Missiology #6

“And [evangelism] is also what we are called to do. We must not wait until we are healed first, loved first, and then reach out. We must serve no matter how little we have our act together. It may well be that one of the first steps toward our own healing will come when we reach out to someone else.” - Rebecca M. Pippert

To perhaps zoom in on the second point of a previous post regarding paradigm shifts, a church is only healthy when it is sent. Increased fellowship among the members will not fully restore it; it truly comes together as one in order to bring light into a dark world.

Of course, Pippert is speaking on a more micro level. Peter personally saw his restoration complete in light of himself having to be sent wholly at the cost of his life (John 21:15-25). Personally and anecdotally for me, battling loneliness and isolation in the last year neccesitated looking to meet brothers in similar situations, and obviously enough there would be mutual healing in that ministry.

My mother: Yoyo is with her creator now, She is a real cat! 不亢不卑（neither haughty nor humber), 但 忠诚 (loyal) 又 钟情 (faithful to what she loves). You will be missed deeply, Yoyo.

Ecclesiology #12

And this series returns! For a bit. Two things.

If you can’t humbly accept a rebuke, you will be unable to lovingly deliver one.

If you cannot see your sin as worst than others, you will not be able to genuinely love people.

Main point: thinking much about yourself will destroy relationships. You hate the truth in a rebuke, therefore you cannot be a messenger of truth. You are not grieved over your own sin, therefore your view of God (and love itself) is very low.

From D. Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.

Missiology #5

Credit to Michael Hu and Campus Renewal Ministries for material.

Ministries can avoid confusion and disappointment in expectation mismatch with regard to missional initiatives if specific vision among the leadership is well-established. There are four main blocks for mission vision, and the specific contexts I wrote as examples are in a college setting because that is what I relate to the most. The explanations for each column and row are:

• Partial: targeting specific segments of population, single ministry involvement
• Whole: targeting whole institution, partnership of multiple ministries
• Tactical: isolated event, short-term
• Strategic: long-term build-up with follow-through efforts

You move block to block by shifting vision. The southwest block is the one that transforms culture.

Missiology #4

Credit to Michael Hu and Campus Renewal Ministries for material.

When reaching a specific institutional context - such as a college campus - with the gospel, it is imperative to evaluate possible limitations within your church body’s current paradigm. Three shifts are proposed, with the shift being a more expansive and inclusive paradigm over the original:

• Moving from a come-to church to a go-to church. College fellowships take painstaking efforts in planning events to draw outsiders in, but the simple truth is that the majority of students view Christianity antagonistically, and no matter how much coaxing these students will not go to a Christian-sponsored event. Mostly, these events are good for seekers. By being go-to, a church body develops a sent mentality and claims places of authority within the realm of different fields. For college students, this means acquiring leadership positions in clubs of all kinds and serving others within those contexts.
• Moving from fellowship unity to functional unity. By looking outside of itself to determine the specific needs of the surrounding community, the body simultaneously forms strong fellowship while fulfilling gospel imperatives. We should avoid saturation of in-house bonding activities because, in the words of Dr. Ed Gross, love that stays inside starts to smell bad.
• Moving from church growth to transformation. Numbers are a good metric but not a complete one. PKenny would use the phrase, “Don’t miss the miracle.” Gauge ministry success based on the working of the spirit prompting sheep to make more disciples. Transformation takes two avenues: believers bearing fruit, and the world around them taking notice to respond. We hope in a time when Jesus enters the mainstream vernacular with respectful disposition.

Missiology #3

From http://ceruleansanctum.com:


Evangelicals don’t seem to understand the lives of non-Evangelicals, which is why Evangelicals continue to fail to connect with people who are different from them. Blame this on a bunker mentality. Honestly, how many liberal friends do most Evangelicals have? Why expect any influence at all then?

That lack of influence illustrates how Evangelicals have forgotten the root of their label: evangelism.

Evangelicals must learn that no political party is their friend. Selling out to the GOP has hurt Evangelicalism more than it can imagine, and Evangelicals must stop believing that any one political party represents them. Strange bedfellows have hurt the cause of Christ in America, and it is high-time the reflex to vote Republican stops. Evangelicals must support political candidates, regardless of party affiliation, who more accurately reflect the nature of God’s character and who perfectly answer how God can be known. Evangelicals must also realize that values voting is a major failure because it does not take into account all aspects of who God is. Picking and choosing values only further muddies Evangelicalism’s larger stance on what it means to be in Christ. All of who God is must be considered, and that means looking at aspects of God’s character Evangelicals have neglected. If Evangelicals were as well-known for championing the causes of the poor in America as they were for championing the cause of traditional marriage, perhaps those single, urban mothers who went en masse for “the other guy” might have voted differently.


(Original link)

Missiology #2

I don’t quite understand why people make a big deal out of sharing the gospel, especially in a non-persecutory place like America. Communicating the gospel should be pretty easy for Christians. Just as much as I believe my father’s surname is Zhang and my mother’s is Xu, with equal certainty I can talk about facts and truths about my heavenly father with fair ease.

Why do we make belief and faith such fluffy, tenuous words? Paul uses the word “faith” in a manner that means “persuaded.” Are you thoroughly convinced of your sonship? Can you replace faith/belief in scripture with words like “my entire framework through which I interpret the world” and really mean it?

More than communicating the gospel, living out the gospel is tenfold harder. And yet tenfold more effective to the cause of mission. It still encapsulates verbally communicating truths. But above all is love (Colossians 3:14). Sharing your life and time with people (1 Thessalonians 2:8). So egregiously more difficult, inconvenient, and loving is the way of obeying the gospel.

Missiology #1

The reason God hasn't taken life from the Christian is because they are on mission. No other possibility. The implication there is that if you are not on mission now, you won't be in another field.

Want vision? It's a matter of opening one's eyes (John 4:35).

Once that's accomplished, hopefully you'll feel overwhelmed. Good. The more you know yourself to be insufficient for mission the better candidate you are for mission.

Ecclesiology #11

Demanding things from people automatically causes you to assume the worst about them. You play a perversion of God with crushing judgments only to leave wrecked relationships.

On the flip side, not putting expectations on someone is ironically in itself an expectation. The only correct gauge in validity is the lens of scripture. Hate sin lest you become its embodiment.