While in New York last month at a church planters’ round table I was challenged to think carefully about how we cultivate our church plant here in Fort Wayne. Our desire is to cultivate and multiply communities of worship, spiritual formation, and mission. I have become convinced that this cannot happen until we move beyond some of the barriers we typically construct in the church; individualism and consumerism, to name a couple.

Part of becoming a true community is beginning to share things that we normally do alone (or only with our immediate family). Sharing lies at the very heart of koinonia, the New Testament word we normally translate “fellowship.” This sharing extends to every part of our lives, and we desire to cultivate communities where friends learn to share their lives together: their stories, their faith, their joys and sorrows, their money and possessions, and their decisions.

The idea of sharing decisions with others in the Body of Christ is a fascinating one for me. We seem to be pre-programmed to want to make big decisions alone. For example, if we get a job offer in another city, most of the time we simply weigh the pros and cons, make a decision based on how much money we’ll make, how close to family we’ll be, what kind of lifestyle we’ll be able to afford, and then we announce the decision to our community.

But what if we brought these kinds of decisions to the church community, and not only asked people to pray for us, but also submitted to their questions and wisdom? What if we submitted to a circle of discernment where others in our community, who love us and want God’s best for us, could ask questions that cause us to reflect on things we might not otherwise think of when making the decision? What if we provided time and space for people to speak God’s heart to us when making big decisions? What if this was the process we went through when deciding what career to pursue, where to live, whether or not to go back to school, who to marry, whether or not to take the promotion…?

This would really be a pathway for spiritual formation, because oftentimes others see our true motives more clearly than we do. Decision-making could turn into fertile ground for the Spirit to do deep work in our hearts.

I loved Jon Tyson’s principles of cultivating a missional career, but I am also trying to translate it into an environment that is much less career-oriented. Fort Wayne, Indiana is not where you move to climb the corporate ladder or become a famous actor.

New York City has a massive amount of people who have moved there specifically because they are serious about their careers. I would venture to guess that most people in Fort Wayne are here for other reasons, things like

• We wanted to be close to extended family when we started having kids
• I grew up here and like it
• I’m on my way to somewhere else
• It’s a good place to raise kids
• Housing is really affordable!

One of the nagging questions I have is how to talk to these kinds of people about living missionally in their workplace. Unlike New York City, people in Fort Wayne generally aren’t passionate about their work. It’s more of a means to an end. But they still spend a majority of their waking hours working, so how do you take those six principles and translate them for a place like Fort Wayne?

No answers just yet, just the question. I wondered if you readers have any thoughts.

In an effort to practically work out the six guiding principles of missional careers, Trinity Grace Church has started hosting “Industry Roundtables,” where people from certain careers/industries gather to discuss the following questions.

1. What drew you to the industry you are working in?
2. What do you love about your industry?
3. What do you hate about your industry?
4. What ethical dilemmas do you run into often?
5. Are there places in Scripture you go to formulate a theology of your industry?
6. What are some of the doubts and uncertainties you have?
7. What do we need to know as your pastors/leaders about your industry?
8. How can the church help you live more missionally in your industry?
9. What about our programming clogs your ability to be missional in your industry?

Just wanted to share it, because I think it’s a great idea.

This comic made me laugh, and brought certain kinds of TV and radio personalities to mind.

(found at Toothpaste for Dinner)

One of the things we discussed at the NYC church planter round table last month was the general lack of resources to help people understand how their faith ought to work itself out in the context of their jobs.

Most people spend most of their waking hours at a job, working. If our discipleship to Jesus doesn’t have an impact on our careers it’s probably not robust enough. If our faith doesn’t really weave itself into the thing most of us spend most of our time doing, then our faith is just a hobby and we’re not really “seeking first the kingdom” (Matt 6:33).

But most of the theology that’s out there can basically be reduced to: “Work hard and be moral.” Most of the time, that’s all we can think of! Being part of God’s kingdom at work = Don’t yell at people, don’t lie or cheat or steal, don’t complain as much as your co-workers. Yawn.

This is why I was excited about the framework that Jon Tyson (from Trinity Grace Church) was developing to “trace the redemptive edge of industry,” and help people think missionally about their careers. The six guiding principles are below, in sketch form. I’d love your thoughts.

A THEOLOGY OF WORK

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
- Frederick Buechner

We are all called to create, because we are made in the image of the Creator. Also, as Christians we are called to join with God in the renewal of all things. So the principles of creation and renewal ought to guide our decisions about what kind of field of work to enter, and what we ought to be doing in that field. The guiding principles for a missional career are:

1. PERSONAL MOTIVATION / DISCIPLESHIP

If you are following Jesus, then all the work you do is “unto the Lord” (Col 3:17, 1 Cor 10:31). If you ever think that you are ultimately working for your employer, you will always feel your employer controls your destiny. We have to start with a personal motivation in our career to work in that career for Jesus, even above our employer.

2. EVANGELISM

The people you work with are the ones God wants you to reach with the gospel. God has arranged people around you that you are called to steer towards his redemptive work. It involves building relationships with them, understanding where they are on their journey (the Engel Scale is helpful here), praying for them, and being ready to talk with them about Jesus (1 Pet 3:15).

3. EXCELLENCE AND INFLUENCE

The reality is that someone is going to shape the culture of your industry. Why not have it be skilled, kingdom-minded people in positions of influence? This involves working hard, doing things with excellence and integrity, and gaining a position of influence within your industry because of it (Col 3:17, Prov 22:19).

4. THE REDEMPTIVE EDGE OF INDUSTRY

Industries are either going to be steered toward the kingdom or toward the fall. From places of influence in your industry, you can steer an industry toward the kingdom, tracing its redemptive edge, so to speak. We can join with God in the renewal of all things on a larger scale this way. Culture organizes itself into systems when it accelerates, and these systems need to be steered so that they manifest the kingdom. God’s future involves a functioning city that manifests his will on earth, just as it is in heaven (Isaiah 60:5, Rev 21:22). We are called to participate with that future in the present.

5. STEWARDING GIFTS TO SERVE THE CITY

This involves using our gifts and privilege to renew the city, for example taking people with the best education and getting them to rub shoulders with and serve the last and the “least.” We instigate and encourage the kind of voluntary redistribution of wealth we see in Acts 2:44-45 and 4:32-35, for example.

6. RENEWAL, REST, RESISTANCE

This is simply kingdom-mindedness in how we order the rhythms of our lives and resisting the subtle idolatries that creep into any industry. We seek to have well-ordered hearts that are working from rest instead working for rest, heading into our work with a full heart so we can create. We need to, at times, take a few steps back and reflect on our workplaces and relationships so that we can grow spiritually in our work. We need to establish resistance to the idols of success, money, and power. The kingdom heart doesn’t ask “How far up the ladder am I?” but rather “Am I in my right place?”

If someone really practiced these 6 principles at their job, I would venture to guess they would be the only person like that in their workplace. Perhaps we would start to learn what it looks like when God’s kingdom comes, not just in individual lives, but in entire industries. What do you think?

One of the things that Tim Keller points out in his new book Counterfeit Gods is how polarized American political discourse has become in the past few years. Rarely in the TV news world do you find anyone interested in having an actual discussion with someone from “the other side.” Everything quickly devolves into a shouting match or a name-calling contest. Political ideologies are either deified or demonized. There’s no room for anyone to say anything slightly charitable about the other team, like “Good point.”

But in the midst of this morass of stridency, I have been consistently impressed with the investigative reporting and thoughtful analysis of important current events that I’ve heard on a radio show that normally tells stories about everyday people: This American Life.

They did an excellent story a few months ago about why the housing crisis was linked to Wall Street traders (Episode 355). More recently they did two shows on the American health care system, what’s actually going on, why prices keep rising, and how we got here (co-produced with NPR News). The two hours of listening to those shows did more to educate me on the complexities of our health care system than anything I’d heard before. So I’m commending them to you. They are well worth your time. Links below.

• Episode 391: More Is Less – Explaining the American health care system, specifically, why it is that costs keep rising.
  
• Episode 392: Someone Else’s Money – A deeper look inside the health insurance industry.
  

This has to be the best Christian t-shirt ever:

In case you can’t read it, it says:

God said it.

I interpreted it as best I could in light of all the filters imposed by my upbringing and culture, which I try to control for but you can never do a perfect job.

That doesn’t exactly settle it but it does give me enough of a platform to base my values and decisions on.

It’s a t-shirt that actually expresses some hermeneutical humility (a simple acknowledgment that I might not know everything, and that I might be reading more into the text than I realize).

I found it here, and it looks like you can get one for yourself!

The church my friends and I are planting in Fort Wayne is affiliated with an organization called the Ecclesia Network. It’s a young and expanding movement of churches that are relationally tied together with a heart to cultivate the expansion of the kingdom through planting healthy churches that multiply. It’s mostly a web of relationships, but there are also regional gatherings from time to time for training and encouragement.

Once a year there is a national gathering, though (Feb 16-18, 2010). Dallas Willard, Todd Hunter, Mary Hopkins and Bob Hopkins will be there, as well as a number of other practitioners sharing practical lessons from the field. I’m really looking forward to it. The gathering is already very close to capacity, so if you think you’d like to come out, check out the website for all the info.

One of the resolutions I made coming back from my time at a church planters’ round table in New York (#6 on my “personal challenge” list) was to re-ignite the gifts of the Spirit in my life and ministry.

Many of those at the round table had come from charismatic backgrounds, and a common thread that weaved its way through many conversations was a two-fold truth:

1. The gifts of the Spirit are absolutely vital for the ongoing mission of the church.
2. We have no idea what that is supposed to look like in our new contexts.

The sad truth is that many modern expressions of the gifts of the Spirit are hyped-up, hoaky, and unhealthy. The temptation is to simply throw it all out, but if we do we’re left with the radically depressing task of attempting to engage in God’s mission strictly in our own strength. Like one participant said, “Without the Spirit, it’s our gifts against the city, and the city wins every time.” In “Christendom” you could get by without the explicit expression of the gifts of the Spirit, but I don’t think you can in a post-Christendom context. The early Christians didn’t turn the world upside down just by being a little nicer than their pagan counterparts; there was something supernatural happening in their midst.

I have a rock-hard theological conviction that the gifts are for today, but I also have an intuitive hunch that God is wanting to bring a new expression and vitality to the gifts. I believe the Spirit is brooding over the church right now, waiting to unleash a new wave of spiritual power, but I have trouble imagining what it might look like. In many ways I think we’re looking for a new expression of what John Wimber called “doing the stuff” and being “naturally supernatural.”

During one of the discussions someone threw out this provocative little phrase: In the New Testament, the gifts are for the body of Christ. Thus, maybe when the church starts acting like a body again (instead of a loosely-aligned collection of individual Christians), we’ll see some kind of new outpouring of God’s Spirit. And perhaps it won’t simply result in a few individual Christians feeling renewed and refreshed, but instead will become the kind of movement that brings about the cultural and societal transformation we’re longing to see.

There’s a lot about it that I don’t have figured out, but the combination of gospel-shaped community, missional living, and the active, non-goofy expression of spiritual gifts seems like a explosively fruitful cocktail.

What would it take for the church to start acting like a body? What kind of “ceiling” do you think the church in its current form has in terms of its ability to witness to the resurrection? What would it take for you to move in the direction of real, gospel-shaped community?

As we approach Halloween later this week, I want to point you towards an article regarding the origins of Halloween I found very illuminating. It’s probably not what you’re thinking. In essence, my view (and the view of this article) is that Halloween has deep Christian roots and can be celebrated in a very historic, Christian way.

Halloween is short for “All Hallow’s Eve,” which refers to the beginning of the celebration of All Saints’ Day (Nov 1), when, since the late 300s, Christians have celebrated the victory of the saints in union with Christ. Here are some quotes from the article:

The Festival of All Saints reminds us that though Jesus has finished His work, we have not finished ours. He has struck the decisive blow, but we have the privilege of working in the mopping up operation. Thus, century by century the Christian faith has rolled back the demonic realm of ignorance, fear, and superstition…

The concept, as dramatized in Christian custom, is quite simple: On October 31, the demonic realm tries one last time to achieve victory, but is banished by the joy of the Kingdom.What is the means by which the demonic realm is vanquished? In a word: mockery. Satan’s great sin (and our great sin) is pride. Thus, to drive Satan from us we ridicule him. This is why the custom arose of portraying Satan in a ridiculous red suit with horns and a tail. Nobody thinks the devil really looks like this; the Bible teaches that he is the fallen Arch-Cherub. Rather, the idea is to ridicule him because he has lost the battle with Jesus and he no longer has power over us…

The gargoyles that were placed on the churches of old had the same meaning. They symbolized the Church ridiculing the enemy. They stick out their tongues and make faces at those who would assault the Church. Gargoyles are not demonic; they are believers ridiculing the defeated demonic army.Thus, the defeat of evil and of demonic powers is associated with Halloween. For this reason, Martin Luther posted his 95 challenges to the wicked practices of the Church to the bulletin board on the door of the Wittenberg chapel on Halloween. He picked his day with care, and ever since Halloween has also been Reformation Day.

Similarly, on All Hallows’ Eve (Hallow-Even – Hallow-E’en – Halloween), the custom arose of mocking the demonic realm by dressing children in costumes. Because the power of Satan has been broken once and for all, our children can mock him by dressing up like ghosts, goblins, and witches. The fact that we can dress our children this way shows our supreme confidence in the utter defeat of Satan by Jesus Christ – we have NO FEAR!

Do yourself a favor and read the whole article (ht Michael Spencer).

And go ahead and dress your kids up as ghosts and goblins and devils, and go trick-or-treating! Mock the devil and he shall flee. It’s a Christian holiday. Celebrate Christ’s victory over the powers of darkness.