Category Archives: Missions
Why the mass exit?
“The primary purpose of the church is to give a ravishing vision of who Jesus Christ is.”
Family Mission Trip 2011 Day 3
What a great day! Great team! Great God!
Here are some text from people on what impacted them:
Loved all the ladies and little girls jumping in to touch ladies, hold their hands, look into their eyes and hear their stories.
Loved God’s timing in bringing a grieving sister to be loved, an overwhelmed mom to be served and her kids be ministered to, a recovering addict to be encouraged, loved, and heard…all not members at that church.
At the beginning of this trip i felt like i would b able to do just as much good in my home town than driving 6 hrs and doing whatever is port arthur. I to a room with 2 other people. Somewhere in between the heat and the mosquitos i realized that port arthur needs a mission trip. Driving around and looking at the living conditions and everything really opened my eyes to how blessed i was to like in fairview and have everything that i have.
I was very encouraged that I was able to introduce my heavenly father , but the most important thing was that I was able to be an earthly father figure to the children. I was blessed and fortunate God used me in this capacity.
Allowing God to get me out of my comfort zone and minister to his people thru music when I am definitely not a music person.
I was humbled by the reminder of how blessed we are materially with our nice homes. I hope each of us will have the image of people living in their cars permanently burned in our memories. God loves each of them just as much as he loves us.
Seeing the children smile and the children participates!
Loved serving as a family and putting Jesus first. Reminds us of our true purpose. What a joy!
Seeing the sacrifice that Brent and Savanah live daily. This is their life!
It gave our children a chance to serve.
It was a great chance to get my family involved in giving back.
Loved watching the body of Christ use their gifts.
How many people enjoyed and were impacted at the block party.
Family Mission Trip 2011 Day 1
This is from our Family Mission Trip that we are currently on in Port Arthur, Texas.
If video does not show, please click here to watch.
Leadership and the Incarnation
The Incarnation lies at the heart of the early church’s wrestling over what it meant to be the church in specific cultures. The concrete, material revelation of God in Jesus Christ was the basis of their thinking and practice. This is why the character and identity of those leading the church were articulated in terms of participation in God. But this participation was not about some private, otherworldly, spiritual practices having nothing to do with the public, political, social life of a people. it was in fact the very opposite. Participation in God meant forming a community of God’s people whose lives often challenged the political and social institutions of their day.
The Missional Leader by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk
Come, Go, Both, and/or Neither
How do we best fulfill God’s command to “go and make disciples”? Thought provoking video:
If video player does not show, access video here.
What does love look like?
What does love look like?
It could look like 50 bags.
50 jars of peanut butter
50 jars of jelly
50 loaves of bread
50 boxes of powered milk
50 boxes of cereal
50 notes to let people know, because of Jesus, that we care.
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?”
The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
If you love me, keep my commands.
Wholeness through Trust
Religions that we make up for ourselves always reduce reality to what we feel comfortable with, or what makes us comfortable. We love being insiders. We feel secure when we are with cronies who talk our language and sing our songs and don’t rock the boat. It hardly matters that such a life is banal. It is safe…The danger is not to our humanity, but to our sense of running life on our own terms, managing people and things with ourselves at the center. The larger the world, the less of it we can subject to our won control. But that is a miserable ambition and a certain prescription for boredom. It is God’s world and God rules it. Our wholeness comes from participating in what God is doing, not manipulating what we can manage. So the Bible continually protests all forms of isolationism.
Run with the Horses by Eugene Peterson
Attractional Ministry
I would argue that this ‘attractional mission’, while effective for a few, is actually a case of putting the cart before the horse. Deciding on a form of church and then trying to make it so that people want to come is mission in reverse.
From Backyardmissionary.com‘s article on “incarnational” and “attractional” models of ministry.
Congregations Matter
Many congregations are in significant decline. For a lot of people, the congregation is little more than a haven in a heartless world, a dispenser of religious goods and services to individuals. Nevertheless, it is still populated by the people of God.
God chooses to create new futures in the most inauspicious of places. Through the Incarnation, we discover that God’s future is at work not where we tend to look but among the people we write off as dead or powerless to make things different.
If the Spirit has been poured out in the church – the church as it is, not some ideal type – then we are compelled to believe that the Spirit of God is at work and alive among the congregations of America. Congregations matter. But they need leaders with the skills to cultivate an environment in which the Spirit-given presence of God’s future may emerge among the people of God.
The Missional Leader by Roxburgh and Romanuk
