Response to Missional? When?

My friend and pastor, Sean Palmer, has a great vlog (that's video blog and blog is short for web log so I guess vlog is short for video web log). It regards the "Missional Church". In it, he asks us to define a "Missional Church". My answer got too long for a comment, so I'm posting it here. And it got even longer once I posted it here...

A "missional church" (all one phrase) is not an easy thing to answer. I tend to think about it on a global scale rather than an individual scale. Forget about the local institution and focus on the universal church.

Missional means spreading Christ's word. Pure and simple. Not necessarily evangelical, but giving people what they need physically and spiritually. How can an institution do that? Star of Hope. Boy and Girl Scouts (those are in alphabetical order - not picking favorites). Food pantry. Prison. Clinic.

The question becomes less about "What can I do," and more about "How did Jesus do it?" Jesus was at the places where people needed Him. He hung out with tax collectors and sinners. Perhaps in our day He'd be hanging out at the rock concerts and nightclubs. Whether He participated or not is answered by 2 Cor. 5:21 - that He knew no sin.

So, to be missional, the church needs to be in places it really doesn't want to be. Montrose. Sixth Street. San Francisco. Vegas. The church - and that means its people - need to be out in their unchurched world and living the life.

• Be a friend to a flaming homosexual without endorsing - or condemning - their lifestyle.
• Be a friend to the alcoholic without endorsing - or condemning - their lifestyle.
• Be a friend to the Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or other non-Christian without endorsing - or ridiculing - their choice.

Once you establish the friendships, as Jesus had, you can see lives change. You can see them healed.

I think singer Todd Agnew hit the nail on the head in his song "My Jesus":

(Note: This video is not by Todd Agnew)

How does one become missional? One simply looks past the lifestyle, the dirt, the corruption, the addiction, the crime... and finds a soul to love. That's what Jesus did. I know it's hard. The last place I want to be is in a place where everybody around me is living a life I consider to be repugnant - a place like a homosexual community. But that's where My Jesus would be. He wouldn't participate, but He would definitely show the love.

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So, in a nutshell, WWJD is being missional. Go there. Do that. Get the T-Shirt. Remember - it's not just about the poor. There are probably more wealthy unchurched than poor. It's about sinners. It's about you and me.

Adios,
Clay

(äd-s) [Spanish adiós, probably translated from French à dieu. (I commend you) to God  : a, to (from Latin ad. See ad-) + Dieu, God (from Latin deus. See dyeu- in Indo-European Roots).]

Being Broken

Brokenness, brokenness is what I long for
Brokenness is what I need
Brokenness, brokenness is what
You want from me

So, take my heart and form it
Take my mind and transform it
Take my will and conform it
To Yours, to Yours, oh, Lord

- Holiness by Sonic Flood

This week, my family took a vacation out of state. I'm home alone. Not a bad thing for a guy who really needs a break from his kids screaming and crying all the time. But I'm lonely. My wife left me with a long list of honeydos, and we agreed that Monday would be my "restoration day".

Rather than allow myself to be restored by God, I spent all day playing Civilization III and surfing the internet. I didn't even go to my workout. I just sat all day in front of any of three different computers and ate Doritos. Is this inherently bad? No. But when I heard the Lord calling my name, I didn't respond. I just sat there playing my game or finding useless stuff to do in the accursed 'net. Even this morning, as I wrote this post, I find myself searching for stuff for my newfound XMMS Linux-based music player instead of writing. My daughter does the same thing to me, and it really torques me off.

That hit me this morning. Here I am, doing the same thing to God that my daughter does to me. I get mad at my daughter 'cuz she won't even give me the dignity of a response. She just continues playing, without even looking at me. No, she's not deaf - she's been tested. She just ignores me. When she does this to me, I get the feeling that I simply do not matter to her.

So, this morning, I get the feeling I've done this to God. (When you get a feeling like that, out of the blue, that's the Holy Spirit and God, Himself, talking to you. It's not just your imagination or conscience.) I prayed, asking God to forgive me. I know He has, He promised He would, but the remorse remains. That feeling of remorse is brokenness.

Brokenness is what happens when you crawl on your knees to God and say, "I am wrong." Brokenness is what happens when you cry out to God asking for His mercy and forgiveness. So now you're forgiven. What, though, is repentance? How do I fix it so I never do this again (yeah, right!)? How do I remove this nagging guilt and shame?

Quite often I'll find the answers in a song. Today was no exception. The lyrics at the top of the page are from SonicFlood's version of a song written by Scott Underwood. Sonic Flood added the verse about brokenness. The answer came in the chorus:

• Take my heart and form it - Change my heart to reflect Your glory.
• Take my mind and transform it - Change my thinking to reflect Your glory.
• Take my will and conform it to Yours - Is that self-explanatory or not?

After carefully considering what this means, I'm trying to head back down the right road. I honestly desire nothing less than what God wants from me. I feel like Paul in the wordiest passage in all of scripture.

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

- Romans 7:14-20, NIV
If I'd wrote something like that in high school composition, Ms. Wroten would've given me an F!

I want to be like Christ. I don't want to be "holier than thou", but I want to be like Christ. I don't want to be better than anyone, I want to be like Christ. I want to be able to face the temptation and tell it to "take off". I'm going to let God continue working His reconstruction in my life. He'll be done when I join Him in Heaven.

Adios,
Clay

(äd-s) [Spanish adiós, probably translated from French à dieu. (I commend you) to God  : a, to (from Latin ad. See ad-) + Dieu, God (from Latin deus. See dyeu- in Indo-European Roots).]

That Rawks!

Fifteen years ago, I was delivering pizzas for a living - and living in a tent on the beach. The job and the tent were by choice. I had no bills, I had no worries. I'd get my tip money and go home with leftover pizza, a full tank of gas a case of beer and some ice for the cooler. Breakfast usually started after 10 am and consisted of cold pizza and maybe a beer or Gatorade. I'd lift the hatchback on my '84 Dodge Colt and crank up some Metallica or Soundgarden or Rush.

While delivering pizza, I was one of those cars you hate to be next to. My car thumped. I couldn't afford a decent car stereo, so I had a boom box plugged into the cigarette lighter with two Bose 101s in the back. My whole car was jury-rigged like that.

I've always enjoyed loud, hard music. I remember in 1986 when Metallica hit the radio with Master of Puppets I said, "There's no way rock can get harder than that." I was wrong. Keyboards don't do much for me. Guitar, bass and drums. That's where it's at. Maybe a flute like Jethro Tull, but that was about it. There was nothing more soothing than watching the sun rise on Padre Island with Nothing Else Matters blaring through my car speakers.

But then I settled down and got civilized. I got married, and that meant I had to become a respectable citizen, right? So, I stopped driving around with the stereo blaring - at least when other people were in the car. 'Specially that lovely lady that became my wife. I still enjoyed listening to the "alternative" station here in Yewsten.

But on January 30, 2002 (I was going to post a blog on that day, but there was a major spew in my life that I'll cover later), I became a Christian. Wow. Five years! My body's 41 years old, but my soul's five. Cool, huh? Anyway, I became a Christian. I was ready to change my life, and God began to do exactly that. First, He removed my desire for the music I enjoyed. Not the guitars, but the lyrics devoted to secular humanism, sex, drugs and death. It just didn't do anything for me anymore. Actually, it was worse than that - I really couldn't listen to it anymore. For nearly 20 years, Rush was my favorite band. But now I found their lyrics offensive.

So, I began to listen to the Christian radio station here in town. They played some decent music, but they had a huge audience to whom they had to appeal, so they didn't play any of the raw, cutting edge rock and roll I'd come to love. I mean, there is a fairly small crowd in the secular world that listens to that sort of music (A long-time Yewsten rock & roll icon, KLOL, was recently turned into a Tejano station because the market segment for KLOL was so small). In the Christian world, the segment is even smaller - preventing a radio station from carrying it 24x7.

Well, time went on and I began to crave the driving guitar again. I tried flipping back to my stations, but with the kids in the car - let's just say there was too much going on that I didn't want my kids to hear. So I kept listening to music that was rapidly (for me) approaching quaalude quality.

Then I went to the local library and checked out a Christian Xtreme CD. There were bands I knew and bands I'd never heard of. Demon Hunter. Relient K. Toby Mac. Pillar. Something that surprised me, there are more women in Christian music that know how to really rock than in secular music. Rebecca St. James. Superchic[k]. Barlow Girl. I found my guitar. I found my drums. I found my gutteral singing. I was happy again.

Last week, I got a Skillet CD. They're one of my favorite bands. The term is, I guess (and don't forget - I'm 41. Even thought I like the music, I'm not up with the terminology!) they rawk.

So, thanks for the rawk, folks. Thanks for "rocking my face off" (as Mac Powell from Third Day would say). But mostly, thank you for rawking for God.

Adios,
Clay

(äd-s) [Spanish adiós, probably translated from French à dieu. (I commend you) to God  : a, to (from Latin ad. See ad-) + Dieu, God (from Latin deus. See dyeu- in Indo-European Roots).]