Brad Watson 7/19/15 Brad Watson 7/19/15

The Gospel Isn’t a Cul-de-Sac

The cul-de-sac was a phenomenal invention for the suburbs. It created a safe and peaceful place for families to raise children. No one passed through. In fact, the only time strangers can appear is after a wrong turn and they find themselves at the dead end. The design made it simple for those who don’t belong to quickly turn around.

It also kept everyone who belonged there in one place. Once you came in, you didn’t have to leave. You could remain the rest of your days with likeminded folks, playing games in your asphalt sanctuary.

The cul-de-sac is the epitome of the suburban life and values. However, the gospel is not a cul-de-sac. It isn’t a safe sanctuary that separates you from the dangers of the world—it throws you into the world. It isn’t your private enclave to secure your values and doctrines. It ushers you into a hospitality for the other—the not like you. The gospel is doctrinal, changing what we believe. It also is personal, changing who we are. But it is more than that.

**The gospel is missional: it changes where & how we live.^{^[1]}**

If we just focus on the doctrinal and personal aspect of the gospel, we will neglect its missional aspect. If the doctrinal gospel changes what we believe, and the personal gospel changes who we are, then the missional gospel changes where we live and what we say. It is the hopeful announcement that God is making all things new in Christ Jesus! The gospel ushers us into a new kingdom and new world. We no longer live in a world dominated by death and deconstruction but one of life and re-creation!

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” —Luke 4:18-19, Isaiah 61

The Gospel Changes Everything

The gospel changes everything. It is not only good news for us, but also for our neighbors, the poor, our city, and the world. It affects the social, cultural, and physical fabric of the universe. In Luke 4, Jesus preached the gospel to the poor, marginalized, and oppressed. It is good news for them because through his death and resurrection he has defeated sin, death, and evil (1 Jn. 2:13; 3:8). The gospel announces the in-breaking reign of Jesus, which is in the process of reversing the order of things. The poor become rich, the captives are freed, and the old become new.

The Gospel Sends Us On Mission

Those who follow Jesus join his mission by making disciples of all ethnic groups by going, teaching, and baptizing (Matt. 28:18-20). We are sent to teach, speak, counsel, discuss, and proclaim the gospel to others so that they might be baptized into God’s new creation and join his mission of making all things new. We are called “ambassadors of reconciliation” and given the privilege of sharing in Jesus’ ministry of reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:17-20). Those who have been changed by the gospel share its life-changing power with others. We should announce and embody the good news by caring for the poor and rebuilding cities (Is. 61:4). In fact, the future for the people of God is an entirely new city in a new creation (Rev. 21). The church should be a movie trailer of this grand, coming attraction, when all things will be made new!

Remember, This is Who You Are

The result of the church—you, us—being sent is that we live as a community of disciples—not only devoted to Jesus and to one another—but devoted to our neighbors and our city, too. When we come to Christ, we are all sent on his mission.

We are new and have a new purpose. Christ reconciled us to himself and we are a new creation. Our old way of finding identity and our broken ways of finding meaning are over. We are reconciled and ushered into a vibrant and living relationship with God. This is the gospel, that Christ has reconciled us to God through his death and resurrection and is making all things new—even us. We are recipients of the gospel, messengers of the gospel, servants of the gospel, and are representatives of the gospel’s work. See, you cannot separate our identity in Christ from our purpose in Christ. That identity and purpose requires some sort of expression of gospel focused community on mission:

We live on mission because we have received the gospel.
We live on mission because we are messengers of the gospel. He is making his appeal to the world through us.
We live on mission because we are ministers of reconciliation—servants of the gospel.
We live on mission because we are ambassadors—representatives of the gospel.

We Participate in God’s Mission by Making Disciples

In Matthew 28:18-20, we get to overhear Jesus’ parting words to his disciples, who were the beginning of the first missional community:

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’’’ —Matthew 28:18-20

Jesus gives his disciples the life-long purpose of making disciples of Jesus. It isn’t a side job or a hobby, but an all encompassing orientation for life. As a disciple, you are called to make disciples of Jesus. The key here, is “as a disciple of Jesus”. Meaning, you are daily answering Jesus’ call to repentance and faith in Mark 1:15:

“Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

As a disciple you repent and believe. You trust Jesus’ incarnation, his kingdom, his purposes. As a disciple, you exchange your agenda for his. You let go of your imaginary kingdom for his tangible reign. NT Wright describes repentance this way in, The Challenge of Jesus, “[Jesus] was telling his hearers to give up their agendas and to trust him for his way of being Israel, his way of bringing the kingdom, his kingdom-agenda.”

You not only welcome Jesus’ presence, but cling to this promise: desperate for his ways, not yours. This is the transformative journey of the gospel. This is also the way toward mission.Meaning, as you learn to follow Jesus, you invite others to join you by making the gospel clear and tangible. As God transforms you in and through the power of the Spirit, you humbly, but clearly challenge others to repent and believe. You are, as Eugene Peterson writes, “God’s billboard.”

We Participate in God’s Mission by Loving the Poor

God’s mission is also to the oppressed, captive, orphan, and neglected. From the onset of God’s mission through his people beginning with Abraham and moving through Moses, David, and the prophets of the Old Testament, God called them to care for those tossed aside. They were to care for the orphan and the oppressed, the sojourner and the alien traveling through their lands. It was not simply traditional middle eastern hospitality. It was a command of God for his people to care for those in need: to usher into our broken earth, the grace and love that inhabits heaven.

This clearly, doesn’t stop with Jesus. Jesus forgave sins and healed sickness. He welcomed those sent to the margins of society to eat with him. He cared for those burdened, ignored, and abused. Jesus proclaimed the gospel and the kingdom of God coming to us. Jesus came for the poor and powerless—the oppressed.

Therefore, Jesus’ church is sent on the mission of declaring the gospel and demonstrating the gospel. In other words, as the church spreads and grows by making disciples, it also cares for the poor. A clear mark of a church as early as Pentecost, has been meeting the needs of the marginalized. From the Old Testament through the early Church, God has sent his people on the mission of doing justice and inviting the world to experience the God of grace and mercy.

^{^[1]} Language and concepts can be found in the book I co-authored with Jonathan Dodson, Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities

—

Brad Watson (@bradawatson) serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities where he develops and teaches leaders how to form communities that love God and serve the city. Brad is the author of Raised? and Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities. He lives in southeast Portland with his wife and their two daughters. You can read more from Brad at www.bradawatson.com

Jonathan Dodson 6/28/15 Jonathan Dodson 6/28/15

Evangelism in a Culture of Religious Nones

Islam isn’t the greatest threat to Christianity in America, and neither is secularism, but the rise in religious nones does tell us something important. According to the recent Pew study, religious “nones” now account for 22.8% of the country, essentially tripling in the past 15 years. Should we be alarmed? How should the rise of the “nones” impact our evangelism? First, a little clarity is in order. The survey notes that 15.8 % affiliate with “nothing in particular,” and 4% are agnostic, which leaves only 3.1% as committed atheists. This means there are a whole lot of people—upwards of 50 million—that are still trying to make up their minds about what they believe.

In fact, many of them are spiritually minded. Two-thirds of them say they believe in God (68%). More than half say they often feel a deep connection with nature and the earth (58%), and more than a third classify themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious” (37%).[1] As you can see, its probable that there are some competing spiritual beliefs among the nones, which reveals significant theological confusion but reflects a spiritual openness, despite the fact that they affiliate with nothing in particular.

Secular evangelist David Niose, author of Unbeliever Nation, has been on an active campaign to call the nones out of the closet. He’s asking them to identify with the secularist movement. This movement is churning out fresh literature to engage the public by making a case for secular living. Sociologist Phil Zuckerman’s Living the Secular Life tries to make a case for principled secular, ethical living with some semblance of community. The trouble however, is that secular-minded people tend to be quite independent and individualistic in their thinking, making it difficult to create communities of secularists. How should evangelicals respond?

While the gospel mustn’t change, how we share the gospel is overdue for change. The rise in nones does reflect a rise in unbelief in the gospel. Why?

One reason is that some people simply find our evangelism unbelievable.

While a person’s response to Christ is ultimately a matter that rests in God’s sovereign hands—something we have no control over—a person’s hearing of the gospel is a matter we do have control over and responsibility for. St. Paul tells us:

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. – Col. 4:4-5

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17

Evangelicals have long touted the importance of evangelism, but this often devolves into more mechanical and impersonal presentations. Many of the spiritually-mined nones want nothing to do with that. They see churches as too concerned with power, rules, and politics. Evangelism that acts coercively and not compassionately doesn’t ring true with them.

This means that we should take Paul’s words to heart by doing evangelism “in grace for each person.”

Evangelism isn’t just our responsibility; it’s an expression of personal compassion. When Jesus looked out on those who were harassed and helpless in his culture, he did not conclude they were all damnable and to be avoided. Instead, he felt compassion for them. Compassion motivated his evangelism. Does it motivate yours? If not, you won’t do it “in person.” Unfortunately, a lot of evangelism is an out of body experience, as if there aren’t two persons in a conversation. It’s excarnate, out of the flesh, not incarnate—in the flesh.

I’m reminded of the more passive Christian who looks to get Jesus off his chest at work and into a conversation. “Check!” Or the time in college when I pretended to share the gospel with a friend in Barnes & Noble so others would overhear it! Alternatively, an active evangelist might troll blogs and start conversations to defeat arguments, while losing people in the process. “Aha!” The comment section on a blog is the new street corner.

These approaches are foolish because they treat people like projects to be completed, not persons to be loved. Secularists can smell a bait and switch a mile away.

Paul says we should “know how you ought to answer each person.” This means that most of your gospel explanations will be different, not canned. It also implies a listening evangelism. How can we know how to respond to each person, if we don’t know each person?

When Francis Schaeffer was asked how he would an hour with a non-Christian, he said: “I would listen for fifty-five minutes, and then, in the last five minutes I would have something to say.”

That’s doing evangelism in grace for each person.

If we are to recover personal, believable evangelism, we will need wisdom.

Paul isn’t just telling us to be relational; he’s telling to tell the good news with wisdom. Wisdom possesses more than knowledge of the gospel; it expresses that knowledge with understanding. It considers a person’s life circumstances and applies the knowledge of grace with skill. Another word for this is love.

A few months ago I was having lunch with an educated professional who had a lot of questions. After about thirty minutes he said, “Enough about me. You’re asking me questions. I should ask you questions.” I responded by saying, “I want to hear your questions, but I also want to know you so that I can respond to your questions with wisdom.” He told me some very personal things after that, and it shed a lot of light on his objections to Christianity. It made my comments much more informed, and he felt much more loved, declaring at the end, “I wish every lunch was like this. Let’s keep doing this. I have a lot more questions.” Months later, he’s following Jesus and gobbling up the gospel.

Rehearsing a memorized fact, “Jesus died on the cross for your sins”, isn’t walking in wisdom. Many people don’t know what we mean when we say “Jesus” “sin” or “cross.” While much of America still has cultural memory of these things, they are often misunderstood and confused with “moral teacher” “be good” and “irrelevant suffering.” We have to slow down long enough to explore what they mean, and why they have trouble with these words and concepts. Often they are tied to some kind of pain.

We need to explain these important truths (and more), not simply assert them. When we discerningly separate cultural misunderstanding from a true understanding of the gospel, we move forward in wisdom. But getting to that point typically doesn’t happen overnight.

We need to see evangelism as a long-term endeavor. Stop checking the list and defeating people. Be incarnate not excarnate in your evangelism. Slow down and practice listening and love. Most conversions are not the result of a single, point-in-time conversation, but the culmination of a personal process that includes doubt, reflection, gospel witness, love, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

And remember, don’t put pressure on yourself; conversion is in God’s hands. We just get to share the incomparable news of Jesus.

In sum, the rise of the religious nones is telling us how we communicate the gospel matters.

[1] http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/

—

Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Unbelievable Gospel, and Raised? He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson

Jonathan’s new book is The Unbelievable Gospel: Say Something Worth Believing (resource website here). You can also get his free ebook “Four Reasons Not to Share Your Faith.”

Whitney Woollard 5/24/15 Whitney Woollard 5/24/15

Remembering Pentecost For Mission Today

Few things incite heated debate among evangelicals quicker than the mention of Pentecost. A mere reference to Acts 2 invites detailed discussions on the nature of glossolalia that disrupts even the best unity. In a church culture undeniably divided over the details of Pentecost, it’s important to remember the ultimate redemptive-historical significance of Pentecost and the implications it has for the mission of the church.

The Significance of Pentecost For Redemptive History

Pentecost marked the beginning of the end. It was the final event in the saving career of Jesus Christ and the fulfillment of the long-awaited promise of the outpouring of God’s Spirit that initiated the last days (Joel 2:28-32; Ezek. 36:22-32). Jesus lived a perfect Spirit-filled life, died in the place of sinners as a substitutionary sacrifice, was raised from the dead on the third day, and was exalted to the right hand of the Father after forty days. He received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father and ten days later, on the day of Pentecost, poured out the Spirit upon all those who were gathered together (Acts 2:1-4).

Salvation history would never be the same.

The outpouring of the Spirit completed the inauguration of a new era in God’s redemptive program—the messianic age or the age of the Spirit—that begun in the first coming of Christ. This epoch stretches from Pentecost until the Lord’s second coming and is characterized by the radical evangelization of the nations. During these last days, all who repent of sin and believe in the Lord Jesus become participants in the blessings of this new age.

When it comes to Pentecost, I’d urge you not to miss the forest for the trees. What you believe about the glossolalia or the work of the Holy Spirit prior to Pentecost is a secondary matter. The defining feature of Acts 2 is the outpouring of God’s Spirit in fulfillment of the new covenant promises. Oh, how God’s people had longed for this day! One flawed generation after another testified to the fact that fallen humans could never keep God’s law; they could never carry out his mission. They needed more than the law; they needed a new heart that desired to keep the law. They needed more than a mission; they needed a new Spirit to empower them for God’s mission.

Acts 2 clearly conveys that that day had arrived; the long-promised outpouring of the Spirit had finally come as a result of Jesus’ work. A new age had dawned and now people from every nation under heaven could experience the indwelling presence of the Spirit and receive a new heart leading to new life. These people—saved by grace and marked by the Spirit—were then tasked with and empowered for the greatest mission ever conceived.

The Implications of Pentecost For Life On Mission

Christian discipleship would be unthinkable, even impossible, were it not for the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Before he ascended Jesus told his disciples,

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” – Acts 1:8

Remember the disciples spent three years doing ministry with Jesus before his crucifixion, forty days listening to him speak about the kingdom of God after his resurrection, ten days devoting themselves to prayer after the ascension and yet—and yet!—it was only after Pentecost that they began to boldly proclaim the Word of God in power and call all people to repentance without wavering. The differences in the disciples’ lives and their ability to carry out Jesus’ mission pre-Pentecost and post-Pentecost are striking. This is because the outpouring of the Spirit transforms the people of God. Look at what happens in Acts 2:

Believers become an empowered people (2:14-40).
Believers become a missionary people (Acts 2:41; 47).
Believers become a unified people (Acts 2:42-47).

As present-day disciples of Jesus we need to realize, we are no different from those first disciples. We too would be powerless to carry out Jesus’ mission apart from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Great Commission would feel like a mission destined to fail from the beginning were it not for the empowering presence of God’s Spirit. Praise God he did send his promised Spirit! Because of Pentecost we are now the empowered, missional, and unified people of God. We are commissioned by Christ to make disciples of all nations and equipped by the Spirit to live out that call.

Today, as you seek to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and make disciples of those whom God has entrusted to your care, don’t live as if Pentecost isn’t a reality. Many of you are excessively burdened by Jesus’ call to make disciples because you are trying to do it in your own strength. You are trying to give life without acknowledging the Life-Giver; you are trying to impart understanding without relying on the Spirit of Truth; you are trying to witness to the world without drawing from the Source of Power. You look all too much like the disbelieving, scattered disciples during Christ’s passion rather than the empowered people of God sent on mission.

Many of you need to repent of your self-reliance and man-centered methods of discipleship. Human programs are a poor substitute for the power of the Spirit of God. Turn from those ways and learn to listen to the leading of the Spirit through God’s Word and prayer. Daily ask Christ to fill you afresh with his Spirit so that you might be empowered to live life on mission. As you remember Pentecost, acknowledge the redemptive-historical significance of it for disciple-making and celebrate the fact that you have been equipped with power from on high to be Christ’s witnesses to the ends of the earth.

—

Whitney Woollard has served in ministry alongside her husband Neal for over six years. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and just finished her Master of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. She is passionate about equipping disciples to read and study God’s Word well resulting in maturing affections for Jesus and his gospel message. Neal and Whitney currently live in Portland, OR where they love serving the local church. Follow her on Twitter @whitneywoollard.

Jonathan Dodson 2/17/15 Jonathan Dodson 2/17/15

Should We Kiss Evangelism Goodbye?

In the Huffington Post, writer Cindy Brandt recently declared she “kissed evangelism goodbye.”¹Many have joined her in the break up. According to one survey, two out of every three active Christians today have all but abandoned evangelism. In slight contrast, another study noted marginal rises in evangelism but concluded, “we need a lot more evangelizing going on . . . ”² Regardless of how the statistics shake out, many people find evangelism hard.

Good Reasons Not to Witness

The typical evangelical response to an ebb in evangelism is to beat the evangelistic drum louder. Leaders preach the Great Commission more, tell us to value comfort less, and ask us to consider the cost by “considering people’s eternal destiny.” But appeals to guilt, sacrifice, and an “eternal perspective,” even if biblical, often fall on deaf ears. These responses are superficial. They don’t explore the intricacies of intellectual objections or the depths of human motivation to consider why people are disillusioned or unmotivated to share their faith.

The fact is people often have really good reasons for not evangelizing. Some of those reasons include the evangelists. The popular impression of evangelism isn’t positive—impersonal and uncaring, preachy and self-righteous, bigoted and hateful. None of those impressions would stick with Jesus. If we are going to experience a renaissance of evangelism, we must stop beating the drums long enough to hear evangelistic concerns. Some of the concerns include treating people less like projects and more like persons, distinguishing evangelism from proselytizing, and valuing others’ perspectives instead of rejecting them out of hand. These concerns, if heeded, can lead to greater compassion and evangelistic wisdom for gospel communication.

Defeating Defeaters

However, evangelistic concerns can quickly turn into evangelistic defeaters. Good concerns to not come across as impersonal, preachy, intolerant, or shallow can defeat us from sharing good news. As a result, people don’t get to hear about the victorious work of Christ to defeat sin, death, and evil to make all things new. They miss the opportunity to understand the difference between religion, relativism, and the gospel. In the moment of evangelistic opportunity, these defeaters keep us from discussing the fantastic news about Jesus. How do we defeat the defeaters in order to communicate the person-liberating, sin-forgiving, life-renewing, love-imparting, world-altering news about Jesus?

There is a defeater underneath the defeaters—fear of what others think of us. “The fear of man is a snare but the one who trusts in the Lord is safe” (Proverbs 18:25). We can avoid all the evangelistic pitfalls and still refuse to speak about Christ because we are afraid of what people will think about us. Therefore, both evangelized Christians and insufficiently evangelized cultures need a fresh preaching of the gospel. To do this, I commend gospel metaphors—personally discerning and culturally sensitive ways to communicate grace. People are seeking good things in the wrong places: intimacy, tolerance, approval. The gospel offers all of this in a profound, redemptive way.

Seeking Intimacy

Our search for intimacy is in relationships seems to never end. Even the best friendship or marriage inst enough for our insatiable demand to be noticed, loved, and cared for. We all want a place where we can be ourselves and know that we are accepted. We want relationships that are secure, where we feel safe to share our innermost thoughts and darkest struggles.

When we begin to discern that a person is seeking intimacy, we can explain that, through union with Christ, people can enter into the most intimate, loving, unbreakable, fulfilling relationship known to humanity, which can bring deep healing and joy.

Seeking Tolerance

Many people are seeking tolerance. Some don’t know the difference between classical and new tolerance. Old tolerance says every belief has a right to exist. New tolerance says every belief is equally true. Classical tolerance is spot on. New tolerance is inconsistent. This discussion alone can be an illuminating conversation that deepens mutual respect and admiration between people.

Others will not like the exclusive claims that Christianity makes. However, before scoffing at their perspective or trying to crush their worldview, ask questions to get on the inside of their perspective and appreciate their views. Build bridges not walls. They often have good reasons or difficult stories attached to their objections.

Respectful dialogue can go a long way in over-turning bigoted impressions of Christianity. In fact, it can open doors that would remain closed otherwise.

Getting to know someone who values tolerance, you might share that, through redemption, Jesus offers a redemptive tolerance that gives progressive people an opportunity to experience grace and forgiveness in a way that doesn’t demean other faiths. This can be very liberating.

Seeking Approval

The thoughts and opinions of parents matter to their children. What my dad and mom thought about me as I was growing up meant a lot. Their thoughts and opinions could crush or lift me in a moment. We are made for approval, and though our parents are often the first ones to give this (or withhold it from us), the truth is that we seek this approval from others all the time.

As you get to know someone, you might pick up that they need to hear the gospel of adoption, that God the Father offers an undying approval in his Son Jesus. This is unlike the undulating approval of others. This can radically change people’s view of God, and thrill them with the hope of a Father’s love.

Don’t kiss your evangelism goodbye; just give it a facelift.

What is Re-evangelization? from Jonathan Dodson on Vimeo.

* * * *

^{1. “How I Kissed Evangelism Goodbye” August 11, 2014 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-brandt/how-i-kissed-evangelism-g_b_5667662.html↩}

^{2. Ed Stetzer, “The State of Evangelism” May 12, 2014 http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/may/state-of-evangelism.html?paging=off↩}

—

Jonathan’s new book is The Unbelievable Gospel: Say Something Worth Believing (resource website here). You can also get his free ebook “Four Reasons Not to Share Your Faith.”

Jonathan Dodson 1/18/15 Jonathan Dodson 1/18/15

2 Big Reasons Evangelism Isn’t Working

One in five Americans don’t believe in a deity. Less than half of the population attends religious services on a regular basis. People simply find our evangelism unbelievable.

Why?

While a person’s response to Christ is ultimately a matter that rests in God’s sovereign hands—something we have no control over—a person’s hearing of the gospel is a matter we do have control over and responsibility for.

“Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season…” 2 Tim. 4:2
Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. – Col. 4:4-5
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17

The first reason our evangelism isn’t believable is because it isn’t done in grace for each person.

Paul isn’t just saying evangelism is our responsibility; he’s telling us to do it “in person.” Unfortunately, a lot of evangelism is an out of body experience, as if there aren’t two persons in a conversation. It’s excarnate, out of the flesh, not incarnate—in the flesh.

These approaches are foolish because they treat people like projects to be completed, not persons to be loved. Have you ever been on the other end of evangelistic project? Perhaps from a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon at your door. Or a pushy pluralist at work? You don’t feel loved; you feel used, like a pressure sale.

When Francis Schaeffer was asked how he would an hour with a non-Christian, he said: “I would listen for fifty-five minutes, and then, in the last five minutes I would have something to say.”

A second reason people find our evangelism is unbelievable is because it is foolish.

Paul isn’t just telling us evangelism is personal; he’s telling us to do it with wisdom. Wisdom possesses more than knowledge; it expresses knowledge through understanding. It considers life circumstances and applies knowledge with skill. Another word for this is love.

Love is inefficient. It slows down long enough to understand people and their objections to the gospel. Love recognizes people are complex, and meets them in their need: suffering, despair, confusion, indifference, cynicism, confusion. We should look to surface these objections in people’s lives. I was recently having lunch with an educated professional who had a lot of questions. After about thirty minutes he said, “Enough about me. You’re asking me questions. I should ask you questions.” I responded by saying, “I want to hear your questions, but I also want to know you so that I can respond to your questions with wisdom.” He told me some very personal things after that, and it shed a lot of light on his objections to Christianity. It made my comments much more informed, and he felt much more loved, declaring at the end, “I wish every lunch was like this. Let’s keep doing this. I have a lot more questions.”

Rehearsing a memorized fact, “Jesus died on the cross for your sins,” isn’t walking in wisdom. Many people don’t know what we mean when we say “Jesus,” “sin,” or “cross.” While much of America still has cultural memory of these things, they are often misunderstood and confused with “moral teacher,” “be good,” and “irrelevant suffering.” We have to slow down long enough to explore what they mean, and why they have trouble with these words and concepts. Often they are tied to some kind of pain.

We need to see evangelism as a long-term endeavor. Stop checking the list and defeating others. Be incarnate not excarnate in your evangelism. Slow down and practice listening and love. Most conversions are not the result of a single, point-in-time conversation, but the culmination of a personal process that includes doubt, reflection, gospel witness, love, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

And remember, don’t put pressure on yourself; conversion is in God’s hands. We just get to share the incomparable news of Jesus.

In sum, how you communicate the gospel matters.

Does Anything Need to Change in Personal Evangelism? from Jonathan Dodson on Vimeo.

—

Jonathan’s new book is The Unbelievable Gospel: Say Something Worth Believing (resource website here). You can also get his free ebook “Four Reasons Not to Share Your Faith.”

Re-posted with permission from Desiring God.

Jonathan Romig 1/6/15 Jonathan Romig 1/6/15

The Deconstructed Gospel

What is the gospel? My first semester at seminary I showed up feeling called by God to become a pastor and I couldn't say what the gospel was. Sure I had an idea. Isn't the gospel that we're "saved by faith" or that "Jesus rose again"? The word gospel comes from the Greek word that means "good news." Mark 1:1 tells us the gospel is "the good news about Jesus the Messiah." So what about Jesus' life and ministry is good news for us? Just about every Christian I know has trouble answering this question. Usually someone will bring up Jesus' life, death, and resurrection (something I like to call the three days gospel) and how through them God gives us eternal life. That is absolutely true and so beautiful. But what about the other thirty-three years of Jesus' estimated lifespan? Do those years matter for us too? This is why I break down the gospel into three days and thirty-three years.

The Three Days Gospel

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

Day 1 - Friday: "Christ died for our sins"

This is a great starting point for defining what the gospel is. Jesus died for our sins. That's a huge statement and is summed up in the fancy theological term "atonement." The Day of Atonement described in Leviticus 16 was the day the High Priest of Israel slaughtered a goat and sprinkled its blood in the Most Holy Place of the temple before God. This sacrifice atoned for the sins of the people for another year. On Good Friday, Jesus atoned for our sins when he became the final sacrifice. He died an innocent victim in the place of guilty sinners.

Day 2 - Saturday: "He was buried"

True, Jesus was buried in the tomb on Friday, but he stayed dead on Saturday. Friday and Sunday of Easter weekend get all the credit, but Saturday played an important part too. Saturday proved Jesus was really dead. He wasn't just passed out or dying. He was locked away in a tomb with no breath in him. Hebrews 2:9 tells us Jesus "suffered" or "tasted" death. He went through all the pain of Friday so he could be dead on Saturday. This is the same death you and I face for all eternity if Sunday's miracle never comes.

Day 3 - Sunday: "He was raised"

Jesus rose from the grave conquering sin and death on Sunday morning. Resurrection! He returned to the living in his old yet newly glorified body. This is what we who trust in Jesus will experience at the final resurrection when Jesus returns. Christ will call us forth from our graves to spend eternity with him in a whole new creation. We who trust in Jesus die spiritually with him on Friday. One day our bodies will really be dead, like Saturday. But our hope is in what Jesus did on Sunday so we too will rise again. The resurrection is good news!

The last three days of Jesus' life matter for you and for me. Those three days are what most people think of when they think of the gospel. We turn to them first because they're what drive us to put our faith in Christ. Jesus offers forgiveness for our sins through his sacrifice on the cross on Friday, through our fear of death on Saturday, and through the hope we have for eternity on Sunday. We turn to them because they matter for us when we die. Even in our last days, we still have hope.

The Thirty-Three Years Gospel

So what about the rest of Jesus' life? How are they the gospel? How does how he lived matter for our lives right now? Usually when I ask this question, everyone goes quiet. It's because we don't usually think about the gospel from this angle. We love our hope in eternal life, but haven't considered what Jesus may have done for our present life.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Jesus lived a perfect life: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin,"

Jesus was born, and then he lived. But he didn't live like you and I live. He lived a life of perfect obedience to God, his Father. He "knew no sin.” That means he never lied to his parents, stole from his employer, cheated on a test, lusted in his heart, drank too much alcohol, or got angry for the wrong reasons. He lived without sin through all life's stages. Jesus was a toddler, but he wasn't terrible. He was a teenager, but he wasn't angsty. He was a man, but he wasn't prideful. He was on his deathbed made of wood, and he died with grace.

Not only did Jesus never sin, he also lived a holy life. This means he always did the right thing. He prayed enough, fasted enough, read the Scriptures enough, and gave enough to the poor. He did all those right things and more. Luke 2:52 gives us a glimpse of Jesus' godly character. "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." Jesus was a person like us in his experience, yet unique from us in his perfection. Don't you wish your everyday was more like Jesus' everyday? Don't you wish that you weren't the sinner you are? Don't you wish you are as holy and good as Jesus? Here's the good news . . . you already are!

We get credit for Jesus' perfect life: "so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

Jesus trades his righteousness for our sin. This is the great exchange. Through Jesus’ perfect life and substitutionary death, God has taken your sinful life and placed it on Jesus and taken his holy life and placed it on you. That's what grace does. When God looks at you, he sees the life of his Son! God has permanently credited the righteousness of Jesus to your account. This truth is as old as Abraham trusting Yahweh in Genesis 15:6 and as fresh as Paul writing to the early church in Romans 3:21-26. The gospel is for every believer every day.

This means that when you wake up and blow it sometime this morning, afternoon, or evening—you are holy. This means that when you cuss out the driver in front of you for driving too slow and the driver behind you for driving too fast—you are holy. This means you don't have to regret your teen years, or your college years—you are holy. This means when you forget to be polite and you don't help your neighbor because it's inconvenient—you are holy. This means that the hidden sin you don't want anyone to know about are forgiven in God's eyes,—you are holy. This means your worst offense is completely forgiven at Christ's expense.

Not only does the gospel forgive our outward acts of sin, it cleanses our inward rebellion. Ezekiel 36:26-27 tells us the gospel has changed our very hearts. God takes your old hard heart and gives you a new soft one filled with the Holy Spirit. Where your life was empty, now your life is full. You are awash in righteousness where you once were lost in unrighteousness. When you sin today, remember that God sees you as he sees his son, forgiven and holy. One day your sin will be completely gone, and God's righteousness will become intrinsic to who you are, but until then God has credited us with a spotless record that you may enjoy today. Thank you, Jesus.

Jesus has traded his thirty-three years of perfection for your whole life of disobedience and sin. This means you no longer have to wallow in despair, guilt, and doubt, because you are seen through the lens of Christ. One day soon our sin nature will go away, but until then we hope in Jesus and enjoy his righteousness. As one friend said when he finally understood the gospel, "That's so unfair!" My dirty record is gone. Jesus' fresh record is mine.

So What is the Gospel?

The gospel is the good news that Jesus lived a perfect life, died an innocent death, rose again so that we may spend eternity with him, and now credits us with his holy record so that we may enjoy a guilt-free life today. We make disciples by helping the lost believe the three days gospel and we mature those disciples by helping them live every day in appreciation for the thirty-three years gospel. We need the full gospel message to truly make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus.

—

Jonathan M. Romig (M.Div., Gordon-Conwell) is the associate pastor at Immanuel Church in Chelmsford Massachusetts (CCCC). He blogs at PastorRomig.blogspot.com and recently finished teaching New City Catechism to his adult Sunday school class and self-published his first ebook How To Give A Christian Wedding Toast.

Joe Jestus & Matt Brown 1/4/15 Joe Jestus & Matt Brown 1/4/15

Simple, But Not Easy

“We've had more decisions for Christ in Africa than there are people." The words of the missionary visiting our church service stuck in my head like the chorus to a pop song.

It reminded me of the quote by Francis Chan, "Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.”

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to become “successful” at running up the score on decisions for Christ while neglecting the great commission of Jesus to make disciples for Christ.

Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” —Matthew 28:20, The Message

Discipleship Takes Time

We've dedicated ourselves to the glorification of a one-time act and abandoned the transformation of the journey.

Not because it's complicated to make disciples, but because it's difficult to make disciples. It takes time, and we're in a hurry for some unknown reason, racing against an imaginary clock to see who can “die with the most things.” We humans are funny that way.

Discipleship is Messy

Have you ever built anything with your hands? Making things is intrinsically messy. Whether it's your favorite meal in the kitchen or something you build in the garage . . . you always end up with a mess on your hands that you have to clean up.

True discipleship is like making things—it’s making people for God—and it’s messy. When Jesus said, "Go and make disciples,” he definitely knew it was going to take time, and be messy. Jesus himself had spent years investing into a small crew of guys—teaching them all he knew, and showing them the way to true life.

Discipleship is Difficult

It's a simple command that Jesus gave us, yet extremely difficult. True gospel-centered discipleship not only produces difficult personal transformation in the people we are discipling; it also produces difficult personal transformation in our own hearts as well.

Don’t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. – James 3:1-2, The Message

It takes an investment of our time, attention, and resources. But what is made through this process stands the test of time like a beautiful piece of antique furniture.

Our Purpose is Clear

The primary purpose in life for every disciple of Jesus couldn't be any clearer in the Bible—to disciple others.

We should all have people in our lives who are discipling us, and we should all embrace our chief purpose by eventually looking for other people we can disciple. This isn’t just a job for pastors.

Good friend, don’t forget all I’ve taught you; take to heart my commands. They’ll help you live a long, long time, a long life lived full and well. —Proverbs 3:1, The Message

Disciple Three People for Life

You may never fill large stadiums through the simple, yet difficult process of discipleship . . . well, at least not at first.

If you discipled just three people over your lifetime, with the purpose of them each finding three people to disciple over their lifetime and continue to pass on this process . . . you are traveling a very slow road, which does not lead to earthly fame.

In fact, after five years of this grueling, messy and time consuming life, you’ll find that because of your dedication to obey Jesus’ command, you will have become the catalyst for a whopping 363 disciples.

I don't think any statues will be built in your honor or roads named after you for this crowning achievement. But, you might begin to see something amazing as those 363 grow deeper and mature in their faith, being transformed into the image of Christ.

Don’t give this vision up. If you keep going, you'll find yourself five years down the road and those original three who you are still making into disciples for a lifetime have become the catalyst for 88,572 maturing disciples.

Now, you might start turning heads, but I doubt it, because if you're doing it right, you're still humbly devoted to the insignificant beauty of leading just three disciples you've been entrusted with for a lifetime.

Just as we entrust the earth with an insignificant seed, so are we who are entrusted to disciple. And the last time I checked, no one was throwing any celebrations for dirt. Unless you count earth day I guess.

This dedication to discipleship is simple, not rocket science. But don’t let that fool you into thinking it's easy.

By now it gets even more exciting, because as you are still discipling just three other people into disciples over your lifetime, you’ll find yourself twenty-one years down the road from when you started making your three disciples for a lifetime. And while you are still only directly connected to the one who is making you into a disciple, the others that person is making into disciples with you and the three you are making into disciples; your little seed has grown into a mighty giant redwood.

In fact, in those twenty-one years your little discipleship group has grown to cover the entire planet with maturing disciples of Jesus. "How many?" you ask. It's 15,681,672,913 disciples. There are not even that many people on the planet yet.

So you see, true discipleship isn't easy, but it is simple, and it's the command we've been given. Will you accept the challenge? We hope you will, and we look forward to meeting you and the three people you are making into disciples for a lifetime on the journey of discipleship.

—

Joe Jestus is the Vice President of Development at Targeted Content Marketing, husband of 13 years, and happy dad of four amazing kids.

Matt Brown is an evangelist, author of Awakening (2015) and founder of Think Eternity.

Jonathan Dodson 12/21/14 Jonathan Dodson 12/21/14

Culturally Literate Evangelism

Cultural shifts have resulted in the collapse of Christendom, an official or unofficial relationship people have with their country and its civil religion. In America, moral views typically associated with Christianity have been replaced by more progressive views associated with libertarianism on marriage, sexuality, and gender. In addition to loosening the American moral fabric, the collapse of Christendom has left behind a rubble of theological understanding. As the dust settles, we can no longer assume that people know what words like Christ, sin, faith, and God mean. For many, these words may no longer carry their original biblical meaning. We need to become culturally literate in order to be evangelistically fluent. If we don’t, the gospel gets lost in translation.

In secular culture people may actually hear us saying teacher for Christ, bad deeds for sin, wishful thinking for faith, or moldable deity for God. Today, it is a mistake to assume theological literacy. If we are to move forward, the Church must develop its ability to listen to new questions people are asking and learn how to translate the gospel into words and concepts that speak to the heart.

The Need for Cultural Literacy

Consider the need for cultural literacy in this story. A church planter in my city planted little wire signs in grassy medians around the city that read “RepentAustin.org.” I’ll admit it’s a pretty gutsy and confrontational tactic, but Jesus did call people to “repent and believe.” Yet, as I thought about this evangelistic approach, a major objection came to mind. These signs did not take into account contemporary understandings associated with the word “repent.” They conjure up images of judgmental people, filled with hatred toward “sinners,” who self-righteously speak words of condemnation. Instead of intriguing people, it probably elicited disinterest and, perhaps, unduly promoted a distorted view of the Gospel.

What makes this way of presenting the Gospel distorted? First, it does not call attention to Jesus — it focuses on a person’s need to change before they even get to hear about Jesus and what He has done. Second, there are strong cultural memories associated with the word, especially in the South, that are connected with a return to good, moral living — again, a response that has nothing to do with Jesus and what he has done. Many youths, when they hear the word “repent,” associate it with things like: stop listening to secular music, stop sleeping with your girlfriend, and start going to Church. This kind of repentance does not involve turning away from trusting in yourself to trust the Savior. It is simply a switch in lifestyles, secular to Christian. You can alter your behavior without altering your savior.

People adopt the trappings of faith—the religious habits, attempts at moral living, even a new Christianized culture that entails wearing a purity ring and listening to Christian music. But this cultural repentance is not a true turning to Christ; it is a turning to Christianity, to a religious subculture.

Slowing Down to Understand

To be effective in our new cultural landscape, we will have to slow down long enough to understand what people hear and how they speak in order to communicate the gospel in intelligible ways. This involves listening to what people think in order to communicate meaningfully what God thinks. This doesn’t require a PhD in Bible or theology. It requires love: sacrificing our time, tweaking our crammed schedules, putting away our canned responses, and actually conversing with people.

People don’t just need to hear a thirty-second gospel presentation. They need to understand why the Gospel is worth believing. To do this, we must learn their language and know their stories. We need to become “culturally literate in order to be gospel fluent, communicating the gospel in words and idioms that make sense to the people we talk to.

Why Do People Find the Gospel Unbelievable? from Jonathan Dodson on Vimeo.

—

Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, The Unbelievable Gospel, and Raised? He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson

Jonathan’s new book is The Unbelievable Gospel: Say Something Worth Believing (resource website here). You can also get his free ebook “Four Reasons Not to Share Your Faith.”

Chris Martin 11/9/14 Chris Martin 11/9/14

3 Ways Not to Share Jesus with Millennials

Over the course of the last six months, I’ve been communicating almost daily with a friend who was my small group leader when I was in middle and high school. We’ll call him Kurt. Kurt was an awesome youth small group leader.

What I never knew was that he also loved making techno music. Now living in Berlin and signed to a record label, Kurt is one of the most popular DJs of house music and plays some of the largest clubs in Europe.

Many in the Christian community ostracized him when he began to pursue his music career, and the people of God have been more of a judge and jury than they have been friends and family.

Since leaving the country and experiencing a myriad of cultures, Kurt’s faith has started to wane. Today, he identifies as a Christian-leaning agnostic. He believes Christianity causes good, but he’s not sold on the inspiration of Scripture and many supernatural events in the Bible, which naturally produces obstacles on the road to true faith in Jesus.

As I’ve been discussing world events and sharing the gospel with Kurt over the last six months or so, I realized many of the phrases I was taught to use as apologetic tools while growing up in church simply were not working.

Kurt is a Millennial, barely, but his situation is not unlike many older Millennials. He’s smart, engaged with culture, and open-minded. He is open to Christianity, but when people share the gospel with him and cannot answer any questions that come from their proposals, he starts to wonder if anyone actually believes what they’re saying.

When we share the gospel with Millennials, we have to understand that everything will be called into question. Glittering Christian assumptions, like the ones below, may have been sufficient in our culture when Christianity was king, but they don’t work with Millennials now.

Here are three ways not to share Jesus with Millennials:

1. “The Bible says Jesus is the only way to heaven. That’s all you need.”

If you attempt to share Jesus with a Millennial by appealing to the authority of the Scriptures alone, you’re going to sound like you’re proposing that cats wear hats because Dr. Seuss says so.

Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point: if you try to prove the legitimacy of Jesus as Savior with Scripture, you’re going to immediately have to field the question, “Why should I believe what the Bible says?” and now you’ve just gotten yourself into a much more nuanced conversation that will be difficult to navigate, so be prepared.

Because of the increased secularization of American culture, you’re going to have to go beyond telling people to trust the Bible blindly—you have to explain why the Bible deserves to be trusted.

Instead of simply appealing to the Bible as the ultimate evidence one needs to believe in Jesus, be ready to defend the legitimacy of the Scriptures as reliable, historical documents, because they are!

2. “Jesus is our lover and protector. He makes life awesome.”

Have you paid attention to what happens to the disciples of Jesus? Faithful followers of Jesus rest in joy of eternity amidst the turmoil of the present.

The promises of God do not prevent pain, and pastors, don’t pretend they do.

If Millennial values hold true, and if the secularization of culture persists, the prosperity gospel is going to die a slow, painful, deserved death. Young people have experienced enough economic and institutional instability to know that life is tough, even for those resting in Jesus.

Pastors, pay attention to what your young people are reading and sharing on social media. People know the world is messed up, and they’re not naïve enough to think pledging allegiance to Jesus is going to make everything immediately better. To be sure, followers of Jesus find untouchable peace in the finished work of Christ, but that doesn’t mean life is always peachy.

Even the man who built his house on the rock had to endure the storm.

Don’t pitch prosperity nonsense. Not just because it’s untrue, but because it usually doesn’t work.

Having faith in Christ doesn’t prevent problems, but it gives us a foundation on which to stand when they come, because they will. Even more, if the storms of life leave us in a heap, the foundation of Christ is our only hope for new life.

Instead of pitching a health and wealth gospel, share the comfort found in Christ amidst life’s hardest times.

3. “The Church has been a dominant force for thousands of years, how could that many people be wrong?”

This is precisely the sort of thing you do not want to say to a Millennial to share Christ. Among many unchurched young people, particularly atheists, the Church is seen as an oppressive, money hungry organization built to be the biggest ponzi scheme in the world. We’ve already looked at the fact that Millennials are averse toward institutions, so pitching the authority of the Church because its aged institutionalism is probably not the wisest way to approach an unbelieving Millennial.

I love the Church deeply. I am committed to the establishment of the local church as the greatest force of social and spiritual change the world will ever know, but most young people are not. If you’re going to reach unbelieving Millennials, lead with the love of Jesus.

God sent Jesus (Jn. 3:16), and Jesus sends us (Matt. 28:18-20). The gospel has been missional from the beginning. The love of God fuels our love for others, and the grace of God fuels our pursuit of justice for others. The gospel is the fuel for social justice.

Instead of appealing to the dominant force of the Church, appeal to the life-changing love of Christ.

God Grows Faith in Millennials Hearts

Sharing Christ with others is almost never easy. We’re afraid of people rejecting what is at the core of our being, which makes us understandably timid. Thankfully, the same Jesus that saves sinners equips the saints to share the gospel. If you’re going to share Christ with Millennials, begin by praying and spending time with the Savior you’re sharing.

An unwillingness to share the gospel is ultimately an unwillingness to trust God and pursue the mission given to us by Jesus. The Great Commission is not a solo mission. In 1 Corinthians 3:6-7, Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” God will grow faith in Millenial hearts. He will make disciples by the power of the Spirit in that demographic. The gospel is the power of God for salvation—even among Millenials.

—

Chris Martin (@ChrisMartin17) is a social media facilitator at LifeWay Christian Resources in, an M.Div. student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and blogger at Millennial Evangelical where he hopes to help pastors and Christians better understand, reach, and serve Millennials. He lives in Nashville with his wife, Susie, and hopes to pastor in the future.

Jonathan Dodson 10/4/14 Jonathan Dodson 10/4/14

Evangelism After Christendom

Evangelism is something many Christians are trying to recover from. The word stirs up memories of a bygone era—Christendom—where rehearsed presentations, awkward door-to-door witnessing, a steady flow of tracts, and conversions in revival-like settings were commonplace. As American culture becomes increasingly fragmented and secularized, these forms of evangelism create an impediment to the gospel. Wave after wave of rationalistic, rehearsed (and at times coerced and confrontational) evangelism inoculates, if not antagonizes, the broader culture. The gospel is slowly associated with forceful Christians who are information-driven, looking to get Jesus off their chest. As a result, evangelism is viewed as an attempt to recruit converts, not love your neighbor. In response, Hollywood has taken up its own evangelistic message in documentaries like Jesus Camp and Philomena and films like There Will Be Blood, Saved! and Believe Me. The public has been disaffected by our evangelism.

Learning A New Language

What should evangelism look like after Christendom? To answer that question, we must recognize that twentieth-century American evangelism worked because the culture was largely familiar with Christianity. It included many assumptions, such as the brute fact of absolute truth, the existence of heaven and hell (or God for that matter), and a widely held notion that sin keeps us from God. We can no longer assume this understanding. The cultural shift away from Christianity has resulted in a loss of theological vocabulary. People don’t understand what we are saying. It’s as if we are speaking a foreign language.

Many Christian teachings and assumptions are fuzzy, even questionable to those outside the faith. Calling people to “repent and believe in Jesus” is typically misconstrued as “stop doing bad things, start doing good things (like Jesus did), and God will save you.” This, of course, has nothing to do with the gospel and leaves us disconnected from our culture. There is a considerable gap between the gospel communicator and the receptor culture. This gap is filled with all sorts of things that prevent effective gospel witness, including theological misunderstandings, politicized Christianity, bigoted religion, and unbelievable forms of evangelism. How can we cut through the cultural confusion in order to communicate a clear, winsome gospel message? Like missionaries in a foreign country, we inhabit a new mission field. We need to relearn the language, discover redemptive analogies, and reacquaint people with the true Christian story.

How the News is Good

A fundamental question in evangelism is often overlooked: “How is the gospel good news to those we evangelize?”

Not what is the good news, but how is our news good for others? Christians are often proficient at rehearsing the information of the gospel, but we often lack the ability to relate the gospel to the lives of others. If we are to overcome obstacles to evangelism, we must be able to answer this question: “What does the death and resurrection of a first-century Jewish messiah have to do with twenty-first-century people?”

How does the gospel transform the self-righteous do-gooder, the skeptical urbanite, the distant spouse, the successful professional, and the strung-out addict?

Getting to a Believable Gospel

We need to recover a believable evangelism, one that moves beyond the cultural and personal barriers we have erected in contemporary evangelism to rediscover the power of the biblical gospel. What makes the gospel believable? Rather than a one-size-fits-all message, we need to hold the gospel up to the light and see its various gospel metaphors—justification, union with Christ, redemption, adoption, and new creation—in light of various cultural identities and longings. These metaphors can function like redemptive analogies. If we listen to people long enough, we will uncover deep gospel longings, that manifest uniquely in secular culture, and call people to turn and put their faith in only one who can fulfill those longings. Here are a few examples.

1. Seekers of Acceptance

One of the greatest needs people have today is to be accepted, to know they are welcome and won’t be rejected. This is particularly true in entrepreneurial or honor and shame cultures. People who are driven to perform well in school, work, and family life are often seeking acceptance from themselves or others. Though they may try to deny or hide it, these kinds of people often carry a sense of shame, a fear that they will be found out, rejected, and judged when they fall short. Urban professionals worship in the temple of the city, students bow before the almighty “A,” and families strive to live up to a cultural dream. Eventually people fail to find acceptance through these things, no matter how successful they become.

To those seeking acceptance, justification promises perfect acceptance before a holy God through his unique Son, Jesus Christ. Justification can bring tremendous relief and joy to those seeking acceptance.

2. Seekers of Hope

The metaphor of new creation can be especially compelling for people who are longing for a new start in life. People whose lives have been littered with failure, scarred by abuse, humbled through suffering, darkened by depression, or ruined by addiction need the hope of becoming a new creation.

To those seeking hope, new creation exiles the old life and welcomes a new life through faith in Christ, shedding a bright ray of hope into the heart of the hopeless.

3. Seekers of Intimacy

Our search for intimacy in relationships never ends. Even the best friendship or marriage isn’t enough for our insatiable demand to be noticed, loved, and cared for. We all want a place where we can be ourselves and know that we are accepted. We want relationships that are secure, where we feel safe to share our innermost thoughts and darkest struggles. This is especially true of the person practicing serial monogamy, stuck in a broken marriage, or the celibate, lonely single.

To those seeking intimacy, union with Christ promises entrance into the most intimate, loving, unbreakable, fulfilling relationship known to humanity, bringing deep healing and joy to those seeking intimacy.

4. Seekers of Tolerance

Many people seek tolerance. Some don’t know the difference between classical and new tolerance.¹ That alone can be an illuminating conversation that deepens mutual respect and admiration between people. Others will not like the exclusive claims that Christianity makes. However, before scoffing at their perspective or trying to crush their worldview, ask questions to get on the inside of their perspective and appreciate their views. They often have good reasons or difficult stories attached to their objections. Respectful dialogue can go a long way in over-turning bigoted impressions of Christianity. In fact, it will open doors that would otherwise remain closed.

To those seeking tolerance, the atonement offers a redemptive tolerance that gives progressive people an opportunity to experience grace and forgiveness in a way that doesn’t demean other faiths, which can be very liberating.

Different Perspectives, Same Eternal Gospel

These gospel metaphors offer different perspectives on the eternal gospel, which when applied to the deep longings of people, awaken belief, hope, faith, and love. Gospel metaphors account for the depth, complexity, and power of the gospel, helping us answer not just the “what” of the gospel, but the “how.”

In order for our evangelism to be believable, it must be biblical. So when we communicate the gospel of grace, we must necessarily draw on biblical truths, stories, and images. If we stop there, however, we will fail to communicate effectively how the gospel is good news for others. Like good counselors, we must listen to others well to know how to effectively communicate the unsearchable riches of Christ in a way that speaks to their unique life story.

^{1. Old or “classical” tolerance holds the belief that other opinions have a right to exist. The new tolerance is the belief that all opinions are equally valid or true.↩}

—

Jonathan’s new book is The Unbelievable Gospel: Say Something Worth Believing (resource website here). You can also get his free ebook “Four Reasons Not to Share Your Faith.”

Ben Connelly 8/28/14 Ben Connelly 8/28/14

The Bait and Switch

Texas Only Has Three Seasons

Unlike most of the nation’s spring, summer, fall, and winter, we have springtime, ridiculously hot, and football season. From preseason to Super Bowl Sunday, football talk is everywhere. From fantasy teams, to social media feeds; from pro and college jerseys worn proudly in the grocery, to conversations and watch parties, our world revolves around our teams. You may not love football, but something is just as important to you as football is to the stereotypical fan. The next installment in your favorite movie trilogy, your family, your job, your church, a new restaurant you visited, a big project you’re working on: whatever it is, we all talk about what’s important to us.

If you’re a Christian, it’s likely you’d consider Jesus more important to you than football. Although sometimes we wonder about some men in our churches . . . And yet, this Cornerstone of our very lives, motives, actions, and decisions often becomes the least-discussed aspect of our entire lives. Many Christians pull a “bait and switch” on those around us. You know that image: a newspaper ad lures you to a store, where you find out there were “only ten at the special price, but look what else we have . . .” If we’ve gotten to know a neighbor for nine months, and only then we reveal that we follow Jesus, we’ve done the same thing: they question our motives, wonder about our relationship, and feel like we’ve lied to them. And we have: as the courtroom oath goes, we’ve showed and told “the truth,” but not “the whole truth so help me God.” How do we share the gospel without killing the relationship? The first way is to be open about our faith from day one.

Why do we do this? Maybe we hesitate to talk about faith because it’s divisive. Maybe we’re nervous: what if they then ask us a question we can’t answer? Or maybe, since they don’t follow Jesus and we lack that shared experience—which a football game easily provides—we might wonder if we have common ground. Each of these breaks down. First, if we incarnate ourselves into a mission field, eventually people find out we follow Jesus. Our neighbors see us pull out of our driveways every Sunday, frantic and late, or see Bible-toting friends enter our home every Wednesday. Second, when (not if) they ask a question we can’t answer, we have two viable options. We can answer from our own experience, since experience is sometimes more meaningful than cold, hard facts. Or we can show humility: “I haven’t studied that specific element of faith yet, so I don’t know.” Then we can go find the answer and honor them by remembering to follow up. Third, we may lack the shared experience of faith, but we’re normal humans, so have plenty to talk about.

A Perception of Shame

One thing comes across in our lack of sharing the gospel: shame. If we can’t look someone in the eye and talk about our personal experience with Jesus with confidence, we appear to be ashamed of the very thing we claim as most important to us. We go directly against the apostle Paul’s exhortation to Roman Christians, not to be ashamed of the gospel1. It takes great faith to share the gospel: it is divisive—God promises it to be, and others will consider our belief foolish. It can make us nervous—they might not respond well; they might laugh at us. And it is intrusive—the cross draws a line between beliefs. Such is Christian experience, throughout history and across the world. But the faith by which Paul and the righteous live isn’t faith in others’ perspective of us, or the relationship we have with them. It’s faith in a far greater God than those idols. And that faith caused Paul—and causes us—not to be ashamed of the gospel.

Eboo Patel started the Interfaith Youth Core, which works primarily on college campuses. Eboo—a Muslim who I (Bob) admire deeply and love—once asked what I believed. “Eboo I’d never offend you in the world, but I really believe based on the Bible that Jesus is God and the only way to Him.” I told him of working in Vietnam and later in Afghanistan with Muslims. He told me one of the reasons partnered with us is because I held to my faith and still wanted a relationship with him. People do not just want honesty, but clarity to understand what we believe. It’s a matter of how we say it. I’ve become convinced that truth is always kind and humble. Harshness, mean-spiritedness and arrogance often displays insecurity about our beliefs. If we believe the truth, we should be the most secure, humble, compassionate people on earth. We have nothing to be ashamed of.

Christianity in Everyday Conversations

And we’re not encouraging forcing God into every conversation, at the exclusion of everything else: that will ensure a ‘no’ the next time you invite them over. We are encouraging allowing our faith to be a part of our normative, unforced conversation. Just like other parts of our lives are. Sharing the gospel begins by not omitting parts of our lives that speak to our beliefs. If your boss asks what you’re doing this weekend, instead of “yard work and a birthday party Saturday, then some other stuff on Sunday before I watch the game,” simply acknowledge that “some other stuff” means “going to a church gathering, and even serving on the parking team.” If a neighbor wants your opinion on a hot-button issue, instead of simply talking about politics and human rights, bring your Higher Authority into the conversation.

Tim Keller said it like this: “You have to be willing to talk about how your faith integrates with your life. Because if you’re in non-superficial relationships with people, your faith simply has to come up! Why you do this and why you do that, and why you don’t do this and why you don’t do that, and how you were helped with a problem—you just have to mention it. It should be very natural . . . You have to have a lot of non-superficial relationships with not-yet-believers, and you also have to have a willingness to talk about your faith, and how it affects how you think and live.” Here are a few, among many, common ways to bring faith into common conversation3:

Talk about your faith and community: speak of church gatherings, events, meaningful relationships, and God’s work with excitement and joy: it raises intrigue.
Talk about our redemption stories: talking about our lives both before Jesus and after takes courage, but is deeply moving in its vulnerability. And talk about moments of brokenness and reconciliation in your life since He redeemed you. It shows that you’re still not perfect, but that Jesus continues to redeem areas of pain, struggle, and disbelief.
Share the result of your faith: show people our true rest, joy, peace, and comfort in God alone, because of His ongoing work in us. How does faith impact your daily life?
Give God due credit: as you talk about good things in your life, rightly attribute those blessings to God, the giver of every gift.
Point to the bigger story: as we discuss conflict, sin, pain, and brokenness in the world, or as we discuss success, joy, and echoes of redemption, acknowledge that every specific act is part of a larger story of brokenness and redemption.
Be generous with praise: whether watching a mountain sunrise or hearing a co-worker complain about her assistant, point to beautiful things God has uniquely put in them
Show great grace: instead of engaging in gossip, and instead interacting with someone who’s failed or hurt us, display the grace God first showed us.
Share our true thoughts when asked: instead of avoiding advice, or downplaying the fact that the gospel drives us, boldly give answers from a faith-filled worldview.
Don’t talk about God differently with not-yet-believers than we do with believers: we normally talk openly about God, faith, and even struggles and doubt with our community; do the same in our mission field. Honesty and openness shows others we don’t have every answer.

The gospel is important to us. While we must listen well, the other side is equally true: to really get to know people, they need to know what’s important to us. You talk about everything else in your life that’s important. Don’t stop talking about the big game, the hit movie, or your big project. Just make sure they’re in their place and don’t ignore the bigger driving force in your life. Don’t be ashamed of the gospel. In normal conversation, and early in the relationship, let people know you’re a follower of Jesus.

—

Ben Connelly, his wife Jess, and their daughters Charlotte and Maggie live in Fort Worth, TX. He started and now co-pastors The City Church, part of the Acts29 network and Soma family of churches. Ben is also co-author of A Field Guide for Everyday Mission (Moody Publishers, 2014). With degrees from Baylor University and Dallas Theological Seminary, Ben teaches public speaking at TCU, writes for various publications, trains folks across the country, and blogs in spurts at benconnelly.net. Twitter: @connellyben.

(Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from A Field Guide for Everyday Mission by Ben Connelly & Bob Roberts Jr. available from Moody Publishers starting June 2014. It appears here with the permission of the author and publisher. For free resources and preorders, visit everydaymission.net.)

Dustin Crowe 8/24/14 Dustin Crowe 8/24/14

Catching God’s Vision for Multiplication

There are many reasons—some good and some not so good—why churches consider planting other churches. Church planting, going multisite, and revitalizing churches have increasingly become options for churches today. At the same time, evangelism and discipleship are being talked about and mulled over more than ever. Amidst all the debates about how to do it and what to avoid, we might begin by simply looking into the grand story of Scripture and being propelled by God’s big vision. The Bible tells us to gather around and listen to his plan for multiplication and the spread of his glory.

Filling the Gaps with Glory: A Theological Rationale for Multiplication

At Creation, and later in Redemption, God implements a grandiose vision for filling the earth with his glory. The Bible tells the story of God spreading his beautiful, holy, and glorious image to every nook and cranny on the earth. The endgame or supreme goal of missions, evangelism, or discipleship is the glory of God. Thankfully, the glory of God and the good of humankind aren’t at odds with each other. We don’t pursue God’s glory at the expense of our joy and fulfillment, but rather we pursue, proclaim, and replicate God’s glory as the means by which our joy and fulfillment can reach their highest heights.

Consider God’s original great commission to humankind. After God creates man—male and female together—in his image and likeness, he places them in his kingdom and says: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over” every living thing (Gen. 1:28). Humankind is meant to exercise dominion and care over God’s creation as his ambassadors, but we’re also called to spread in the earth and bear fruit as we multiply. God intended that Adam and Eve would faithfully follow him and as they see what he’s like they’ll reflect him (similar to how kids mimic parents). As they multiply and spread, their children would also reflect the glory of God. As this happens from person to person through fruitful multiplication, and as it spreads throughout the earth, you can envision God’s image and glory filling the entire world.

God’s heart for multiplication is clear in this passage from Genesis. His desire is that we would be image-bearers who reflect the glory of God back to him. To take it a step further, the desire isn’t that we all stay in one place but that we fill up the earth with more glory-reflecting image-bearers who spread God’s glory to every square inch of his kingdom. Unfortunately, we know in Genesis 3 that sin comes into the picture, and with Adam’s fall we are plunged into darkness, and the image of God in us is marred (though not completely erased). We are now like dusty and cracked mirrors that reflect little of God and instead reflect increasingly of the earth’s corruption.

However, as heartbreaking and tragic as the fall is, God’s plan in redemption eclipses that with a soul-stirring hope that provides the “happily ever after” that our hearts long for. God is recreating a new humanity in Jesus, and all those united to him by faith are being restored back into the image of the glory of God. On earth that transformation is by degrees as we’re sanctified, but on the new earth it will be instantaneously completed as we’re glorified (Rom. 8:29; I Cor. 15:49; 2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10).

The Great Commissions: How Genesis 1 Relates to Matthew 28

You might be asking at this point what this has to do with church planting in its various expressions. Church planting is really just about multiplication and the making of disciples who reflect God’s glory everywhere (“fill the earth”). When the New Testament speaks about evangelism or missions it isn’t a new idea and it’s not separate from God’s plan for us in Genesis 1. God’s vision is the fulfillment of his commission in Genesis 1—that man would fill the earth with his glory. This is the eschatological hope of the prophets and is stated beautifully in Habakkuk 2:14: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (cf. Mt. 28:18-20; Rev. 21:22-22:5).

In the Great Commission passages (Mt. 28:18-20; Acts 1:8), Jesus is tasking the new humanity in him with the Genesis 1 mandate. The goal is to go and make disciples, followers of Jesus Christ who know him, represent him, bring his kingdom, and reflect his glory. Throughout the book of Acts we see this taking place as the gospel spreads out from Jerusalem to Samaria to the surrounding countries to the ends of the earth. In all these locales new people are converted and new churches are set up. In the New Testament, there’s no idea of disciples being made apart from their incorporation into the church (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5). Church planting wasn’t one way of “doing church” but was simply the necessary and authorized way of maturing disciples in the locations the gospel reached. Epaphras might hear the gospel and be converted in Ephesus (Acts 19:10), but he then goes back to his own community in Colossae where he shares the gospel and starts a local church (Col. 1:7). The commission to make disciples of people everywhere is accomplished by planting local churches, and people are discipled in community best when the local church is truly local.

Colossians: A New Testament Example of the Spread of God’s Glory

Let me provide one example in Paul’s letters where I believe he subtly builds on this theology. Paul writes this to the church at Colossae: “Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing” (Col. 1:5-6). Paul’s says what is happening in Colossae is fulfilling the commission in the garden and the commission Jesus gives to the Church. In the whole world, and in Colossae as one example, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing. God desires multiplication, not only numerically but also in a way that it spreads. The gospel is bearing fruit and growing as the whole world is filling up with the glory of God through the conversion of sinners and the planting of churches.

It’s not just that people are saved but that people are being remade into the image of God by becoming a new person in Christ. Later Paul tells them to act differently because they are “being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:10). They are reflections of the glory of God and should live in such a way that people get a glimpse of what God is really like and what it looks like to be an image-bearer flourishing. People in Colossae are being renewed into the image of God, and in this way the gospel is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world. Hopefully you see how multiplication through conversion and church planting in each pocket of the planet is accomplishing God’s plan for spreading out his glory over the entire world.

We’re told this will one day be fully realized when a new earth (God’s city) comes down out of heaven as the final home for the people of God. In that place, there will be no sin and no sinners (Rev. 21:1-4). Jesus will fill up the place with his radiant glory so that every piece of creation sparkles in his light (Rev. 21:18-27; 22:1-5). We ourselves will have a glory derived from Jesus that refracts back to him (Rev. 21:24-26). The hopes and visions of the prophets will be fulfilled as the glory of God does indeed cover the whole earth. This has always been God’s plan, and although dramatic twists and turns take place within the narrative, his plan will surely be accomplished. The work of the church now in making disciples, of planting churches in every community, and reaching the nations with the gospel is rooted in this theological vision of God’s glory spreading and increasing through multiplication.

Each of us are part of one local church, one drop in the bucket wanting to fulfill our God-given task of spreading the glory of God locally and globally. As your church thinks about multiplication—individually and corporately—pray to see the glory of God spread throughout your neighborhood, city, country, and globe through the transformation of image-bearers and the planting of local churches.

—

Dustin Crowe has a bachelor’s degree in Historical Theology from the Moody Bible Institute and studied at the master’s level at Southern Seminary. He is Local Outreach Coordinator of College Park Church, a church of 4,000 in Indianapolis, where he also helps with theological development.

Nick Abraham 8/10/14 Nick Abraham 8/10/14

Multiplying Disciples in Bivocational Ministry

Bivocational ministry is a life many pastors find themselves in these days. Of course, it is not a new phenomenon among pastors. In the area that I live, there are many small rural churches that have been around for many years. Back when these churches were planted the pastors were bivocational, often farming besides preaching. For those pastors, being bivocational was not a choice instead of full-time vocational ministry, it was the norm and more or less required of those called to ministry. Today, there are still many pastors required to be bivocational because they live in a rural area, are church planters, or are pastoring a smaller church that couldn’t fully support them otherwise. Being bivocational is not the lesser calling. To be bivocational does not mean playing in the minors until God decides to send them up to the big leagues of full-time vocational ministry. I will confess that I held this view, though I would not have explicitly said it. Depending on what the “other” job is for bivocational pastors, it can be very easy to feel discontent and weighed down by the seemingly unimportant duties of what we incorrectly deem as our “secular” work. That’s good! Now we know how our entire congregation feels much of the time. When we view bivocational ministry as a lesser calling, we both belittle God’s explicit call on our lives and idolize full-time vocational ministry as something that will fix all our problems.

Work is hard, regardless of what it is that we do. We know this from our own experiences and because of the curse God spoke to Adam (Gen. 3:17-19). I have been bivocational for about seven years and I have friends that are also bivocational and friends that are in full-time vocational ministry. They all say that their work is hard. They all say there are days and seasons where they would like their situations to be different. Within the context of the hard work that all Christians do, pastor or not, we are still to be about the work of being a disciple of Jesus in, through, and by our vocations. A primary way that we do the work of being a disciple of Jesus is to make other disciples (Matt. 28:16-20). The New Testament gives many examples of disciples of Jesus that not only make new disciples, but make new disciples who make new disciples who make new disciples and on and on. The spread that took place stemming from the original twelve disciples is one example. There is a clear picture of multiplication that happens.

This process of multiplication can take place in the ministries of bivocational pastors both in their church work as well as in the supplemental work that they do. For bivocational pastors there are some distinct challenges and some real blessings that come from the work of multiplying disciples in both contexts in which they live and work.

Time

Full-time pastors have more margin in their schedules to be able to devote to meetings with people and, therefore, do the work of discipleship. Or do they? Do bivocational pastors really not have any time to disciple people? If you are bivocational, should you only look to preach and teach and leave the rest of the work to someone that has more time?

I think it comes back to redeeming the time that we have. We all have margin in our daily schedules; the challenge is whether we use it and how we use it. Everyone eats lunch, so there is anywhere from a half hour to an hour that could be used to meet with someone or make a phone call. Depending on what time work starts, other people in the congregation probably have to go to work too, so getting up a little earlier before work to meet is an option. Using the time in our commute to and from work for a phone call can be beneficial as well. These are all scenarios a bivocational pastor can use to connect with someone from his congregation in the midst of his work schedule. However, there is also a large pool of people at his workplace that need to and can be discipled.

The effort needed to disciple at work is less than one might think. A great example of how this is done is parenting. Parenting children is discipleship. The life of the parent is lived out with and in front of the children. The discipleship that occurs in parenting does not only consist of sitting down with the child to talk about their walk with Christ, although that happens.

Discipleship in parenting happens while the parent and the child are folding clothes, working in the yard, and so on. The same can be said for discipling coworkers. The little conversations on the way to a meeting, during a break or downtime, at the coffee pot are the primary avenues for discipling coworkers.

Reaching the multiplication stage at work requires a bit more organization and intentionality. This means setting some time aside to meet with fellow believers at work. I meet with a group of guys to do this very thing every other week at lunch. As one would do in the church, there should be an awareness of leaders and/or other strong Christians to develop. Once those folks are identified, then the process of making them into the second generation of disciples in that place begins. In Acts 14:23, Paul and Barnabas appoint elders in the churches on their way to Antioch in Syria and the same principle stands at work. We are not Paul and Barnabas and we are not appointing elders, but a similar work needs to take place for multiplication to happen. The development of leaders and the passing on of the responsibility for making disciples must take place so that disciples can be multiplied.

Purpose

A pitfall for many in bivocational ministry can be denying that they are bivocational. We can spend so much time pretending that our supplemental work is only temporary and that very soon God is going to give us that full-time gig. Our time in bivocational ministry may be our life’s calling or it may be only for a season. In any season of waiting on the Lord, there is work to be done while we wait. The sooner we realize we are indeed where we are for a purpose—and God sovereignly plans that purpose—the sooner we can be effective.

I look at God’s sovereign purpose in the time spent in bivocational ministry as a development of my gifts and laying down of my rights. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul talks about all the rights that he has as an Apostle and a minister of the gospel. He immediately says that he does not take up those rights, but essentially lays them down for the sake of the gospel. “Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ,” (1 Corinthians 9:12b).

Like Paul, we who are bivocational (Paul was too by the way) are ministers of the gospel, who have the right to be taken care of through the ministering of the gospel. There is at least a partial surrender of those rights, whether it is by our volition or not, when we are bivocational. There was power that came from Paul’s laying down of his rights. There was an identification that Paul could have with others because he set aside these rights. “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings,” (1 Cor. 9:22b-23). One of the evident purposes of God in the calling to bivocational ministry is the ability to identify with those to whom we minister. There is both purpose and blessing in this identification, which serves as a foundation for the multiplication of disciples in our contexts.

Humility

The reality is that if we are bivocational we are probably not speaking at conferences, writing best-selling books, and garnering thousands of Twitter followers. Of course, our mistaken definitions of “making it” in ministry in relation to any of these measures are far different from God’s. The ministry work that is done bivocationally is probably mostly done in the shadows of public view. Ministering bivocationally can be humbling. You may be a church planter that celebrates when there are more than thirty people that show up for a Sunday service. Your greatest joy in ministry for a week may be a good conversation you have with a coworker. This is all very, very good for our souls.

The pitfall of parts of our Christian subculture is an issue, not only for our congregation, but for all those in ministry. There is the fanboy culture of authors, speakers, and podcasts. There are those that many have deemed celebrity pastor. When we are working in the trenches of bivocational ministry, we need not covet fame and fortune in ministry. Our placement in bivocational ministry may be a protection from our own prideful selves. It may be a season that God uses to refine us and humble us. It may be a time where we learn how to celebrate all the small ways that God works. Some of us simply may not have been able or may not ever be able to handle the platform of full-time ministry. God may be protecting us and those to whom we minister from what we would become on that platform. He may at the same time be preparing us.

Humility is one of the most attractive things about Jesus. Think about it, “He is God and he did what?!” You probably know Philippians 2:5-11, but I will remind you. “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,” (Phil. 2:5). The mind that Paul is talking about is that of humility, which he goes on to describe in the verses following. When we exhibit Christlike humility, people see the grandeur and beauty of Jesus. We could say that Jesus makes and multiplies disciples through us by showing himself in us. As God teaches us humility in bivocational ministry, people start to see glimpses of Christlikeness in us. The humility that God is teaching us is for our good and his glory. His glory is then magnified by the disciples that are made and multiplied through our lives and ministries.

Thankfully, God does not put us anywhere that he does not intend to put us. If we find ourselves in bivocational ministry, we can be encouraged that it is God who has put us there. It is not the B team and this is not our lot because of some shortcoming that we have. It is the particular vocation that the God of the universe has prepared us for and placed us in for such a time as this. We have the responsibility of multiplying ourselves as disciples of Jesus Christ wherever we are. We have been given time to be redeemed and used for the kingdom. God has a Spirit-powered, Christ-exalting purpose for our vocations. In light of all this, we cannot help but seek humility in our hearts and in our actions as we embrace the challenges and receive the blessings of serving Christ.

—

Nick Abraham (DMin student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) lives in Navarre, OH with his wife and daughter. He serves as an Associate Pastor at Alpine Bible Church in Sugarcreek, OH. He is a contributor to Make, Mature, Multiply: Becoming Fully-Formed Disciples of Jesus and blogs at Like Living Stones.

Alvin Reid 2/16/14 Alvin Reid 2/16/14

Why Do We Neglect Our Neighbors?

I recently spoke at a large, vibrant, multisite church. While speaking about reaching the younger generation, I asked a couple of questions. First, I asked those in each service to raise their hand if they grew up in a Christian home. Without fail, 80-90% raised their hands, most with understandable joy and enthusiasm for their heritage.

Then I asked the second question: “How many of you recall a time in your childhood when your Christian family talked about reaching out to your neighbors with the gospel?” About 10-20% reticently raised their hands.

Too many of us raise our children in our neighborhoods as if we were atheists. I have asked these two questions in seminary classes, on college campuses, in youth meetings and in large conferences. The response has been the same without exception. For too long many of us have affirmed a practicing atheism, thinking we can magnify Christ among other Christians while virtually ignoring him when among non-Christians.

Too many of us raise our children in our neighborhoods as if we were atheists.

Can we truly say the gospel lies at the center of our lives and our families, if we raise children from birth to adulthood and they can’t recall a conversation about the spiritual need of their neighbors?

Why Do We Neglect Our Neighbors?

The reasons for neglecting our neighbors is multifaceted. One reason is tied up with institutional Christianity, which discourages believers from taking initiative apart from a church building. A second reason, and perhaps the most crucial is this: we have lost wonder over the story and glory of God. Failure to worship God leads to a failed desire to bring our neighbors to worship him with us.

Failure to worship God leads to a failure to bring our neighbors to worship him with us.

We need to recover the gospel in a way that sets God’s glory in the center of all of life. The Bible is unambiguous at this point: the center Scripture is not us, but God, who alone deserves our greatest wonder and all glory. Genesis begins not with us, or even with creation, but with a Creator God who creates for his own glory. John’s Gospel does the same, focusing our attention on Christ. Romans does the same. While creation reflects God’s glory, he finally and most clearly reveals himself to us in his Son, Jesus. Thus, the central character of the biblical story is the Redeemer who works a story of redemption.

The Bible is taught, even in conservative, Bible-believing churches, in a way that ironically encourages believers to do little that requires sacrifice for the gospel (if you can call investing in your neighbors for Christ a “sacrifice”). We turn the Bible into a collection of moralistic stories (David beat Goliath, so you can beat the giants in your life) in which we are the center and the story is designed to help us. Such an approach gives us many heroes, from Joseph the victimized who overcame abuse, to Ruth and Boaz who offer a great encouragement to those seeking romance. In this approach, Jesus matters, but he becomes just a little bigger hero than all the rest. Of course the Bible does offer help with overcoming abuse and in relationships. That help is called the gospel.

No, there is one hero in Scripture. But it’s okay I suppose if we slip up on that at times, because after all, Peter did. At the Transfiguration when Peter saw Jesus with Elijah and Moses, Peter suggested building tents for all three (Luke 9:33). The Father quickly made it clear that Jesus alone was to be revered: “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” (Luke 9:35). Not even Moses or Elijah compare to Jesus.

We remove Jesus from the central place he deserves when we give lip service to his lordship in church services while neglecting his lordship in our neighborhoods. We need a revolution in our understanding of Jesus. He is the One who initiates, sustains, and will consummate all things. He alone sits on the throne.

For Us and Our Neighbors

What does this have to do with reaching our neighbors? When we consistently hear that the gospel and the Bible as a whole have to do with us, we have no motivation to go to our neighbors, let alone the nations.

But the gospel compels us to reach out locally and globally, from our front porch step to the ends of the earth. The gospel stands at the center, not only of our church life, but the entirety of life. This is why Paul places the gospel at the center of discussions on giving (2 Cor 8), fleeing sexual temptation (1 Cor 6., see especially verse 20), in marriage (Eph. 5:25), and as the basis for humility (Phil. 2). In other words, the gospel is for us, for our every sin and every success.

Jesus is the center of history. He is the center of the Bible (Luke 24:44-48). He is to be the center of our lives. We need his gospel as much as anyone else. We should preach the gospel to ourselves daily, reminding ourselves that life is not about us but about Christ, situating our great depravity under his marvelous grace.

We should preach the gospel to ourselves daily, reminding ourselves that life is not about us but about Christ, situating our great depravity under his marvelous grace.

Why should we care about our neighbors and the nations? We were made as worshippers to glorify God. We are also sent as God’s ambassadors to others. Awe of God will lead to witness about God. If the gospel really is good news, then we can’t help but share it. Wonder over at God’s love for us in Christ compels us to love others enough to tell them about our great Savior.

In Your Neighborhood

This is why my family moved into a neighborhood filled with unchurched friends. It’s why you’ve been placed in your neighborhood. Gospel work in our neighborhood has been slow, but we have seen some fruit. Along the way, we’re learning to involve our children in care for our neighbors. We’ve also had the opportunity to take our children all over the world, so they can see the work of the gospel in other places. Although most of us wont have the opportunity to travel the world, we can lead our families in traveling the neighborhood right away! Get out and meet your neighbors. Invite them over for dessert. Make some play dates. Think of ways to serve the neighborhood, and look for opportunities to bring neighbors along towards the wonder of Christ.

The gospel is simply too big, too amazing, too life-changing for us to take it, shut it up in our homes and our church buildings, and live as if we were atheists. The gospel propels us to spread a wonder over God’s grace and glory among neighbors and the nations.

What are you waiting for?

Alvin L. Reid is husband to Michelle and father to Josh and Hannah. He is a professor of evangelism and student ministry at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, as well as a popular speaker and author. He has written numerous books on student ministry, evangelism, missional Christianity, and spiritual awakenings. Follow him on Twitter: @AlvinReid.

*Check out Dr. Reid's new book from GCD Books, Gospel Advance: Leading a Movement That Changes the World.

Brad Watson 2/6/14 Brad Watson 2/6/14

Fighting Against Mission Fatigue

Over the last month, in communities and organizations across the spectrum of the gospel-centered missional movement, I have come across a growing number of people on the cusp of burnout. Many were close friends, few were acquaintances, and at least one of them was me. Tired, worn out souls exhausted from community and mission. They are faithful people; well trained, well supported, and well resourced. What’s worse, their exhaustion with the mission usually coincides with financial, marital, and familial stress.

Causes of Mission Fatigue

So, what is going on? As a child of this movement, I have often been at a loss. I thought we had it covered? We are supposed to center our lives on the gospel and then live intentional and communal lives empowered by the Spirit, making disciples of Jesus. If this was the plan, why does it keep spitting out exhausted and discouraged people? It wasn’t until I personally stared this burnout in the face and searched my soul that I discovered why the gospel mission has become the exhausted mission.

1. Looking for the Wrong Fruit

We are looking for fruit. We desire fruitful lives. In my own journey, as the months and years continued to pass by without a rapid multiplication of communities with baptisms and new churches formed, I grew exhausted and discouraged. We must be doing something wrong! I must be doing something wrong! Eventually, I simply thought that I had wasted years of my life. I was fruitless. Many of the people I talk to experiencing missional exhaustion have the same experience. Interestingly, the fruit that is expected from us in the Scriptures, not in our heads, is not new churches, converts, or communities. Rather, God wants to produce love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control in us (Gal 5:22-25).

God wants to produce love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control in us.

On the other side, this is what the Spirit does through us: performs miracles, brings people to repentance and faith, produces new life, gives gifts, baptizes, and appoints elders, among other things. Leaders experience discouragement when we measure the wrong things. When you strive to produce things that the Spirit is in charge of, you work harder than you ought and place responsibility on yourself that you could never carry. This is a sure recipe for exhaustion.

However, when we pause and reflect on the fruit of the Spirit born in us, we are encouraged because we see things the way we are. When I stopped to see the things the Spirit had done in me, I realized my life wasn’t fruitless. In fact, it had been very fruitful. Over the years God had given me love for people I didn’t even know at the beginning. God had given me peace in my heart and marriage. God had created, seemingly out of nothing, a contentment with small budgets and his presence. The reality was, God had been working in me. Ironically, it was that fruit in me that God used to produce fruit in others.

2. Living with an Urgency of Ego

Leaders who are striving for success and ‘great stories’ expect them to happen immediately. This is one of the oldest tricks the enemy uses to destroy mission: get them to think we can make a name for themselves. The urgency to have a thriving missional community or life that produces results that are celebrated is exhausting. It is tiring trying to be an expert and gain the affections of ‘missional’ peers. Self-serving mission leads to burnout 100% of the time. If the urgency of ego isn’t for self-gain, it is for another’s. I have also witnessed people crushed by the burden of proving themselves to their leaders’ apparent expectations, which many cases, didn’t exist.

3. Living with an Urgency of Ideal

This is a slightly different urgency. This is where the goal is to do exactly what we read in the ‘book’ or saw at the conference. We expect and strive to do things by the book. The books are helpful and so are the conference speakers. What becomes exhausting is a newfound legalism—modelism. When you have a problem or get stuck, you are turning to the expert’s blog, book, twitter feed, and videos. These can be helpful, no doubt. But in the end, the mission is too difficult to look for strength and endurance in a model that can’t offer either.

The mission is too difficult to look for strength and endurance in a model that can’t offer either.

4. Agenda-filled Relationships

When every relationship you have comes with an ‘intentional’ and strategic plan to make them a disciples of Jesus, you run out of steam quickly—because you don’t have any relationships. Every holiday, season, sporting event, and errand has become ‘intentional’ in all the wrong ways. Agenda-driven intentionality is: “What can I do for God in these things?” Or worse: “How can I move this person one step closer to buying into my belief system?” To be clear, I am all for intentionality and I completely agree that God is using us and can use us all the time. However, I would add God also wants to do something in us at all times. Gospel intentionality, the opposite of agenda-driven intentionality, asks regularly: “What is God doing, where is he, what is he saying?” Or, better yet: “What can I do to see him clearly in all of life?” The gospel means we are reconciled with Christ. Our redemption is to life with him. Our commission is with him.

We often forget this in our rush to live intentional and missional lives. We aren’t trying to figure out how to make disciples all the time. Rather, we are trying experience Jesus in every part of life. Discipleship is inviting people to experience the reconciliation and redemption of Jesus in their lives, too. In this way, be a normal person who experiences the supernatural presence of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.

5. Lack of Patience

We often expect to see fully-formed disciples after a few months or even a few years. When we don’t, we throw our hands up and say, “This doesn’t work, what else can I try?” Imagine you move into a street where your house is the only one that believes Jesus is King and Savior of the world, and even you struggle to believe it in almost every area of life. However, you buckle down and go for it. After a few years, you have made great relationships with neighbors and have spoken the gospel in several ways and at several moments. You have wrestled with some of your idols, too. Your marriage went through a very difficult time, but you are starting to see restoration. You praise God for all your new friends, opportunities, and growth. But you feel that you have failed. You haven’t baptized anyone. You should stop what you are doing.

6. Bad Math

If you attempt to do more than you are called or asked of by Jesus, you will be tired. There is a simple equation found in the book Margin by Richard Swenson: Your Load (or what you are called to do) - Your Power = Margin.

Your load is what you are called to do, what is being asked of you, what you have taken on as your responsibility. Your power is your capacity, gifts, time, strength, and finance at your disposal to do it. Margin is either sanity or chaos, under- or over-utilization. It is a simple equation: if you are committed beyond your power, you will be exhausted. If you do far less than you have power to do, you will be bored. Too often, we assume the role of saving the planet or at the least our community. We accept great and worthwhile roles and responsibilities followed by a belief that we are omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. If you don’t believe you are those things, you have believed the laws of time, finances, and energy don’t apply to you. You press on with a packed schedule and slim bank account. The Spirit is powerful and works in remarkable ways. The Spirit does not call you to more than he will supply the power. Jesus calls us to more than we can do on our own, but he doesn’t call us to more than he will empower.

Simple prayers and questions: What is Jesus giving me power for? What is Jesus asking me to do?

7. Mission-Centered

Finally, at the end of the day, we are not gospel-centered, we are mission-centered. The noblest idol in all of Christianity is mission. We approve when people worship it, celebrate it, and lay their life down for it. The idol of converts is as powerful as it is subtle. It is easy to drift. Here lies the problem: mission doesn’t give power, energy, grace, or redemption. Reconciliation of the gospel makes us ambassadors for the Reconciler, not mini-reconcilers. This is the end result of all the things mentioned above.

We have drifted from gospel-centered life to a mission-centered life. When this happens, we make disciples of the mission instead of disciples of Jesus.

Fighting Fatigue

We are susceptible to mission fatigue. The question is, what are we supposed to do about it?

1. Repent

If you are believing and living any of the things above, you are worshiping false gods, telling God you are a better missionary than the Spirit and a better savior than Jesus. You’ve made the mission of God your god. Turn from those things and toward the true God:

The God who is great, so do you don’t have to be in control of the mission.
The God who is good, so you don’t have to look to the mission for personal satisfaction.
The God who is glorious, so you don’t have to look for significance in the mission.
The God who is gracious, so you don’t have to prove yourself in the mission.*

This is the God who invites you to join him on his mission. The God who is infinitely careful of you. What practices remind you of that truth?

2. Live in the Urgency of Spirit

God is patient. Somehow we think that the Spirit is frantic and urgent, but he is actually patient and powerful. Consider the lame man healed by the Spirit in Acts 3. This man had to have been passed by Jesus multiple times in his life. Somehow God waited to heal the man much later. Or consider the decades of patience as the gospel slowly moved into Europe and only after a dream appeared to Paul after days of being denied by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a yes man. The Holy Spirit waits, says no, prepares, and works over time as much as he works in an instance.

3. Seek Rhythms of Rest

Finally, learn to rest regularly. First, learn what rest means. Rest does not mean doing nothing. Rest also doesn’t mean doing chores around the house. Rest also doesn’t mean ‘family time.’ All of those things may be components of rest for you. However, rest truly means to marvel at all the God has done and is doing. The first day in the life of a human was not building, organizing, it was resting in the goodness God had created. It was only after that day of resting in God and what he had done did we go to work doing the things he commanded them to do. We live on mission from a starting point of rest. We don’t rest from the mission, we get on mission because we rest.

We don’t rest from the mission, we get on mission because we rest.

This means that you learn how to remember and worship the goodness of God. Make space within your life to focus on resting in God’s work. You will do this daily. You will do this weekly. You will do this monthly, seasonally, and annually. These are patterns throughout the Old Testament with sabbaths, festivals, and jubilees. In each of these, people stopped trying to make things happen. They left their fields, their military posts, their labor, etc. The point was always to remember and celebrate the things that God had done to redeem them and form them into a people. It is good wisdom for us to do the same. What does this look like? My example:

Daily, I take a 15-minute walk through my neighborhood praying and reflecting on what God had done the day before. Asking him on that day, “Help me see you and step into the things you call me into.”
Weekly, I take a day where I intentionally focus on what God is doing and has done. I remember the gift of him. For me, I journal, write, read, and spend time with my family. We remind me of grace. We also spend time with friends and neighbors on this day. However, the point of this day is to celebrate and worship who God is and what he has done.
Monthly, I get out of town or at the minimum my neighborhood. I read, write, and mostly pray. I’ve found a monastery an hour and a half away and the drive alone is worth it. Also, at different times in our marriage, my wife and I have been able to spend a night out of our context once a month. This is an amazing practice everyone should try. As we leave, we pray and ask God to bless our time. While we are away we reflect on the past month.
Annually, I take a real vacation, even if it is a stay-cation. During this week or so, do what is relaxing and enjoyable to you. Hike, ski, swim, sun bath, read, whatever is enjoyable. Eat good food and listen to good music. Reflect and worship God for what he has done and pray for the things you hope God will do in the next year.

As you do all of these enjoyable things of rest, take time to reflect on these questions:

What were the low-lights and hard things last year?
What were the high-lights and clear blessings last year? (Oddly, these answers end up being the same as the hard things.)
What did we see God doing last year?
What do we hope to see happen this next year?
What fruit do we pray to see this next year?
What are our fears with this next year?
How is God good, great, glorious, and gracious?

The Best Way to Spend Your Life

I want to leave you with an appeal. Do not leave a life on mission because you have made it your life. There is a way to be on mission and for your life to be about Jesus. In fact, this is the only sustainable way. As you press into seeing Jesus present, involved, and relevant at your dinner table, at work, in the garden, and with your friends, you will be on mission. The gospel is the only agent of perseverance. This is one thrilling life of repentance, faith, and fruit.

Jesus is worth it! You will find Jesus on the mission, but don’t substitute the mission for Jesus.

Brad Watson serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities in Portland, Oregon and is the co-author of Raised? Doubting the Resurrection. His greatest passion is to encourage and equip leaders for the mission of making disciples. He is Mirela’s husband and Norah’s dad. Check out his website and follow him on Twitter: @BradAWatson.

_________________________________________________________________

*Adapted from Tim Chester's 4G's.

Seth McBee 2/4/14 Seth McBee 2/4/14

Leading the Misfits and the Moles

Let’s face it, leading is very difficult. Why? Because you are effectively trying to herd cats. It can get crazy. You have to deal with different maturity levels, different backgrounds, different demographics, and even different motives and aspirations. When I first started leading, I figured that everyone desired to be a leader someday, and that they had the same goals as the one that they were following. Wow, after years of extensive study (by that I mean, after years of tearing my hair out and cussing people out under my breath), I have found that when we look at Jesus and how he led and who he led, we find some very interesting groups of people, and he definitely interacted very differently with each group. Now, anytime you write something like this, you have to generalize and you have to characterize. Don’t take this article as the end all or as a way to then characterize automatically everyone you are leading. This is meant as simply a summation of what I read in the Scriptures and what I have found in leading others on God’s mission.

So, who do we find as we look at the life and ministry of Jesus? We find these types of people:

Masses
Misfits
Managers
Moles
Apprentices (yeah, I know, it’s not an M word…)

The Masses

When we see Jesus leading, we see that many followed him. Crowds upon crowds of people would follow him around to see what they could get out of him. Jesus would say some pretty rough things to them, whether it was to eat his flesh or drink his blood to the harsh words he spoke to rich young ruler and the Canaanite woman seeking to have her daughter healed. He would teach them the ways of his Father and he definitely showed them what it looked like to be one of his disciples, but you’ll notice that none of them were in his close realm of friendship or discipleship. These people didn’t help make the plans for the next journey or “get a vote” on what or where to go next. These people are curious, and Jesus allowed them to be.

Many times we want to please the masses, thinking that is the way to draw more people in. Jesus didn’t do this. Jesus would teach and be on his way, and then out of the masses those that took him serious would then follow him or come to him in private and Jesus would then engage even further with them. Think of Zacchaeus. You know, the wee little man? He was part of the masses, but Jesus saw something in his faith of climbing the tree to just get a glimpse of Jesus that caused Jesus to go deeper with him in relationship (Luke 19:1-10). Know that in the masses, there may be many who will go deeper, but do not try and conform your vision or message to convert all of them to the ways of Jesus… not even Jesus did that.

Many times we want to please the masses, thinking that is the way to draw more people in. Jesus didn’t do this.

The Misfits

The misfits are people who don’t fit into the mold as others do. In many ways, you are not sure what to do with them, but they keep showing up and they keep following in the ways of Jesus. Jesus had many of these in his time. He had the demon possessed man that he sent the Legion of demons into the pigs and told him to go back to his town to tell them what happened (Mark 5:1-20). He had the blind man in John 9 that had enough faith to go and tell what happened to the religious leaders. And of course, Zacchaeus would also fit into this category.

Know that you will run into these types all the time. They don’t fit the normal mold that you are used to leading. It could be their personality type, or it could be their beliefs. We’ve had many people in our missional communities over the years that didn’t fully believe in all the “tenants of Christianity,” but followed in the ways of Jesus more closely than any Christian I had come across. Don’t discourage these people, but foster them and help them grow in that understanding of who God is and what he’s done. The misfits were ones that Jesus took great care of and desired them to know his Father. For too long, we’ve been uncomfortable with leading these types of people, but know that God desires them among his flock, even if they believe that karma is legit and unicorns are real.

The misfits were ones that Jesus took great care of and desired them to know his Father.

The Managers

I believe that Jesus had at least nine managers among him. They did what they were told, followed Jesus where he was going and loved Jesus until the end (besides one). These were the nine apostles apart from Peter, James and John. Now, I can’t tell you exactly why these nine were different than the three. But, we definitely see that Jesus’ relationship with the three - Peter, James and John - was quite different than the nine (which will be explained further in the article). Jesus entrusted the nine with a ton, but probably knew that their leadership capabilities were more than likely going to be in a smaller setting and done with very little vision or initiative. He needed to do a lot of hand-holding with their leadership, but he knew that if he laid out the plans and purpose, they would be very good with following through. Whether it was feeding the crowds or coming alongside him even after some tough conversations and teachings. They weren’t going anywhere, they loved him deeply.

We all lead these types of people. They are great at running tasks, small groups, or missional communities. But, to try and get them to take that next step of visionary leadership and leading leaders is just too much for them. For too long, we’ve been trying to make managers a leader among leaders. We then get frustrated when they don’t come through, or things become stagnant in their growth or in their groups. But, this is how God has made them and where their capacity lies. This is a huge step for you as a leader, to know the difference between a manager and an apprentice. Who is going to merely carry out an assignment and who is going to catalyze an assignment? Big difference. This will not only help managers function in the ways that God has made them, which will in turn be freeing for them, but it will stop your frustration with why they can’t get to that next level.

The Moles

Some moles are wolves, but not all of them, so I won’t use that term to classify a whole “class” of people. The moles seem to be going along just fine for the most part. But, they usually don’t speak up, or they don’t buy into the vision and end up being like rocks in your shoe. Jesus had moles all around him. He had some that were wolves and some that were merely going to slow down his mission to show off his Father. Think of it:

Jesus had the rich young ruler that didn’t want to fully follow him, so Jesus let him go instead of trying to convince him to stay (Mark 10:17-27).

Jesus had one who asked to go and bury his father and yet another that asked to go say goodbye to his family (Luke 9:57-62).

Not only this, but Jesus also had moles that were wolves. Of course, there was Judas. There were also the Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes who were asking questions to try and throw him and his disciples off their plan to make disciples.

The point is that moles will never follow you where you are going. They always have excuses or bring up questions that sound legit if you took each one by themselves, but when added up, only equal a stagnant self-focused individual that will never actually follow your leadership.

They need to be let go. You have to prune these branches. Too many allow these types of people hang around and call it “grace,” when in reality it’s bad leadership and is holding back the misfits, the masses, and the managers from actually following you as you follow Jesus and his mission. Jesus only allowed Judas to stick around because he had a specific plan in place for him, but with all other moles, he sharply addresses and moves on without them.

Now, don’t automatically label someone as a mole, but when someone’s actions have a pattern of this type of behavior, the worst thing you can do is keep them around as they only hinder you and everyone else from fulfilling the mission.

Just look at Jesus. He knew men’s hearts, so he could make this judgment far quicker than we can. But he wouldn’t even allow these types of people to be close to him or his disciples. That says a lot.

The Apprentices

The apprentices are a little different than the rest. They not only get the mission and vision, but they can see and lead five steps down the line. Jesus had three of these: Peter, James and John. These three were the ones that were going to lead the charge when Jesus was gone. They were virtually taking the place of Jesus. You’ll notice that they aren’t perfect; Peter says many things we cringe at, and James and John desire to destroy people with fire from heaven (Luke 9:54). Jesus doesn’t use this against them, but finds them to be men of zeal and passion for him and his mission. He sees them, not as merely managers, but as ones that will take his place. He spends extra time with them to teach them and guide them in his ways, even taking them up to see his transfiguration. These were men who he was training in all of his ways, allowing them to speak into situations and aid the people so that they could understand what he was about.

We have the same in our communities. They are humble and want to learn and want to lead without titles. They have great ideas and seem to always see down the road and how things will affect people in ways we haven’t thought about. These are the people we need to spend the most time with. These are the future leaders that will continue to lead, not in a way a manager will, but will lead with big vision and lead the charge, instead of just taking orders. Dig deep with these people as much as possible. Spend time with them that others won’t get to with you, not because you are picking favorites, but because you know that they are going to be a leader or leaders and need that extra time to understand what it looks like.

Under your wing, these leaders will be the ones who continue to properly handle the masses, the misfits, the managers, the moles, and the new apprentices long after you’re gone. In my opinion, this is the best way to multiply leaders and, ultimately, to multiply disciples. And that’s what we’re here for, right?

Conclusion

What you’ll see about Jesus is that he allowed every one of these types of people to hear and observe his message and life. He didn’t leave people out, but he also didn’t treat them all the same. He used wisdom to understand who to let “in” and who to let go, who to dig deeper with and who to keep at a distance. It wasn’t because Jesus was a jerk, it was because Jesus had a mission.

What you’ll see about Jesus is that he allowed every one of these types of people to hear and observe his message and life.

The same is said for us. Jesus left us with his mission to make disciples. Knowing where people are on their journey will help you identify how to lead them and who to offer more of your time. This doesn’t mean that if someone is a misfit or a manager that someday they won’t be an apprentice; treat it as though it could happen and pray for the Spirit’s leading. It also doesn’t mean that God won’t change the heart of the mole. Saul became Paul.

I hope here to offer my experience, and to aid your understanding in who you are leading and how Jesus led. Let this be just a taster of your study and understanding of leading others in their journey of following Jesus.

Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade. Seth is an investment portfolio manager, serving as President of McBee Advisors, Inc. He is also a MC leader/trainer/coach and executive team member of the GCM Collective. Seth currently lives in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Stacy and their three children: Caleb, Coleman, and Madelynn. He is also the artist and co-author of the wildly popular (and free!) eBook, Be The Church: Discipleship & Mission Made Simple. Twitter: @sdmcbee.

Jeremy Writebol 11/25/13 Jeremy Writebol 11/25/13

5 Boldness-Increasing Questions

I don't know anyone who sees evangelism as an easy task. For most of us, the work of declaring the gospel to our lost friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers makes us quake in our boots. If you and I are anything alike, we would have to confess that sharing the good news of Jesus makes us timid.

Maybe it’s justifiable, in a sense, given the political and moral climate of our world today. It seems that the only thing our world can be absolutely positive about is that there are positively no absolutes. Anyone who expresses a dogmatic claim to "big-T" truth is an arrogant intellectual Neanderthal of a bygone era. Expressing that a differing position, especially on religious matters, could be wrong and even subject to eternal judgment is the social faux pas of our day. It's no wonder we can be timid about sharing our faith.

Increased Boldness

I struggle with my own fearfulness about sharing the gospel along like anyone else. Yet recently, the Lord has not only placed opportunities but encouragement in front of me to be about declaring his love in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to those who don't believe. The encouragement has come through his Word, specifically Acts 4.

The passage is filled with the tension of a secular, religiously liberal leadership struggling with the exclusive claims of uneducated, common men declaring Jesus as Lord. A healed cripple stands before the midst of the forum on religious tolerance as evidence for the minority opinion. And like a blast of cold water to my face, I'm confronted with questions that give me an adrenaline shot of confidence.

Layered beneath an arrest, trial, confession, and regrouping phase are five questions for us to ask ourselves. If we answer them correctly the measure of our boldness to proclaim the gospel will only grow.

1. Will God Save?

As Peter and John declared that the resurrection of Jesus was the power source behind healing the cripple, the assault mounted. If there was ever a time to back down and disperse quietly into the streets of Jerusalem, now was the time. And yet they stayed, preached Jesus, and ended up in a holding cell for the evening. By modern standards, their work was a failure. Now they have been identified and are in the beginning phases of a lifetime of persecution. But Acts 4:4 tells us something amazing occurred in the midst of their suffering and teaching: people came to Christ. People were saved. As the gospel was under attack, it was also advancing and moving forward.

How does asking this question increase our confidence and boldness in witness? It reminds us of what and who we are not. We are not God. We can't save anyone. No matter how clear our presentation of the gospel, no matter how effective our technique or delivery of that message, we can't take the heart of a spiritually dead person and bring it back to life. Only God can do that. And God does that through the declaration of his good news of Jesus. God is the one who saves. Not us. And so boldness grows because we know the one who brings salvation.

But not only is he one who brings salvation, he is the one who promises to bring salvation. His word tells us that "faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). People will come to faith in Jesus by our declaring the good news of Jesus, even in the face of opposition and suffering. We can be bold because God has promised to save sinners and he actually does so!

Is God able to save my lost neighbor through my imperfect, inadequate, inarticulate sharing of the good news of Jesus? Yes, yes he is. So I can be supremely confident that God will do what he has promised. Will God save? Yes he will. Yes he does.

2. Has God Spoken?

The second question is a further injection of boldness into my spiritually-timid heart. A major source of fear in sharing the gospel is the fear of speech. Folks will often say, "I just don't know what to say to them." There is a fear of saying the right things (or even the wrong things), and that the message of the gospel won't be clear and straight and helpful.

As Peter and John were dragged before the Sanhedrin to testify, they were at a clear disadvantage. These two poorly educated, common, blue-collar fishermen were standing before the educated, intellectual, political influencers of their day. If they were ever going to feel over their heads, this would be that time. And yet God's promises were evident and real within them. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, opened his mouth and boldly, clearly declared the gospel. Making one of the most exclusive statements about the authority and centrality of Christ in all of the Bible, Peter told the religious pluralist of his day that there is salvation found in no one else except for Jesus (Acts 4:12).

Where did he get this confidence? It came from the emboldening reality that Christ promised to speak through them. He told them not to worry when they stood before rulers and authorities and powers because the Holy Spirit would give them the words to speak (Matt. 10:19-20).

We too can have this same confidence to speak the good news of Jesus because we too have the gospel word. We have Christ, who is the Word of God, to declare to our unbelieving friends. We don't have to invent the message or come up with clever or memorable ways of stating it; we can simply declare the Word of Christ to them. This doesn't mean the gospel is reduced to a formula or a small track of information, but that as we live life among unbelievers, we don't have to rely on a style of delivery to bring them to faith and repentance. We rest in the power that God supplies as we declare the perfect life, substitutionary sacrifice, and powerful resurrection of Jesus for us and our salvation. God speaks through his Word. He speaks today and he will speak to those who don't know him.

3. Has God Sent?

As Peter and John confidently proclaim Christ as Lord to the religious liberals of their day, the basis of their authority was called into question yet again. These powerful, political Jewish leaders could not understand how common, uneducated men could teach with such authority and conviction. They were frustrated that the apostles were without credentialed papers or authorization to preach such a message. If the lowest form of leadership influence is to stoop to a title earned or positional posture, then the Sanhedrin had only one card left.

After hearing the testimony of Peter and John, the Sanhedrin sent them away and deliberated how to stop this Spirit-led movement. They decided to tell the apostles to stop declaring their bold, exclusive message of Christ. Once again, the opportunity to capitulate to the religious leadership was there. Peter and John could have backed off and said, "They just want us to stop talking about Jesus. Okay, be we can still tell them God did it." And yet, Peter and John knew where their authority was derived. They were authorized and sent by Christ himself to witness about him. They knew they had a mission and that they had two options: either be faithful to the one who sent them, or disobey and disregard the authority of Jesus who sent them.

Boldness grows within our own lives when we see that we too have been sent by Christ for the exact same mission. Just as Jesus sent his first disciples to go and make more disciples, this mission still stands for us today. We are called to obedience and faithfulness in the work of that mission. As a prominent pastor used to say, "We are either missionaries or impostors." We have a mandate to take the word of Christ and witness to his resurrection to the world in which we live.

How can I be confident or bold in sharing the gospel with those around me? It stems from knowing the one who sent me and knowing his call on my life to witness to his grace, power, and love. Peter and John declared, "We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20). Why? Because they had been sent.

Where do you live today? Where are you at right now? Do you see that God has sent you to that place? Do you understand that Christ has, by his authority, placed you in that specific place and within those specific relationships with the mission of sharing about him? Boldness can grow when we see our calling and our mission in this light. We are sent to these people at this specific point in human history to declare to them the cross and resurrection of Jesus on their behalf.

4. Will God Supply?

With a healed man who had been a cripple for over forty years of his life standing before them and two men boldly proclaiming Christ, this council had no way of outright punishing Peter and John. All they could do is send them away with greater threats and a promise of greater persecution. Again, this was another opportunity to cower in fear, to back off the message, or to bow out altogether.

As they went home to their family and friends, the adrenaline rush of being in prison and before a council that could call for your death began to wear off. Maybe this was too risky of a move. Maybe the church should drop down undercover for a while. Maybe the cost is too high. As they gathered the church together, the threats could become deafening, forcing them to press pause on the movement. And yet the calling stood before them. So they asked a fourth question. Will God supply the very thing we need, namely boldness, to continue witnessing to the gospel of Jesus in the face of persecution?

Will God supply what we need? The early church assembled together and prayed and asked for that very thing in Acts 4:24-30: "God supply what we need. Give us more boldness." How do you increase in boldness? You ask for more of it. To be bold declaring the gospel, we need to ask for God to supply the boldness we lack.

Maybe we are so nervous about sharing the gospel because we haven't asked for the Spirit to empower us in the mission. We haven't asked for God to make us bold. Even in the face of the threats, whether real or imagined, we have simply forgotten the one who has all authority and power and the one who will accomplish his mission (Matt. 28:18). Boldness comes if we ask for it.

I love verse 31 of Acts 4: "And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness." They prayed and God gave them the very thing they asked for.

Will God supply what we need to be faithful in the mission he has given us? If it really is his mission, then how can he deny us what we need? We just have to ask.

5. Do I Trust God?

This brings me back to asking one all-encompassing question to increase my boldness. Do I trust God? Will he do what he has promised (save) by the means he has ordained (speaking) to the people he has placed before me (sent) in the power he gives (supply)? If I can answer yes to that one question, then I am emboldened to do what he calls me to do.

This isn't a matter of conjuring up my own faith and motivation. It's the question of my heart saying, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24). Do we trust God to do what he has promised to do? Then let us with courageous boldness ask him to continue saving, speaking, sending and supplying us with boldness for his glory.

Guest User 11/15/13 Guest User 11/15/13

5 Things Mistaken for Evangelism

I remember as a little child hugging my father's leg at a gas station only to realize it wasn't his leg I was hugging. I was embarrassed! It was a case of mistaken identity.

In the matter of evangelism, I'm concerned about a number of things that people take to be evangelism that aren't. And this case of mistaken identity can have consequences more serious than mere embarrassment. Let me mention five things mistaken for evangelism.

1. Imposition

Probably the most common objection to evangelism today is, "Isn't it wrong to impose our beliefs on others?"

Some people don't practice evangelism because they feel they are imposing on others. And the way evangelism is often done, I can understand the confusion! But when you understand what the Bible presents as evangelism, it's really not a matter of imposing your beliefs.

It's important to understand that the message you are sharing is not merely an opinion but a fact. That's why sharing the gospel can't be called an imposition, any more than a pilot can impose his belief on all his passengers that the runway is here and not there.

Additionally, the truths of the gospel are not yours, in the sense that they uniquely pertain to you or your perspective or experience, or in the sense that you came up with them. When you evangelize, you are not merely saying, "This is how I like to think of God," or "This is how I see it." You're presenting the Christian gospel. You didn't invent it, and you have no authority to alter it.

2. Personal Testimony

One of the classic testimonies was given by a blind man Jesus healed. When he was questioned after Jesus healed him, he responded, "Whether he [Jesus] is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" (John 9:25). The man disregarded the menacing threats of those more honored and respected than he in order to give this verbal witness to the power of God. It's a wonderful, powerful testimony, but it's not evangelism. There is no gospel in it. The man didn't even know who Jesus was.

An account of a changed life is wonderful and inspiring thing, but it's the gospel of Jesus Christ that explains what it's all about and how it happened.

3. Social Action and Public Involvement

Being involved in mercy ministries may help to commend the gospel, which is why Jesus taught, "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). Displaying God's compassion and kindness by our actions is a good and appropriate thing for Christians to do. But such actions are not evangelism. They commend the gospel, but they share it with no one. To be evangelism, the gospel must be clearly communicated, whether in written or oral form.

When our eyes fall from God to humanity, social ills replace sin, horizontal problems replace the fundamental vertical problem between us and God, winning elections eclipses winning souls.

4. Apologetics

Other people mistake apologetics for evangelism. Like the activities we've considered above, apologetics itself is a good thing. We are instructed by Peter to be ready to give a reason for the hope that we have (1 Pet. 3:15). And apologetics is doing exactly that. Apologetics is answering questions and objections people may have about God or Christ, or about the Bible or the message of the gospel.

Answering questions and defending parts of the good news may often be a part of conversations Christians have with non-Christians, and while that may have been a part of our own reading or thinking or talking as we came to Christ, such activity is not evangelism.

Apologetics can present wonderful opportunities for evangelism. Being willing to engage in conversations about where we came from or what's wrong with this world can be a significant way to introduce honest discussions about the gospel.

By far the greatest danger in apologetics is being distracted from the main message. Evangelism is not defending the virgin birth or defending the historicity of the resurrection. Apologetics is defending the faith, answering the questions others have about Christianity. It is responding to the agenda that others set. Evangelism, however, is following Christ's agenda, the news about him. Evangelism is the positive act of telling the good news about Jesus Christ and the way of salvation through him.

5. The Results of Evangelism

Finally, one of the most common and dangerous mistakes in evangelism is to misinterpret the results of evangelism—the conversion of unbelievers—for evangelism itself, which is the simple telling of the gospel message. Who can deny that much modern evangelism has become emotionally manipulative, seeking simply to cause a momentary decision of the sinner's will, yet neglecting the biblical idea that conversion is the result of the supernatural, gracious act of God toward the sinner?

When we are involved in a program in which converts are quickly counted, decisions are more likely pressed, and evangelism is gauged by its immediately obvious effect, we are involved in undermining real evangelism and real churches.

The Christian call to evangelism is a call not simply to persuade people to make decisions but rather to proclaim to them the good news of salvation in Christ, to call them to repentance, and to give God the glory for regeneration and conversion. We don't fail in our evangelism if we faithfully tell the gospel to someone who is not converted; we fail only if we don't faithfully tell the gospel at all. Evangelism itself isn't converting people; it's telling them that they need to be converted and telling them how they can be.

Mark Dever is Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, and founder of 9Marks Ministries. He has authored over a dozen books and speaks at conferences nationwide.

[This article was adapted from The Gospel and Personal Evangelism. Used with permission.]

Nick Abraham 11/11/13 Nick Abraham 11/11/13

5 Ways to Grace Your Workplace

I currently work in a "secular" job for a Fortune 500 company. I put the word secular in quotes because I think a common misconception by Christians is that there is such a thing as secular work. When we think this way, we may be tempted to view pastors or clergy as the only people that do any type of ministry work. As Paul reminds us in Ephesians 4, this is not the case. Also, I mention that I am Christian because according to my faith in Christ, I am to be a certain kind of employee, which is a part of my overall calling to be a certain kind of citizen and a certain kind of person. The Christian faith calls us to be a certain kind of people, a distinct people. We become a people set apart to live as Christ calls us to live as the Holy Spirit lives in and through us. As the apostle Peter tells us, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). And we are called to be that distinct and chosen people in the world, including our jobs. Before working at my present job, I was a cook for five years at an Italian restaurant. If you have worked in the restaurant industry, you know that it can draw a very interesting and diverse crowd of employees. During that time, I became a Christian. I never thought that I would be in a more challenging work atmosphere to share and live out my faith. While my current work atmosphere is really nothing like the restaurant, I have found an entirely new set of challenges in living out my faith at work. The truth is, there are always challenges to carrying the gospel message in a fallen world, regardless of the context.

Every Good Endeavor

The corporate world presents a unique veneer of professionalism, ethics, and propriety, but the reality is that the guts of the day-to-day in a corporate job can be quite challenging. There are a myriad of moral conundrums that come up in an office. We are faced with temptations to gossip and engage in malicious chatter when others aren’t around. Many are faced with struggles with the opposite sex. We are broken people, and being in the workplace does not make that brokenness go away until we get home.

As a Christian, my integrity is often challenged by the situations in which I am placed. Beyond the personal struggles, I want to reflect the gospel well. My coworkers want to see if what they know about Christianity holds up. It doesn't matter if their perspective of Christianity is correct or not; they will judge for themselves based on what they know. If I am given the privilege and permission to share what I believe – and most importantly who Jesus is – I have an opportunity to add to shape their outlook on Christianity. It is where we can see evangelism and discipleship come together. Living the gospel at work is not some add-on to the Christian life that we can choose if we want; it’s a realization of the fullness of the Christian life. Being in Christ is meant to encompass all of our lives.

Recently, a friend gave me Tim Keller's book, Every Good Endeavor. As he usually does, Keller wonderfully connected work and faith in my own heart. So, I had a conversation with my manager about the book and asked if I could have an optional meeting during lunch with anyone in the department that would like to read together. It was approved, and we had seven people in our group. We met every week to discuss a chapter. The discussions were great, and it was the first time for some to really think about connecting faith and work.

Christian, our job is a ministry, plain and simple. God planted us in our current job for a particular reason. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). The apostle Paul is telling us here, that God is working out his will in the lives of his people. At the cross, Jesus has freed us from making our work about us and has given us the gospel to revel in and tell others about.

Representing Well

So, how do we represent the gospel well in the workplace? Here are a five ways to grace your workplace:

1. Be bold, but smart. We can and must think on Paul’s boldness before Felix in Acts 24 or Jesus’s words on being brought before governors and kings in Matthew 10. Just because we are at work does not mean we are no longer a disciple of Jesus. We are never exempt from the call on our lives to make much of him. However, we must be smart and keep in mind passages like 1 Peter 2:13: “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.” At work, we are subject to our bosses and to the leader or leaders of the company. So be bold, but keep in mind where you are.

2. Take risks. I realize this somewhat contradicts the last point, but the Christian life rests in that tension between risk and prudence. (For this point, I really should tell you to just go listen to anything that John Piper says about risk.) Practically though, take steps in work friendships to bring up Jesus. I am a relational evangelist, meaning I like to establish some type of friendship and then bring up Jesus. I am rarely the “can I tell you about Jesus?” guy. My weakness is to never actually bring up Jesus, or to do so in softened ways. Risk a friendship, risk a promotion, risk not “fitting in,” or maybe even risk your job if God would call you to that. Of course, we don’t want to be reckless just for the sake of being reckless.

3. Pray for your enemies. There will be people who do not like you for any number of reasons. Make it a practice to pray for the people that don’t seem to like you, who you don’t really get along with, or who just always seem to have something snarky to say to or about you. This is incredibly hard, which is why you need to rely on the Spirit in this. You will also discover God ministering to you even as you pray. Pray for them, for their families, their kids. Most importantly, pray for their relationship with Jesus.

4. Use your gift(s). I am a teacher/pastor type. I usually go into a teaching or pastoral mode at some point during my faith encounters with coworkers. The church is still the church both gathered and scattered. While at work we continue to be part of the church scattered and in the church we are called to use our gifts to build up the body. Pray about and find a way to use your gift(s). Start a Bible study, start a prayer group, take people’s prayer requests and pray for them, give of your time, talents, or treasures to those in need. Do whatever it takes to be a reconciling minister of the gospel (2 Cor. 5:18-20).

5. Work hard. Be on time, care about your job, follow the rules, get your work done, and help others. Of course, nonbelievers can be good employees, too. What makes us different is really captured in the household codes contained in many of the epistles. “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust” (1 Pet. 2:18). We should be that “good” employee no matter who we work for, what the conditions are, and/or whether we like the job. It is sharing in these sufferings of Christ, light they may be, that we can make much of Christ by working hard with integrity. Never let laziness or grumbling be your calling card.

May God bless us as we seek to serve and make much of Christ in all areas of our lives.

“To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” (Col. 1:27-29)

Alvin Reid 11/3/13 Alvin Reid 11/3/13

New eBook: Gospel Advance: Leading a Movement That Changes the World

Today, we release the newest eBook from GCD Books and Alvin Reid: Gospel Advance: Leading a Movement That Changes the World. You can buy it here for $4.99. Here's the introduction:

Have you ever set off a metal detector in an airport? Maybe you forgot the change in your pocket or had a watch that caused the alarm to sound. If you have set it off, you know the drill: the personal screener gets a little more than intrusive to make sure you are safe to travel. I am grateful for the new imaging technology that allows me to stand still, put my hands over my head, and get through security without being frisked. Why have I set off metal detectors all over the world?

In 1998 I had the joy of receiving an artificial hip (insert sarcasm here). I was 38 years old, still fairly active athletically, and more than a little bummed that my wrestling days with our growing children were over. I now have the joy of a piece of titanium jammed in my femur, a joy that slows me down every time I fly, which is more often than I like.

Because of that fake hip I have now set off metal detectors on four continents.

I got my metal hip in 1998. But I started setting off metal detectors in 2001, in late September in fact, while en route to South Africa. You see, several years before that September a man in the Middle East had become pretty ticked off at the West, and in particular the US. Osama Bin Laden convinced less than two dozen men to come to the states, to go to flight training schools to learn to fly domestic air carriers. These men boarded flights on September 11, 2001, and armed with nothing more than box cutters, unleashed an attack unprecedented in American history, leaving almost 3,000 dead.

Immediately after the attacks, the metal detectors were turned to a more sensitive frequency. For the first time in three years of having a metal hip, I set off a metal detector less than two weeks after 9/11.

Bin Laden started a movement. He led a handful of men to conduct a most sinister act, one that has led to the recognition of a global movement of terrorism just when we thought the Cold War’s end would lead to a much more peaceful world.

While many have been involved, one man started the movement.

He was not a dictator.

Nor was he the leader of a massive, organized army.

But using an idea and modern communication tools, Osama bin Laden has to some degree changed the whole world. But, not for the better.

The world, your world, has been shaped more by movements than anything else.

Whether you realize it or not, the things you buy, the clothes you wear, the job you choose, the college you attend, the shows you enjoy on television, all are shaped by movements around you: fashion movements, cultural movements. Momentum in one area or another is the unseen influence in your daily decision-making.

But these are trivial matters. What about the larger decisions in your life? You have to this point in life already made decisions about what you value, about why you are hear, purpose for life, and why you live the way you do.

Why do we even make such choices? Why do we care about the problem of evil around us, or why one thing is “good” and another is “bad”?

God created in you and me an insatiable appetite to be part of something bigger than our personal agendas. And that starts with God Himself.

Theologian and philosopher Augustine said it this way: “Thou has made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.”

The story of the history of the church tells of a glorious journey of the good news, the gospel, of Jesus Christ as it spread globally. At her best, the church has been led by gospel-centered leaders, advancing the movement of God among peoples in ever-spreading impact. From Patrick in Ireland and Columba in Iona to the Great Awakenings in more recent history and the missionary movements they birthed, much of the story of Christianity is the record of courageous believers whose lives centered on Christ alone.

At her worst, the church has become mired in institutionalism and formalism, and have at times caused as much harm as good for the gospel. You see this in the Old Testament. You can see Jesus confronting it in the New Testament. History has recorded far too many instances of this reality. Institutional Christianity focuses on maintaining the status quo, while movement-focused Christianity focuses on the unfinished task.

At her best Christianity is a movement, being spread by passionate Christ followers who live for an audience of One, whose message is not their own, but the good news of salvation found in Christ alone. In the following pages, I hope to help you to see how you can be a part of this great, gospel movement, and lead others as well.

The gospel is missional: it changes where & how we live.[1]

The Gospel Changes Everything

The Gospel Sends Us On Mission

Remember, This is Who You Are

We Participate in God’s Mission by Making Disciples

We Participate in God’s Mission by Loving the Poor

[1] Language and concepts can be found in the book I co-authored with Jonathan Dodson, Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities

One reason is that some people simply find our evangelism unbelievable.

This means that we should take Paul’s words to heart by doing evangelism “in grace for each person.”

If we are to recover personal, believable evangelism, we will need wisdom.

[1] http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/

The Significance of Pentecost For Redemptive History

The Implications of Pentecost For Life On Mission

Good Reasons Not to Witness

Defeating Defeaters

Seeking Intimacy

Seeking Tolerance

Seeking Approval

The first reason our evangelism isn’t believable is because it isn’t done in grace for each person.

A second reason people find our evangelism is unbelievable is because it is foolish.

The Three Days Gospel

The Thirty-Three Years Gospel

So What is the Gospel?

Discipleship Takes Time

Discipleship is Messy

Discipleship is Difficult

Our Purpose is Clear

Disciple Three People for Life

The Need for Cultural Literacy

Slowing Down to Understand

1. “The Bible says Jesus is the only way to heaven. That’s all you need.”

2. “Jesus is our lover and protector. He makes life awesome.”

3. “The Church has been a dominant force for thousands of years, how could that many people be wrong?”

God Grows Faith in Millennials Hearts

Learning A New Language

How the News is Good

Getting to a Believable Gospel

Different Perspectives, Same Eternal Gospel

Texas Only Has Three Seasons

A Perception of Shame

Christianity in Everyday Conversations

Filling the Gaps with Glory: A Theological Rationale for Multiplication

The Great Commissions: How Genesis 1 Relates to Matthew 28

Colossians: A New Testament Example of the Spread of God’s Glory

Time

Purpose

Humility

Why Do We Neglect Our Neighbors?

For Us and Our Neighbors

Causes of Mission Fatigue

Fighting Fatigue

The Best Way to Spend Your Life

The Masses

The Misfits

The Managers

The Moles

The Apprentices

Conclusion

Increased Boldness

1. Will God Save?

2. Has God Spoken?

3. Has God Sent?

4. Will God Supply?

5. Do I Trust God?

1. Imposition

2. Personal Testimony

3. Social Action and Public Involvement

4. Apologetics

5. The Results of Evangelism

Every Good Endeavor

Representing Well

**The gospel is missional: it changes where & how we live.^{^[1]}**

^{^[1]} Language and concepts can be found in the book I co-authored with Jonathan Dodson, Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities