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Gospel Centered Missional Community: The Walk

February 20, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Walk

Last week I wrote a post defining Gospel-Centered Missional Community (GCMC). If you have not read it, do that now. Understanding how we define GCMC, and its intent, is crucial to understanding this and the next three posts.

In a nutshell, GCC (Gospel-Centered Community) is a body of committed believers, connected by a shared purpose and vision, to see Jesus glorified. They challenge each other into deeper relationships with Jesus and one another. GCMC is the functional output of GCC and focused on cultivating relationships with others, to make disciples who make disciples.

Preparing to Go

It is one thing to define Christian community and its purpose on paper. It is an entirely different experience to work toward living in that community. This is a good moment to clarify a few things. First, the entire process centers around Jesus. Living in community with other Christians is about pursuing, praising, and making much of Jesus. If there is any underlying motive, the gathering becomes about you and is not authentic Gospel-Centered Community.

Second, this type of community is hard. Really hard. It requires your whole life, rather than the ease of attending a 90 minute Sunday worship service. Real community is messy and forces you to abandon your plans. You have no choice, but to go to Christ every day, for the sake of the community. It requires that you study the word of God and flesh it out as a body. And because it is hard, it takes time. Lots of time. Authentic community is nothing less than a lifetime pursuit. It will likely be the most amazing experience you will ever encounter. Once I encountered this way of community, it ruined me in the most wonderful way. The Bible clearly shows how GCC is the best way to pursue Jesus and live the abundant life He promised.

The Path I Took

So, how did God bring me to this point? From 2009 to 2011 I was able to experience authentic Christian community lived out on a small scale. During this time, God continuously brought me back to Acts 2:42-47. This passage of scripture provides the clearest picture of community focused on the person of Jesus. From that experience, God ignited a passion in me to live my life, toward Christ, with other committed Christians. And not just on Sunday, but every day. After a significant amount of thought, conversation, prayer, and study; I designed a visual for this journey, and I have titled it The Walk.The Walk

The Walk is a set of practices, for the purpose of guiding the formation of community. The intent of the process is that it is flexible enough to be implemented under numerous strategies. The process begins with three fundamental principles which guide the entire process. Those principles are Connection, Challenge, and Cultivation.

Committed Actions in Community

Within community there are committed actions that hold up each guiding principle and continually move the group toward GCMC. These committed actions are exactly what they sound like: actions that each member of the community commits to in order to see Christ exalted and the gathering flourish under His headship. There are four committed actions: Gather, Seek, Submit and Sacrifice. Each of these actions are defined by specific elements. For example, in order to fulfill connection within the community, we gathering around a shared heart for following Jesus; a shared purpose of loving each other, God and neighbors; and a shared vision to see God’s kingdom come to earth. These three elements define what it means to gather as a means of connection, and advance the community toward challenge. The committed actions and their associated elements are:

  • We will connect ourselves to other believers by gathering around a shared heart, purpose, and vision.
  • We challenge each other to seek God; to practice unity and good-will; and to submit to the Word, one another and the body so that we may walk as Jesus walked.
  • We will cultivate disciples who make connected disciples by sacrificing our time, resources, and self.

Moving the Process Along

The remainder of the process, specifically the arrows, are present as reminders. The green arrows remind us to keep moving toward a missional mindset. The dashed, blue arrows remind us to never leave the previous action behind. Specifically, while we seek together, the arrows prompt us to still focus on intentionally gathering; or as we submit to one another, to still seek together, and so on. The red arrow is likely the most important; it is our mission arrow. It testifies to our purpose, that is, as we follow Jesus we are to be His witness to the world and make disciples. Cultivation always promotes connection; between the body and between others and Jesus.

Why this Process?

Because every community is different, the flexibility of this process allows communities to define each element in their context and develop their own strategies. However, there is one aspect that needs to remain predefined. The yellow arrow, labeled “Gospel-Centered Community,” illustrates the possibility of a community culminating the building process with the principle of Challenge. If that occurs, the community may grow together, but never realize the fullness of community Jesus desires for them. We often see this inside of institutional church settings when they promote a “small group” ministry to encourage community. In doing so their members gather weekly, outside of Sunday, and are able to connect with other believers. Often these groups are able to mature toward  challenging each other to seek God, unity, and goodwill. Some groups may progress to practice the act of submission. All of this is good and constitutes a form of community that focuses on the saving and sanctifying message of the Gospel.

However, that is not the entire Gospel. For us to experience the fullness of Christ, we must acknowledge the missional aspect of His Gospel. Sadly, many small groups only ever achieve the “self-focused” version of community. But, a community which allows the Holy Spirit to move them into a place of sacrificial giving, for the purpose of growing disciple-makers, will move from understanding into living out the mission of the community.

The Commitment

In the simplest terms, the process of walking in community is a commitment to three things:

  1. Connecting to other believers
  2. Challenging one another to walk as Christ
  3. Cultivating disciples who make disciples

As we commit ourselves to Jesus’ command to love one another, we will grow to understand what it means to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. As we grow, He will equip us to love our neighbor and carry out His commission to make disciples of all nations.

The next three posts will address each of the guiding principles and their associated committed actions.

photo: Windsor Go

Defining Gospel Centered Missional Community (GCMC)

February 13, 2017 / / 0 Comments

community

For the last few years a few and my friends and I have been talking about community. The focus is on what it would look like to live in authentic community with other Christians. It is a topic that has consumed large parts of our conversations and time. During that time, we have all written down our ideas and meshed them into a conglomerate of processes. My friend and co-host of The (G)odd Show, Thomas Hogan, has been the most intentional about collecting these ideas.

In my last post I talked about being committed to building and helping others build lasting Gospel Centered Community (GCC). In order to provide a clearer picture of what that means, it is important to define that for you. So, what do I mean when I talk about Gospel Centered Community? Unfortunately, I have not taken a lot of time to write the definition. But, lucky for all of us, Thomas was good enough to write out our ideas so they are easily coherent. Here is what I mean when I say GCC or GCMC:

Gospel Centered Missional Community

We teach a purpose toward ministry called, “Gospel Centered Community” (GCC) and a method of ministry called, “Gospel Centered Missional Community” (GCMC).

The easiest way to define such a life encompassing idea is to define each word’s ideas and modes. And, the easiest way to execute this purpose is by understanding GCC as Jesus moving your heart to intentionally live toward others. And if GCC is an intent to live toward others, GCMC is the missional outworking of that intent, focused on making disciples who make disciples. In the below paragraphs, first I will define the purpose of each word and then under that, provide the practical outworking of that word as a method.

Gospel

By Gospel we mean the life altering invitation by God to come home. The cross of Jesus Christ is the extension of this invitation. He has made the way for us to be close to God, to not feel ashamed or rejected, to be clean and whole without any hindrance or condemnation.

The Gospel invites us into God’s family and we should be decorating the invitation for others. By growing into maturity, through being a disciple and discipling others, we extend that invitation through our commission and emulate Christ’s work on the Earth.

The Gospel invites us into God's family and we should be decorating the invitation for others.
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Centered

By Centered we mean complete balance in your life. Balance between Heaven and Earth, between friends, family and ourselves, and between hurts and all joy. Our lives should be experienced, not buried in a landslide of religious duty or distracted by every wind of philosophy. We must find the center of our souls. That center is found in a loving, growing, and forward relationship with Jesus Christ. It is only from a place of spiritual identity and openness that balance is maintained.

In a Centered life our efforts and actions reflect simplicity. We best experience centeredness by living at peace with others, as best we can, and revealing the love of God through unity. In areas where being right and relationship come into conflict, we should seek relationship first and being right through developing our faith.

Missional

By Missional we mean that we exist for the benefit of those around us. We have abandon self-centeredness and embrace the mission of God to reach and heal the lost and hurting. By focusing on the greatest commandment, the great commission and the new commandment we fully encompass God’s heart for the world.

In a Missional community we create opportunities for others to interact with God’s love by meeting real needs in the real world. Christ is teaching us to love each other, so we can love God and love our neighbor. We best express that love by tangible manifestations in our neighborhoods. In doing so, our neighbors are able to see Christ pursuing them without compulsion or prerequisites.

In a Missional community we create opportunities for others to interact with God's love.
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Community

By Community we mean a place and a people who are truly “your own.” We are not meant to find balance or experience the grace and power of God alone; we need each other. There is no version of community that doesn’t begin with deep-rooted love and end in freedom. In community we are free and with our people we can explore the richness of love from the Father without fear or restriction.

In Community we find our greatest purpose. Community spurs us on when we become weak and tired; in turn we use our gifts, talents, and abilities to interact in the work of the gospel. By experiencing the ebb and flow of conflict, grace, forgiveness and reconciliation of “body-life” we see the clearest picture of Christ among us.

Missional Community enables and emboldens the gospel.
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Scriptural References: Acts 4:32, Acts 20:32, 1 Corinthians 5:13, Philippians 2:1-4, James 3:17-18 & Colossians 1:6-7.

If you have an interest in continuing to this discussion or developing GCMC where you are, I (or Thomas) would love to talk with you about it. You can contact me by clicking the below link:

Let’s talk about GCMC!

photo: Trinity Church

Are We Defiling the Church?

February 6, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Defiling

In Matthew 15 Jesus addresses the Jewish tradition of hand washing as a way to prevent defiling the food you eat. The idea being if you eat with dirty hands, you defile yourself on both a physical and spiritual level. Regarding that, Jesus explained, “…it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person” (Matthew 15:11). Jesus is saying that the words we speak are important. But, not only are they important, they hold the power to taint and corrupt us on deep levels. In doing so, they cause us to become something substantially less than God intends us to be.

I know Jesus was plainly speaking to the condition of our individual souls, but what if it is farther reaching than that? As I have thought on that verse, I think it easily applies to Christians corporately, as the body of Christ, as well as individually. Specifically, what if what we say, as Christians, could defile the body of Christ? And, what if in defiling it, we cause the body to become something less than God intends for it to be?

As I scroll through my news-feed, I see a lot of words and statements that easily fall into that category. And while it is bad to say something that defiles you individually, it is altogether worse for us to collectively defile the body of Christ. Lately, it seems as if many Christians are more concerned with their agenda than with what they say and how they say it.

Of course there is ample opportunity, especially in this season, to be angry and respond out of that anger. But, my biggest concern is that instead of looking to the Holy Spirit for how to respond, many look only to their own feelings, conveying them as the “Christian” viewpoint or stance. And because Christ has called us to be His witnesses, when we do that, and we do it in an angry and hurtful way, we defile the body of Christ. In doing so, we become poor witnesses for Jesus and push people away from Him.

Good fruit is the evidence of our connection to Christ and should always inform the way we relate to others.
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Jesus was clear on the seriousness of our words and the impact they have on the fruit we produce. In Matthew 12:33-37 he said,

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

And what is that fruit? This good fruit is the evidence of our connection to Christ and should always inform the way we relate to others. That means the way we interact with others, regardless of their differing views and how they express them, should always be seasoned with love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It is these things there is no law against (Galatians 5:22). And, it is these things that elevate and bring honor to His body.

Sometimes wisdom and grace may suggest that you not respond or give an answer.
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I’m not saying that you cannot have an opinion or take a stand on an issue. There is a difference between debate and sharing facts and intentionally being malicious. How then should we respond? The Apostle Paul tells us, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” (Colossians 4:5-6) This passage shows us two ways that we are to respond to non-Christians.

1.  With Wisdom

Paul telling us to “walk in wisdom toward outsiders,” covers numerous areas. While it can be difficult to know what wisdom looks like in our conversations, bible commenter, Matthew Henry makes some suggestions. His first point is to be careful not to be hurt by non-Christians. Our ability to not take on the pain of others’ words is grounded in our security in Christ. The more secure we are, the less impact their words should have on us. Henry also proposes that we should be careful to not speak the way that non-Christians do. He calls it taking care to not “pick up their customs.” If you are using the same hurtful words they are, you are not using wisdom. His last insight is something I already addressed. He said, a wise response will not hurt them or give them reason to be prejudice against Christ and His Church.

Our ability to not take on the pain of others’ word is grounded in our security in Christ.
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2.  With Grace

Wisdom leads to grace-filled responses. Paul uses the example of salt to describe how grace should impact our conversations. Like salt, grace preserves the wisdom which leads to peace in our interactions with others. It should also flavor our conversations with a grace that can only come from Christ. In this way, we are prepared to give an answer to every person.

Wisdom leads to grace-filled responses.
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Sometimes wisdom and grace may suggest that you not respond or give an answer. But regardless, we ought to “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14)

 

photo: Crosswalk
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