"The Wheels on the bus go round and round and so must the church!”
Scripture: Acts 1:4-11
On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." 6 So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7 He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." 9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. 10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."
You have been chosen to live during the most accelerated rate of change in human history. Human knowledge is doubling every two years. Think for a moment of all the ways life has changed in the last fifty years: communication, technology, medicine, science, culture, global economy. How has all this change affected the church?
Just fifty years ago, eight out of ten Americans got up on Sunday morning and went to Christian worship. Today fewer than two out of ten Americans attend worship on any average Sunday. What changed? Everything!
How will the church respond to today's challenge?
Missional church is a growing movement throughout America in response to this time of change. A missional church is "an authentic community of faith that primarily directs its ministry focus outward toward the context in which it is located and to the broader world beyond."
You are invited on this missional journey as we seek God's Spirit and ask the important question, "What is God asking of the church today as we serve in this time of change?" Rev. Dr. Ron Carlson, Missional Church Strategist & Rev. Glynis LaBarre, Transformation Strategist
Whether you call them paradigms, metaphors or mental models, we all use internal images to make sense of our world. These mental models not only affect how we think about something, they also control our actions. Mental models are powerful because once they are accepted as reality, they influence how we interact with others, with our community and with the world. Churches have ecclesial mental models based on scriptural interpretation and historical traditions. In the past, some of these mental models worked well in connecting churches with their community. For example, churches viewed themselves as an integral part of community life, giving society a unified spiritual identity and moral order, providing social services and even governance. Churches often served as an ethical standard for society. As the Northern Hemisphere moves into a post-Christendom understanding of the world, the meaning and purpose of the church are questioned.
Christian churches, most of which are considered “mainline” because of their historical position of significance in society, often find themselves in decline. Growing old together, these congregations no longer attract residents from their communities; nor do they influence their communities as they did in their glorious past. Once the pillars of society, many are now alienated from their communities. For other churches, this cultural alienation is intentional. Separatist churches operate out of a mental model that views the world, including their communities, as hostile to religious life. Such churches view themselves as bastions of faith, protecting their members from “worldly evils.” Some churches overlook their disconnection with the community.
Churches focusing on an attractional or church growth mental model often see their role as attracting people from this world and calling them to a heavenly future. At best, the relation of attractional churches to their communities is that of indifference or cordiality. Because attractional churches tend to draw members from outside of their host communities, and because many of these churches occupy large tax-free prime real estate, townships are beginning to view attractional churches as liabilities rather than as assets to community life. To mitigate the resentment against their existence, some attractional churches provide volunteer community service. Social service, however, is usually limited to activities that give the church favorable visibility in the community in hopes of attracting residents to the church. Today, we are exploring an emerging mental model of church that takes seriously the need for churches to be reconnected with their world for the purposes of participating in the work of God in a post-Christendom era.
At first we want to deny that things are different. We become the proverbial ostrich with our head in the sand to say what worked 50 years ago – 10 years ago – will work today to bring people to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.
When is the last time you took someone to a Christian event or drug them to church and they accepted Christ at that moment? Cry, whine, moan but the world has changed. The way people process information has changed. Why people make decisions has changed. Yes we are still human, yes we still all fall short of the glory of God, Yes, Jesus died for our sins and rose from the grave to give us eternal life when we put our trust in him. But how that message gets heard, then processed, then acted upon is different. Therefore we must deliver it differently to meet the need so that some will come to faith in Jesus. And that is our hope – YES? YES!!!
Last week some people were confused about Jesus’ words – or my interpretation of them form Matthew 28 where Jesus says ”GO!” into all the world, baptize, make disciples and teach them about him. It does not say nor did I that you are to tell the person ringing up your grocery bill that they are going to hell unless they repent. It didn’t even say share some bible verses with a good friend who doesn’t know Jesus. All it said was one thing – “GO!” Jesus gave a broad direction for what we are to do as we go – but he did not say how to do it. A missional church is an authentic community of faith (authentic in that the relationships are not superficial; community in that individuals who respond in faith are connected with the triune God and with each other; faith in that it is a response to the living God revealed in Jesus Christ) that primarily directs its ministry focus outward (the church is called to be engaged in the mission of the kingdom of God. Mission is the church’s primary purpose, and that mission is to be participated in as the primary function of the faith community.
Members of FirstB, First Baptist Church, The church with Heart, the church at 9th and Shoshone, the church across from farmers - call it what you will, WE will no longer be seen as a church who simply gives to mission, but we will be missional as we learn to be mobile. We will become volunteer missionaries with a mission to Twin Falls and the Magic Valley, the United States and the World (you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth)
LOOK – this is still a biblical mental model. The same one as always – we just live it out differently – and we take it seriously. Churches and Christians who are not missional and willing to be mobile need to step aside for those who are because too many churches are dying daily and way too many people are dying without Christ every day. That is unacceptable for those who have received eternal life in Christ. He is a missional and mobile God, we must therefore be a missional and mobile people for his kingdom.
How have you been mobile for God lately? How has God used you as you have been going?
From the Heart,
Pastor Jeff Cooper
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