“Sent.”

I haven’t blogged for quite a while. I’ve been pretty busy working towards other issues and roles in my life. I have been working on www.cpwichita.org and trying to figure out what a residency might look like at West Free Church in the future. I thought I would blog a few thoughts that I have jotted down the past few months that have impacted my thinking and living as I continue to understand who God is and who he has called me to be.

I am finishing up teaching the Students in our student ministry these next couple of weeks and we have been going through a series called “Sent.” Alot of the series is focusing on what it looks like to be  a missionary in the context that God has called those that know him and follow him to. In the New Testament, in the book of John alone, we find that Jesus says that he is ‘sent by his Father’ 39 times. Then, he turns around and calls the people that follow him sent by him. This begs the question “What are we sent to or who are we sent to?” And what we find is that our mission is pretty clear. We are to “love God, love others, and serve the world. There are three clear areas of living that we need to engage in.

Love God – Our relationship with the God of the universe seems to be the beginning and crux of what it means to know and follow Jesus. We obey God because God first loved us. It’s not a list of rules, regulations, dos and don’ts, etc… Rather, it is this staggering walk of faith that culminates in following Jesus (Sometimes haphazardly because I am human!)

Love Others – We were created to live in relationship with people. God created Adam, and then created Eve. Relationships are important. Loving others because God first loved us is important. It’s more then loving the people that love us, it’s loving the unlovable, it’s having relationships with those that are down and out, it’s caring for those that are hard to care for. And we don’t do this because we want to ‘get people saved.’ We simply do this because Jesus called us to do this. And his life inspires us toward this. Within this, we find the great commission, the clear mission that Jesus gave us, to “Go and Make Disciples.” We are explicitly sent people in this passage.

Serve the World – We serve out of love. 1 John seems to point out that love must be present in any persons life that knows and follows Jesus. We serve people, we serve our world because we know and follow Jesus.

 

Here are some other thoughts that I wrote down in the past several months.

• Church Planting is not the goal, Making disciples is the goal and often, making disciples culminates in a planted church.
• If every person in our established churches saw themselves as and then lived as a missionary, we would have the potential to double the size of Christ followers each year. Currently we experience the opposite outcomes
• The landscape of our culture and context is always changing. If we are unable to be sent into that culture, we will become unable to reach those that don’t know Jesus.
• Each person already has a sphere of relationships that they simply need to engage as missionaries.
• Ultimately, Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit do the work of ‘saving someone.’ But we obey out of love to share the gospel with people that we know.

I’m excited about the precipice that each of us find ourselves on in this area of being “sent.” It’s time to stop talking about being sent and “go.”

 

Church Planting Wichita

In my last take at blogging, I mentioned that I was in the process toward a new role that involved working with church planters and church planting. Officially, I started this role September 19th. It has been an exciting journey of trying to find and assess potential applicants toward being a church planter. I have met alot of really good people so far and a few interesting ones! God seems to continue to work and move in this area of church planting. There is a prayer team that regularly prays for the process and for our first set of residents that we will bring on board. If you are interested in being part of this prayer team, you can email us and let us know that you would like to receive updates and pray for the search.

I am still splitting my time in two different roles. I am working with teenagers and adult leaders to continue partnership with parents in the area of discipling teenagers. We continue to meet weekly as a youth group and are currently going through a series on relationships and sex. It has been an exciting series where we have seen God do some good things in the hearts and the minds of our teenagers. Parents have been able to have conversations in these areas with their teenagers because of the series. Small group leaders have been able to host good discussions during small groups. I will miss youth ministry and will miss the regular interaction with adult leaders. But God has given me the desire for something different, in the area of church planting.

In the area of church planting, I currently spend most of my time networking with those that may be good residents or may know people that might be good residents. What I am finding is that there is an undercurrent of people that are excited about church planting and what it means to rediscover sharing the gospel with a culture that is unreached with the message of hope. Alot of the conversations that I have area excited that churches are moving toward culture and are seeking to share the gospel with others. This seems to be the sentiment from most of the people that I am speaking with. I have been networking with others that are leading a similar strategy in their context (Local church church planting) and also those that might be networking on a grander scale (across cities and even across the nation). This has been a great learning process for me to understand the ins and the outs of church planting as it currently stands in the United States.

As I survey the landscape of church planting, I realize that each context of church planting is different. I have known that US church planting is totally different then Mexico church planting for a long time, but what I was unaware of was that Wichita church planting is totally different then Kansas City Church planting. There are some similarities between all three, but by and large, they are three totally different contexts that must be seen as such.

It is incredibly important that I continue to learn from ‘cross cultural’ church planting models and experiences but also be careful to not adopt the contextual issues only the global principles. I’m excited to continue to grow in this area.

If you are interested in what residency might look like in this area of church planting or what is happening at West E. Free in the area of church planting, you might check out www.westefc.org/cp and enjoy!