the Glocal Trekker Blog

Not long ago, someone wanted to know my "missiology." I told them it was simple, "Just grab what God has put in front of your face." I was traveling with a group of guys and we started acting stupid and came up with our new slogan and body movements – "Just grab it!" But it’s true. We want to be missional. We study it--desire it. Yet, I don’t know that will get us there. Instead, missional is the way we live.

Anyone who knows me knows I love God and want to see this world transformed. (I think I wrote a book on that!) But, today I awoke in North Richland Hills, Texas. Today, I must be missional right where I am. Today, I have to recognize God’s face in every situation and every person. Great opportunities to change the world may come today, but they won’t come from the other side of the world--they’ll come from here. Often people say, "You don’t have to go to the other side of the world to be missional." How right they are! God brings it to us right where we are. We, then, have the luxury, opportunity, or whatever you want to call it, to disobey Him here or over there or whatever the case may be. Keep in mind, time and boundaries are not God’s. Issues like those are ours.

Let me give you steps on how to be missional that I learned from a new believer from the Middle East who became a believer on his own by reading the Bible. He, literally, has only a handful of believers near him and none of them are Western! These will work for your life, and they will also work for your church.

First, seek God.
Second, obey God.

That’s too easy isn’t it? Where’s the action plan? Where’s the purpose statement? Which values line up? Those two steps encapsulate how people are transforming their spaces. The biggest problem with grabbing what’s in front of our face is that it doesn’t pass through our grid of purpose, values, priorities, goals, and action plans. I live by those things, or I'd go crazy. Too much comes my way. But, I’ve also learned that my plans are not always God’s plans and I’d better have some filter for letting God get through, or I can’t do my action plan and fulfill God’s plan. God’s thoughts and ways are not mine.

I don’t want to write about this too much. It may take too much time. Instead, I should be out and about engaging it! I think we have enough literature. We need more stories. Oh yeah, that’s the big talk now, as well. We live in a narrative culture. So, we write and lecture on narrative, but what’s our narrative!?

As pastors, we tend to tie people to all this religious work, which costs people their time and energy to really engage with those around them. Let me give you an example. I’ve been taught, and believed till recently, that my job as a pastor is to get everyone someone in the five-fold ministry.

Eph 4: 11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers. NIV

So, what you do is organize the church according to those 5 ministries and then you have a functioning church. Some people go and initiate ministries (apostles), some challenge us with teaching or obedience (prophets), some evangelize (evangelists), and some are the caregivers/nurtures (pastors), and finally some are gifted teachers (teachers). So, find out which of those 5 areas you put a person in and if you do that to your whole church you’ll have a functioning church!

No you won’t. Show it to me! You can’t!

So, what is that verse about? We pastors read it, and love those offices and ministries because that’s who we are. So, we try to fit everyone into our mold, our calling, our office, and that’s our mistake. We push our gifts and ministries off on everyone else. Our response is a religious response. It is focused on a church organizational response, and the result is we rarely engage society.

Those offices and ministries exist for those in leadership in the church--not as an end to themselves but as a way of equipping others to do their ministries in engaging society. Read the next verse:

Eph 4: 12 to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. NIV

The focus, then, according to the Bible, (which is important), is for those offices and leaders to prepare people so that they can fulfill their ministries--works of service. Those works of service are to be the stuff of sun-up to sun-down recognizing God at work--in the family--in relationships--as Rob Bell would say, "making all of life sacred even sex!"

Sadly, we’ve tried to turn everyone into preachers instead of salt and light. The world will not be won to Christ because we have more preachers, but because the whole body is raised up in its daily pattern of living and in those places glorifying God. (That’s in a new book coming out in a few months.) Not because of a worship service--be it building or house--be it seeker or charismatic or exegetical, but because individuals are connected to God and see things through His eyes. I fear we, as pastors and leaders perhaps, have come to the tomb of Lazarus and with great authority, passion, and power spoken and said, "Loose him and let him sit over there!" We have taken one set of death clothes off of them, only to wrap another set of religious ones around them. If we would release people to their own ministries and services in daily life, then discipleship would be a daily response to the voice of God. What would that church look like?! The lasting result is unity, maturity, and fullness.

Here comes the ball. Focus on it. Run toward it. Jump up. Reach your hands out. Grab it! Run, baby, run.

Or

Here comes the ball. Study the ball. Notice the shape and dimensions of the ball. Observe the spiraling patterns. Notice the speed. Map out wind currents and evaluate what the perfect atmosphere is. Look at where it’s coming from to understand its origins. Map out projections of the ball. Log all your projections and give lectures on it. Get hit in the head with the ball--what careless person threw that ball?!