“Since the advent of Protestant missions, the dominant motivation for missions has been an appeal to the “missionary mandate.”  Thus, missions became a response of obedience to a particular set of commands, most notably those texts commonly referred to as embodying the Great Commission.  In contrast, Lesslie Newbigin has pointed out that in the New Testament we witness not the burden of obeying a command, but rather a vast “explosion of joy.”[1] Jürgen Moltmann described it as the joyous invitation to all peoples to come to a “feast without end.”[2]…

Harry Boer in his Pentecost and Missions rightly points out that none of the key figures in the book of Acts ever makes a direct appeal to any of the Great Commission passages to justify their preaching, even when questions are raised about the emerging Gentile mission.  He further points out that the earliest believers who took the initiative to preach the gospel to Gentiles (Acts 11:20) were very likely not even present at any of those post-resurrection commissioning events.”

Read the rest of Tim Tennent’s fine post.

For those who aren’t aware, I also blog at Creation Project, where I try to think and reflect Christianly about life and culture. I also recently updated my Article Archive, which lists various writings under subject headings such as: Discipleship, Culture, Community, Church, and so on.

So far we’ve seen that God motivates us for mission with our gospel identity (missio Dei) and missional responsibility (mandates). Another way God motivates us to mission is by giving us particular graces. These graces come in the form of spiritual gifts. All of these gifts are intended to advance the mission of Christ. The Holy Spirit empowers us for mission by giving us missional gifts.

Missional Offices

In Ephesians 4, we learn that, not only is mission our identity and responsibility, but it’s also in our gifting. The Spirit gives missional offices to the church—Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, and Teacher—who exist to equip the saints for the work of ministry. The first three offices are inherently missional, for building out the church, adding to her number, advancing the mission through starting new ministries and churches, leading people to Christ, and proclaiming the gospel. The latter two, pastor and teacher, reinforce the mission by teaching God’s people about the missionary God and the missional church (along with a lot of other things). All five offices exist for the advance of teh gospel. Peter O’Brien comments on these five offices as “ministers of the Word through whom the gospel is revealed, declared, and taught.” So, these five gifts to the church are missional gifts for the sake of the gospel.

Missional Gifts

But that’s not all. Ultimately, these five equippers (Woodward) exist to mobilize the church for mission, for ministry. The Spirit has given you, each one of us unique gifts to advance the mission of Christ, to redemptively engage peoples and cultures (1 Cor 12; Rom 12; Eph 4). In Ephesians, we see these gifts operating in the church community, the Body of the Head. Fine enough. But then something interesting happens. The body grows. It grows up and it grows out, into the full stature of Christ. We build the church up with our gifts (community), and we build the church out with our gifts (mission). As it turns out, the gospel converts us to a Missional Church. The Pauline vision of the Church is a growing, diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural new humanity created by the Spirit. How does it grow? It grows through the godly, responsible, and gracious use of these gifts. If we are in Christ, the Spirit has given us missional gifts, to build the body up and out. To not use these gifts for mission is to to squander God’s graces. The Spirit motivates us with these graces. Be yourself in the Spirit, not yourself in the flesh. Walk out your gifts in the Spirit in everyday life.

More on this approach to mission can be found in my LEAD ‘09 talks and a recent sermon on Missional Gifts.

Despite the preponderance of missional church resources, American Christians are slow to live missionally. Why is this? In our last post, we suggested that one reason is that we are motivating the church with best practices of mission, instead of an identity of mission grounded in the Missio Dei. Today, I’d like to suggest another motivation, with a twist.

Any evangelical can tell you that they are supposed to be on mission, but very few are. They can rattle off the Great Commission by memory, while running along no differently. Yet, all four Gospels contain missional mandates from the resurrected, King Jesus himself (Matt 28, Mark 16, Luke 24/Acts 1, John 16/21)! Why does missional disobedience persist? Perhaps because…

1. We don’t take Jesus seriously. Jesus is our friend, not our Lord.
   
2. We think the missional mandates are for apostles or super Christians only.
3. We have a functional God that we like more than Jesus.
   
4. We believe that mission is optional and that we won’t be judged for our missional disobedience.
5. We don’t actually believe the gospel.
   

We spend just enough time “at church” to be religious, but nowhere near enough time to be family.

Read the rest of my new article here.

Do you ever struggle in motivation for mission? Do you ever see your people lacking in motivation for mission? After all the shifts in ecclesiology, the planting of many churches, and the landslide of missional literature, why aren’t people more missional? Perhaps it is because we are motivating them with the wrong things.

What should motivate us for mission? There are numerous motivations for mission in the Bible. Many of them can be grouped under three headings that point us to the goal of the gospel, the demands of the gospel, the graces of the gospel. In this first post, I’ll address our missional identity.

Missional Identity

The missio Dei, a Latin phrase meaning, “the sending of God”, reminds us that mission is not merely something we do, an action; it is something God is. Mission is an attribute of God. He’s a sending God. He sends his Son (Easter) and sends his Spirit (Pentecost) to renew the world. So, mission doesn’t start and end with us. It starts and ends with God. His mission is nothing short of the redemption of peoples and cultures, the renewal of all creation for his own glory. It’s God’s great, burdensome, and glorious mission—the renewal of all creation! My goodness, we can’t manage that, but God, in his mercy has invited us to participate in his mission. Through the gospel, He rescues us from a life of self-serving mission to participate in a life of God-serving, Christ-glorifying mission. We are remade into missional people by the redeeming work of the Spirit and the Son.

Therefore, if we are in Christ, we have a missionary identity. We are adopted into a missionary family. We serve a missionary God. Mission becomes part of our identity, because we cut from the cloth of a missionary God. So, the church is a missionary church, with missionary people, that do missionary things. It is who we are and it is also what we do. Mission is not merely for the superspiritual, an option, an appendix to Christian faith. To be Christian is to be on mission.  It’s who we are and it is what we do. We redemptively engage peoples and cultures, by sharing, showing, and embodying Christ in our context. This includes evangelism, social action, and cultural engagement, counseling, empathy, celebration. It’s bringing the renewing power of the whole gospel into the whole city.

Now, the good news of the gospel is that we get to be the blessing of mission, while God carries the burden of mission. Ultimately, it is God’s mission. The Spirit does all the changing; we simply share, show, and embody the wonderfully renewing power of gospel. However, if we aren’t walking with God, keeping in step with the Spirit, and following Christ, out life will hardly be missional. In fact, it will be rife with dangerous disobedience. If you are in Christ, you have a missional identity. To disregard your missionary identity is to reject your identity in Christ. The first motivation is the missio Dei, that mission is in our DNA, our identity. It is who we are in God, through Christ, by the Spirit.

The Missional Networks Conference with yours truly and Eric Swanson, author of The Externally Focused Church will be Nov 10-11 in Kansas City. Registration is only $25 here.

Bios

Conference Schedule.

Also, be sure to check out the VERGE conference in Austin, Feb 4-6. A great line-up of speakers. Today is the last day for $29 registration.

At Austin City Life Mission is our churchwide focus this quarter. We preached through a six sermon series on Mission: the point of the church. The first three sermons focused on motivation for mission; the second three sermons were on practicals for mission. Here’s how we trained our people on Sunday morning for everyday mission. We advocated doing “everyday things with gospel intentionality” (phrase from Total Church) by using some memorable phrases and attaching stories to them.

Don’t Eat Alone. Last time I checked we all eat at least three meals a day. Most Christians eat them alone or with other Christians. What would it look like for you to intentionally share meals with non-Christians. To get to know them over food? 21 meals a week, just start with one meal a week. I challenge you, 1 out of 21. Share it with non-Christians and be intentional. Don’t hide your faith but don’t force it either. Live with gospel intentionality in your meal eating.

Be a Regular. One family in our church are regulars at a coffeeshop where they have gotten to know the staff. As they got to know them, they invited the staff over for pizza and got to connect outside of work. This has continued. This couple hangs out with some of the staff regularly now. One girl drops by their house and just hangs out. Apparently she’s pretty down on the Church, but she’s willing to hang out with a family that shares, shows, and embodies the gospel. They even have spiritual conversations sometimes. Now, this would have never happened if they weren’t regulars. It wouldn’t have happened if they were normal regulars, treating the staff as workers, people who exist to serve the customer. Instead, they treat them as people who have worth outside of work, people who have fears and dreams that only the gospel can sufficiently address. They loved them; not just used them. It’s not just being a regular but a redemptive regular who bring grace into everyday life.

Hobby with the City. Ever notice how churches tend to create their own Christian version of hobbies in their city? If they like to cycle, then instead of joining one of the countless Austin cycling clubs, they create at Christian cycling club! Instead of joining a Run-Tex club, they form a Christian running club. Church League sports. It’s pathetic. Instead of joining a city league, churches create their own leagues so they can play one another! One guy in our church cycles regularly with city club. He participates with the city, shares a common hobby. He hasn’t joined a Christian cycling club; he just hopped into one that already exists. Over the miles they cycle together the talk about life. He gets to share, show, and embody the gospel with them. He’s had some of his cycling buddies over for dinner. Another example. There’s a group of women in our church who hobby with the city by throwing girly parties–Crafts, Bunko, Baby showers. It’s not a Christian party; it’s a good party. All the women bring food, hang out, play games, and share life, stay late. Lots of good conversations and social connections. These women are hobbying with the city.

Be a Good Neighbor. Another person in our church has been very deliberate about getting out of their house. They walk the neighborhood. Walk to the mailbox instead of drive over. Play with their kids in front yard instead of the back, and engage their neighbors in conversation. Over time, the neighbors have warmed to hearing the gospel because they were loved and accepted first. One guy, a committed postmodern, theist, homosexual recently had a crisis. Partner left, his health is in decline, some pretty big issues. Who did he call? That neighbor. Why? Because that neighbor consistently loved him and listened to him. He got to show, share, and embody the gospel over and over again. This neighbor hangs with his family and has come to the Parish. Why? Because he had a good neighbor. Be a good neighbor.

Serve Your City. We brought someone up to share about a recent missional project with a non-profit. The answered these questions as they told the story and shared pictures with the church.

• What is Safeplace/non-profit? Who do they serve, details?
• What did we do? Where was the need?
• What kind of people did it take?
• How did is demonstrate the gospel?
• How were people affected?
• How you can do this by being a part of a City Group?

HERE

Here is a series of short iPhone videos from our missional project with Austin Safeplace this morning.