We Are: A Missional Church

INTRO

We are coming to the end of our We Are series.

We have been looking at the statement that We are a Gospel Community on Mission.

Gospel, Community, Mission

We started with the idea that we are as a church rooted and anchored in the gospel.

From that we looked at the idea we are called to be a people, a community shaped by the gospel.

Today we look at the call to take this good news and share it.

The call to invite others into the community of the church.

Today we look at the idea that we are a Missional Church.

Now words like mission or evangelism may make you want to shell up a bit.

I had a conversation with someone recently who said, “I don’t know man I try and show love to my co-workers, I’ve told them about the joy of Jesus and it’s just nothing.”

It made me think about a fourth grade class in Portland, Maine.

The teacher was teaching the kids about the ocean, specifically about the Gulf Stream that flows along the East Coast and then turns toward Europe.

This teacher had the kids put messages with their addresses in empty wine bottles, and then a fisherman took the twenty-one bottles away from shore and threw them into the ocean.

They hoped that some of the bottles might drift to England.

Three months later, two bottles washed up in Canada.

The class heard nothing else and assumed that the rest of the bottles were lost at sea.

Two years passed.

Then one of the students received a surprise letter from a girl in France.

She found one of their bottles while walking with her father on the beach.

Our efforts at sharing the gospel story often feel like tossing a bottle with a message into the ocean.

We share the gospel with others however we can—trying to tell the better story, showing the better identity.

Often we see no response and think our message is forgotten, “lost at sea.”

But years later we learn that the Spirit of God—like the mighty Gulf Stream—has carried our message to its destination.

All around us Coram Deo is a hurting world in need of the gospel.

The vehicle by which the gospel will meet them is you.

What I want us to see is this: We have a love for God’s world displayed by loving, incarnational evangelism. We are a missional church.

In our foundational documents for the vision of the church here is what we wrote

Coram Deo desires to see all people worship God in his glory and for his gospel. We long to imitate Jesus by drawing near to people, serving them and loving them. Therefore, we have no desire to create our own “christian” sub-culture. We long to be a part of the city that we love, teaching and modeling the message of Christ as missionaries. We will be his church, carrying his gospel, in this culture. Coram Deo will be missionally-minded and not outreach-minded. We want to see our community changed from the inside-out, and we want God to use us to do that.

To explore this idea we go to the very words of Jesus in his sermon on the mount.

It’s here that Jesus teaches us what it really means to be a missional people

So lets unpack this:

I. We Are Salt and Light

Look back at the passage with me

Matthew 5:13–14 (ESV)

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Right off the bat we get two metaphors for how we are to be distinct, to be on mission for the sake of the gospel.

We are salt.

We are light.

These are helpful metaphors as we consider christianity.

Like salt in putrefying meat, Christians are to hinder social decay.

Like light in the prevailing darkness, Christians are to illumine society and show it a better way.

Some folks wrongly teach that we are simply to be set apart, set on a hill being salty.

When it comes to interacting with our culture, getting involved in our city, a lot of churches grimace at the thought.

They don’t want to see salt mixed up or light being smothered by darkness, but this is a complete misunderstanding of what Jesus is calling us to see.

John Stott puts it this way,

“The salt must retain its saltiness, they say. It must not become contaminated. The light must retain its brightness. It must not be smothered by the darkness. That is true. But that is merely survival. Salt and light are not just a bit different from their environment. They are to have a powerful influence on their environment.” _John Stott

We call this idea of having an influence on our environment, contextualization.

Contextualization is the word we use for the process of making the gospel and the church as much at home as possible in a given cultural context.

What that means is we go to people and meet them where they are.

Another way to think about this is that we are to be incarnational like Christ.

He came to us where we were, in a way we would understand. He brought redemption

So we too...

We bring salt to dull and flavorless places.

We bring persevering truth to eroding hope.

We bring light to dark places.

We are to be the salt and light of the earth.

We are to be distinct and set apart yes, but we are to remove any unnecessary barriers so that we might showcase to the world the glory of Christ.

We have this amazing message but we take it to a people at a certain place and time.

How do we do this?

Well of course through proclamation, meaning we actually speak the gospel, but also secondly through acts of service.

II. We serve with dirty hands and hearts of love

Look at verses 15-16 with me

Matthew 5:15–16 (ESV)

Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

There is always this tension between word and deed.

Between the proclamation of the gospel through teaching and preaching and seeking justice and engaging our culture

I’m the first person to bash the misquoting of St. Francis…(Preach the gospel if necessary use words) of course it’s necessary to use words to proclaim the gospel.

However we often over correct to the point of never working with our hands.

Not serving through our deeds as well as our words.

There is a fear on both sides.

Those who talk more of justice and cultural engagement are fearful of social marginalization.

Without the emphasis on these different mercy ministries, they believe, non-Christians will think the church is a useless and divisive institution that should not be tolerated.

Those who stress evangelism and discipleship use the excuse the of limited resources the church has.

It would simply overwhelm the local church to try to meet the endless economic and material needs of the city, they say.

Besides, there are plenty of agencies doing that, while the church alone is calling people to salvation through faith in the gospel.

So the church should focus its very limited financial resources almost exclusively on evangelism and the ministry of the Word.

So how do we balance this Coram Deo?

Well, first off let me say this, we should establish that the ministry of the Word is the priority for the local church.

The first thing I need to tell people when they come to church is “Believe in Jesus,” not “Do justice.”

Why? First, believing in Jesus meets a more radical human need.

Second, if they don’t believe in Jesus they won’t have a gospel motivation to do justice in the world.

So the first priority of the local church is to make disciples, not to do housing rehabilitation or feed the poor.

However, the church must disciple and support its members so they love their neighbor, integrate their faith in their work, and seek a more just and wholesome society and culture.

This means that within the church there must be adequate teaching, preaching, and emphasis on how to be Christian in the public sphere, and how to be loving servants in our neighborhood.

This is what we are looking to do with our Community Groups.

This is why myself and others have had long meetings.

Because the natural flow of the disciple is to be a people of justice, it is to get our hands dirty.

So as a church we should give priority to Word ministry, but as Christians we must do both word and deed ministry in the world, and we as the church should equip one another to do so.

So let me turn to you specifically.

Are you excited to have these conversations with your Community Group?

Are you ready to answer questions like:

How can we meet the needs of this community?

How can I love my neighbor? Heck who are my neighbors?

We start to think of these ideas that we are salt and light.

That we influence culture. That we take a timeless message to our culture in a timely manner.

We start there with the idea of contextualizing because we want the gospel to not have barriers that WE put on it.

Then we move to this idea that we are to be both evangelist, that is a witness, in both our words, what we say, and our deeds, what we do.

The motivation for this of course is driven by the one who called us out of darkness

1 Peter 2:9 (ESV)

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

We are city set upon a hill.

As we have been called into this marvelous light, we then broadcast into the world.

We don’t hide our light we showcase it.

So let’s take all of this and zoom on the idea that we are missional.

III. We Are Missional

Some of you may be sitting there thinking, wait isn’t this what you’ve been talking about the whole time.

Well yes, this is where I have been leading us.

As we talk about being contextual and showcasing christ in word and deed I am talking about a missional mentality certainly.

But I want to flesh this out clearly.

We use this word missional and it’s important we know what we’re talking about.

Here is a helpful definition of Missional

“Missional: actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining biblically sound.”

We take the posture of a missionary and become all things to all people so that they may come to know Christ our Lord as their Savior.

We want to engage the whole person with the whole gospel, through the means of the whole church reaching out to the whole neighborhood.

Missional living must be:

-Intentional

-Developed

-Natural

-Networked

-Bathed in Prayer

1. Missional Living Must Be Intentional

The word “intentional” challenges the passive nature of the church

Why because theree are real people in our work places, at the grocery store, at the brewery, at the gem.

People you actually care about.

The hope is that we as a church can learn to be more faithful to hard places in our community and not run from the neglected not-yet believing people out of fear.

Now something about me.

My wife has stretched me from the begging of our marriage.

I am not a shining beacon of health.

Hannah on the other hand could be a vegetarian tomorrow.

I never cared about organic food but I know that it’s so much better for me than my bag of GMO cheetos

We need to not be junk food but like the good food Hannah eats.

The idea Coram Deo, is that missionaries are like organic food.

We are intentionally grown, watered, and nurtured in specific soil for maximum health.

To have the foods that are pesticide free and grown in proper soil requires a great deal of intentionality.

So it is in our community.

That we intentionally go to the least, last, and lost.

We must have a plan to connect, care for, and call to our neighbors who don’t yet know Jesus.

This will not just happen by spiritual osmosis.

We must be intentional; patient but a little pushy.

We believe that though God will use the webs of relationships that He has placed into each of our lives…we must sow the Word of God beyond those who are most like us.

Jesus calls us to seek the lost with Him.

We must intentionally go out and find the good seed, those who have never heard the gospel.

We want to see the gospel presented to every man, woman, and child in our community.

This means you cant hope for gospel moments. You’ve got to plan for it.

So we are intentional.

2. Missional Living Must Be Developed

Beyond the call from the pulpit for every member of the body to share the gospel, we believe that we must develop sharing with each other.

Sharing involves particular days and seasons of outreach when the whole church may serve together, encouraged to show their witness to the neighborhood, or on the mission field elsewhere.

This is when we collect school supplies for Hillcrest, or take Christmas Photos on the Courthouse Lawn. Replanted

But this also involves mentoring relationships— where those more gifted and experienced in sharing the gospel encourage those who struggle by actually spending time with each other in their context.

This looks like those of you who are more gifted bringing folks along side of you.

Don’t just get frustrated other people aren’t in a neighborhood association, offer to go with them!

We must not assume that people know how to live missionally.

We must challenge, teach, and charge each other to prioritize this as a lifestyle.

We can’t just push books at people about the topic of missional living.

But we must have classes that train and raise up new leaders from every race and age in Coram Deo to tap into the well of opportunities to lead someone to Christ.

We must constantly be about digging into one another’s lives through Scripture.

Loving one another, praying for one another, and confessing our faults to one another as we grow and develop for the mission.

We must be developed

3. Missional Living Must Be Natural

Missional living can only happen if true gospel fruit is growing in our lives.

We have to spur each other on to live a life worthy of those around us asking an account for the hope we clearly have.

So we long to be a gospel community, not just around those who don’t believe, but around each other as we learn to celebrate the gospel of grace daily and grow in all the fruits of the Spirit.

As we share the gospel, we develop a natural desire to see those around us taste the mercy we have tasted, even if many things in our lives are not yet as we had hoped.

We believe that if we truly drink the water Jesus gives, the eternal spring will well up within us, and we will never stop sharing the hope we have with others.

Missional living must be natural.

4. Missional Living Must Be Networked

Only as a whole body will we reach the whole community.

The idea of the whole body goes beyond the local church’s need for every member and their various God-given gifts.

Reaching the whole community requires a network of churches that God provides for us to partner with.

It’s through partnership that we can share resources, people, and a joint vision to see everyone engaged with the gospel.

This will call us to work cross-culturally and cross-denominationally.

We must open up our missional training to a diverse group, those who are not exactly like us, in order to most effectively reach the lost.

One of the most refreshing things about this has been to work with churches that are in a completely different cultural context and denominational tradition than ours.

This is why we have tried to partner with folks who are different than us.

Furthermore, it allows our neighbors to see people of varying ethnic, cultural, age, socioeconomic, and contextual backgrounds working together in our city.

It sends the message that not only do we care for them, but that we always invite our friends of all races and places to come to our neighborhood and help build it up.

This can been one of our greatest joys— serving in our neighborhood, networked with so many churches that want to see people come to Jesus.

So we network

and finally…

5. Missional Living Must Always Be Bathed in Prayer

ALL OF us have spare tires in our car—just in case there’s a flat or a slow leak of air.

Most of the time, we don’t even think about it until something goes wrong.

But when something goes wrong, we go back to the trunk and we get out the spare to get us out of a bad situation.

For most of us, prayer is like that.

It’s a spare tire. It’s just in case.

It’s easy to forget about it until you really need it to get you out of a jam; it’s something you are glad to have when you’re caught in a dilemma you can’t fix.

But here’s the thing, what might take man fifty years to accomplish, God can do in five minutes.

Though we take our call to seek and save the lost seriously, we know that a bunch of nervous activity will not be the keys to the kingdom.

Everything, even the best-laid and most well-intentioned plans, must be bathed in prayer and given to the one who can work in power.

We must not neglect the ministry of prayer and must pray with our families often.

We must maintain that God saves through the Savior— not our strategies.

We must not develop a strategic arrogance in missional living, but we must remember who is sovereign and at work in and through us.

Acts 2 teaches that even though the apostles went from house to house breaking bread, loving and caring for one another, it was the Lord who added to their number daily.

Unless the Lord builds the house, they who labor do so in vain.

Coram Deo might we repent of our strategy-dependent living and trust the Lord, pray to Him often, and boldly call to Him to move mightily in our city?

The apostle Paul states in 1 Corinthians 9:24

1 Corinthians 9:24 (ESV)

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.

Like the apostle Paul we must plan out well and be devoted to missional living as a key to our evangelism and discipleship in our cities.

By God’s grace we must seek to maximize our missional engagement and create more opportunities to be in and around the people we are seeking to reach with the gospel.

In coming to know that community we must emulate the examples set forth in Scripture.

We find the greatest example in our Savior, who descended from His position within the Godhead to take on flesh.

He came down and became man to know our struggles intimately, and so that He might be known to us in a fuller way— able as we now are to “behold his glory.”

We serve a God who can provide for each of our needs because He knows those needs intimately.

Indeed, He knows us better than we know ourselves—

Conclusion

We have a love for God’s world displayed by loving, incarnational evangelism. We are a missional church.

As we chew on the idea that we are to love people in a context through our words and actions I want to leave you with some verses that deeply encouraged me as I try to live missionally.

Paul in Athens addressing the Areopagus (AIRY-OP-A-GUS)

Acts 17:24–26 (ESV)

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,

As we consider all of this the fact that we are called to live on mission for the sake of Jesus it’s easy to become scared.

But this should give us confidence because there’s a God who made the world and everything in it—

including

my neighbors, my relatives, and my co-workers.

He made everything and everyone.

And he doesn’t need us; we need him.

Not only that, but he has marked out how long we will each live, and decided where we will each live.

Now think about what this means.

Your neighbor lives down the street because God put him there.

Your co-worker sits at the desk next to you because God sat her there.

I think about folks who may have recently moved into your neighborhood.

Why have they moved? They think it’s for work, and because perhaps there is a good school near by.

In reality, however, their Maker has placed them there. Why? Look at the next verse:

Acts 17:27

Acts 17:27 (ESV)

that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

What’s going on in history is that God is reaching out to people so that they’ll reach out for him.

The reason your neighbor lives where they do is so that they will be reached with the gospel.

Why did God want a Christian—you—to be in your particular workplace?

So you can bless your boss and workers by working hard and honestly?

Of course and amen.

But first and foremost, he put you there so others might hear the good news.

It’s no accident you know the people you do.

It’s no accident they’re in your path.

They need Jesus. You know him. God wants them to hear the gospel.And that transforms how I view my life.

It makes it exhilarating.

If I’m sitting on a plane and there’s someone next to me, God has put them there.

He’s not far from them, because I know him and am sitting next to them.

That transforms whether I’ll bother to try to start a conversation with them.

It’ll transform what I aim to talk about.

And it’ll transform how I pray for my days ahead;

I’ll be praying for energy and love to make the most of every divine appointment God has already written into my schedule.

We need to believe God is in charge of which desk we sit at.

We need to believe God has put particular persons around us because he wants them to hear about his Son.

We need to grasp God’s sovereignty—and align our days with his mission.

Are you missionally minded?

Do you consider those around you and the context of their lives, how the gospel is particularly good news to them?

Have you considered your neighborhood our city and how you may very well be able to meet needs opening the door for gospel proclamation?

Are you consistently challenging what it means to be missional, seeking to be developed and developing others?

Are we bathing our mission in prayer.

We have a love for God’s world displayed by loving, incarnational evangelism. We are a missional church

Pray with me.