Mission is ~ We need

Mission is ~ We need

In my last piece I said that Mission was God’s concern, or rather His Business. I will try to focus here on the human response to build our reply to God’s leading.  This is how the missionary call and the Bible call that challenges us to “gossip the Gospel” to our friends and coworkers.

There are personal/spiritual qualities in or lives that either proves the “Good News” or that sends up rockets that say “no way I don’t want this in my life.”  It is that personal quality or that misplaced spiritual belief that has the possibility of making others not want to commit to the Master.

In each of us there may be personal issues that make loving others enough to invite then to the Jesus Party.  Unfortunately often, we are incapable of loving people with the love of the Lord, it requires the augmenting of Master love by Jesus.

The first consideration as we look at involvement in outreach of any kind is to remember that we are to act as the Master set out in the Gospels primarily and the following letters that set out how we should respond in times of stress as we speak to people who are separated from the Church.

Jesus left a “commandment” for us that we should love one another as He had loved us.  There is anecdotal evidence that the early churches did exactly do with the comments being made of “look at those Christians see how they love each other.” This is just one personal quality that makes a difference in the way that people experience people of God.

There are other personal qualities that are addressed our relations with others. One of these was “Let your yes and your no be no” from the Master. It seems to me that this relates to personal integrity when dealing with others, not just with our Church community but also with those outside that family: there is no room for yes but, or yes maybe, when we say yes we should do our utmost to get that outcome.

There are a couple of attitudes, or qualities that come out through the Gospels, the first of these is compassion which the Master had in bags full. The second of these qualities that is to be encouraged is a passion for the lost. This passion is one of the best ways to introduce a stranger to the Lord. If they see something different in you or me they will want to get involved in where we are showing the way.

All this above is all well and good but there is a prior activity which empowers their activation. That is what Jesus told His followers when He told them to “pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers.” Regardless of our own personal desires when we pray that prayer regularly then Father will motivate people to step into mission and evangelism

Let God arise and through us reach out to those who are away from His Kingdom.

Mission is God’s Concern

 In my last writing I got somewhat organizationally wrongheaded. It is an error I hope to be able to address today. Mission is God’s business and our responsibility to be sensitive to.

Words like “mission” and “evangelism” have grown to have a fuzzy theological meaning in Church society and history, the latter having both a positive and negative aspect depending on the listener and the speakers position.

While both words have a similar meanings,they are different from each other.  Evangelism in its original intent was “good news” . It was what Jesus spoke about in Jerusalem when He was passed a scroll of the book of Isaiah following His 40 days in the wilderness.

The word mission has its application in the word missionary and has the sense of the “sent ones”; following on from the commission in Matthew 28. A missionary is one who steps out of his culture to take the good news of Jesus to another group of people.

Now there is another element in this overview which is that Jesus called for followers to "pray the Lord of the harvest to sent workers into His fields" (Lk 10:2, Matt 9:38). Now the concept of these verses was that Jesus was sending disciples out as innocents in a hostile land that was called Israel to spread His message as they were travelling toward Jerusalem and His spoken about death at the hands of Rome and the Jewish Leaders.

These verses introduce a second group of “sent ones”, one the first hand was the people He sent to the villages as He traversed to Jerusalem, their role was to provide a people who would be welcoming and well; as the sent ones had the power of the Holy Spirit. The second group who were called in the Great commission of Matt 28:16-20 in which the sent ones of the missionary era would become known and of which Paul of Tarsus would probably be among the list of first among others.

But there is more to it than this. If I could draw your attention to Matt 9 and Luke 10 Jesus asks people to pray for workers to become available to go to the fields that were “white for the harvest”. before He sent out His representatives.  I rather wonder whether this praying for workers might just be a future reflection for many years from where Jesus was at that particular moment.

You see we have a responsibility to support those who are serving as “sent ones” and to pray for more staff to “tend the fields” to the glory of God. Moreover when Jesus made His comment there were no missionary statuses. He was if you can indulge me He was looking at a home missionary scenario.

It was only after His Resurrection that the whole world was available. This then meant a bigger picture and a bigger prayer column and the home network still had to be met. There are people in our personal environments who need the love that Jesus gave us. They need to experience that love from people just like us and the magic part is that we already know the local area.

Gods Mad Mad World Mission is God is

It is fundamental to our life in God that if our relationship with God is not first then our mission/evangelistic experience will be less than flash, there are a number of reasons for this statement the first of which is that we need to be moved by Him, the second is that people will respond to our God life as it effects them in theirs, remembering that a) we can do all things through Christ Jesus and b) it is the love of God that draws people to God. There is another aspect of the call of God and getting your call off the ground. That question is the period between call and launch.

If I can provide a personal my call to mission was as a raw teenager with no life skills and little readiness to serve. Stage two in this process was Theological School which was much the same assessment; raw, little readiness to serve, and still little life skill. Thinking back on that time it should have been obvious to all and sundry, except us there was two of us fellas who were under 20 and possibly 6 times that number who were over 25; each of them had good work history and even better personal skills.

There is another qualification that counts above all. The time when God the Father decrees that you are done with your preparation and now I send you in My Name to supply new life to those you will meet and love in my name. There is a passage written in the OT book of Ecclesiastic Solomon goes through and draws life together in God time and in one highly merited where he outlines all sort of times with the the pitty statement that goes “There is a season to Dah Dah Dah” and goes to with “There is a time not to Dah Dah Dah” If you haven't found it yet try around Ecclesiastes Chap 3.

I am not suggesting that there is a power of politics going on between the factions involved passing callow young missionaries from living in Centre, Metro, and even Side Sight that may end in embarkation for the Mission board, the candidate, and even to the community that was building trust in trust in the missionary gone wrong

It is possible that this loosing boundary, which it often is by extensive work to restart the process with the people who have had an grievance filed with their personal comfortless in this situation. Maybe a solution could be found when Richardson created the made Peace Child Jesus. As long as the child lived the the warriers had a covenant of peace.

Please remember that in all of this Father God is the one who has His plans to do good to us. I there a greater power that can stop this outcome?

It is a fundamental truth that mission. without the oversight of Father is self directed. God must be the source of our energy, and direction, whatever we attempt with others. As far as mission is concerned our efforts must be birthed in God unless in our velour we set to seal a person for Christ that Heaven had not counted no. The second aspect that this young person may not have a good grips on the sayings of Jesus and in unbounded joy may introduce elements foreign to the was of Jesus.

Finding Grace … Wherever

Finding Grace … Wherever

The title is mine, but the words will hopefully provide space for everyone to find a place in their lives to to feel better in their own lives. Having been enriched as such, will find time and light to spread the love of the Master over the periphery of their lives thus enriching the experience of people they engage with.

This is a major element of Jesus wandering ministry for some like the paralytic at Siloam and the blind man with the mud paste on his eyes it was a miraculous event, while for others it was initially a verbal event the Samaritan woman at the well that became a life changing story for an entire village.

It is easy to say that we are talking about Jesus sagas but one of the most challenging things in the entire New Testament is that Jesus in his farewell promises is that not only will He be with us but, but that we will do even greater things than Him. Now this is a claim that many, if not most of us, would tend to assign to the disciples and the apostles who came after them; not to we of the 21 century. But the challenge is why not, after all modernity provides the equipment to reach out to the world at large, remember the limitations that some who ask about why Jesus came in the time he did compared with the tech savvy time of today.

I guess that time tends to gloss over what we feel we are capable of in the light of history, after all who are we to think ourselves on any level with Jesus. He was the one who with a bunch of semi - illiterate, to use an Australian term yobbos, in three years and then the years following His death, “turned the world upside down.” The fact is that we are the equivalent to the disciples and apostles that He called on to follow Him.

I am not suggesting that we, you and I, should start doing what our historical examples did. The fact of the matter is that the Master may call some of us to take off and follow the footsteps of Jesus but for most of us we are part of a greater body who show Heaven on earth but the way we go about our days treating people in such a way that there may come a time that the recipients of our love and compassion come to ask “why” and our answer is then “Jesus. Remember the Samaritan woman went and brought her entire village back to meet “the man who told her all about her life”; we can have that affect on people we involve with our life.

Just to give a more modern example Arthur Stace. Arthur Stace you ask quizzically. Who is Arthur Stace. Well Arthur was the man who was semi illiterate in the early 1900s who after meeting Jesus spent the rest of his life chalking Sydney with one word “Eternity” in the most gracious copperplate. It was his response to Jesus and his new life; a hundred years later a lot of people are wearing the word on their clothes.

This piece is meant to open up options in the way we honour our Master but it is not prescriptive. If I have done my job it has shown a light on ways that you might open up your life to others so Jesus shines through your life; remember it is no longer you who lives but Jesus who lines in your life.

MMW Fess Up

Fess Up Time

Gidday Gang. It occurred to me today that I had been coasting on my blogs to the extent that there had been little self disclosure over the years. This is an honest extent to involve my self in making myself open in what I write.

Facebook stirred me to update my profile a couple of days ago which to them meant putting a more up to date photo on and changing my cover photo I guess it was a fair proposal but I still have the Triumph and I still like the photo of me compared with more recent photos. A  bit like this of Sue and I in 2009, probably the last time anyone has had me in their lens focus. Not so much of Sue this time The photo I had selected we her big sister's wedding and I found one of each of us really to wow the others but the computer spat a dizzy wouldn't you believe so this time it is just me" bad luck guys

Anyhow where do I start? I had a disagreement with my motorbike in 1974 that took me out of the army with aortic valve that needed urgent repair and nerve damage to my shoulder which meant the right arm was paralyzed. I have been living off the government since.

The point that the above is leading to is that in 2012 I was diagnosed with a condition called Superficial Siderosis. This started at the time of the bike accident but took its time to develop into the full deal. And now it has branched into a Vestibular disorder which affects my balance and movement.

I am comfortable within my skin with the limitations that I have and do not need any special treatment apart from my medical needs and I know that my Lord will fill those into the future.

The reason for all this disclosure is that there is a need for all of us to be as transparent as we are comfortable with both with “faith family” as well as with friends and people who we would call the “unchurched”. The issue to being inclusive is that we need to be transparent if we want to include the “others” who are outside our comfort zone otherwise our inclusion status is really exclusive in the eyes of our target group.

To be entirely honest this blog was at least in part inspired by a video I saw of a pastor who turned up at his new church dressed like a homeless guy and went to the extent of asking if people had change for him. Inside when the elders introduced him he delivered a sermon on Jesus words when you did this to the least of these you do it as to me; Matt 25. If I have offended please forgive me.

MMW A Question to be Answered

A Question to be Answered

An email came through my system a couple of days ago That the Pope had qualms about certain parts of the prayer we call The Lord’s Prayer.  As he went on to explain his issues with the words “lead us not into temptation”: the Pope explained that to his reading of that passage it leads us to suggests that God may not be averse to a situation where we get deep in the mire of sin.

Of course this is not at all true and the situation is a frequent appearance with translation. But getting back to the Papal pressure, found an acceptable prayer  line from a french church which reads “do not let us fall into temptation” His leading is gone and the responsibility is personal when we fail.

The above however is only, one example, as we know from mega ice bergs it is only 10% above the water so there is a lot of ice under the water ready to do as much damage. Without stretching the point too far there are churches that, at some level or another also have kinks in the Bibles that they read. It is not intended but language is a process of change that is a constant process; it is our task to be ready with an answer at whatever level our people and seekers come from.

The Pope is not the only one who has reached this enlightenment. Marshall Mcluhan in 1964 wrote a book called “The Medium is the Message” about the appropriate use of language and how we blur the statement when we use words  carelessly. To my mind these two people are making the same statement albeit decades apart and in different contexts.

We need to be aware, especially, when making Kingdom statements as the audience to whom we are speaking can easily be turned off, or at least confused, by the words we use. It is so very easy when using church terms to use century old words, “Thee, thou, thine” that we have grown comfortable with when our listeners go not have that same comfort line.

Pope Francis comment while being at a higher level of difficulty stopped me for a while where he criticized a line from Jesus answer as how to pray as suggesting that God was the one who “lead” people into temptation. The problem was that he was dealing with was a Nazarene Jesus who was recorded into Greek and then was re-translated into old English as the “Lords Prayer”; an intention that was not intended.

I recall an instance in New Guinea where two tribes would turn up for a fight at a minutes notice. Well they had no word for Saviour, or was that forgiveness? Anyhow after one battle the first child of the tribal head was given to the other chief as the “peace child”, as long as that child lived there was to be peace between the tribes. So it was that, for two tribes from New Guinea, that Jesus became the Peace Child between God and man.

The Peace Child story is only one of many where lateral thinking gave rise to fluidity in the presentation of the Good News appropriate to the way that words are used in a culture; even in English today

How in touch with the language of your culture to be able to express God’s Good News in your neighbourhood?

MMW Renewal Review

Renewal Review

About five years ago I started writing a daily 600 word blog, I should state right from the beginning that I had a Master in crime; He was in fact my Creative inspiration. Every night  He turned up got me out of bed and he gave me the message for the next day. I called it “ God’s Mad Mad World.

Well for about three years that worked fine until I started making up titles and even messages without getting the Editor involved, my thinking was that He was giving an amount of creative freedom for myself. In hindsight it became evident that I was the only problem in the entire arrangement I had become impressed with our body of work and when the whole programme started to grind to a halt my I kind of figured it out that we had reached a state of critical mass and it was up to readers to find the messages on the web site: talk about human pride. I did attempt to start all over a few times, even gave me “Welcome Back” a couple of times even introduced the concept of a weekly copy instead of daily but it all came to naught.

So now I face the light of day and reflect on the years of a “Mad Mad World” in the sense of is it over, or not, I must admit I enjoyed the work and I have admonished myself a number of times and even asked forgiveness from my my Creative Partner. The thing that hangs like a fog is “when is a writer not a writer” and the answer that pops up is “when he is not writing.” But the jelly-like shadow answer then is I could write 125/250 words of my own bat but the target we started with was 600 words daily, or as the pattern went, nightly is another level again for me.

Another point in this my quest for personal identity is that I might be able to try writing over a period of days to establish whether it is possible to roll over on a theme/issue and so to create an enhanced, if not longer piece of work,

The truth about me is that I am not the man I was five years ago. My health has deteriorated somewhat and to some extent it is causing me to wonder whether it is a part of why I stopped writing a couple of years ago. It was caused by a loss of concentration which limited the amount of writing I could do and to a certain extent my inability to just crunch out a single piece of single themed work. These issues about my health have lead to me being almost house bound at this point which severely limits my capacity to be involved elsewhere. At word 485 I am still undecided if I have the capacity to re-enter the blog affray like I did five years ago, even in a limited capacity; this has taken 4 days to get to this point.

I am certain that as the Word says “I can do all things as Christ inspires” but the question in this context is does the Master want me to restart blogging. The answer is that from my position I am not sure about whether my compromising position represents a “failed” history combined with pressure by the tyrant to attempt to steal my peace; alternately if this is an this is an aspiration from the Master then there may be more of these.

I seriously need to know, and to follow, if this is indeed the Master’s nudge.