make time to connect with God so that I can be reminded of who he is, what he's done, who he says I am and what he's calling me to do.

I obviously still need to learn how to do this and I want to take the time over the quiet weeks coming up to rest and abide in Covenant with him so that I'm better prepared for the storms ahead.

Have you learned to do this? What has or hasn't worked for you?

*It hasn't all been bad! There have also been lots of times of joy and excitement and encouragement.

A new covenant

Last week, I spent time at a big church planting conference in Germany. Bishop Steven Croft of Sheffield and Bishop Graham Cray, who leads the Fresh Expressions team, were there and gave excellent and inspiring talks. (You can watch them here.)

Something Bishop Graham said and which was echoed by others stuck with me:
Christology before Missiology before Ecclesiology.

We're often very good at remembering that mission should shape church and not the other way round - we call them missional communities, after all. But sometimes we forget that actually it all starts with encountering Jesus.

When we encounter Jesus, when we really spend time getting to know him, when we delve deep into who he is, then we begin to know what he's inviting us into.

Jesus is inviting us into covenant with the living and eternal God. It happened with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, with the whole people of Israel. These stories give us a wonderful picture of what it means to be in covenant with God. But it's a new covenant in his blood that we're part of. This new covenant means that we are made one with Christ - we are hidden with him in God.

Being hidden in God means we are called into relationship with him. The three-in-one God is relationship and communion and he draws us into that. We need to spend time there, nurturing and developing the relationship.

We need to know God the Father - the Father who lovingly knit us together before we were born and who loves us tenderly and fiercely. The Father who does not wait until we fall on our knees before him but gathers up his robes and runs to meet us on the road. The Father who throws a lavish party and delights in our faltering steps towards him, even when we are still covered in the muck and stink of the pig-sty.

We need to know God the Son - the Son who holds nothing back of his inheritance but generously shares it with us. The Son who laid aside his riches and became God made flesh - who came and dwelt amongst us and was fully human and knows what it is to be tempted and to suffer and to be scorned and to be abandoned and to die. The Son who fought and fights to overcome the power of death and sin and who gives this victory to us as a gift.

We need to know God the Spirit - the Spirit who is ruach or pneuma - breath. We are in the Spirit and the Spirit is in us, like breath, like air. We cannot escape him and we cannot live without him because the Spirit is the very embodiment of God-with-us today, given to be our constant companion once Christ had left the earth. The Spirit living in us shows us that God is always there and opens our eyes and ears to see him and hear his voice, drawing us ever deeper into relationship.

Before we discover our mission call to join in God's kingdom work, before we explore what it means to be the body and bride of Christ, we must first know Him and know that we are of Him and in Him.

To finish with paraphrased words of Paul:

"May the amazing grace of Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of the Father and the intimate fellowship of the Spirit be with you all."