Simplicity in Mission

This last year I've been meditating on the commission given to the disciples in Acts 1:8, one to which extends to all that hear their message and believe:

"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.”

Jesus has not called us to save people.  He has not called us to do that which we could never do.  Jesus called us to testify and to give witness to the work that He has done in us.  Jesus is the One that saves. The gospels make it very clear that it is the Father that draws people unto Jesus.  It is the Holy Spirit that convicts people of sin, righteousness, and judgement.  Let that 10,000lb. weight fall off of your shoulders now. 

Paul would tell us as he spoke to the church in Corinth: (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”  

Notice he tells us that we are able to comfort people with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted.  The idea of having to go through what others have gone through to share the hope we have in Jesus is a misguided notion.  We have everything that we need to comfort others in despair when we ourselves have received the comfort that Jesus has given us upon conversion. 

What does this mean? May we live and seek to share with others the hope we have in Jesus.  Being about the will of the Father as He lays it out before us.  That could be to live in poverty to reach those in poverty.  It could be to use our resources and affluence to further on those who are called to the utter most part of the earth.  Or to use our resources, sphere of influence, and leadership capital  to change and affect policies/behaviors that further the will of God here on earth as it is in heaven.  

David Platt in his book Radical: Reclaiming your faith from the American Dream regarding the ministry of Jesus:

"But Jesus is so different from us. With the task of taking the gospel to the world, he wandered through the streets and byways…All He wanted was a few men who would think as He did, love as He did, see as He did, teach as He did and serve as He did. All He needed was to revolutionize the hearts of a few, and they would impact the world.”  

The key to simplicity in mission is being where you are, listening to the Lord in your circumstance, and loving those around you fiercely.  We then are able to leave the rest to the Lord to sort out. 

Weak Christianity

I was reminded this last week what an evil and harmful thing it is to believe something about ourselves that just simply is not true.  

I recently met with two couples who shared their life experiences with each other.  There was couple 'A' who have been dealing with this family altering experience for many years at this point.  Couple 'B' was just entering into a like difficult journey.   Couple 'B' was looking for a support system, people to talk to, to know that they weren't alone in this journey.  

I was encouraged by both of them.  Couple 'A' came to the understanding that they need help and didn't have all the answers.  Through this, Jesus has sustained them and their family.  They sought counseling, they advocated for their family member, they sought to understand the difficulty their loved one was experiencing, struggled with not understanding the complex issues before them which initially insulted their intelligence,  they turned to friends for prayer and support.  

Couple 'B' saw the mountain in front of them that couple 'A' was currently scaling.  They had no answers.  They had relatively no hope in the things that were before them. They hadn't met or known couple 'A'.  They were starting on this journey alone. What they did do was humble themselves and sought prayer.  

One Sunday morning as I was greeting people at the end of service, couple 'B' passed through the line. I asked couple 'B' how things were going.  At first, it was the token, "Good, thank you pastor."  After a few minutes, when most had exited the sanctuary, I turned to see them lingering wanting to speak with me.  They came and asked for a bit more of my time and shared what was so heavy on their heart.  We prayed and after which, I thought of couple 'A' and their journey and how similar it was to what they just shared with me.  I asked couple 'B' if I had permission to reach out to couple 'A' and share what they had shared with me.

Because of couple 'B's  humility to voice a deeply personal, difficult, and at times embarrassing struggle, they found comfort through the struggles of another couple who are still going through something similar.  Who, to the glory of God working in their hearts, couple 'A' were more than willing to share their struggles and experiences.

We are weak.  We are fallen creatures.  We are still struggling and dealing with sin.  It is taught in some circles that if difficulty arises there is a lapse of faith or favor from God.  As a Christian, Christ has delivered me from the punishment of sin, Christ is delivering me from the power of sin, and will one day deliver me from the presence of sin, but I am still fallen. I am still fallen and affected by a fallen world.  We don't have it together.  Our lives are at times held together by threads, we are reminded by and echo the words of Paul:

"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."  2Corinthians 12:9

We need each other.  We need to live in community.  The church must come around and bless, encourage, build up, exhort, love, and walk with those that are hurting and suffering.  Delivering the healing, soothing, and repairing shalom that only Jesus gives.  We are weak.  When we embrace and accept our fallen state, the power of Christ is perfected in us. 

When the early church was first exploding in the days and months after pentecost, Luke is apt to point out, "Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed."           Acts 5:14-16

As the Holy Spirit moves in and through out the church, the hurting and the sick will come.  May God grant us the wisdom, humility, and grace to love those whom He brings that need healing.  Not because we are better or stronger (this is the great cultural lie), but because we need each other. We need each other to point each other to Jesus.  May we also have the wisdom to reach out when we ourselves need help or are in need.  I am weak, but He is strong! 

What will be the first thing we talk about?

Welcome,

So what will be the first thing we talk about?  It's one of those awkward moments when you are having a conversation with yourself.  Someone walks in and the conversation stops.  

I feel a lot of pressure to make the first post something meaningful and life changing.  That's the way I've approached things, especially when I was younger.  When I start on something I want to be the best right away.  Forget the time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears it takes to become something great.  Get out of the way Russell Wilson, Peter Voorhees is stepping in!!  I can lead this thing... umm... no.  

Just ask the guys in the golf foursome I was apart of the other day.  I felt bad for them really.  I have been to the driving range a few times and on a golf course fewer times.  But we had a church golf tourney and I signed up.  It's church right, I can suck and it's OK.  Well, sure enough, I was making everyone look amazing!  They got a few laughs at my attempts to play the game... it was a nice day, I got some sun.  

They were gracious, but I made it difficult for them not to stand in awe and wonder at my inability.  I did though, make a shot I've never seen anyone else do.  I stood at the tee, swung, and the ball shot off at a 45 degree angle.  Hit a tree and rolled back to the tee I hit it from.  That's not the amazing part.  Out of pity, I think, they let me take the shot again... a mulligan.  I proceeded not only to hit the same tree, but with such force it popped back at me in the air and I caught it where I stood.  Amazing.  They literally bursted into laughter.  After they composed themselves, the apologized and felt bad, but did compliment me on the amazing shot.  I was laughing too... it was a cool shot.  Didn't know I had it in me.

Just like anything else worth doing, I know this blog is going to take some work.  So this being my inaugural post, we're just going to get everything out there.  I hope to write about life, family, theology, failures, successes, and observations about all the above.   I hope to be as gracious in these posts as to the degree I will need to be extended grace in my writing.  

So, as a friend of mine says, "Here's to the journey!"

I'm excited to get better at this.  Create a dialogue about things that are important to me, and hopefully along the way encourage some of those that might stumble across this blog.