Cautiously Missional

I like this from Todd Pruitt:

“Missional” is a word that has come along in recent years with great excitement in many cases. Pastors, churches, and even seminaries have been bold to proclaim themselves “missional.” The problem is that it is a frustratingly slippery word. Brian MacLaren defines it one way and Mark Driscoll another. I don’t mind the word, indeed I wouldn’t mind adopting it so long as it means a commitment to advance the Gospel (as Scripture defines “Gospel”).

Ed Stetzer has written a helpful piece on the issue of “missional” at the Lifeway Research blog.

After some opening observations Stetzer then asks some questions:

All this provokes me to ask, “Why are so many missional Christians uninvolved in God’s global mission?” As the missional conversation continues and deepens, what has occurred that has led to our blindness to the lost world around us?

Stetzer offers the following thoughts that I believe are worthy of reflection.

1) In rediscovering God’s mission, many have only discovered its personal dimensions [as opposed to its global ones].

2) In responding to God’s mission, many have wanted to be more mission-shaped and have therefore made everything “mission.” [The result is that the special need for sending missionaries to foreign lands is made fuzzy and ultimately lost.]

3) In relating God’s mission, the message increasingly includes the hurting but less
frequently includes the global lost. [The emphasis is on relief of temporal suffering, rather than eternal suffering.]

4) In refocusing on God’s mission, many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news. [As Stetzer says, "As many missional Christians have sought to "embody" the gospel, they have chosen to forsake one member of Christ's body--the mouth."]

5) In reiterating God’s mission, many lose the context of the church’s global mission and needed global presence. ["Hyper focus on our community" leads to a loss of focus on the wider world and God's mission in it.]

Filed under: Christ our Mediator, Doctrine, Evangelical, Evangelism, Jesus Christ, Missional living, Missions, The Christian Life, The Gospel, The Great commission, The word of God, World missions

The Expertly Contextualized Gospel

This is excellent:

(HT: Jared Wilson)

Filed under: Christ-centred, Cultural relevance, Doctrine, Evangelical, Evangelism, God's grace, God's holiness, Jesus Christ, Preaching, The Gospel, The word of God

Christ Himself

“Our faith is a person; the gospel that we have to preach is a person; and go wherever we may, we have something solid and tangible to preach, for our gospel is a person. If you had asked the twelve Apostles in their day, ‘What do you believe in?’ they would not have stopped to go round about with a long sermon, but they would have pointed to their Master and they would have said, ‘We believe him.’ ‘But what are your doctrines?’ ‘There they stand incarnate.’ ‘But what is your practice?’ ‘There stands our practice. He is our example.’ ‘What then do you believe?’ Hear the glorious answer of the Apostle Paul, ‘We preach Christ crucified.’ Our creed, our body of divinity, our whole theology is summed up in the person of Christ Jesus.”

C. H. Spurgeon, “De Propaganda Fide,” in Lectures Delivered before the Young Men’s Christian Association in Exeter Hall 1858-1859, pages 159-160.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)

Filed under: CH Spurgeon, Christ our Mediator, Christ our righteousness, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, Evangelism, Jesus Christ, The Cross, The word of God

Does Church Membership Matter?

Kevin DeYoung thinks that membership matters in the church, so he provided six reasons for the importance of church membership:

1. In joining a church you make visible your commitment to Christ and his people.
2. Making a commitment makes a powerful statement in a low-commitment culture.
3. We can be overly independent.
4. Church membership keeps us accountable.
5. Joining the church will help your pastor and elders be more faithful shepherds.
6. Joining the church gives you an opportunity to make promises.

Read the whole post, and check out DeYoung’s book Why We Love the Church (written with Ted Kluck).

(HT: James Grant)

Filed under: Church, Culture, Discipleship, Evangelism, The Christian Life

Unreached vs Unevangelized

Alex Chediak interviews David Sitton, President of To Every Tribe. An excerpt:

There’s an important difference between unevangelized and unreached peoples. Unevangelized people are unconverted individuals in places where there are established churches. Unreached peoples are those that live in regions where there are no churches and no access to the evangelical gospel in their culture. And to answer your question about the present trend; 96% of the missionary work force is still laboring in unevangelized, but not truly unreached regions. Here it is again – 9 out of 10 Christian missionaries that go cross-cultural are still going to reached places! Here’s still another way to say it – Something like 90% of all “ministers” worldwide are concentrating on only 2% of the world’s population! We are massively overly evangelizing places where the gospel is already well planted! I believe that we need a substantial strategic redeployment of the missionary workforce to the areas where there is still no access to the evangelical gospel.

Read the whole thing.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Filed under: Evangelism, Missions, Unreached peoples, World missions

The Quickening Word of God

I have many in this city who are my people. – Acts 18:10

“This should be a great encouragement in proclaiming the Gospel, since among the people in our communities—the disinterested, the rebellious, the careless—God has an elect people who must be saved. When you take the Word to them, you do so because God has ordained you to be the messenger of life to their souls, and they must receive it, for so the decree of predestination runs. They are as much redeemed by blood as the saints before the eternal throne. They are Christ’s property, and yet perhaps they are lovers of selfish pleasures and haters of holiness; but if Jesus Christ purchased them, He will have them. God is not unfaithful to forget the price that His Son has paid. He will not suffer His substitution to be in any case an ineffectual, dead thing. Tens of thousands of redeemed ones are not regenerated yet, but regenerated they must be; and this is our comfort when we go to them with the quickening Word of God.”

CH Spurgeon

(HT: Reformed Voices)

Filed under: CH Spurgeon, Doctrine, Doctrines of Grace, Election, Evangelism, Reformed, Substitutionary Atonement, The Cross

Gospel Intentionality

From Tim Chester:

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Steve Timmis recently did a series of posts on Twitter on ‘living ordinary life with gospel intentionality’ (see Total Church, 60-62  and 63-66 ). Here they are gathered together …

• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … buying from local shops.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … frequenting a local coffee shop or pub.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … playing for a local sports team.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … always tipping generously in local restaurants.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … being the kind of neighbour everyone wants to have as a neighbour.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … volunteering at a local charity shop along with a couple of others from church.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … doing ordinary things in community.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … opening your home to, and sharing your food with others.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … walking the same route to work at the same time or catching the same train each day.
• Living ordinary life with gospel intentionality means … we do EVERYTHING for the sake of the gospel!

Filed under: Christ-centred, Discipleship, Evangelism, Gospel-centred, Missional living, The Christian Life, The Church

Election & Evangelism – C. H. Spurgeon

A controversialist once said, “If I thought God had a chosen people, I should not preach.” That is the very reason why I do preach. What would make him inactive is the mainspring of my earnestness. If the Lord had not a people to be saved, I should have little to cheer me in the ministry.

I believe that God will save his own elect, and I also believe that, if I do not preach the gospel, the blood of men will be laid at my door.

Our Saviour has bidden us to preach the gospel to every creature; he has not said, “Preach it only to the elect;” and though that might seem to be the most logical thing for us to do, yet, since he has not been pleased to stamp the elect in their foreheads, or to put any distinctive mark upon them, it would be an impossible task for us to perform; whereas, when we preach the gospel to every creature, the gospel makes its own division, and Christ’s sheep hear his

(HT: Reformation Theology)

Filed under: CH Spurgeon, Doctrine, Doctrines of Grace, Election, Evangelical, Evangelism, Jesus Christ, Missions, Preaching, The Gospel

Christianity in our Society is Now Dying

“Having absorbed the world’s values, Christianity in our society is now dying. Subtly but surely worldliness and self-indulgence are eating away the heart of the church. The gospel we proclaim is so convoluted that it offers believing in Christ as nothing more than a means to contentment and prosperity. The offense of the cross (cf. Gal. 5:11) has been systematically removed so that the message might be made more acceptable to unbelievers. The church somehow got the idea it could declare peace with the enemies of God.”
- John MacArthur
(HT: Allsufficientgrace)

Filed under: Cultural relevance, Evangelical, Evangelism, Jesus Christ, John MacArthur, Liberal Theology, Liberalism, The Church, The Gospel, Worldliness

A Video Tribute to Ralph Winter

Here is a 16-minute video from the U.S. Center for World Mission telling the story of Ralph Winter’s life and ministry.

(HT: Desiring God)

Filed under: Evangelical, Evangelism, God's Kingdom, Missions, The Great commission, Unreached peoples, World missions

Clayton’s Story

A moving and powerful six minute testimony.

“There are so many things in this life that distract us from understanding what is truly important. Clayton McDonald’s unique perspective has forced an understanding of life that most of us cannot comprehend.”  The Doorpost

Click here to watch.

(HT: Allsufficientgrace)

Filed under: Discipleship, Evangelical, Evangelism, Testimony, The Christian Life

The highest of all missionary motives

“If God desires every knee to bow to Jesus and every tongue to confess Him, so should we. We should be ‘jealous’ for the honor of His name—troubled when it remains unknown, hurt when it is ignored, indignant when it is blasphemed, and all the time anxious and determined that it shall be given the honor and glory which are due to it.

The highest of all missionary motives is neither obedience to the Great Commission (important as that is), nor love for sinners who are alienated and perishing (strong as that incentive is, especially when we contemplate the wrath of God), but rather zeal—burning and passionate zeal—for the glory of Jesus Christ.

Only one imperialism is Christian, and that is concern for His Imperial Majesty Jesus Christ, and for the glory of his empire or kingdom. Before this supreme goal of the Christian mission, all unworthy motives wither and die.”

—John Stott, The Message of Romans (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press,  1994), 53

(HT: Of First Importance)

Filed under: Christ our treasure, Evangelical, Evangelism, God's Kingdom, Jesus Christ, John Stott, Mission, Preaching, The Cross, The Gospel, The glory of Christ, The word of God, Zeal

The Point of the Gospel: Jesus Wants the Rose!

Abraham Piper posts:

Matt Chandler tells a story about the gospel being for broken sinners:

You can also read the notes taken during this portion of Matt Chandler’s message:

It didn’t take long before my passion for the gospel and to see lost men and women saved started to collide with the church. And so it wasn’t very long before I decided that if I was going to do this, I wasn’t going to do it as a churchman.

This break in me happened during my freshman year of college when I sat next to a 26-year-old single mother trying to get her degree. We began a dialogue about the grace and mercy of Christ in the cross….

A friend of mine was in a band playing in the area and we invited her to hear him. She agreed. She thought it would be a concert. I knew better….

The minister got up and said we would talk about sex. He took a red rose, smelled it, and threw it out in the crowd and told them to smell the rose. He then began one of the worst, most horrific handlings of what sex is and isn’t that I ever sat through.

With Kim beside me, I’m thinking, “What are you doing?” As he wrapped up, he asked, “Where’s my rose?” Some kid brought the rose back and it was broken.

His final point—his great crescendo—was to hold up the rose and ask, “Who wants this rose?”

Anger welled up within me and I wanted to say, “Jesus wants the rose!” That’s the whole point of the gospel: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Filed under: Evangelical, Evangelism, God's grace, Jesus Christ, Preaching, The Cross, The Gospel

Election & the Gospel

“Let no one say . . . that the doctrine of election by the sovereign will and mercy of God, mysterious as it is, makes either evangelism or faith unnecessary. The opposite is the case. It is only because of God’s gracious will to save that evangelism has any hope of success and faith becomes possible. The preaching of the gospel is the very means that God has appointed by which he delivers from blindness and bondage those whom he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, sets them free to believe in Jesus, and so causes his will to be done.”

- John R. W. Stott, The Message of Ephesians (Downers Grove, Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 1979), 48

(HT: Of First Importance)

Filed under: Doctrine, Election, Evangelical, Evangelism, God's grace, Gospel-centred, Jesus Christ, John Stott, Sovereignty of God, Substitutionary Atonement, The Gospel, The word of God

Incarnational Ministry?

I love this from James Grant:

Incarnational ministry is one of the really cool ways of talking about ministry these days. “Incarnational” itself has become something of a buzzword, and those are usually not helpful. What are we getting across with incarnational? Steve Holmes:

As far as I can tell, its meaning, to the extent it has any, is a gesture towards a practice of Christian discipleship which involves simply being in a place, consciously refusing to challenge people or structures, but instead living a life of quiet piety and availability in the hope that this will serve as a witness to those around.

I think he is right. That seems to be the way “incarnational” is used. But is this really incarnational? Holmes again:

Is this what Jesus did – quiet, non-confrontational living; service without preaching; being but never saying? It might not be wrong, but to dignify it by claiming it is uniquely true to the life of Christ seems to me rather ambitious. Jesus was not obviously quiet and non-confrontational; the authorities noticed Him, and feared Him, and did something about Him. ‘Incarnational ministry’ will not be quiet and non-confrontational either: by a holistic combination of word and deed, it will publicly and decisively undermine the authority structures of this world in the name of God’s Kingdom of justice and joy; it will mock our idols and critique our lives. It will be profoundly threatening to the culture it lives within.

Truly incarnational ministry will end, invariably, in crucifixion – and the sure and certain hope of resurrection life.

Do you want an “incarnational” ministry now?

Filed under: Discipleship, Evangelical, Evangelism, Gospel-centred, Jesus Christ, Missional living, The Christian Life, The Cross, The Gospel, The Incarnation, The word of God