Intentionally Incarnational & Methodically Missional

I need to come clean.  I have an addiction.  I'm addicted to seeing lives transformed by the gospel through people giving, serving, and participating in the Church.

I have to say, I'm very excited about all the God has been doing around New Hope lately.  We're seeing lots of new guests, we're seeing people step up and serve, we're seeing people humble themselves and give, and we're seeing God transform peoples hearts in new and amazing ways.

 

But as an addict, I just always want more.

I think there are two ways we as a individuals and as a church family can see more and more and more of this kind of thing happen in peoples lives around New Hope.

BE INTENTIONALLY INCARNATIONAL

It's kind of a funny word; incarnational.  Sounds strange at least.  But it simply means to 'take on flesh', and it refers to what Jesus did when He came from heaven to live the life we could not live, die the death we should have died, so that He could give us the gift we could never otherwise earn.

He entered into our world, He did not just call from heaven, or send a postcard through Carrier Pigeon, He came to our world.  He entered in to our mess, He took on our weakness, and He did not shy away from our sin, our messiness, or our stubbornness. 

And we are called to do the same to the broken world around us.  Not just place a postcard in the door and run, but enter in to the lives of our neighbors, stand up and face the messiness of our coworkers, endure the hardship of some of our extended family.  Jesus did not just stand at the corner of heaven and shout 'Come on Up here and see how much better things are', he came to your street corner and showed you how much better life in and with Him is.

And that is our call.  To enter in.  To stop shying away, and care enough to climb in to the messiness with the people around us. 

Paul says in Acts 17 that you live where you live and work where you work and know who you know, so that others may see God's work and transformation in your life and seek God themselves.  

But it's going to require us to be intentional.  Incarnation does not happen by accident.

Remeber you may be the only Jesus some people will ever see, so be Incarnational.

BE METHODICALLY MISSIONAL

We love Missionaries.  They kind of seem like the super heroes of our Church world.

Most leave everything behind and head off for some dangerous foreign country to boldly proclaim what most of us wouldn't be able to talk to ourselves about.  They learn new languages, study strange cultures, and sacrifice much.

The problem with seeing Missionaries as heroes who are far and above us, is that we're all called to be Missionaries.  We're all called to be Ministers of Reconciliation.  Only some of us aren't sent to Africa or China, but rather to Pasadena, Curtis Bay or Glen Burnie.  But we often fail to recognize that we are there as much for the good of those cities and their people as we are for our own good.

We're meant to take our mission seriously. Our mission to Connect people to God & each other, by making disciples.  

When Jesus said 'Go, make disciples of all nations', He meant our neighborhoods as much as he meant Greenwich.  He meant our cities as much as He meant Beijing. He meant our nation as much as He meant Haiti.

I think we could see some real growth, individual and as a church, if we started being Methodically Missional, like the missionaries who travel abroad.

They study the cultural where they are entering into, they learn the language, they get to know the people.  

More importantly, they study what that cultures stumbling blocks to the gospel are.  The Gospel is multi-faceted for a reason, because it can be applied to anyone, anywhere at anytime, but we need to be aware of who we are applying it to, where it is being applied, and in what context.

Again being missional does not happen by accident.  

If we are going to see lives changed, and hearts transformed around here at New Hope, it is going to take much more than a well organized staff, and good music, and engaging preaching.  It's even going to take more than good marketing, or silly blogs.  It's going to take the power of God working through the faithfulness & willingness of His people to step out and take the Gospel to the world.

Let us strive to be disciples of Jesus who are intentionally incarnational and methodically missional.

Top 10: Ways to Let Your Friends Know

Top 10: Ways to Let Your Friends Know

10.  Have friends.  Sounds simple, even a little patronizing, but the point IS simple.  Be the kind of person that has friends; kind, generous, caring, compassionate, humorous, engaged.  It’s hard to share the gospel with friends you don’t have, and continue to avoid/repel.

9.  Use the advantage you have of knowing your friend(s) well.  You can speak life and peace into very specific situations because of your previous relationship, and experiences together.

8.  Use your social media connections.  ReTweet the authors, pastors and friends that post good content.  Share videos, blogs, and conversations that point to God’s goodness and grace.

7.  Love your friend enough to put yourself out there.  True love will lay itself down for the good of another.  Say what needs to be said because you love them too much to let it go unsaid any longer.

6.  Avoid being a grumbling, selfish, arrogant, angry twerp.  If your life is not lined up with what you say it will put up a stumbling block for them.  This doesn’t mean you can’t share, it means you need to be honest about your own shortcomings and willing to address them through God’s grace.

5.  Invite your unchurched friends to hang out with you and your churched friends.  Evangelism isn’t a solo sport.  Get others involved, encourage new friends between your “camps” of friends.  You don’t know it all, and you shouldn’t pretend to.  Let others speak into their life as well.

4.  Use your regular activities to preach the gospel with your actions and your words.  You don’t need to start a Bible Study to reach your friends, just utilize your normal Friday Night hangout to display God’s love and proclaim His Word.

3. Show some initiative.  If you are really friends, then there is a level of trust that has been built.  Initiate the conversation, be bold, knowing that you’ve been

2.  Share YOUR story.  This is the most basic and most effective means of Letting people Know. Your story cannot be refuted or discounted, because it happened to you, and especially if your life is actually showing signs of being changed it can be a powerful way to show and tell of the Good News of Jesus.

1. You guessed it…Pray.    Pray that God would do what only God can do, which is save.  You can share, tell, show and encourage, but God must open their eyes, God must change their heart.  So pray that He will, and be prepared that He may change you in the process.

Top 10: Ways to Let Your Neighbors Know

10. Don't hide in your house.  Get outside, especially as Spring is coming, and meet your neighbors.  Think it through, how many of them do you really know, by name?  How many do you know well enough to pray for specifically?
9.  Offer to help a neighbor with a project in the yard or the house.
8.  Invite your neighbors to the concert you're going to, or the comedy club.  If your family is going out, bring their family with you.
7.  Have a cookout/game night.  Gather friends from church and friends from the 'hood in the same place.  Allow the Spirit to work in and through the variety of gifts and personalities.
6.  Maintain a good testimony at your kids sports games.  Don't be one of "those guys" trying to live vicariously through their sons athletic achievements.  Speak encouragement, be a calming presence, be an influencer.
5.  Get involved in your neighborhood's HOA or Civic Association.  Getting involved in the wellbeing of your community can send a powerful message that you don't just care about "getting someone saved" but you genuinely care about them.
4.  Maintain your house and your property like it's the Garden of Eden.  A care for God's creation and a love of beauty and order can speak volumes and open many doors.  At the very least it won't close a door by being "that house".
3.  Go deeper.  "Hey, how are you?  Good, you?" is fine and dandy, but life happens beyond the surface.  Let your neighbors know you care.  Ask them what you can pray for them about, ask how you can help. Invest in their lives through conversation.
2.  Invite a neighbor and their family over for dinner.  Opening your home is a great way to engage people with the gospel, as you invite them into what is usually a guarded and protected area.  This allows them to feel comfortable and open as well.
1.  Pray for your neighbors. By Name.  Specifically.  With their wellbeing at heart.  Seek to bring them before God, and ask that He would work.  Ask that they would be given eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand the goodness and greatness of Jesus.

Remember this.  We often pray that our neighbors would hear God's message.  But in John 17:20, Jesus prays that they will hear our message.  The message we have about God has done in our own life, is much more powerful then some general, theological dissertation on how Paul lays out the gospel in the book of Romans.

Share your message, Jesus is already praying for you and for them.  Join Him in His prayer, that they would hear and believe, and have their own story to share.

You may be the only gospel they ever see or hear.  You may be the voice they hear God through, and the life they see His handiwork in.

Got Hope?

You want to experience hope, don't you?  

I know there is an innate desire in all of us to see, pursue, and discover hope.  Whether it is that we hope to accomplish marvelous things, or that we just hope to make it through the carpool, we all rise and fall because of hope.  

Maybe it's a coping mechanism within us, only there to fire off neurons that will interact with the chemicals of the brain to signal to our body that we should keep fighting, keep striving, keep chasing after whatever, simply as a means of survival. 

Maybe it's an illusion.  A cruel trick of a heartless, cold, meaningless world, to create within us a desire for more, a passion for greater things, and a drive to see them come to fruition despite the odds.  A mere leftover from a previous evolution of the natural order, outdated and overestimated.  

But I think we all know differently.  I believe hope to be in the top 5 in all of God's purposeful, awe inspiring creation.  Right up there with the cross & empty grave of Jesus Christ, the love of God that put Him there, my gorgeous wife Jamie and a steak Medium Rare.

Hope is God's way of saying to us "Don't Give Up!" "Don't Give In!" "There is more to be tasted, more to be seen, more to be enjoyed".  Hope is God crying out in the loudest of voices, through the human experiences of pain & pleasure, suffering & joy.
Hope is wired into our souls.  The Scriptures tell us in Ecclesiastes that God has placed eternity in the heart of man, so that we would seek him out.  This simply means that we will all face crisis, and we will all need hope, because our hearts our born knowing that there is more to life than what we taste, touch, smell, hear & see. Our hearts know that in this world all too often identified by pain, frustration, shame and regret, that this isn't the way the world is supposed to be, and somebody, somewhere has to fix it.

But not all that glitters is gold, nor is all that promises hope, able to follow through.  This is where we frequently fall.  Our drive for hope is so overwhelmingly strong at times that we will grasp at whatever straw is in front of us to fix us. And herein hope becomes a double edged sword that can either drive us into the arms of our all-powerful, all-loving, all-problem solving God through Jesus, or can turn our hearts into what John Calvin called "idol factories".  This is where we run from the true God, and as Romans 1 says, we exchange the truth of God for the lie that something created can hold our hope better than the one who created it.  We run from sports teams, to shopping malls, from politicians to rock stars, from legislation of law in government to legislation of the soul in religion, all with a life driving desire to find in them a hope that can sustain us, motivate us, and fix us if we just click our heals and repeat a mantra.  The sad part in it all, is that there really is "No Place Like Home", but we oft fail to see that the Home of the Soul is with God, and that the front door has been busted wide open for us to walk through, by Jesus' death, burial and resurrection as the one and only way for us to find rest, forgiveness for our idol worship, and true hope that can not only sustain, motivate, and fix but can also deliver everything that it promises us.

And so I ask you to join me in celebrating hope.  I pray this blog will be a place where the economy of hope, or HOPEnomics as I call it, can help us all pursue Jesus as our one and only true hope.