The Good Life

Gospel-Centered Missional Community

(Wednesday Night TGL)

So why are we wanting to be a missional community? Is it because it’s the cool thing to do right now or are we doing it because we truly believe that God wants us to be in one? The term “missional community” is getting tossed around more and more these days and it sounds nice and sexy but do any of us really know what it is we are doing or how to effectively do it?

 Becoming a Missional community is going to take time. It’s not a process that will happen overnight or even over the course of one semester. The Resurgence page says this “When leading others in missional community, remember the slowness in your own story and extend others the same grace and patience King Jesus extended you. We need more than a drop of grace to get us going on God’s mission. We need grace stretched across the length of our lives and depth of our missional failures and successes. Jesus secured this grace, so revel in it and splash it on others.”

 I believe that when they say this, it’s simply stating that we need to commit and dive into the community and relish in that community through the gospel. I believe we all (especially myself) love to hop from community to community and see how many situations we can plug ourselves into. The more time, energy, and prayer we put into our own missional community, the more fruitful the progress will be.  I also think it gets really easy to come together once a week and call ourselves a missional community. But it’s not. We can’t expect to grow deeper in the gospel with each other if we only see each other every Tuesday or Wednesday. It just won’t work.  Community isn’t an idea; it is real people who are struggling with each other, doing life with each other, loving each other. And honestly, community isn’t as easy as we may think it is. It takes love, it takes effort and it takes patience.  Here’s another clip from the resurgence piece that I posted on the TGL Facebook page: “In a highly consumeristic, individual-centered society, it will take at least a generation to get back to the biblical notion of community. And even then, we will need more than community to sustain community. Let’s all agree to shatter our ideal of community and enter the real community of people God has placed in our lives. Let’s lift Christ higher than the community. Jesus is the head not the body. He’s Lord of the church. He’s the hope of the community, not the community itself. Community needs a center deeper than connection and a purpose greater than comfort. It needs the God-man, Jesus Christ, to knit unlikely people together as a display of our common need for grace.”

People need hope. They need God. They need the light of the gospel! Let’s not forget this!

And we won’t forget if we understand something simple yet awesome: That God was a person (and still is!). The incarnation – God in the flesh – helps us understand and relate to others!
The cross gives us the framework for our theology. But it’s the incarnation that provides the framework for our missiology. God came down and became flesh and hung out with sinners.

And the cross is our message! The incarnation shapes & informs how we communicate that message.  And what do we see in God as a person?  We see Jesus!  And we see him loving people. We see Him spending time with others and sharing his life with them.  We see an outcast ministering to other outcasts. We see grace offered to a prostitute, an adulterer, and a tax-collector.

But the cool part? He looks out at them and he is absolutely moved with compassion because he sees that they are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  (Matthew 9:36) And he says that He is here to seek for what is lost (us!)

As a missional community, we need to see that people and culture are not enemies of the church, but broken treasures that God wants to restore. Because of this, we should be committed to:

• communicating gospel truth in ways the culture understands.
• Producing missionaries instead of consumers – equipping people to live out the gospel through their daily lives and work.
• Building a great city, not just a good church – the goal being more than a full church, but a transformed city. We can be good at adding seats and bodies but multiplication is key. Healthy disciples make good disciples.

What’s crazy? That Philippians 2:5-8 indicates that God came in flesh so that Jesus could humble himself “by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” The man who was God was headed somewhere. The cross.

It is not enough that God simply lived among us. He also died for us.

Being “missional” is not enough, however.  Mission fails if we don’t point to the cross. The message that we are translating for culture must be “Jesus Christ, and Christ crucified.”

Because Jesus’ death has bought us life, we are now messengers of a new reality. We will faithfully proclaim and lovingly incarnate this new reality: to tell and live it for the hope of the world around us.

So we must come together as a community ON MISSION to drive home the message of Jesus. We must spend time in community and build up relationships within our Christian community but also outside with the people who do not yet have that relationship with Christ. And building up those relationships is the best way to do that. Let’s stop talking about it like a fad all the time and start living out the mission that God has called all of His people to do!

Tuesday Dudes:

Developing gospel eyes, ears and hearts for our dudes (for both  God’s Word and our lives!), creating a better network/relationship with our ladies communities!

Wednesday Dudes:

Bold spirits and bold words/actions, open hearts and open minds to reproof and disciple one another.

Tuesday and Wednesday Ladies:

Vision for our groups, a reminder that community is not the end, that we would continue to be humbled and Jesus would be the focus, breaking barriers and unbiblical ideals that come from the word “leader”, true humility, be open to deep discipleship and idol breaking, an openess to others speaking into our lives, having a biblical heart so that we can disciple, deeper relationships, our motives would be to point one another to Jesus and encourage one another. There are still false thoughts of exclusiveness. Not only being an open community, but a missional community! 

I will not spend my entire career, which will in fact accumulate the majority of my waking hours, as a teacher who would rather be spending his time elsewhere; stomping around the classroom with fists clenched, raising my voice in sarcasm in response to every student’s question, or rolling my eyes behind my desk of earned authority. Throughout my time at the University of Northern Iowa, I have written a handful of “Why I Want to Teach” drafts that have been assigned along the way in various education classes. In the larger focus of my educational career, I’m certain I’ve probably even written a handful of “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up” drafts in elementary school like every other kid. But before sitting down to spill these thoughts as I type these words, never have I written a “What I DON’T Want to Be” paper. And was the inspiration to write this merely a coincidental result of my sitting down in and of itself? Of course not, but surprisingly neither was the incentive to write this derivative of my time at the front of the classroom teaching. Rather, the motivation behind this critique was stimulated by time spent observing in the back of classrooms.

A wise friend of mine has continuously echoed the phrase, “People are formed in the likeness of their leaders.” Another wise, and notably dead, friend of mine coined a not altogether unrelated phrase, “Wisdom always begins with wonder.” Granted, he was a Greek philosopher and said a lot of things I don’t agree with, but there is some faux wisdom in the craft of his words. By calculating the sum of these two phrases, and keep in mind I’m a secondary English teaching major so math is a long shot from my forte, teachers should illustrate qualities of wonder with teaching if they want their students to experience wonder with learning. That’s just simple math, right? However, the paradox I have observed is that the very same teachers who exhibit frustration when their students fail to learn are often teachers who parade an unimpressive balance of arrogance and jadedness with the material they teach their classes. If people are formed in the likeness of their leader then this model, because literally by state law teachers are to be role models in the classroom, naturally (and follow closely, because I’m working with more math and logic here) results in students being uninterested in learning just like their teachers. The chemistry of the apathetic teacher and the uninterested classroom builds into an enormous cluster of frustration in the teacher and rebellion in the students. And, as this vicious cycle draws nearer to its completion, this frustrated teacher stomps around more, rolls his eyes more, and raises his voice more as the sorriest excuse for a solution. Consequently, the snowball continues to gather momentum and the students neglect education more. And upon a simple deductive reflection, it’s rather easy to follow the logic of responsibility back to the teacher’s original leadership.

Turning the corner, one of the greatest honors I hold dearly as an aspiring teacher is that I am able to share the same title as Jesus. Often the people Jesus encountered, and even some of his closest friends, would call him “Rabbi” which sometimes in the Bible literally means “Teacher.” As a fairly reflective teacher, the rational thought process would be to look to the supreme teacher in order to learn how a lesser teacher such as myself can become a better teacher. If teachers are in fact leaders, even philosophically and psychologically speaking at minimum, it would be foolish not to learn from the example of history’s most unprecedented leader. Furthermore, pondering on the inextricable connection between jaded and arrogant teachers and uninterested students, this is the antithesis of the chemistry of leadership and relationship that we see in the classroom of the canonical gospels (and yes, I’m going to be referring to the arena of the gospels as the classroom from this point onward, so bear with me). Instead, we see the ultimate teacher who humbled himself to the very image of man in order to teach them (Philippians 2: 5-7). Along the way, he was tempted, he got into a lot of trouble, he experienced great sorrows and joys, he tossed over tables and even brought a whip into a temple because of the passion he had for his students and their classroom. I wonder how many teachers would report this degree of rapport with the department of education. The word that the Bible uses to describe this passion towards ministry is “zeal” (John 2:17), and most students would probably report that this word has been absent from most of the classrooms they’ve learned in. Therefore, the example I read of in the gospels illustrates the greatest teacher being one who experienced the fullness of learning during his time in the classroom so that he could relate, encourage and inspire his students (Hebrews 2:17). As a matter of fact, this is the story of a teacher who wasn’t only disrespected or ignored by his students while trying to teach, but was actually killed by his classroom. As a hopeful teacher who sometimes experiences frustration with teaching, this is the most humbling story that I need to be reminded of every hour of every day. It’s called the gospel (and ironically I’m legally not allowed to teach it even as a literature, or story, teacher).

And the practical, real-life example of this student-teacher relationship in the gospel? People don’t remain uninterested in this classroom when they meet this teacher. People sold everything they had, were healed, walked away pissed, left their fishing nets and followed him (among other responses). During my time spent talking to former teachers, current teachers and aspiring teachers, it’s clear that the majority of teachers pursued education because they were inspired by their previous teachers. This makes sense to me, and it checks out with the theory of people being formed to the likeness of their leaders. If you even continue to follow logic, it continues to even draw stark parallels with Christ and the church: teachers become teachers because they want to look like teachers they were inspired by, Christians become Christians because they want to look like Christ. Moreover, teachers become teachers because of what teachers taught them, Christians become Christians only because of what Jesus did for them. Furthermore, teachers teach because they were first taught, Christians love because they were first loved (1 John 4:19). And the parallels go on and on and remind me that, without God’s gift of Jesus through the power of the gospel made alive, I would have no faith in teaching. Yet, Christ demonstrates his love towards us as the perfect teacher who taught with such humility that he left his comfortable teacher’s desk and entered into the classroom. And let us not forget the authority he taught with as well, commanding people to repent for their good and his glory. Thus, through a brief examination of Christology, the example of the perfect teacher is one who is like Jesus: humble and authoritative.

I would not have endured four years as an education major at the University of Northern Iowa if I didn’t want to teach, so the title of this reflection might be a little misleading. But if I were to follow the examples of a handful of teachers I have observed rather than the faultless example of Jesus, then I should hope that my reaction to education would lead me to not want to teach. I have always said that the greatest leaders are followers, but now Jesus is beginning to show me that the greatest teachers are learners. Luckily my faith and assurance does not walk on the unstable path that mediocre teachers have blazed before me, but rests on the established, unchanging and faithful rock of the teacher.

 Immanuel,

Cole

Throughout my life, I have always been “the little guy.” I never really thought much of it until tonight when the Holy Spirit wrecked me with this realization through my amazing brothers. (I apologize if this goes everywhere as I am just kind of typing so bare with me please.) 

Growing up, I had a lot of “friends” and felt like I had a great community. I hung out with my friends, stayed at their houses, and did what any other kid does. But a lot of the time I was the brunt of the jokes and the one getting picked on. I always played a long and never really realized how much it has effected me until tonight. I was an angry kid. Anyone who grew up with me will definitely agree with me. A lot of this anger stems from my want to prove myself to my friends, my dad/step-dad, and anyone else. I always felt like if I looked tough, got into fights, got pissed, etc, that people wouldn’t pick on me.

I really realized tonight how much high school sucked for me. Playing sports my whole life, I always felt like I needed to be good. I was short, had no stride, worked my ass off but had little success. Also, my friends started not wanting to hang out with me. Everyone would make excuses or just say they were busy and I really grew to hate some of these guys. As most of you know, I am very quiet and passive. This is where it stems from. I started not caring. I stopped letting people into my life because if I didn’t let people into my life, than they couldn’t ditch me or pick on me or disappoint me. I would date girls for the pure fact of having someone who cared for me. This would cause me to date girls who didn’t really care for me and would eventually hurt me worse than the guys that I hung out with. I have been screwed over by crazy ex girl friends, a girl who left me for another girl, girls who just wanted to try and get some action, and a girl who is one of my best friends. A lot of this has pushed that anger deeper and deeper inside of me. I don’t let people in because it never ends well….

…..But I let Jesus in. I don’t know why I let Him in. I didn’t grow up with an example of what Jesus looked like. Jesus to me was some hippy dude with a beard who, on Sundays, was REALLY boring. So why at the end of my sophomore year did I let Jesus in? Because He let me in first. He hung up there on a cross after being beaten to the bone, stripped naked, and ditched by all of his friends. And than He was killed. His community left him like mine left me. Now, I am not saying in anyway that my situation is like His because it isn’t. But I believe that I saw myself in Him and I saw hope. Hope that everything would work out and all of the mocking, jokes, pranks, etc would be worth it somehow. Yet, it continues to block me from fully submitting to the Father when I need Him the most. Am I scared that if I fully let Him in, that He is gonna let me down? Probably. I was always told that submission is a sign of weakness and I want to be “tough.” But submission to the Father isn’t weak because submission to the Father gives you full access to the Gospel and that Gospel is the same thing that tells me that it’s ok. Jesus can look at the Father and say “it’s cool. I got this one” and “I paid for that.” Without Jesus, I am nothing. I can only pray that tonight will begin a process of fully opening my heart to the gospel and letting Him in. Not only letting Him in but also my brothers in Christ. A guy told me today that he felt like I didn’t tell him things for fear of judgement and that was totally true. I never opened up because I didn’t trust that he would love me for me like Christ loved the church. I pray that God can crush this barrier so that I can begin loving my brothers more through true and authentic relationships. So that I can love my future wife without a guard on my heart wondering “what if?” But more importantly so that God can come in and take the reigns from me and stop letting me put my guard up instantaneously. 

Hebrews 12:1-3 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw of everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning it’s shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart”

I love you guys and I honestly don’t think I could ask for any better brothers in Christ.

Tom 

Picking up a book and reading through the pages of church history is a dangerous act of rebellion. You’ll notice that the Holy Spirit has always been present, working, moving and pioneering in the church through revival. But if you’re not careful, by the measuring stick of a self-made man society, this same Holy Spirit that is alive and well at this very moment might move you to abandon your own heart for His. The stories of revivals, dangerous men and glories of God might just get in your blood. Tonight, may we submit to His spirit as He guides us through a brief look at some of the great Christian leaders and revival movements throughout church history. The common expression goes; “Those who choose not to study history are doomed to repeat it,” but the cry of our hearts tonight is to the contrary: that He would repeat it in some way, shape or form. May he show us how the Holy Spirit has moved in the church through revival, is still moving through the church today and, most importantly, light that spark that might catch fire from the flint of our hard hearts as it collides with Christ, the cornerstone. So, like Isaiah before the throne of God, my prayer is that our hearts echo Isaiah’s begging in the book of Isaiah 6: “Here I am! Send me.” So, let’s come before the cross of Jesus, and I promise you that God is still saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

So as we meditate on Isaiah 6, it’s important when talking about a weighty concept like revival that we worship a sending God and we are a sent people. This adoration for the character of God is at the heart of the movement of revival and illustrated crystal-clear in the incarnation (or the life) of Jesus. Like many buzzwords in the Christian community, the word “revival” is thrown back and forth and tossed around with several different meanings; diluting, polluting and destroying the spirit of the word revival. But, despite the ambiguity of the word in and of itself, authentic revival of the Holy Spirit always begins by the work of the Holy Spirit breaking the sinful hearts of His people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let’s rewind and replay in layman’s terms: what we can do begins with God showing us what He has already done for us. Therefore, we see that revival is not something we do, but what God does in and through us by showing himself to us. So if movements are something that God does, then by some measure of rational and logical thought movements move, so let our hope be that God moves us. And if movements move, how exactly has the Spirit moved in the church’s history?

The following excerpts were taken and adapted from GCD: During the middle ages, one of the great revival movements happened in Ireland under the influence of St. Patrick. He was personally responsible for baptizing over 100,000 people, driving paganism from the shores of Ireland, and starting a revival movement that helped preserve Christianity during the Middle Ages. According to legend, King Loiguire set an ambush to kill Patrick, but when Patrick came near, all the king could see was a deer. Patrick challenged the power of the druid’s black magic because he believed that God’s power was greater.  He believed that signs and wonders verified God’s supreme superiority over the spells of the pagans. He was a bold preacher who was not afraid of magic, demons, or the devil. The story that he drove the snakes out of Ireland is symbolic of the fact that he helped transform pagan Ireland into a Christian country.

Patrick established many churches throughout Ireland. Like the Apostle Paul, he discipled new converts to become pastors to the local churches. Patrick was instrumental in the conversion of thousands, ordaining hundreds of clergy, and establishing many churches and monasteries. Because of his ministry, Christianity spread like wildfire through Ireland and into other parts of the British Isles. The churches and monasteries that he was responsible for establishing became some of the most influential missionary centers in all of Europe. Missionaries went out from Ireland to spread the gospel throughout the world. St. Columba (597) established the famous monastery on the Isle of Iona. It was the Irish monasteries that helped preserve the Christian faith during the dark ages.

In the 16th century, Revival also sparked during the Reformation, a Spirit-inspired movement that swept across Europe. The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the abuses and excesses of the Catholic Church, of which Martin Luther was a forerunner. Many of the Reformers were troubled by what they saw as false doctrines and abuses within the Catholic Church, mostly involving the teaching and sale of indulgences. Another major contention was the corruption within the Church’s hierarchy and leadership. On October 31, 1517, the reformation arguably began as Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the All Saints’ Church.

As is such with the nature of many movements, the Church and the Pope criticized the 95 Theses. However, despite the disapproval and critique of the most powerful religion, other reformers, such as Ulrich Zwingli, soon followed. Empowered by the Holy Spirit’s conviction of scriptural authority, the Catholic church’s beliefs and practices were attacked. Beliefs such as purgatory, devotion to Mary, the intercession of and devotion to the saints, most of the sacraments, the mandatory celibacy requirement of its clergy, and the authority of the Pope. Opposed to these sorts of teachings, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others proclaimed the doctrine of “justification by grace through faith alone.” The reformers also emphasized the inspiration and illumination of Scriptures. Their commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the authority of Scripture was the foundation of the Reformation movement. These men had a vision and a mission, were able to rally other men and women to this mission and staked their lives on their convictions.

In addition to their theological prowess, the reformers sparked the planting of thousands of new churches across Europe. John Calvin trained and sent numerous missionaries into France who were responsible for planting over 2,150 Reformed churches! Reformed Protestants eventually grew to over two million people in Frances alone.

Later in the 16th and 17t h century, the English Puritans were raised up as a movement that sought to purify the church in worship and doctrine. They were the outgrowth of the Reformation and heavily influenced the later development of Christianity in North America. The Puritans were Calvinistic and emphasized the necessity of spiritual conversation. The Puritans placed a special emphasis on the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in salvation that strongly influenced modern Evangelicalism.

Around 1726, the Great Awakening began in North America as the result of the preaching of Jonathan Edwards and other important Christian leaders. Edwards preached the famous sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God,” which sparked a revival in Boston. During this great revival, people experienced unusual work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Both young and old were moved to dedicate their lives completely to God under Edwards’s preaching and ministry. Edwards later wrote an account of the revival saying, “The Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in, and wonderfully to work amongst us.”

In the mid 1700’s amidst the Great Awakening, George Whitefield began a successful ministry tour in America. Whitefield’s common method was field preaching in the open air to the common people. Whitefield blazed throughout North America and the British Isles, preaching to countless crowds of people. Whitefield recorded several accounts of people who were powerfully touched by the Spirit during these revivals.

In 1738, John Wesley experienced a “heart-warming” conversion. This event marked the beginning of Wesley’s evangelistic ministry. John Wesley witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit throughout his ministry. During his lifetime he traveled more than 250,000 miles, preached over 40,560 sermons, organized hundreds of Bible societies, built several schools, and so impacted Methodism that at the time of his death nearly 43,265 members and 198 ministers had been attracted to the movement. He believed that God was restoring the work of the Spirit in the church through the great awakening.

Since the Great Awakening, it’s been a couple hundred years since the world has seen a genuine and authentic revival of the Holy Spirit that has swept an entire nation. And speaking of nations, the one we live in has evolved from Christendom (or a largely Christian nation), to modernism and now into a post-modern society. And here are the facts: There are 120 million unchurched people in the United States, making it the largest mission field in the Western hemisphere and the fifth largest mission field on earth. And there are a growing number of people in North America who are radically unchurched (by unchurched I mean to say “people who have no clear personal understanding of the message of the gospel, and who have had little or no contact with a Bible teaching, Christ honoring church.”) Of these unchurched borthers and sisters, non-believers can be divided into two groups of people: 1) nominally churched – 30% of U.S. population; 2) radically unchurched – 40% of the U.S. population.

Yet, despite these numbers, there is a fresh renewal of the Holy Spirit that is sweeping across the church. The Spirit’s renewing power is taking place in churches, denominations, and networks across the country and around the world. The Spirit is anointing a generation of pastors, church planters and missionaries who are taking the gospel to the radically unchurched. As disciples of Jesus, we should seek the power of the Spirit to preach the gospel boldly like the reformers, plant churches wisely like St. Patrick, and pray earnestly like those of the Great Awakening.

So where does that leave us in Cedar Falls, Iowa; living in dorm rooms with weekend warriors and in apartments in the heart of the bible-belt where you cannot so much throw a rock without hitting a church in this town? We believe that we do not exist as a Christian theology club or a heart-warming tea party kumbiya circle, but rather we are on mission to reform believers to the gospel and to show non-believers the gospel. We believe that we are living in a world that either doesn’t know Christ or has forgotten him at the expense of legalism or morality. We believe that, in the words of God’s accusation against a church in Revelations, we as His people have forgotten our first love. We believe that something so elementary as treasuring the gospel as God’s greatest gift of himself puts us at odds against a culture that wants transformation without looking at the transformer, redemption without looking to the redeemer and love without looking to the lover. We believe that treasuring the gospel with so much violence and velocity as the apostle Paul marks us as rebels in this world, even in the church. 

But such is the nature of revivals and the people behind them, and it is a small price to pay for a big God. Let us return to the cross, reform to the gospel, and forever enjoy Jesus Christ as supreme lord and love in the Cedar Valley.

Love,

Cole