The following excerpt are my notes from the teaching I facilitate yesterday, Wednesday, June 1st at our weekly Wednesday gathering for theMovement Church. The notes have been edited/added from its original form to make it easier for readers to read and follow.
Missional through Personal Invitation
· There is a phrase we use around here in theMovement; we say, “We are the priesthood of all believers.” Borrowed from the protestant reformation of 1517, we believe that pastors are not the only ones with authority. Jesus said in Matthew 28:18 “all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples.” Almost as if Jesus is saying, all authority has been given to me now I pass this same authority to you and commission you to go and make disciples. We believe the authority to hear from God and fulfill the mission lies in everyone. 1 Peter 2:9. For you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood. We are all priest in our own right with parishes at home, work, school, and in our neighborhoods. The scriptures teach that we have access to the throne of grace. Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace” because we are all heirs of the King and Kingdom. This is why we encourage dialogue and discussion in our gatherings. We believe God’s speaks to everyone in unique ways and not just the pastors. We can all learn from each other.
· Discussion question: Read 1 Corinthians 4:20 “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power” and discuss its meaning?
o How tragic it would be if all we did every week in our Wednesday gatherings was talk the talk and not display the power of the Kingdom of God during the rest of the week.
We are a missional church which means the missio Dei (the mission of God) shapes the way we conduct our weekly Wednesday gatherings. The missio Dei is God on the move to save, rescue, heal, deliver, and transform lives. He has asked us to be a part of His mission. He doesn’t need us yet He chose us to be a part of this redemption work, how humbling is that. In John 17 Jesus said “just as the Father as sent me so I send you”. To be missional means being a missionary without every leaving your zip code. And as we continue in meeting every Wednesday during our DNA formation stage, our teaching and discussions are shifting and becoming more practically missional.
Our mission: live out Christ in the context of community.
· Discussion question: What are the various communities in our every day life, list them?
o Work, home, family, gym, coffee house, bar, neighborhoods, parks, grocery store.
o What will it look like to live our Christ in these various communities?
· Last week Eric Demeter did a fantastic job in helping us unpacking our “Webs of Influence” that John Soper our former Vice President of the Christian Missionary Alliance spent the last two weeks teaching us.
o Our webs of influence can also be called our circle of influences. Simply stated as the people we are in relationships with.
o John taught us a simply way to influence people for Christ. Borrowing from the biblical story of the demonic man that was healed and told all his friends and family who later in the gospels we learn that they came out to see and meet this Jesus. John called it the “Gathering Formula” for church planting.
o We all have a story. “This is who I was, this is who I am, and Christ made the difference.”
o This principle is biblical. In Acts 1:8 we are told to be witnesses. Witnessess of what? Of what Christ has done (change, freedom, love, hope etc) in our lives.
o For example in my case, I used to live for myself but I experienced Christ, I now feel inspired to live for others.
· Summary Number One: In summary our various communities (work, home, family, gym, coffee house, bar, neighborhoods, parks, grocery store) are our webs of influence.
Communities = Webs of Influence.
· At the same time we can’t live our Christ in the context of our various communities (webs of influence) without the Incarnation
· Discussion question: What is the Incarnation?
· One of my all time favorite concepts, incarnation means to become, take on a different form. The scriptures teach in Matthew 1:23 “God with us.” God dwelling with us and becoming one of us. Out of His Great love, the Creator became the creation. He gave up His glorious deity (His lofty existence which He so rightfully deserves as God) and became human like us, so He can reach out to us, serve us, relate to us, and us with Him. And at worst He came in the lowest and most humble human situation so He could identify with the least of these and the least of these with Him. Consider the following passages of the incarnation of Christ”
o John 6:38 (NET) - [Jesus said] For I have come down from heaven…
o John 1:14 (The Message) - 14The Word [Jesus] became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
o Philippians 2:5-8 (The Message) - Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
· Also consider our call to be incrnational.
o Philippians 2:5a (The Message) - Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.
o 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (TM) - 19-23Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!
· We cannot be missional without incarnational living.
· Missional is the command to go (the first step in the missio Dei), incarnational is to live (do life, spend time with) and become like the people we are reaching.
· Michael Frost, a pastor, writer, and missiologist stated, “missional is the marriage while incarnational is the love affair”
· You can have a marriage without a love affair but it is the love affair that is really important. What people, group, city, town are you having a love affair with?
· Summary Number Two: In order to effectively reach our webs/circles of influences, we must be incarnational
Webs of Influence = Incarnational living.
· Summary Number Three: The easiest and best way to be incarnational with our webs of influences is through personal invitation.
Incarnational living = Personal Invitation
o This principle of personal invitation is biblical, practical, Christ-like, so simple, and it works!
· Two types of invitation
1. Get invited (story of my neighbor inviting me to her house.)
2. Invite yourself. – (Story of me inviting myself to do things with my other neighbor. Helping him with his yard, playing basketball etc).
o The reality is that people are lonely and need emotional companionship, especially if you live in Suburbia.
o In both of these types invites, you can have a meal or a drink with a neighbor, friend or co-worker at their home, in your home, bar, or restaurant. You can also invite yourself to help them out with a project or with any kind useful service that will provide great help to them. E.g. babysitting their kids so they can have a date night or mowing their lawn.
· Sola Scriptura – looking to the bible as a primary authority for how personal invitation works.
o We will explore two stories from the book of Luke.
o In each of the stories, Jesus teaches two great lessons about the missio Dei.
1. Matthew the Tax Collector. (Luke 5: 27 – 32)
o Key points from this story
§ Jesus was invited to Matthew’s home.
§ Jesus was accused of eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners – he was a guest of sinners.
§ Matthew was a Tax Collector
§ Jesus teaches a great lesson of the missio Dei – It is not the healthy that needs a doctor but the sick
2. Zacchaeus the Tax Collector. (Luke 19: 1-10)
o Key points from this story
§ Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus’ home
§ Zacchaeus was short - There is a reason why the bible points that out. I contend that he was probably midget status for the Bible to point that detail out. His short stature had big “psychosocial consequences" for him in his culture, which made him marginalized.
§ He was called the “guest of the sinner”
§ Zacchaeus was a Tax collector
§ Zacchaeus was a Chief Tax collector
§ Jesus teaches a great lesson about the missio Dei – The son of man came to seek and save that which was lost.
· Tax Collectors – The significance of Jesus getting invited or inviting himself (spending time) to the home of Tax Collectors had great consequences.
o Tax Collectors were Jewish people who collaborated with the already oppressive Roman Government to extort money from their own people.
o Tax Collectors were despised in Jesus’ day.
o Scriptures often quotes Tax Collector with “sinners” in the same sentence.
o Scriptures also join them with prostitutes in the same sentence.
o Rabbinical writings put them in the same category as robbers because in essence they were robbers. Tax Collectors were empowered by the Roman government to stop people at anytime and demand a percentage of their goods and at whatever percentage they desired.
o Tax Collectors were greedy. To become a Tax Collector you had to bid (pay a lot of money upfront) with the Roman Government for the position, which meant you had money to begin with and were already considered rich. In exchange the Roman Government gave them power to extort money at whatever percentage they choose from their people.
o Rabbi’s regarded as unclean any house entered by a tax collector yet Jesus did.
· Yet the scriptures teaches us to be a friend of sinners and the Tax Collectors of our world (people we despise)
· The scriptures teach in I Timothy 3: 2 that if anyone aspires to be an (a leader), which I regard all Christians as leaders; one of the qualities is to be hospitable.
o The Greek word for hospitable in this passage - Philoxenos [fil-ox'-en-os], refers to the way a Christian welcome those outside the faith.
o Philos means: friendly, a friend, while Xenos means: strangers, aliens, foreigners.
o The bigger meaning of Philoxenos is to be friendly as well as to accommodate aliens, outsiders. In biblical times, sinners and non-God fearing people.
o To be hospitable is to be a friend of sinners.
o Jesus in the scriptures was often called a “friend of the sinners”. In the story of Matthew the Tax Collector and Zacchaeus the Chief Tax Collector he was accused of eating and drinking with sinners, a guest of sinners.
· The question for you today is will you be hospitable? Will you be a friend of strangers, sinners, aliens, and people outside the Christain faith, for the sake of the Kingdom? Will you personally invite someone to your home? Maybe take a risk to invite yourself to hang out with or help a stranger in your neighborhood?
· Think about the names you mentioned last week, the people we prayed for in our webs of influence, how can you practice biblical hospitality with them this week? Now I know some people have a natural gift of hospitality and others don’t but the scriptures call of us to hospitality if want bring about God’s kingdom reign on earth. God extended hospitality to us. This is the way of the missio Dei, the way of Christ.
· Some of you this week need to invite yourselves to your neighbors or make a phone call. For some of you, God is prompting you to invite specific co-workers to your home for a meal or to our Wednesday gatherings. For others, maybe God is challenging you to throw a block party for your neighbors as way to show extend God’s love and for other’s maybe you just need to not put off taking cupcakes or bake goods to your new neighbors as well as your existing ones.
· (My story of personal invitation.)
· Next week we will explore more practical ways to live missionally. Borrowing from Michael Frost’s "B.E.L.L.S.,” taken form his book Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture, we will unpack together practical way we can daily live in a missional rhythm. Very exciting stuff!
