Discover Top Posts Tagged with #kingodm

"He Slipped Away"

14 When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!” 15 When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself. – John 6:14-15 NLT

After Jesus had miraculously fed the multitude with a few loaves and a few fish, the people realized that this man was different from anyone…

View On WordPress

#kingodm #kings #Messiah #miraculously #prophets #salvation

Kay Hill Dominion Manadate 3 Love+Peace+War

#authority #citizen #dominion #kingodm #power

Three Ways for the Church in Urban Places to Incarnate the Kingdom

In the past several weeks, I've written three articles which explore the question, "Is the church relevant in urban places?" I have links at the bottom of this page to previous articles if you're interested in reading them. This post will be my final segment to the series. I've attempted to show that the doctrine of the incarnation and the doctrine of the church must be connected to one another. Together these doctrines yield important lessons for the urban church which we must learn if we hope to flourish as instruments for the gospel, harbingers of the kingdom, and advocates for the common good. What should we as the church do differently in our cities? I want to suggest some tangible ideas below. I confess that these are ideas which are derived mostly from the experiences of other Christians, pastors, and church leaders. I am too fresh in ministry to have the experiences which would substantively contribute to these ideas. But I hope that this post serves to prod your thinking. Whether you are a ministry leader, a lay leader, or even someone who is just curious about what Christians are up to, I hope that this series paints a compelling portrait of what faithful churches in urban places might do for the common good and for the spread of the gospel.

Form Christian Friendships Around Mission, Not Around Friendship

In the American church, the spread of small group ministries has been a refreshing and needed change. Churches had been focused far too long on Sunday services, fellowship meals, and educational classes. Small group ministries helped to reorient our priorities from meeting individualistic needs to strengthening the broader community's health. However, an unintended consequence of this movement has been the strange creation of a "Match.com" church culture. Many well-intentioned small group ministries feel more like a weird dating scheme than a natural context for friendship. As one pastor has pointed out, this is not the way Jesus originally formed his community. Although it was a very different culture in Jesus' day, I have a hard time believing from Scripture that Jesus ever intended Christian community to form when a pastor says, "If you want a friend, take out your bulletin and check out the groups you might be interested in and maybe we can help you find friends."

I think this weird small group culture that plagues the American church is indicative of a wider cultural problem: we don't know how to make friends. Our society is plagued by lonely individuals who don't know how to form meaningful relationships with one another. But when church small groups become solely focused on making friends or forming community, we fail to do so. The reason is what significant thinkers have addressed for centuries: meaningful friendships form around a common interest or mission and not the friendship itself. For Aristotle, the virtuous friend shared one's values and philosophy. For C. S. Lewis, friend-love is marked by a common passion. And, most importantly, the pattern of Jesus' disciple-making is one focused on the mission of the kingdom rather than the cultivation of church fellowship. It's not that community is unimportant. No, I'm saying that the church in urban places will only flourish for the sake of the gospel if it forms Christian community around mission rather than around friendship. As we pursue the mission of God in our cities in covenant with one another, friendships will deepen as the Holy Spirit moves.

Practically, this principle can have many different forms. This might mean that lay leaders will take initiative in gathering groups of their friends to provide some service to their community. Or perhaps small groups adopt an evangelistic, open door approach. Maybe existing small groups will reorient their mission to serving their neighbors and creating hospitable spaces for meals and laughter. I don't know what it would look like, but the beautiful thing is that this mission-oriented purpose could put on all sorts of shapes and forms. There is room for creativity and risk for pastors and lay leaders. Such an approach is necessary for the church in urban places to develop a counter-cultural, unexpected community of friends on mission.

Build Relationships Rather than Do Projects in the Community

In church leadership circles, "missional" is a popular buzzword. Church planting is no longer the cutting edge idea (well, in some denominations it is!). Instead, leading grassroots missional communities is now the sexy strategy. I'm happy for this shift in many cases, although I tire of the relentless pursuit of the next "cool" strategy for the American church. But in far too many churches, adopting "missional" language has more to do with adding service projects to the pre-existing strategies of the church. Based on what I've written about previously, you should realize that this shallow add-on will be ineffective in the long-term. With the American church now pushed to the periphery of society, acting as a voluntary association with a reliable pool of volunteers to perform projects is a failing approach. We must engage in deep conversations with what it means to be missional. Or, to use the language I prefer, we need to consider how we can create a compelling presence of faithful Christian communities.

One application which I believe is essential to this ministry shift is that we must strive to build relationships in our community rather than merely do projects. Notice I'm not saying that we shouldn't do projects. Soup kitchens need volunteers, HIV/AIDS organizations need fundraising, and shelters need coats and gloves. It requires organizing people to perform projects in order to serve these needs. However, if the church in urban places desires to serve the common good and advance the gospel of the kingdom, then we must not stop with projects. We must build relationships with the partnerships which we form. So say that your small group participates in a project to raise funds for a HIV/AIDS organization. Building relationships means that we follow up with the organization after the project. It means that we invite those in the organization with whom we worked to our small group's bowling night. It means that we invite them to share a meal with us. Building a relationship rather than merely doing projects is one way that we obey Jesus' command to love our neighbor as ourselves. We as whole persons must love them as whole persons. This is what it looks like for the church in urban places to follow the pattern of Jesus and to incarnate the gospel of the kingdom in our neighborhoods.

Invest for the Long-Haul Instead of the Short-Term

This is perhaps the most difficult and the most counter-cultural component of what I am suggesting. But it is absolutely critical. American society, especially American cities, is a post-Christendom society. Churches can no longer assume that status quo ministry will yield status quo results. If we care about Jesus' call to be harbingers of his kingdom in the world, then we must accept that we are missionaries for the gospel in Chicago, Kansas City, San Francisco, Birmingham, and Raleigh. We can no longer see where we live as simply an accident of where our careers take us. Jesus calls all who follow him to invest in our cities for the long-haul as disciples committed to the common good and to the cause of the kingdom. Short-term investments in our cities will leave no impact for the sake of the kingdom. The church in urban places must build its credibility through relationships if it hopes to be a compelling presence, and that requires time. A long time. It requires risk. A lot of risk - and a lot of failures. But God promises that our Spirit-empowered efforts will not be fruitless.

Jesus does not call disciples to comfortable lives but to meaningful lives. Because of the gospel, we know that the Spirit is at work in us and that the Spirit will complete what has already begun. The challenge the church faces today is momentous. But no matter where we may stand in relation to the church - leader, follower, or skeptic - we are poised for something beautiful and unexpected. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is on the move, and the choice we have is whether we will be a part of the advance of the gospel or whether we will let the opportunity slip away. We must embrace mission-oriented communities, relationship-focused lifestyles, and long-term commitments to our cities. For me, I am committed to spending at least the next ten years in Chicago. I would invite every one of you who reads this blog to join me here in Chicago. But the city is not an urban amusement park. It is a beautiful and broken place with desperate needs. To treat Chicago or any city as an urban amusement park is not to love the city but to use it selfishly. Jesus calls us to more. Our cities are in desperate need of the compelling presence of faithful churches which unleash movements of God's kingdom. God is already at work. I believe that many churches in urban places will be swept in in these spiritual waves of change. The only question is whether you and your community will be a part. I pray that you will.

Part 1: Is the Church Relevant in Urban Places?

Part 2: How the Incarnation Informs the Church in Urban Places (And How It Doesn't)

Part 3: The Church in Urban Places: Change or Die

#kingodm #gospel #church