Leading to the Launch of our first two Missional Communities

A passion of mine has always been how to reach the unreached, how to give a credible Gospel witness, how to share the Gospel in such a way that the current generation hears and understands it.  I’ve studied church planting for years and have studied Missional Communities for the last couple years.  Yet I’ve found that often times it’s difficult to put what you learn into practice.  I wish I could give 6 months of my life to join  a church that did MCs well and then come back and do what I’ve experienced.  However, we often don’t have the luxury of that.  We simply have to try what we’ve read about and adapt as we need to along the way. 

Over the last four months we’ve been involved in the business of planting a church.  In late September, our sending church approved of our mission plan and funding.  In October we gathered a core team.  We began this blog so that we could share many of the things that we’ve studies and discussed. 

Where We’ve Been

Here’s what our Core Team has been doing as we’ve gathered weekly:

1. In those meetings we discuss a chapter of the Gospel-Centred Life over  a meal.  This volume, written by Missional Community pioneer, Tim Chester, does a great job of sharing how the Gospel addresses everyday life and how we’re called to live in Gospel Communities on Mission.  Most of our MCs will use this material at some point.
2. After each meal, we’ve gone through The Story Formed Way, a ten week session of interactive dialogue and story telling through the key narratives of scripture.  The idea behind it is to give the participants a biblical and systematic theology yet be equally accessible to the novice and the mature Christian. 
3. Almost every week, I’ll also put up a blog post entitled Missional Training.  I ask that our core team review that video or post and we often discuss those posts in our meals as well.  I recognize that not all people have time to watch the videos, but it gives the self-learners some direction and also posts that our future leaders can point their MCs to for training. 

Where to begin with starting MCs?

We are near the conclusion of our training and are ready to plant our first two Missional Communities.  For the mean time, we’ve called these MC East and MC West.  As each MC gathers and discusses where meeting place and their mission, they will probably take on a more specific name for a neighborhood, development, or street they meet on.  We’ve divided the members of our Core Team into these groups based off of their proximity to one another and their affinity.  We have diverse ages in each group.  Yet we chose to keep our three guys in their early 20s together and our three families with young children together at this time. 

My wife and I will attend the group with young families since we have a 9 mo old daughter.  Since I’m the pastor, I plan to be at both MCs initially for the first 4-6 weeks to guide, mentor, coach the leaders and be present to answer (if I can) any questions that come up.  (I wont need to do this at the beginning of each MC, but my initial leaders felt like they needed me present since we’re really learning what it means to be a Gospel Community on Mission.  After that initial period, My wife and I will probably take a few people back to our neighborhood, or somewhere else, to help start another MC.

So, As we seek to launch these MCs, there’s a few things that will need to be done.

1. The leaders of each MC will pick a date for starting The Story Formed Way. They will consult their MC members and pick a date about 4-5 weeks out.  
2. In the mean time, the leaders will work with their team to make sure that there are social and/or service events planned for the weeks leading up to The Story.  They will invite their prospects to those events to introduce them to other members of their MC.
3. As well as big social events, they will make personal plans with those prospects as well.  We’ve been talking about this from the beginning.  Most members of our core have been trying to engage their unchurched friends and neighbors.  We’ve encouraged our members to  invite them into their live before inviting them into their MC. 
4. At some point in those 4-5 weeks, their to invite their prospects to come to The Story.  They’ll explain that it will include many of the people you’ve been hanging out with.  It’s low key, in a home, with no expectations of biblical knowledge.  Trust the spirit on when to invite them and how to invite them.  If they say, “No,” keep inviting them to social and service events.  You might have to build your relationship a little further before they trust you enough to open up. 
5. Who should you invite?  We’ve been talking about those people in our lives who need Jesus.  Each member should have been trying to build relationships with someone that is unchurched or dechurched.  Are they family, friends, acquaintances, coworkers?   Who can you engage?  Who have you engaged?  Who has asked you about the Church Plant?  Who has shown interest in joining us?  Are there members of St. Paul who have left the church in the last year or so for various reasons, but might be engaged in a Gospel Centered Community on Mission?   

 

Correcting Mistakes

In the mean time, my core group will continue to meet weekly.   After listening again to Jeff Vanderstelt’s Gospel Fluency, I realized that I had made a near fatal mistake in our core group training.  I hadn’t been asking my core to rehearse the Gospel.  I simply asked them a couple weeks back, “What is the Gospel?”  I received blank looks, the names of the Gospel books in the Bible, and “Jesus on the Cross.”    Now my team knew the Gospel.  Yet they weren’t prepared to share it. 

So in the following weeks, we will be asking “What is the Gospel?” and will look for an answer that speaks of the whole story of God: Creation –> Fall –> Redemption –> Restoration.  We will also bring up hypothetical situations and role play by asking, “How does the Gospel Address this.  We have been studying the 4 Gs since the beginning, but last week I made up cards with the 4 Gs and how to use them.  We’ll encourage each member to actually memorize them and use them in explaining how the Gospel addresses sins and anxieties in life. 

A second big mistake that we made was  that we’ve talked a lot about reaching out to our unchurced family, friends, neighbors and acquantainces, yet we were not intentional about keeping each other accountable.  Because of this, it was easy to think about making plans to grow in our relationships with these prospects, but not actually get around to doing it all that much.  In the future, we will share with one another who are prospects are, ask one another how we’ve engaged them in the previous week, and we can also pray for those people our fellow MC members are working to win over. 

Again, we are learning how to church plant and launch Missional Communities as we go along.  I hope what I’ve shared here might help some future church planter or MC leader.  If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment.

Missional Training # 14 – The Fishless Fisherman

Over the last few months, our core team has done a lot of training and talking about Missional Communities, Planting a Church, and reaching out to the lost.  Yet there’s a real danger in this, that we might continue simply talking and mistake it as faithfulness.  We need to not only talk about the faith and about mission, but live it as well. 

Watch the following video and consider the questions below:

1. Have you given into this same theory of the Christian life?
2. How can we keep ourselves from falling into living as a theorist rather than a practitioner?

Mike Breen and Alex Absalom talk about the process of building a credible gospel witness and growing your MC in their Launching Missional Communities: a field guide.  They speak of five stages of growing an MC, Sowing, Sowing, Sowing, Reaping, Keeping.  Below is an illustration of each stage similar to what they present, along with their descriptions of each stage.

As we plant this church and begin our Missional Communities, we will all need to be involved in building relationships with the unchurched.  Yet, we do the work together.  Your job as an individual probably wont be to bring the person through each of those stages.  Rather, each individual will probably be more gifted and inclined to be involved at certain stages.  In each case, the job of each member will be to introduce these unchurched people to other members of the MC who can partner with you in loving on, witnessing, and sharing life with them. 

Think again of the people who are in your life.

1. Who is in your life that needs Christ? 
2. How are you strengthening your relationship with them? When was the last time you had dinner with them, hung out with them, invited them to a social gathering or event?
3. Are you praying for them?

Missional Training #13 – What is the Gospel?

We are made Christians through the Gospel.  As Christians we’re called to share the Gospel.  Yet so many of us don’t know how.  This is an excellent teaching from Jeff Vanderstelt about what the Gospel is and how to permeate your Missional Community or church with it.  Watch the following video.  Consider the questions below.

1. How does walking in repentance and belief in the Gospel make you humble?  How does it make you bold?
2. Why do we need a community to help us believe and walk in the gospel?
3. Jeff said, “Every excuse is a gospel opportunity?”  What does he mean by that? 
4. How does Jeff’s explanation of the Gospel expand your own view of the Gospel?  How is it helpful? 
5. Jeff shared 4 questions that help us talk about the Gospel, our beliefs, and lives.  He asks, 1. Who is God(His Character and nature)?  2. What has He done (Christ’s Person and Work)? 3. Who are we (as a result of who God is and what he’s done)? 4. How do we live now (as a result…)?   How is this helpful in calling us to true belief and action?
6. Jeff lays down a storyline:   Creation –> Fall –> Redemption –> Restoration. How does this storyline help you understand your’s and other’s stories?  How does it help you understand false stories in yours or other’s lives?
7. How is Christ’s life, death, and resurrection a benefit not just for salvation, but in everyday life?

Here’s some great notes from Jeff on Gospel Fluency that covers much of what he’s sharing in this talk. 

The Soma School Notes also fill in much of what Jeff speaks about in this video which is missing from the Gospel Fluency document. 

Missional Training #12 – The 4 Gs

In fall of 2010, I attended Soma School in Tacoma, WA.  When I was there, I was exposed to a great way of examining our lives, and preaching the Gospel to ourselves, called the 4 Gs.  They are from a great book called, You Can Change by Tim Chester.    The 4 Gs are a way of looking at your own life, sins, insecurities, and compulsions and examining them with the truth of the Gospel. 

Chester asserts that under all sin and anxiety is a disbelief about God.  So if I sin or am having difficulties in life, I ask myself the question: “What am I not believing about God?”  Below are the 4 Gs that Chester has distilled as the main catch-all truths that we tend to forget.

1. God is Great – so we don’t have to be in control

2. God is Glorious – so we don’t have to fear others

3. God is Good – so we don’t have to look elsewhere

4. God is Gracious – so we don’t have to prove ourselves

Knowing these truths have been liberating in my life.  They Address my sin with the life-giving Gospel and not just the law.  The result is that I’m motivated out of what God has done for me, not out of my fear of what he could do to me.  This is how the 4 G’s can work in Life:

 

God Is Great 

Bill is anxious.  He’s been working at the same job for the last 8 years.  At one point, that would have given Bill a  lot of security, but it seems that every other month they start talking layoffs.  Some days Bill works twice as fast as anyone else, pushing himself constantly into exhaustion.  When he gets home, he can’t rest.  He just wonders if it’s going to be tomorrow, next week, or next month, that he’s going to get that pink slip. 

Bill need to remember that “God is Great so we don’t have to be in Control.”  God created the universe and keeps it running.  The seasons always change.  The sun never fails to come up.  Though there is drought, rain eventually falls, and the land produces what we need to live.  God provides for all we need for our bodies and lives.  God moved and worked in History to preserve Israel and the line of the Messiah.  Jesus demonstrated power over raging winds and water.  He healed the sick and the lame.  He opened the eyes of the blind and the hears of the deaf.  He even demonstrated power over death as he raised Lazarus and after he himself was raised from the dead.  God is great – greater than anything.  Bill, and all of us, don’t have to worry, because He’s in control. 

 

God is Glorious 

Jamie been a Christian for about 5 years now.  She was out with her friends last night.  They don’t live like she wants to, but she stays in their lives because she wants to witness.  Yet she’s always afraid to bring up anything about Christ.  At around 11pm, Jamie told them she had to get going so that she could get up for church the next morning.  Yet they convinced her to stay ’til the bar closed down.  Jamie ended up drinking more than she wanted to.  She said some things she regretted, and was too tired to go to church the next morning.  She’s been kicking herself all day because she was influenced away from Christ rather than towards him. 

Jamie needs to remember that “God is Glorious so that she doesn’t have to fear others.”   God is the all-powerful creator of everything.  He dwells in unapproachable light.  The mere presence of His angels cause men to fall to their knees in terror.  Those who enter his presence fall on their faces and expect death because of God’s Holiness.  The earth trembles at his voice.  His Justice is perfect.  His Grace is all extending.  He is merciful and forgiving.  He clothes himself in splendor and is the desire of all human hearts. 

Chester suggests that  when you fear someone and seek their approval over God’s, “Imagine God next to him or her.  Which of them is more glorious, majestic, holy, beautiful, threatening, and loving?  Whose approval really matters to you?”  All should fear God because he has the power over your life and the power to give you paradise or hell.  Yet as Christians, the fear should really be expressed as awe, because God has given us assurance in life because of Christ.  He could bring us to justice, but he took our judgment upon himself, so that we’re now given mercy.  CHrist is more glorious.  His opinion of us should matter more than anyone’s. 

 

God is Good 

Robert has been failing sexually.  It seems like all of his Christians friends are happily married and are allowed to have sex.  Robert on the other hand is still waiting and wonders if God will ever give him a wife.   His other friends don’t care at all about what God says and seem to be enjoying one sexcapade after another.  They keep telling him that what he does with his body doesn’t matter, that God would want him to be happy, that he’s missing all his opportunities.  Robert’s stumbled onto pornography sites at times.  He choses to watch questionable movies, hoping to stumble upon some vivid sex scene or nudity.  Almost every girl he knows has had sex and seem to even expect in relationships.  He’s starting to think that he should be willing to have sex to keep the girl he’s been dating. 

Robert needs to remember that “God is Good so we don’t have to look elsewhere”.  In our day-to-day moments, we call fall under the illusion that we need to get the most joy out of the time we have.  Waiting in abstinence for a husband or wife seems far crueler than enjoying the high and pleasure of casual sex.  We forget the promises and love that is intended in a life long monogamous marriage.  We know how God says we ought to live, be we lose sight of the blessings of living in his ways now, and the never-ending joys of eternity, and so we indulge in sinful pleasures acting as if they are our only chance at happiness.  We need to remember that God is Good.  He has our best good in mind.  He is better than any fleeting pleasure in this life.  In his presence there is fullness of joy forevermore.  God is Good, so we don’t have to look elsewhere. 

 

God is Gracious 

Angie has spent her life trying to be the best, trying to succeed….and she usually does.  Yet as she’s gotten older, she just doesn’t have the energy. She can’t be the most productive at work and the most attentive Mom at home.  The cracks are starting to show in her perfect life.  She’s starting to feel incompetent, the very fear that drove her all her life.  Her boss has had to go to other people because he’s noticed the strain she’s under.  Suddenly, she doesn’t sense his approval.  Suddenly, because she doesn’t feel the approval of the people around her, she starts wondering if she has God’s approval as well.

Angie, and we, need to remember that we have God’s approval already.  His approval is not even something that we’ve earned.  In fact, what we have earned is death with our lives.  Yet God gives us life freely.  We have his approval already because of Christ.  At Christ’s baptism God speaks over Jesus, “This is my Son, with whom I’m well please.”  Because of Christ, God speaks those same words over us.  You are His son or daughter, with whom God is well pleased because of Christ.  We dont’ have to perform.   “God is Gracious so we don’t have to prove ourselves.”  We can rest in God’s grace. 

 

These 4 Gs can be uses to preach the gospel to yourself but also to others.  They help us find the lie beneath the sin and confront it with the truth of the Gospel.  Ideally, all Christians in your MC or church will learn how to use these 4 Gs so that we have a common language to use in addressing each other’s lives and encouraging eachother in the faith. 

Here are some Questions to ponder:

1. Where do you tend to not beleive the Gospel?
2. What “G” speaks most into your life?  How is it freeing you?
3. What truth do the Christians around you need the most?
4. Who can can you walk closely with that can use the 4 Gs to Gospel you? 

 

Resources

Here is a link to the Sermon I preached on the 4 Gs entitled, How to Kill Sin.

Soma School covers the 4 Gs pretty extensively.  Here is a link to the Audio of their training as well as the material they hand out. 

Chester’s book, You Can Change, is a must read on the topic.   

 

Missional Training #11 – Things to Consider Before Starting a New Missional Community

The Core Group of our Church plant has been meeting for the last few months and we’ve come to a point where we are near ready to start a couple Missional Communities.  As we draw near the need to multiply, here are some things to Consider.

Where should we plant a Missional Community?

• Is there a places for potential service nearby?
• Are there any prospects or connections with the unchurched already?
• Are there other Christians living in the area who are commited to the vision?
• Do you have a meeting place available in the form of a house or apartment?

Who will lead in the MC? 

• Who will be the primary leader of the MC?
• Who will Colead? 
• Is there a balance of Prophet, Priest, and King perspectives among the leaders? 
• Do they know the DNA and vision of our church plant?  Do they unerstand Missional Communites?
• Have they experience in leading the Story or coleading other elements in MC life? 

Who Could You Invite?

• Vocation – Every Christian is a full time minister.  God just route our paychecks through different routes.  God has placed you in your job so that you could serve others well through those means, but also so that you might be a witness to others.  Who do you know at work that is unchurched?  Do you ever get together with them socially?  If not, how can you engaged them to grow your relationship?
• Location  – All of us live in a place surrounded by people, even if we live in the country, there are people around us.  Do you know you’re neighbors?  Do you know who are churched or unchurched?  If so, who can you invite to your MC?  If  you don’t know your neighbors, get to know them.  Bring them over some extra soup, invite them to a party, serve them in some way.    
• Recreation – All of us have hobbies that we enjoy.  God’s given us all unique skills and interests.  God has also given us all unique relational connections to others.  How can you use your passions and interests to connect with others?  Who are you already in relationship with that you can connect to other members of the MC or invite to an event?
• Relations – Who in your family needs to know Jesus?  Can you invite them to social gathering of other MC members?  Would they enjoy The Story?  Would they join us in service projects? 

 For My Core Group:  To prepare for our next meeting, please think and pray over the questions above.  Pray for direction of the Holy Spirit, for open doors to Gospel conversations, and for coworkers and laberors.

Read the Gospel-Centered Life Chapter 12, Horizons.     Also, Is anyone interested in leading The Story this week?  Please let me know and I’ll get you the materials.

Sharing the Gospel: All You Need Is Story, Part 3

In Sharing the Gospel: All You Need Is Story Part 1,  We mentioned that every Christian needs to know how to share the biblical story of

Creation –> Fall –> Redemption –> Restoration

In Part 2, we talked about how the Christian life and a personal faith story adds validity to sharing the Gospel Story.  Today I want to share why it’s important to always be ready to share these stories.

We all have people in our lives that we know are far from Christ and we feel like we’re called to share the gospel with them.  For my mother, this person was her hairdresser.  She prayed for her daily and always wanted to share the faith with her, but she never saw a natural way to bring it up.   

Every time my mother came home from getting her fair done, she’d stand at the door smiling, waiting to see if anyone noticed her new hairdo.  We almost grew to expect it and we’d keep an eye out for her return so that we would remember to say something about her hair style.

One spring day she went to her hair dresser again.  When she go home, all of us were looked up, ready to check out her new hairstyle, and we noticed that she wasn’t smiling, but she looked like the dog died. 

After some prodding, my mother shared that her hair dresser had asked why my mother was getter her hair cut.  My mom responded that it that she was getting ready for Easter later on that week.  Then the hair stylist asked, “That’s one thing I’ve never understood about Christians.  Why is Easter so important to you guys?” 

My mom panicked.  She simply said, “Oh, that’s when we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead”….and that was all she said.

Now was my mother’s answer wrong? No!  Not at all!  It was spot on. Yet she could have given a better answer.  She didn’t make the most of the opportunity God had granted her.  In fact, her answer probably didn’t make much sense to the hair dresser.  Yet if she was prepared ahead of time, she could have shared the grand story of why Easter is important through: Creation –> Fall –> Redemption –> Restoration.    If she had memorized those four themes, she wouldn’t have panicked and would have given a much greater answer that explained the significance of Christ’s death. 

This encounter wither her hair dresser was years ago.  My mother has been looking for another chance to talk to her about Christ ever since.  Don’t miss your opportunity.  Be prepared to Share God’s Story and to share how it has changed your Story.

Sharing the Gospel: All You Need Is Story, Part 2

Yesterday, in Sharing the Gospel: All You Need Is Story Part 1,  We mentioned that every Christian needs to know how to share the biblical story of

Creation –> Fall –> Redemption –> Restoration

You’ve been saved by believing the Good News of that Story.  You need to be ready to share it as well because God will allow you opportunities to be his witnesses.   Yet what makes that story ring true? They need to see it working in your life.   

Before Peter tells us to be ready to share the Gospel Story, he says in 1 Peter2:12,

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

For people to believe the message of Jesus, they often have to first see it working in our lives.  So, we should try to live our lives as if we truly do believe that God owns everything, that he has given us everything we need in Jesus, and that he will give us life eternal with Him.  When we don’t do this perfectly because we are still sinners, we can’t cover it up and act “holier than thou.”  Rather we need to be honest about our struggles and be ready to live lives of confession, repentance, and forgiveness openly so that others see that the Christian life is attainable and not just for the morally superior.   They also then see the Grace of God in action. 

 

How To Share Your Story

Besides being willing to live the Christian Life,  we also need to be prepared to Share how God’s Story has affected us.  The best way of doing this is by following this outline:

1. How Was I before Christ?
2. How Christ came into my life?
3. How He changed me and my life?

I’m Lutheran, so in my church body we baptize as infants and teach our children the faith from infancy.  Many of us can’t remember a time that we didn’t believe.  So instead of talking about when we became Christians, the pivotal point in our story is when our faith became our own and not just what our parents taught us, or when our faith was tested and how it brought us through difficult times.   So our stories might look a little different.  It might go something like this. 

1. I was raised in the faith
2. When I made my faith my own/ how I grew in it
3. How it changed me

or

1. I was a Christian
2. I faced a horribly difficult situation
3. How my faith gave me hope and strength

 

My Story

Personally, I’m a mix of both story methods. 

1) I grew up in the faith, but I was never taught why I should believe.  I walked away from God and became a selfish individual.  Everything I did was for my own benefit.  I was in every relationship I had for only as long as I got something out of it.  I was willing to lie, steal, or to hurt anyone to forward my own agenda of become successful. 

2) Yet I ran into difficult times which forced me to reexamine the faith.  After much study I found out how real God was, and how reliable his word was.  I was floored by the love that He showed us by sending his Son to pay for all the bad things I had done.  I soon realized my life shouldn’t be about me, but really everything was about Him.

3) Now I try to live every day of my life for God instead of myself.  I don’t do this perfectly, but I continue to try to serve God with my life because of everything he did for me through Jesus.

How would you tell your own story of Faith?  Feel free to share it in the comment section.

Tomorrow I’ll share why it’s so important to always be ready to share these stories.

Sharing the Gospel: All You Need Is Story, Part 1

As Christians we’ve been transformed trough the message, or story, of what God has done for us through Jesus (Romans 10:13-17). The story has been passed on to us, and we’re also called to then pass on that story to others that they too might believe.  The apostle writes in 1st Peter 3:15, 

In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

Peter doesn’t call on all Christians to be evangelists, or street preachers, or those annoying people who harass you until they get you to accept a bible tract.  Rather, what he says is to be ready to share the Gospel.  If you’re living the Christian life, some how some way people will notice.  In their time of need, or plainly out of curiosity, they will ask you for the reason for your hope.  So you must be prepared to share it.  To do this, you’ll need to know the basics of the biblical story. 

How To Tell God’s Story

The easiest way is to remember these four elements.

Creation –> Fall –> Redemption –> Restoration

If you have these four elements, you can tell people of the entire redemptive act of Jesus. 

(Creation) God created this world perfect.  It was everything we yearn for.  The world was good.  We had peace with God, with each other, with the animals, & with nature.  It was heaven on earth. 

(Fall) Yet God had an enemy who convinced humanity that they didn’t need God and that they could run the world better.  So humanity was led into rebellion (that is sin) against God.  Because of that rebellion, the world isn’t how it should be.  There are natural disasters, wars, famine, hatred, suffering, and death.  Yet God couldn’t bear for this to go on forever.

(Redemption)  He sent his one and only son, Jesus, into the war zone of this world to offer a truce.  He paid the price of our rebellion on the cross so that we could be pardoned and forgiven.  He has made it possible for a relationship with God again.

(Restoration) Yet God didn’t leave it there.  One day, he will come back and restore all of the creation to what it was meant to be.  There will be no more wars, sorrow, weeping or pain.  It will be heaven on earth once more.  Everything will be made right. 

This narrative of Creation, Fall, Redemption & Restoration is something every Christian needs to know how to share.  Try to speak or to write the gospel story following Creation –> Fall –> Redemption –> Restoration.  Feel free to leave your attempt in the comment section below. 

Tomorrow, I’ll share what makes people trust the  Biblical Story

Will You Live God’s Purpose For Your Life This Year?

Happy New Year!  As we enter into a new year many of us reflect upon our accomplishments and failures of the last year.  We then look forward to the coming year and decide how we need to change.  We envision a better “me” and then set our goals or resolutions to make that prefered future come to pass. 

Have you made your New Year’s Resolutions?  If so are they in alignment with God’s purposes for your life?

People say the greatest question is “What is the purpose or meaning of life.”  Well that is not much of a mystery when you read the word of the one who created all life.  God has created you to be in a perfect relationship with Him and to reflect his image to all creation.  (Gen 21:26-28).  Yet, we didn’t do that.  Sin entered the world and broke the image of God in us and we separated ourselves from Him in our rebellion.  Yet since then, God’s will has been to restore what is lost. 

• According to the bible God’s first desire is that you believe in him (Jn 6:29). He wants a restored relationship with you.   Make it your first priority to read God’s word, meet and learn with God’s people through a church, and to pray or talk to God daily.

• Secondly, God has also Created to love Him with all that you are and to love you neighbors as yourself (Matthew 22:34-40).  He wants you to be in a good a loving relationship with both God and everyone else.  This is part of recreating the image of God in each of us.  We are to reflect God’s love to one another.  Focus on loving others as God showed such great love to us through sending his Son into this world to save us. (1 John 4:10). 

• Lastly, God has created you to share God’s image again by being a witness to who God is and what he’s done (Matthew 28:16-20).  You can love others in many ways, but if you never share with them how they can reconnect with their true father and creator, if you don’t share with the way to eternal life, you aren’t all that loving at all.

Have you made your New Year’s Resolution?  If so, is it aligned with God’s purpose?  This year may we only resolve to know God more and to let him transform us into his image to be used for His purposes.  This is the way to the best people we can be.  This is the only way to make what we do in this coming year and our lives count forever.

Missional Training #10 – Preparing to Lead the Story Formed Way

Story has a way of engaging us and getting past the intellect by speaking the the heart.  We’re all story formed.  The music, movies, tv shows, and books we like shape and form our beleifs.  Story Sticks.  A good story will be remembered far longer than any sermon, speech, or discussion. 

At our church plant, The Story Formed Way, from Caesar Kalinowski and Mike Novelli will be our main discipleship tool to teach the biblical story and theology.  I’ve brought my core group through the first few lessons.  Currently, we have a few members who are reading the Story and leading the dialogue for the first time.  The questions below are meant to help my core group process the video, however, anyone is welcome to leave a comment below.

Check out this video from Echo The Story:

• What  are some helpful things he said that could encourage interaction of even unchurched people in the Story?
• I’ve known some people who think they’ve heard or read bible stories before so they have nothing left to learn.  Is this true?  Have you ever read an old familiar story in scripture and have it speak to you as if you heard if for the first time?  What made it fresh for you?
• What does it mean that God’s word is living and active?  Can God speak to and through all of us? 
• What is imaginative listening?  How do you think this could give you a fresh hearing of God’s word? 

Caesar Kalinowski suggests beginning each week by reminding people that their input is important to the dialogue after the reading of the Story.  He reminds them that the dialogue is like a potluck or buffett.  A buffett with only a few options isn’t much of a buffett.  What make a meal like this is the rich variety of foods.  Likewise, the dialogue with the story is the same.  It’s not great if only one or two people are talking.  What makes it is the full rich variety of voices and opinions.  Every person adds a unique flavor when they give their perspectives and thoughts on the story. 

The above video above is one of many videos that come with Mike Novelli’s book Shaped By The Story. 

For my Core Group, Please read  The Gospel-Centred Life, Chapter 10, “Relationships.” 

Resources

• You can download The 10 week Story Formed Way for free from.
• The Story of God is an expanded narrative set of 22 stories which can also be downloaded free.
• The Story of God Training is a great resource that Caesar teaches at Soma and at Soma School. 

Also Check out Missional Training #6 – The Need For Story