Discovering and Developing Missional Vision: Leadership Part 1

I hope you've been enjoying the blog posts over the last month. I've really enjoyed reading the contributions based on the theme of Establishing a Missional Culture.

Today marks the start of a new theme: Discovering and Developing Missional Vision. One of the things that gets me most excited is being able to release and support people into putting into action the vision God has given them. Seeing people live out their calling, especially those who aren't your typical pioneer or confident leader, is something I find really fulfilling.

I expect most of you who have been on a journey with Missional Communities with us for a little while will have been thinking about and concentrating on releasing your pioneer leaders, the ones who are 'early adopters' - those who are usually bursting with vision and raring to be released. Great! That's definitely the place to start.

This week however I'd like to use this blog post to explore a little how to help those for whom vision comes a bit less easily, who are less 'self-promoting', more introverted or simply lack confidence or experience. For Missional Communities to become fully established within a church it is important to be raising up leaders of all shapes and sizes - MC leadership is not just for the raving extroverts or the 'obvious' leaders you have in your church!

I'll post in 2 parts; today I'll ask a few questions of you to ponder on, thinking about some of the underlying foundations and leadership culture in your church. Tomorrow I'll give a few tips of how to help encourage more people into leading with a missional vision.

So, some questions for you to consider:

• Do you have a vision for raising up leaders?
• What is the culture of leadership in your church? Do people know that leadership isn't restricted to one 'type' of person? Do they have a biblical understanding of leadership?
• Do you have a process by which vision is taught, released and nurtured across the whole body? Are you making it simple or expecting too much?
• What examples of leadership are you holding up to the church?
• Are the testimonies you profile of God at work in every day life as well as the more 'spectacular'?
• Are your MC leaders able and equipped to encourage and release others in their MC into their own vision and calling?

Setting good foundations and a biblical view of leadership in your church is vital in enabling people to discover the vision and call God has given them.

Tomorrow I'll share my top 10 tips on releasing vision in the non-pioneers, the under-encouraged or those lacking in confidence!

Establishing a missional culture: welcome and hospitality

About a year ago a friend was talking about a verse from the Psalms that God had been speaking to them about.  The "God speaking" was a contagious condition.  I'd never noticed them before, but but now can't seem to shake these words:


"God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land."  Psalm 68:6.


It's that first phrase that keeps chasing me: God sets the lonely in families.  For me, that gets close to what establishing a missional culture is all about out.  We are working on our lives, communities and churches so that they become a place where the lonely find a place to belong in His family.


Over the summer I've been reading Ian Adams' excellent book; Cave, Refectory, Road. Adams explores the ancient rhythms and practices of Christian monastics and makes some great suggestions about how those principles might help communities and individuals today.  One of those practices, is hospitality.  From their foundations in the ancient world up until the present day,  Monasteries have always been supposed to be place where the stranger, the poor and the lonely are welcomed.

In our own way, my family and I are experiencing a little of the loneliness of the road right now, and also the beauty of welcome and hospitality.  We've recently left Sheffield to live and work in Deal, Kent.  Before I go on, please don't feel too sorry for us, the area is lovely and we're very happy here.  Even so, our lives were recently full of old friends and familiarity and suddenly feel a lot emptier as we start to build relationships all over again.  What has really helped us is the welcome we've received.  Strangers have come round to help us unpack, boxes of food and goodies waited for us when we arrived, friendly smiles and words have been given the end of church.  We are being pulled into a new family.

All of these different things are pushing me towards one realisation: hospitality and welcome are fundamental to a missional culture.  God sets the lonely in families and he wants to do it in our communities.

But good hospitality takes sacrifice.  Lonely people, new people, are often difficult and require effort.  They don't know how the community works, they may not be on board with the vision, they don't get the in jokes.  They may be lonely because they're weird or awkward.  They may be awkward because they're lonely.  They will at times be hard work.

The effort is worth it.  If you can establish a culture of welcome and of hospitality then you're already a long way to getting a missional culture.  The difficult, but new, awkward people are essential to your life and your group; find them and welcome them.

building a missional culture isn’t as easy as a,b,c………..

Here are some of the marks of a M.I.S.S.I.O.N.A.L culture – can you see them in your culture or how could they begin to shape how you and your people live?

M – missional mindset

People who understand that they are 'sent'. People who look to the Great Commission as well as the Great Commandments. People who live sacrificially. People who get out of the boat. People who take on the adventure. People who live life outside the church walls. People who recognise those ready and open to Jesus. People who embrace risk & change.

I – incarnational lifestyle

People who live a missional lifestyle rather than organise missional events. People who have mission at the core of who they are not just the centre of activities that are 'put on'. People who share life as well as a faith with people. People who 'live with and amongst' not 'minister to' people. People who look to be good news to who or where they are placed – home, neighbourhood, work, nursery, golf club, pub, school gates, coffee shop……..

S – scripturally based

People who are grounded in scripture – reading, processing, reflecting, learning, applying, acting, living. People informed and imitating the life of Jesus in the Gospels. People who can feed themselves from the Word. People who have the word of truth as an offensive weapon.

S – spirit led

People who are dependent on the Holy Spirit. People who are empowered by the Holy Spirit. People who follow and join what the Spirit is doing in people & places.

I – Intecessory Prayer

People fuelled by prayer. People with a pattern of personal prayer. People with a pattern of corporate prayer. People sent covered by committed prayer. People who change the spiritual temperature through Intercession. People who win battles in prayer. People whose hearts are broken for the lost through prayer.

O – orbit the centre

People who live life in communities and gather together with the wider family for
Celebration. People who aren't isolated from the resource centre. People who
are resourced, trained and sent from the central church. People who return to
tell war stories. People who are healed up from battle scars.

N – neighbourhood or network

People who know who (network – social, demographic, interest, ethnicity) or where (neighbourhood) they are called to be Good News. People who live out the Good news in their networks or neighbourhoods. People who connect with people. People who recognise People of Peace. People who understand and live Luke 10.

A – active participation

People who aren't consumers of a Christian product on a Sunday. People who participate in the adventure & life of their community. People who play their part. People who 'have a go'. People who step out of the boat. People who produce vision and grow maturity in others.

L – lay led

People who don't depend on Christian 'super heroes'. People who don't abdicate
responsibility to the pastor and staff. People who step up and take responsibility
for who & where they are called to lead & live.

Posted by Rich

Establishing a Missional Culture continued

In thinking about establishing a missional culture, I came up with 3 steps:

1. Know what that culture will look like


2. Make sure it's missional


3. Establish it

Seems pretty simple when I say it like that, eh? Obviously it's not quite as easy as 1-2-3 so let's look at those steps in a bit more detail.

1. Know what that culture will look like

You could describe this as starting with the end in mind - you don't need to have everything planned out in detail before you begin, but you do need to know your destination so that you can take steps in that direction.

Think about what good news would look like in the neighbourhood or network that God has given you a vision for.

Think about what values are important to you as leader(s). What do you want your community to look and feel like? Do you want to eat together? Do you want to pray regularly for friends, family and colleagues? Do you want a culture of openness and honesty?

Answering some of these questions before you begin will help you steer yourself and your community in that direction.

2. Make sure it's missional

We are people who are sent out, called to look out on our world and cry out for God's kingdom to come. We are invited to be part of God's mission and take his truth, grace and love to the places and people who need it.

The culture you establish needs to have mission as it's starting and ending point. It needs to be the lifeblood that flows through it, that guides your community and gives it momentum.

It's often when a community is new that it's hardest to be missional. A lot of time and energy goes on getting to know one another, hearing from God about what he wants to do with you, deciding when, where and how often you want to meet. These are all important aspects of building community and connecting to God.

But it's important that you don't forget to include mission and there are simple things you can do to keep it running through the life of your community. Prayer walk around your neighbourhood. Talk about your missional vision and what good news would look like. Tell each other who your people of peace are and pray for them. Give testimony about opportunities to pray for colleagues.

3. Establish it

Once you know what culture you want your community to have and you're sure it's missional, you need to make sure that you actually begin to live it!

Let's say you've decided that you want your community to have a culture of openness and honesty. Great, but it can be all too easy to avoid this at the beginning, especially if you don't know each other very well. It's so important, though, to build this in from the start as it can be very difficult to change later on. As a leader, you can choose to set an example by modelling wthe openness and honesty that you're hoping will become part of your community culture.

You may have decided that an important value of your community will be having a bring and share meal every time you meet. At the beginning it may be easier for you as the leader(s) to provide a full meal, rather than asking people to contribute to a new community. After all, hospitality is important too. But you may inadvertently set a culture where people expect that a meal will be provided for them. Instead, start as you mean to go on.

This can be done in a very low bar way - you don't need to ask a visitor to make a lasagne for 8 people! You could simply tell them that your community always has a bring and share meal and you'd love it if they could bring a drink or a packet of biscuits.

And don't forget to establish mission right from the beginning. It's often hardest to be missional when a community is new. A lot of time and energy goes on getting to know one another, hearing from God about his plan for your community and the practical things like deciding when, where and how often you want to meet. These are important aspects of building community and connecting to God.

But it's important that you don't forget to include mission and there are simple things you can do to keep it running through the life of your community. Get to know each other by talking about who your people of peace are - and then pray for them. Take time to listen to God by prayer walking around your neighbourhood. Talk again and again about the missional vision of your community. Give testimony about what God has done through you as well as in you.

So there you go - Steps 1, 2 and 3 for establishing a missional culture!

Establishing a Missional Culture Part 2

Today, here are 2 ways to establish a missional culture. They are both about learning to be part of God’s mission involving new ways of approaching the shape of our week, different from the ways our culture or our past experiences have influenced us to do life. You might want to apply it both to your own journey of learning how to do this, and to how you lead.

1 Establish Missional Rhythms

Learning to live differently takes time and spiritual disciplines allow God, over time, to change us. You may already be familiar with spiritual disciplines such as bible reading, fasting or celebration, try to think creatively about what missional spiritual disciplines you and your community could use. Perhaps you could learning to prayer walk an area, to talk to new people on the commute to work or a regular commitment to be in a public place where people gather. What could you do on a daily, weekly or seasonal basis? A group of my friends choose to spend just under an hour straight after work one day a week walking particular roads of the estate they live in. They prayed for it, talked to anyone they met who seemed friendly and often bought take away prawn crackers to share. Some weeks there were great stories of people they met or answers to prayer, but many weeks seemed un eventful. Over time they got to know people and a group now gather weekly in one of their houses for worship, food and bible reading. What missional discipline would help you invest time to allow God to teach you and use you in his mission? What might this look like this summer? Allow God space to surprise you by what he does.

2 Establish missional Accountability

Building on a missional rhythm, accountability about how your missional spiritual disciplines are going helps it to be a journey of learning about mission and not an event that you just do. When it’s difficult, scary or more likely you just feel tired or bored, sharing your journey with others helps you decide what you want to do about that. Sometimes it might be time to step it up and add another level of challenge, if you’ve been going making new friends is it time to offer to pray with them? Or time to invite people along to something? Alternatively you might be pushing yourself too hard and you need to learn to relax and just be available in a place and let God surprise you. On Saturday I managed to run 2.5k around the local park. On my own I would never have made it, but I was running alongside my sister in law. Partly just the shared nature gave me encouragement to keep going, but also as I started to flag ¾ of the way along, her simple running wisdom on my failure to breathe properly allowed me to make the finish line. Learn to let others encourage and challenge you in your pursuit of a missional lifestyle. Where do you already have accountable relationships? As part of this do you discuss what you are learning about mission? Allow others to be part of what you learn.

Todays two reflections are not quick wins to a missional culture. The culture we live in can encourage us to live quite isolated lives and without deciding otherwise we can slip into a lifestyle where we are not meeting new people. The church culture some of us have grown up in may not have taught us alternative ways of living that make mission a natural part of our way of life. Rhythms of mission and accountability are two ways God can teach us to live differently from these assumed patterns. How could you inspire those you lead to take on missional spiritual disciplines? What ways can you include missional accountability in the discipleship or leadership structures you already have?

Establishing Missional Culture

Having spent a lot of time abroad in the last year or so, I have often found myself speaking about “culture” whilst processing my new experiences and relationships. It is seemingly agreed that culture and cultural values can be defined by observing the following aspects of life in a community or society: language, thoughts, arts and sciences (which are essentially the most refined forms of human expression), spirituality, social activity and interaction. Each of these certainly represented a point of difference to me whilst living in a different country. Essentially everything is different!

All this has made me realise that, when establishing a new culture in a Missional Community, the values of what I am trying to grow must pervade and be evident in every aspect of that group of people. In starting a new community this past year, I have also seen what a challenge this can be! Our word “culture” was actually first used in Late-Middle English to describe a piece of land that had been tilled or ploughed. I think this is helpful picture to have in our minds when we find it hard or exhausting and the change is slow! It takes consistent time and effort.

The main missional values that we tried to establish in this particular MC were love and service. This involved a slow process of getting people to engage with opportunities to serve mission “projects” around them that were already happening and using it as an opportunity to learn to think about others in a more missional way in their primary mission context; in this case young adults. It was exciting to see the change in people over the course of a few months as they began to adopt a culture of loving and serving those less fortunate than themselves and asking the question of “How does this apply to the rest of my life?” I think this is the point where it became part of the culture as people looked to make mission part of their whole lives and not just an event. Over time and in small ways, it became part of the language, thoughts, expression, spirituality and activity of the group.

My observation would be that, as leaders, we also need to be so aware that what we consistently model is what sets the culture of our community, because we are the ones that define it. This has got me thinking about the following;

Which values do we want to define our culture?

Do we talk about them?

Do we model them in our lives?

Do we give others invitation/challenge to practise them as well?

I think once we have “tilled” these cultural values into our MC’s, it becomes so much easier for people to grow and become fruitful and see mission become part of our communities.

Images courtesy of xedos4 and Bill Longshaw

Written by Si Ford

Missional Communities Taster and Training Day

We will be running a Missional Communities Taster and Training Day on Saturday, 12th November 2011 in Sheffield.

The day will provide an introduction to the principles of missional communities as well as an opportunity to explore them further. There will be input from Paul Maconochie and Rich Robinson as well as interactive seminars with other leaders. Plenty of our local missional community leaders will be there too - they will have a chance to share some of their stories and be around for informal chats during coffee and lunch.

More information and booking is via our website.

Over the next few months our blog posts will cover some of the seminar topics for the taster and training day. We'll look at: Establishing a Missional Culture; Discovering and Developing Missional Vision; Training and Supporting Missional Leaders; Sustaining Missional Living; and Missional Communities and Youth, Kids and Families.

Connections

Let me introduce you to a couple of my friends, Debs and Angela*. Debs lives in Perth, Australia and Angela lives in Sheffield, UK.

Debs is someone I have known for nearly 3 years. I coach her, over skype, in planting Missional Communities (which she has done a great job of!) as part of her Church in Perth. Their vision is to welcome newcomers to Perth and there are many internationals who move to the city through various business links. They also look to be good news in their neighbourhoods, create authentic community and support each other in sharing their faith across the city. We've had a couple of stories from Connect Perth on our website before.

I met Angela about 2 years ago when I re-located from my office to be out in my local community every Wednesday. She owns the coffee shop in Hillsborough that I work from each week - having space to read my bible, pray and reflect; doing emails; having meetings and chatting & getting to know the regular customers. Over the past few years the coffee shop has hosted missional community gatherings and also a Christmas carol service!!

This week Angela told me she is emigrating – to Perth, Australia!!!

I will be able to connect a person of peace from my local community with someone on the other side of the world, who I am coaching and who has a vision to welcome newcomers - it’s a small world and God is good!!

Written by Rich Robinson
*Name changed for privacy

Uniquely Salty

"You are the salt of the earth." Matthew 5:13

I've been using a book of meditations recently* and came across one about salt. We are probably

well used to thinking about mission in terms of being salt and light to the world, but this particular meditation made me think about what being salt means more deeply.

What do you think of when you hear the phrase 'You are salt'?

I usually think of the traditional uses for salt - preserving & flavouring, and apply them to mission by looking for ways to add to or enhance what God is already doing. Or by thinking about ways I can preserve the Gospel in the mission context I'm in. If I'm really honest I usually think that being salt = being an evangelist. Apparently however, less than 5% of the world's salt production is used in flavouring and, most astoundingly, there are an estimated 14,000 uses for salt.

14,000! I don't think I could think of 14! This book listed a few other uses for salt, such as being used in solution to administer medicines, as an antiseptic, as a water softener, making soap and glass, making paper whiter, melting ice from roads, and a host of other historical and cultural uses, including being used as a symbol of honor, hospitality, friendship and purity.

All this got me thinking about how individual we are. Jesus says "You are the salt of the earth", and I don't think He was trying to make us conform into one of a very few ways of expressing that, or trying to make us feel guilty that we're not 'being salt' in the traditional ways we might think of or feel a pressure to be.

Knowing that there are so many uses for salt releases us from having to conform or be like anyone else in the ways we express our 'saltiness'. We are each free to express and live our calling uniquely, in the ways that God creates us to be. We may function in one or more of the Ephesians 4 roles of pastor, teacher, apostle, evangelist and prophet, but we are completely free to express those in a vast multitude of ways.

Salt has many distinct purposes and effects. Likewise the ways God has so uniquely created, equipped, called and em-passioned us are beyond counting. Jesus says we already ARE salt - there's no point in trying to be salt, we already are this way; the question is simply one of HOW.

"Salt does not exist for itself. Its purpose is to penetrate and affect that with which it comes in contact." *

So...

• How are you made to be salt? How are you affecting that with which you come into contact? In whatever way?

• How are the people in your Missional Community being freed to be salt in their own unique ways? Are you releasing and acknowledging all the multitude of ways in which this can happen?

• How is your Missional Community as a whole being salt to your chosen mission context? What are the unique things your community can do and be to the people around you, as distinct or complimentary to other MCs?

* "Named by God - 50 Meditations. Discovering the power of God's names for you." Mary Foxwell Loeks

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."

In opposition

Remember the main point I tried to make last time? It went like this:
If you want to experience the joy and depth of community, you’ve gotta work on unity.
One of the questions I asked specifically was
Where can I make a start pursuing unity?

Let’s start talking about some of the hindrances I’ve encountered on that pursuit and also some hopefully useful suggestions for overcoming them.

When hitting against things like jealousy or prejudice the question I’ve asked myself was: how can I tackle this “in the opposite spirit”…Now, is that another one of those nice little Christian phrases? Maybe, but so much more than that, as I've come to believe. I think it’s at the heart of the message of the cross as Jesus has lived it out for us to learn from. And that it’s to do with living the life of the Spirit rather than giving in to our foolish appetites. I also think that it’s a really good way of learning to become mature children of God, who, whether we like it or not, does discipline us for that purpose.

And all time favourite apostle Paul sums it up nicely when trying to persuade us to “live in accordance with the Spirit” and have our “minds set on what the Spirit desires as the mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace”, This is in Romans 8, verses 5 and 6.

Let me illustrate what it might look like practically – bearing in mind the context we’re focusing on is to do with building unity into our relationships.

Hindrance No 1: being deceived by jealousy
Have you ever found it hard when someone you’re beginning to form meaningful relationship with is seeing success in an area you’ve so far only experienced failure in? Maybe thought they don’t really deserve it? Or contemplated backing off the relationship because it’s just too painful?

A massive killer, isn’t it, to living in unity with them, cause what’s happening is that you’re bound to interpret at least part of your relationship through that lens of feeling jealous. Worse even, you might look at them through it, too. Essentially, what you’ve got is a crack in your relationship, even though you may not be in outright conflict with them.

Well, here’s for some opposite spirit remedy if this is something you’ve ever felt your soul has suffered from:
No 1: Remember, remember, remember and speak out thanks for
all the good things God has invested in you, like your family, your job, your creativity, your athletic ability, your health, your language skills, whatever it may be.
No 2: Invest what’s been invested in you, go out there, be a giver. I promise it’s a soul saver that, as it’s living out of the faith that comes from recognizing God’s blessing and turning that into action. Plus, there’s always the bonus of a double whopper promise made by God (look up Luke 19 or Matthew 25 for the rather fascinating context); that “whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance”.

Apart from that, my strong assumption is this; you’ll start being able to not have to focus on that which your brother or sister (cause that’s what they are!) has or does, but on how you can bless them with what God’s given you.

If jealousy is something you have long tackled in your life, be looking forward to the strategies for hindrances no 2 and 3 ☺

Rest

We all know we sometimes need to stop.  We know that we're created to work from rest, rather than rest from work.  Its good to remember that rest is for communities as well as individuals.

The time we spend as community,  doing nothing particularly purposeful,  is very important.  The BBQs, trips, parties and movie nights,  are often the times when really significant conversations happen.  Sometimes these are the events people bring their friends to.  Other times they just get to know each other more deeply.  Such times may not help your group achieve your vision,  but your community will certainly be better and closer for it.

When I look back at our missional community of 4 1/2 years,  it's often the rest time that I remember most fondly,  like the times it'd be getting close to 10pm and we still hadn't got properly started because everyone was chatting.  Or the picnics at a local stately home we took in the summer.  Or the long conversations as relationships were formed over amazing puddings.  Our community was better because we rested and had fun together.


I know this is simple,  but we often miss the obvious things.  My advice would be to make sure there's some rest or fun time in every thing you do as a community (don't meet unless you eat used to be one of our community's mottoes) and then every now and again make sure you devote a good chunk of time to doing nothing in particular,  together.

How do you make time to rest as a community?

The picture is by downthewaterfall on flickr

Stories

King's Church, Warrington and Kairos, Harrogate are two of the churches connecting with us.



Fresh Expressions has written an article on the Kairos story - read it here.

Taster Day events this week

This week there are two Taster Day events at St. Thomas' Church, Philadelphia. On Wednesday one for churches interested in joining a Learning Community and on Thursday one for people interested in Missional Communities.

There will be people from all over the UK and even Germany coming to Sheffield and we're excited to see what God does. We'll post some stories here from the churches that are connecting with us.

Be Thou My Vision

We live within a Christian culture where vision is very important. For passionate followers of Jesus having vision has become paramount to life. I encounter so many people who are frustrated and disillusioned with life because they’re lacking this thing called ‘vision’. And I’ve been there myself, wishing that God would show me something, anything (!) to give me purpose and security for what my life is about.

But how often does this notion of ‘vision’ become debilitating rather than defining? Do we allow vision, or lack of it, to dictate whether we have purpose, meaning, validation? What is our frustration and what is the fear that instigates this desperation for the big V-word?

In the Bible the word ‘vision’ is used to describe ‘visions’ that come to people through dreams, what we might call a vivid experience or prophetic image. These visions were clear messages from God – He spoke His direct word to unveil His love for nations, direction and discipline, prophecies for the future. And all these things are available to us today, as we have access to the covenant relationship, which includes hearing His voice. Yet the idea of ‘vision’ in the context of knowing our calling is not so clear. The visions experienced by some of the Old Testament characters and Prophets, as well as Paul in the New Testament, enabled them to confidently pursue what God had put before them. But Jesus never once mentions the word vision in the Gospels. Could it be that the man with the greatest calling the world has ever known didn’t seem to have ‘vision’ so high up on his agenda?

We are called and we are given vision, just not always in the way that we expect it. The Great Commission so clearly set out the notion that we are called to something which gives us a goal, a purpose, an earth-effected eternal destiny. So how do we define what our big V is all about?

Whilst Jesus doesn’t talk about vision or calling in the way we do, He does offer an invitation, by literally ‘calling’ the disciples to Him. The call on their lives is to come and be discipled by Him, to journey with Him, learn from Him, be friends with Him. And He offers us a vision: the vision of Himself and the vision of His future glory. It’s a life-giving vision in that, as we look on Him, we ourselves are transformed into His likeness. The things He has created and embedded within us, become fully alive in His Kingdom.

It’s easy to feel like somehow ‘Jesus’ is just not enough. We want to know what our personal calling is, our purpose, how we are going to change the world. But how often is the need for vision about our security in what we’re doing and our fear of sharing our true dreams with those around us?

Relationship with Jesus is the most exciting calling that’s ever been offered to the world. Living out our calling is about responding to His call, to relationship with Him. The vision is having a vision of Him and through that knowing Him and ourselves more. One of the verses I’ve been meditating on recently is from Psalm 37: ‘Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.’ We must first delight in Him, have a vision of Him and know Him more intimately and He will then show us our true desires that He has placed within us and that He partners with us in bringing about.

So when we question whether we’ve got vision, our starting place is looking at Him. Do I have a clear vision of Jesus; do I pursue the call to having greater relationship with Him; is His purpose the call I am truly pursuing?

As Paul put so well to the Ephesians:

“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you…” (Ephesians 1 NIV)

The engagement between Prince William and Kate Middleton has hit the headlines recently, and

I’ve been wondering what it will feel like for Kate to become part of the royal family, with all their joys and imperfections...which in turn raises an interesting question:

Are we living in the reality of the fact that we have already been made a part of something far greater than anything Kate will experience?!

1 Peter 2:9 says “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God...”

These four wonderful descriptions of our identity as the people of God each warrant an article/sermon in their own right, never mind Paul’s description of us as the (royal) bride of Christ. But I’d like to share a few thoughts on what it means to be part of THE ROYAL FAMILY OF GOD as this is something the Lord has been specifically speaking to me about recently. (For more on this topic I recommend reading “The Supernatural Ways of Royalty” by Kris Vallotton & Bill Johnson).

I’d really not fully appreciated how important the royal part of my identity in Jesus is until recently. I’d also not appreciated just how important growing up in Pharaoh’s palace was for Moses, or how significant the royal training Daniel received was, or the preparation Esther underwent in the royal courts. All these people influenced nations and changed the course of history because they came to understand this was their God-given destiny. They learned the ways and the expectations of royalty. Let’s take Moses as an example – how significant was the fact that Moses was brought up as the King’s son rather than a Hebrew slave?

When Moses was in Pharaoh’s household he did not relate to others with a slave mentality – he knew he had the rights and influence of a royal prince and would have expected people to respond to him accordingly. He also had the compassion (a quality found in all Godly leaders) for his Hebrew brothers, but hadn’t learned how to channel his anger over injustice in an appropriate, God –honouring way. Although the lessons in humility and Godly character Moses learned in his wilderness years were hugely important, the fact that Moses did not have a slave mentality himself but knew where he had come from (and to Whom he truly belonged) were just as important in enabling him to fulfil his destiny of setting a nation free - a person who is in slavery internally cannot free those who are in slavery externally.

It’s interesting to ponder – if you actually were Prince William (or Kate Middleton), and had grown up being constantly told you were destined, yes for a life of service to your king and country but also for a life of great influence – how would this affect the way you thought and lived?

The fact is, whatever our previous experience may be, and however insignificant we may have felt in the past, Jesus has made us a part of His royal family and has called us to greatness! As Princes and Princesses we have the authority of the King of all Kings! And ours is no dysfunctional royal family with its relational distance, politics and protocols – we are invited to share with The King the same intimacy of relationship that a bride shares with her husband – INCREDIBLE! We can live in the permanent presence, grace and favour of our King.

As we think about our identity in Jesus this term, my prayer is that any shreds of a slave’s mentality in our minds would be broken, and that we would be able to see afresh the royal robes in which we are clothed! Those robes are not just a reminder that we are loved, accepted & adopted, and that righteousness and not sin is now our master, they also signify our royal authority to rule and extend the reign & the Kingdom of The King.

It would be an honour to find myself in Kate Middleton’s position. But it can’t possibly compare to the honour I already feel as Princess in The King’s Palace!

Lindsay Lonchar

Rhythms of Prayer in the Workplace

Jeremiah Lanphier (Taken from revival-library.org)

In 1857 a Dutch missionary called Jeremiah Lanphier was employed by Fulton Street Church to minister to the unchurched in the city of New York, USA.  After spending a time going from door to door of people's homes delivering tracts and inviting people to church meetings, and running boys clubs and Sunday School classes, he felt discouraged as he felt that for many nothing seemed to be changing.

Jeremiah looked around him and watched the people who worked in the city as they went about their work, and he became distressed by their weariness and sense of indifference to life.  He conceived the idea of starting a lunchtime prayer meeting for businessmen, to provide some mid-day spiriturual refreshment.  He put together a simple invitation which he left in shops, hotels and factories as well as to the homes he had visited, where he invited anyone who wanted to come together to pray for 5 minutes or upto an hour, whatever people could manage:

"A day of Prayer-Meeting is held every Wednesday from 12 to 1 o'clock in the Consistory building in the rear of the North Dutch Church, corner of Fulton and William Streets. This meeting is intended to give merchants, mechanics, clerks, strangers and businessmen generally an opportunity to stop and call on God amid the perplexities incident to their respective avocations. It will continue for one hour; but it is also designed for those who find it inconvenient to remain more than 5 or 10 minutes, as well as for those who can spare a whole hour. Necessary interruption will be slight, because anticipated. Those in haste often expediate their business engagements by halting to lift their voices to the throne of grace in humble, grateful prayer. Mr. Lanphier set the very first meeting for noon September 23rd 1857 in the lecture room on the third floor of the Consistory Building of the North Reformed Protestant Dutch Church."

On the first Wednesday 6 men had joined Jeremiah.  Week 2 became twenty, and by Week 3 it had become forty, and the meeting moved to daily.  The structure of the gathering was led like a business meeting, it was simple and was easily reproduced when the prayer meetings spread to multiple locations across the city:

1. The meeting started promptly
2. Scripture was read out loud
3. There was some sung worship
4. The meeting was then opened up and everyone present were invited to say prayers of thanksgiving or intercession. (Anyone who attempted to start giving a talk or a long prayer (more than 5 minutes!), or debate theological issues etc was simply interrupted and reminded it was just a prayer meeting
5. The meeting lasted maximum one hour long.

The meetings and fervency in prayer grew, the Holy Spirit moved powerfully amongst the meetings, people from all classes and denominations began to gather together, and people started giving their lives to the Lord.  Soon other churches were hosting meetings and gatherings across the city in department stores, police departments, music halls and theatres.  Within 6 months the prayer meetings were having such an impact that businesses began shutting down over an extended lunch.  It has been estimated that at it's height there were 50,000 conversions a week throughout the city.  Even the secular press recognised this extra-ordinary move of the Holy Spirit, and has become known as the beginning of the Third Great Awakening in the history of USA revivals.  Within 2 years, the churches involved had seen an extra 1 million new believers.  You can read more about it here

Whilst of course revivals are unique moves of the Holy Spirit, there are some distinctive features about this move of the Holy Spirit which I wonder could be insightful for missional communities seeking to see God move amongst our workplaces.

Firstly, it started with one guy looking around him and asking himself: how can I connect all these people with the reality of God's presence, without requiring them to come to one of our church meetings?  He then set about establishing a rhythm of gathered prayer and the communal reading of scripture at a time and a place for which the people it was designed to be available to could easily take some time out of their busy to day to come along.

• What would a lunchtime gathering centred around prayer look like in your workplace, town or city centre?
• Where and when could you meet and how could people know they were invited?
• How could you keep the structure simple, the space open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and the centrality of God's Word being read speaking into peoples lives?

Working abundantly

Last week at a team planning day we spent the first part of the morning reflecting on Psalm 23 together. We were asked to pick out a phrase from the Psalm that stood out to us, and as it was read I was drawn to a short phrase from verse 5, "...my cup overflows", and God began to speak to me.

Recently I've been getting frustrated by the amount of time I have to do everything I want to in. I'm a mum mostly at home with the kids all week but I also work 1 day a week (plus extra volunteer time) for the church. I love the work I do and there are many exciting things I could get involved with and would dearly love to make happen but I feel like my constant limitation is TIME (sound familiar?) I get frustrated that I can't put more time into the work I do with young adults and missional communities. I'm a pioneer and can see possibilities and potential laid out in front of me which I get excited about, then find I just can't commit to being part of making them come into being because I don't have the time! And at home too, I'm always imagining what I could enjoy doing with more time - I would bake more, sew more, clean more(!), play the piano more. So it goes on.

Now I don't think I'm just being hard on myself, or feel inadequate compared to those around me - I know I work hard and that I'm not superwoman! I just see the amount I am able to do in these different spheres as less than I would like to be able to do. I would love to have the capacity to mentor more people, to see community leaders more often, to have more time thinking, reading and praying - to be able to 'achieve' more in any given week. I feel like I make very slow progress sometimes!

When I was reflecting on this phrase from Psalm 23 God started to change my perspective. He says "my cup overflows". This also reminded me of 2 Corinthians 9:8 which says "God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." I will abound in every good work.

He doesn't see what I do the way I see it! He doesn't feel frustrated and wish I would achieve more. He says I abound in every good work. Which means that whilst I look at what I do and see the lack, he looks at me and sees the abundance. Where I see frustration and limits, He sees an overflowing cup. That is an altogether different perspective!

So I am going to try and think differently about the things I put my hands to in the time I have to do them. God sees what I do and sees an abundance and I need to learn to be more content with achieving what I do instead of wishing I could get involved more, do more, see more, get more done.

What about you? Do you feel frustrated, or guilty, or pressured by self or others to achieve more? Do you feel inadequate? Maybe it's time to stop being hard on yourself and get God's perspective on the things you do - He sees what you do, He is well pleased and His word is that He makes you abound in every good work.

A reason not to give up

Like a few in this missional movement,  I'm part of The Order of Mission.  TOM is a covenant community  of people committed to living as missionaries and disciples for Jesus.  We are a global family with members all over the world.  Helen and I are permanent members,  which means we've made some scary life-long promises.  If you want to find out more about The Order then leave a comment here or check out the website.

Anyway, this Advent TOM members are reading a chapter of Luke a day,  it conveniently has 24 chapters so fits well.  This has been really good as a way of contextualising the usual Advent/Christmas story within the wider life of Jesus and his disciples.   Each day a member posts a reflection on the chapter for that day.  I got day 13 and was asked to reproduce my post here. Before you read any further you might want to stop and look Luke 13.

My original TOM post follows.

I'll be honest. If I were one of the disciples, following round after Jesus, then Luke 13 may well have been the place I gave up and headed back to the fishing nets or tax desk.

The doom and gloom just seem relentless. First he's asked to comment on recent local disasters. His response? Something worse could happen to you.

Then there's the matter of the authorities. Why won't he just lay off them for a bit? They've obviously got it in for him, and he's really not helping. First the Pharisees, then Herod, who else is he going to take a pop at?

And to make it all worse, even those who do follow him in the street and listen to his teaching may not make it through the narrow door. The first will be last, and those who thought they'd made it may be in for a nasty surprise.

Come on Jesus, enough gnashing of teeth, can't you tell us something nice? Something encouraging? Yes, if I were one of the disciples, I may well be packing my bags right now. Except for two little things he says.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed. It's small, looks pretty insignificant, but when it's planted it grows. The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast. It's tiny, but only a very little works through the whole dough. It reproduces.

I think (I hope) that would have kept me. I hope I would have wanted to be part of this thing: The Kingdom. The place where the tiny and the insignificant grow. The place where the last are first. I hope that would have encouraged me to stay, to go with him even through the hardness.

When life is hard for you, when the One you are following just doesn't seem to give up or he becomes almost too challenging, may you know that you are part of a Kingdom where the small things grow and the hard things become beautiful. May you remember that the last people you'd expect, the weak and the struggling, get to go first.

(The photo is by cardoso on flickr.  It is a reference to the very funny film Dogma which I'd recommend only if you don't mind being offended.)

Laugh-out-loud perspective

I had a moment on my own the other day and found myself laughing out loud. I was reflecting on a situation I was finding difficult which basically centred around 2 things: i) how important or not I might be perceived by others ii) how difficult it can be to let others reap some of the seeds I have planted in people's lives.

And then I had a little glimpse of meeting Jesus face-to-face in heaven. And all of a sudden I realised how wrong my perspective was. It caused me to laugh-out-loud at how ridiculous and self-centred my thoughts had become!

How important (or not) I am, how much I appear to be advancing God's kingdom, whether I'm the one who reaps or sows... it's not what Jesus is looking at. There are two things that Jesus tells us to be concerned about. In Mark's gospel when one of the religious teachers asks Jesus which is the most important commandment Jesus replies "The most important commandment is this: 'Listen, O Israel!" The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength' The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these." (Mark 12: 29-31)

Paul says in 1 Corinthians "We are only God's servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It's not important who does the planting or who does the watering. What's important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together for the same purpose." (1 Corinthians 3:5-8)

I wonder how much time, effort and emotions we waste by having the wrong perspective? How much of our time is spent worrying, striving, engineering, self-promoting...? We are simply God's servants. He's the one who makes the seed grow. We just need to focus on doing the work the Lord gives us (v5), and doing it with a heart of love for Him and for our neighbour.

We need to keep an eternal perspective and remember who Jesus calls us to be and how he calls us to live. I wonder how different our lives and our communities would look if we really lived this out.

Written by Anna R