CQMissional

We just got some cool press…and some great investment.

Chris King — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:18:28 +0000

From www.batesline.com regarding City Counsel Candidate Blake Ewing’s decision to accept a contribution from the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, and then pass it along to a local non profit making a real difference (he chose CQ Missional..which is way cool….):
“I was pleased with his decision to give the $1,000 to a non-profit, an organization called CQ Missional, a Christian organization that “helps people discover their role in making the world a better place.”

In an email, Blake wrote of the group: ”Their aim to grow leaders out of young adults in Tulsa is something I’m also passionate about and I’m eager to see what these future leaders do for our community. It’s one thing to serve at the point of need. It’s a whole different thing to train and empower young adults to be outwardly focused and intentional about serving their community. I believe in this organization and am proud to share the $1000 with them. The long term impact they could have on the city of Tulsa and the world around it is too amazing not to support.I love the idea that they are training people to impact their community. They are helping to form a new generation of leaders and servants, dedicated to changing the world. I wish them safety in the journey and pray that their nets be full and their compass true.”

CK gives the scoop on our programs…

Chris King — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:05:30 +0000

I’ve taped a few explanations of our current programs. Wanna get the scoop? Click on the inks below.

The scoop on GPS Tulsa!

The scoop on Tulsa Link Year!

Just what does “missional” mean?

Chris King — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:42:57 +0000

Defining Missional

The word is everywhere, but where did it come from and what does it really mean?

Alan Hirsch | posted 12/12/2008

Re-posted from Christianity Today

It has become increasingly difficult to open a ministry book or attend a church conference and not be accosted by the word missional. A quick search on Google uncovers the presence of “missional communities,” “missional leaders,” “missional worship,” even “missional seating,” and “missional coffee.” Today, everyone wants to be missional. Can you think of a single pastor who is proudly anti-missional?

But as church leaders continue to pile onto the missional bandwagon, the true meaning of the word may be getting buried under a pile of assumptions. Is it simply updated nomenclature for being purpose-driven or seeker-sensitive? Ismissional a new, more mature strain of the emerging church movement?

It’s time to pause and consider the origin and meaning of the word that is reframing our understanding of ministry and the church. This tree diagrams the roots of the word missional and how its reach has expanded into different areas of ministry. Alan Hirsch, a self-described “missional activist,” also provides a concise definition of the ubiquitous term.

There are consequences when the meanings of words become confused. This is particularly true within a biblical worldview. The Hebrews were suspicious of images as conveyors of truth, so they guarded words and their meanings carefully. Part of theology, therefore, includes guarding the meaning of words to maintain truth within the community of faith.

This is why I am concerned about the confusion surrounding the meaning of the word missional. Maintaining the integrity of this word is critical, because recovering a missional understanding of God and the Church is essential not only for the advancement of our mission but, I believe, also for the survival of Christianity in the West.

First, let me say what missional does not mean. Missional is not synonymous with emerging. The emerging church is primarily a renewal movement attempting to contextualize Christianity for a postmodern generation. Missional is also not the same as evangelistic or seeker-sensitive. These terms generally apply to the attractional model of church that has dominated our understanding for many years. Missional is not a new way to talk about church growth. Although God clearly desires the church to grow numerically, it is only one part of the larger missional agenda. Finally, missional is more than social justice. Engaging the poor and correcting inequalities is part of being God’s agent in the world, but we should not confuse this with the whole.

A proper understanding of missional begins with recovering a missionary understanding of God. By his very nature God is a “sent one” who takes the initiative to redeem his creation. This doctrine, known as missio Dei—the sending of God—is causing many to redefine their understanding of the church. Because we are the “sent” people of God, the church is the instrument of God’s mission in the world. As things stand, many people see it the other way around. They believe mission is an instrument of the church; a means by which the church is grown. Although we frequently say “the church has a mission,” according to missional theology a more correct statement would be “the mission has a church.”

Many churches have mission statements or talk about the importance of mission, but where truly missional churches differ is in their posture toward the world. A missional community sees the mission as both its originating impulse and its organizing principle. A missional community is patterned after what God has done in Jesus Christ. In the incarnation God sent his Son. Similarly, to be missional means to be sent into the world; we do not expect people to come to us. This posture differentiates a missional church from an attractional church.

The attractional model, which has dominated the church in the West, seeks to reach out to the culture and draw people into the church—what I call outreach and in-grab. But this model only works where no significant cultural shift is required when moving from outside to inside the church. And as Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian, the attractional model has lost its effectiveness. The West looks more like a cross-cultural missionary context in which attractional church models are self-defeating. The process of extracting people from the culture and assimilating them into the church diminishes their ability to speak to those outside. People cease to be missional and instead leave that work to the clergy.

A missional theology is not content with mission being a church-based work. Rather, it applies to the whole life of every believer. Every disciple is to be an agent of the kingdom of God, and every disciple is to carry the mission of God into every sphere of life. We are all missionaries sent into a non-Christian culture.

Missional represents a significant shift in the way we think about the church. As the people of a missionary God, we ought to engage the world the same way he does—by going out rather than just reaching out. To obstruct this movement is to block God’s purposes in and through his people. When the church is in mission, it is the true church.

Alan Hirsch is a missional activist and the author ofThe Forgotten Ways.

Tulsa Link Year- here we come!

Chris King — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 14:23:02 +0000

Lets say you’re getting ready to graduate high school, or perhaps you graduated in the last year or two, and you want to go to a private Christian University like John Brown University….eventually.

But right now now, you’re thinking, “I want to get out there with people and make a difference. I’m not sure I want to jump right into college. I need a year where I can figure it out a bit more, and help people in the process.”

So, if this person’s parents are saying, “Hey, that’s great…but what if there was a way to get some real-life experience serving people, AND get some college under your belt?”

We have an answer, and it could be the most educational year of your life, and you ‘ll still get a good deal of college credit!

John Brown Univerisity has asked CQ Missional to provide a program site for theirLink Year program. We are one of 3 sites this coming fall. Kanakuk Kamps in Branson, and Camp Eagle in Texas are the other two. While we love the idea of students spending a year in a great camp setting, preparing for life, we believe that an urban setting like ours, doing youth ministry internships, taking classes, and helping real people in a real city like Tulsa will be very powerful, and a great investment.

Students will live in community, with hand picked Resident Advisors with a heart for ministry and great experience in helping young people, in a great dorm complex owned by our partners Literacy and Evangelism International. They’ll have a safe place to live, great ministries to serve with and learn from, and great classes and discipleship that we will provide. Also, they can get 15 hours of college credit from JBU for the classes we teach, which includes a Spring mission trip to experience another culture.

Want to know more, including our list of guest teachers and speakers? Check out our website at: www.tulsalinkyear.com!

We are so excited to get this rolling. Remember, as a not for profit ministry, students can raise funds toward their fee to us for the year, like they could for a mission trip. (And JBU will work with them for Financial Aid on the tuition part of their fees.)

If you are interested in participating, or assisting a student with their Tulsa Link Year fees, please contact us!

Observations at Cooper Elementary

Chris King — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:08:12 +0000

GPS Tulsa just finished up our last service rotation at Cooper Elementary here in east Tulsa. Its spring break as I write, and it seems as if most folks are refocusing after a very disjointed beginning to the spring semester.

We moved our office and meeting space over to the Green Country Events Center on 31st street, right in the heart of the most ethnically diverse urban area in Tulsa or any city between Kansas City, Dallas and Nashville for that matter. I will discuss our neighborhood in a future entry, but needless to say- we are excited to be here and our interaction with the “locals” have been life giving.

Sitting down for after school snacks before we go to our art program with the kids at Cooper, I find myself the only person at my table who knows only one language. My joke with the 2nd and 3rd graders who were with me was that the kids who knew 2 languages were twice as smart as me, and those who knew 3 were 3 times as smart! We would spend snack time with them teaching me words in Spanish and Mong dialects. I would say the word for “milk”, or “muscles”, or ” tasty” in their language and as soon as I got it sounding right, they would give me another one, which meant I forgot the first words…

GPS students reflects on our time with the Cooper kids with some words of their own around our weekly meal:

Fun, Exciting
Interesting, Different, Entertaining
Creative, Energetic
Awesome, productive.
Ms. Libby (our art teacher from the Arts and Humanities Council that a couple of the guys had a crush on….)
Three eyed monkeys and 5 eyed walrus (the clay project of one Marcus Lord, a boy we will not soon forget.)
“How do I do this?”
Messy

The theme “Made to Create” was driven home by all the different ways in which our elementary friends produced cool stuff that hadn’t existed before.

An observation I had that our students agreed with was how well behaved, friendly, and attentive the children were from this neighborhood- and from our discussions with friends at the school there were several factors contributing to this, such as the “community school” focus, the culture built in the school, and also just the presence of 6 very interested young adults in an active learning environment.

We know the kids loved it that we were there, and many of them believe they matter- because of what they can do and create, and that someone is interested in them. This is life giving stuff. Our discussion around the dinner table gets into our value, and what we think of others, and what God thinks of us. I believe all of us get changed when we do what we were made to do, and we invest in people who learn to invest in others.

Here’s some comments from the children of Cooper Elementary:

“I cried when I had to miss Art class.”

“Our teacher is really nice.”

‘I’ve started painting dishes and designing t shirts at home.”

“This is awesome and I really like it here.”

“I love this school.”

“I learned all it takes to be creative to make cool stuff.”

“I liked everyone who helped me. I will always remember them. I feel special that I get to do this.”

“The people who came, I wish they’d come back, especially the curly haired man.” (that must be Conner Fields...)

“Thank you God for creating me.”

“I will remember making totem poles and animals out of clay.”

“I learned that you can be so creative!”

“I will remember the teacher and Grant.”

Cooper kids- we will remember you too! We hope to see you at our Community Summer Camp that we’ll help Garnett Church of Christ put on in June.

Snowpocolypse…..smockolypse.

Chris King — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:38:02 +0000

GPS has had a great couple of sessions this semester. However- we were supposed to have met 4 times so far and be into our service project- a great afterschool art program at Cooper Elementary. But, because of snow-smockolypse (which I have honestly loved, even without four wheel drive), we’ve had to adjust. Adjusting, flexibility…. its all good! Since the kids wouldn’t be at school today- Counselor Rita gave us printouts of the students’ goals and aspirations which we read and got to “know” them at bit. Some of the highlights included the fact that this elementary school will be producing an incredibly high per-capita rate of future veterinarians, many of whom will be holding down jobs as teachers and doctors as well. One student who we are sure to love stated that his goals were to learn to read weird symbols, and (sort of a footnote…) he wanted to live forever. Cool.

After our “one way get to know you session”- we went over to Cooper and shoveled off their bus waiting area which was full of old snow/ice and there wasn’t anyone available to clear it . It went fast, and the 0 degree windchill was almost fun. Here are some pictures below. Our theme for February is “Made to Create” and that will fit in quite nicely with the 21 excellent elementary students we get to walk beside for the next several weeks.

A big thanks to the Nathan Weber family for their support in monthly meals, and to our friends at Buffalo Wild Wings on West 71st St for their support of the work of GPS.

GPS 2nd semester questions…

Chris King — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 04:10:03 +0000

Where will we serve?

Will it be a good thing for our students to choose their own service sites?

Where are we each on our journey- after last semester started with our analogy at the Route 66 Diner?

Will there be Buffalo Wild Wings again?

How will it be meeting at the Green Country Events Center? (one thing is that there is much more room for risk free frisbee throwing…)

Will Paula come on Tuesday ever, now that she’s a married woman?

What will we learn that will make this semester more powerful?

Will we still like each other like last semester?

Will we get college credit for GPS?

Are there new GPSers coming?

Will GPS be involved in creating and running the first East Tulsa Community Kid’s Day Camp coming in June?

Will we zip again?

Will anyone get fired from volunteering this time?

Will Grant continue to be a shotgun gaper?

We start finding out the answers to these questions and much more starting tomorrow. Join us!!

Looking back, and ahead…

Chris King — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 16:25:37 +0000

I stayed up late last night writing little notes on our year-end letter we are sending out to contributors to CQ Missional. And, while we are really a little operation, there were at least 35 contributors to this ministry last year, not including the support different people provided with their prayer, counsel, volunteering, and joining us as clients.

That is a humbling thought, and I looked out the window at my back yard on this cold day and said Thank You to God, who is the creator and giver of all good things. We working at CQM say thank you also, to all of you who join us in this desire to help young adults discover their unique purpose, and to all our partners who believe that engaging service to our neighbor is something we were all made to do.

Our open house is coming up Tuesday, and I also got great news this week that we can pursue becoming the urban ministry site for John Brown University’s Link Year Program. We are growing.

Below is a copy of our year end letter to contributors and to those interested in this work. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if we can be of any service or support to you.

Dear Friends:

With 2010 coming to a close, I wanted to thank everyone who has helped CQ Missional invest in many lives this year. In our first year alone, we were involved in coaching and counseling relationships with around 10 young ministry leaders on a regular basis, and saw the successful completion of our first session of the Certificate in Missional Leadership (our 10-month internship program) & GPS Tulsa (for recent high school grads). I have included some thoughts and comments I’ve received recently from GPS students at the end of this letter. Please pray for them, and the new students who will join us this spring.

New things for 2011 include:

- Starting our own 501c3 non profit, making us grant-worthy for our community service work, and creating better communication avenues between supporters and our team. This will mean contributors can give directly to CQ Missional, and we will connect with folks directly from our office here in Tulsa.
- More GPS groups, a new CML internship program at Camp Loughridge that we run, and being an urban ministry site for The John Brown University Link Year Program starting this coming fall.
- Official partnerships with Camp Loughridge and Garnett Church of Christ, opening the door to new opportunities to invest in the lives of young people.
- Adding more team members who offer vocational coaching and pastoral counseling for young adults-increasing our capacity to offer more of those services.
- Continuing to enjoy the work we do!

All that is to say, as our year ends:

Thank you for your support and friendship!
Please pray for our work- that we might hear God’s voice and join Him in blessing people.
Please consider making a year-end tax deductible contribution as much of our regular contributions are also being used to pay insurance, legal, and other costs of doing business. Our goal this year is to get full funding for the Director Position, and provide funds for administrative assistant work. We are at 50% at this time.
Lastly- consider paying it forward by sharing what we do to other potential clients and contributors who may join us in this work..

We are doing our part to invest in lives, and help young people invest in more lives…
Some words about investment from 2 Corinthians:

He throws caution to the winds,giving to the needy in reckless abandon. His right-living, right-giving ways never run out, never wear out.

This, I believe, is supposed to be a defining characteristic of our story. We were created to contribute. Thanks to all of you for working with us to contribute and see how God’s giving doesn’t run out.

You can send your year end tax deductible contributions directly to:
CQ Missional
1212 W Albuquerque Pl
Broken Arrow, OK 74011

God bless each of you.

Chris King
Director, CQ Missional

GPS Tulsa has proven to be a valuable experience for everyone involved-students, leaders, and their parents as well. GPS is about helping people discover the purpose they were made to live. Here’s some short reflections from our first students:

“Sometimes we might feel useless and unpurposeful but we are making a difference in peoples live whether we see it or not…sometimes we don’t see it though. All we think about is ourselves, we walk through our day thinking about the next thing we have to get done, the next place we have to go to, the next meal we are going to have…or how we are going to finance the next meal. We don’t realize the homeless people sitting on the side of the road-They have a life too. we are not the only ones on earth…

God put us all together to compliment and help each other. to fit together as puzzle pieces, to help create one big beautiful masterpiece. when we all come to this point of asking ourselves “is our existence necessary?” we should all ask ourselves “can one mosquito make a difference in a tent of sleeping people?”

One seemingly “directionless” 17 year old closes our last one on one with this question: “Am I doing OK? How can I get better? Do you think my path is a good one?”

“I don’t think we could make the impact, learn as much, or become the group we have become without the time that GPS gives us. GPS has helped me see God loves all people, and maybe I can try to do that too.”

“I love all of it. Especially the people. I would have never figured that this group of people would become good friends and trust each other. I guess thats possible in other places as well.”

What they’re saying about GPS.

Chris King — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:35:08 +0000

“I graduated from a small highschool (TSAS), and alot of my friends moved away. Even the friends that stayed and went to TCC became more distant because we didn’t choose similar classes. College is so unstructured that it’s hard to make new friends in your classes (especially lecture based classes). Making new friends is something I’m not skilled at anyway. I feel like I have friendship (or at least something incredibly similar, perhaps community) through GPS.”
“Am I doing OK? How can I get better? Do you think my path is a good one?”
“I don’t think we could make the impact, learn as much, or become the group we have become without the time that GPS gives us.”
“I love all of it. Especially the people. I would have never figured that this group of people would become good friends and trust each other. I guess thats possible in other places as well.”
“Working at the school was the best, because the kids could see they were cared for, that they were important.”
“Work for Goals, Pray for Desires. I had never thought of doing that, in that way, before.”

What I’m Learning…(Rachel)

Beth — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:00:16 +0000

We asked the GPS folks to share a little about what they are learning by being with us. We thought you’d be interested to see what they said.

This reflection is from Rachel:

With GPS I am learning a lot about myself and who I really am. Used to be, I was so consumed with materialistic things, like having the newest, cutest, pair of jeans or the cutest shoes. Now I’m thinking of ways that I can creatively make money while still doing things that I like and instead of trying to buy my happiness I am learning to live and be happy with where I am at.