Margins

Here is my first attempt at writing about one thing on the list of missional characteristics.

One of my best friends in the world is Mr. Outlook. Yes he is part of the Microsoft family but he is quite helpful for me. Some people who are not so fond of Microsoft call it him other names but I like the guy.

I like Outlook for several reasons. I put all of my appointments on Outlook so I know where I need to be and when and what I am doing. I am able to write post it notes to myself without using paper. (I feel pretty good environmentally about that). I am also able to track all of my TO DO’s on Outlook. If I complete a task that was not on my Outlook task organizer then I will go back and enter it in so I can delete it. It feels great to check something off the list.

Having my life organized helps for I am so scattered brained that there is no way I can keep up with everything unless I had tools like this but there is a dark side to all of this.
The dark side is that my life can become too organized and too scheduled for my own good. I like to be efficient and I like to get a lot done in a day so I try to pack in a lot of tasks and appointments (live or phone appointments). So having my time lined out for me is the best way to do it. BUT… this is the problem for me.

As I have been watching people whom I think live out their lives as salt and light in this world I have observed people who are able to not be so rushed in the moment for a conversation that could have been set up by God. I call this living with some “margin”. If I have no margin in my day and I am running to each appointment then I do not have time for an interruption, crisis or much less a divine appointment that often is not on my Outlook calendar.

The people I see who seem to share Jesus in their everyday life quite effectively seem to have time to do so when the opportunity arises. They have enough space in their day to have a divine appointment. They are not as much in a hurry as they interact with people as they go about their day.

They live in the present tense not always pressing to the next TO DO.

At the bank they have time for a conversation. The same is true in the coffee bar or at the newspaper stand. They are not so much in a hurry to get about their TO DO list. I think “busyness” is one of the greatest challenges to us in the West as we try to live out our lives missionally.

I am not ready to give up on my friend Mr. Outlook but I am trying to have a few more minutes to spare for those divine appointments. Living in Europe has helped me immensely. I think I need to live here the rest of my life. Not to mention the café is great.

Ciao
Larry

conversations about missional living

I made it back home to Europe. I have have been travelling all over the states for the last two months with the Upstream Collective. We have had the opportunity to talk to a lot of great people that are out there living out their lives with intentionality.

I was inspired to write some observations about living missionally last week at David Putman’s house (he is the author of the book Breaking the Missional Code). We were sitting at David’s house on his back patio enjoying a very HOT Atlanta afternoon. We were doing a Skype call with Alan Hirsch. Despite the humidity and heat it was a pretty cool day to be in conversation with those two.

As I have these conversations I get rather convicted of the idea that I do not want to be guilty of just talking about being missional but actually living missionally and being the salt and light as Jesus teaches. I want it to be a natural part of my day and not just aspiration. I think way too often I just talk about it.

In my former life I worked at the North American Mission Board in church planter assessment. There are quite a few people out there who sense a calling to plant a church in North America. I would set up training seminars at seminaries around the country teaching people how to assess potential church planters. The model that we used was from a behavioral psychologist by the name of Charles Ridley. One essential in behavioral psychology is that a person’s past behavior is the best predictor of their future performance. Often, with a high degree of accuracy one can assess if a person has what it takes to be an effective church planter.

You must first determine what are the behavioral competencies that are needed to be successful and this was the basis of his research. The second ingredient is that you must be able to draw out from the candidate the right information in order to properly assess and the right information is based on the depth of their past behavioral performance.

One such quality for a church planter is “the ability to start something from nothing”. For example if a person cannot give you a concrete example of ever starting something from nothing then they would not have that behavioral competency. After more discussion with them you see that their past experience really shows that they do much better at developing something that has already been started then. This would be a good indicator that being a lead church planter might not be the career path for them. They may be better suited for church development or revitalization than church planting.

With all of the missional talk going on in the evangelical world today I have been thinking about if there are certain behavioral competencies that can be identified in people who live this way.

I am going to start again (I think I have tried this before) to write about some characteristics that I hear talked about but most importantly characteristics that I observe in people whom I think do a great job living their lives in a missional sort of way.

Here is what I have so far.

On my list:

Intentionally engaging in the culture in which you are placed.
Having Margin in your life
Good at asking questions
An interesting person
Being natural
Willing to engage in conversation


What is on your list?

You can do it, We can help

Home Depot has a pretty cool slogan

“You can do it, We can help”.

I have working overseas in missions for almost 7 years now. I have been thinking lately that in the past I have taken the opposite of that slogan when it comes to applying it to volunteers going overseas on mission.

"I can you it. You can help me".

Over the last several years I have noticed that often groups come over from the states and they actually do things that I cannot always do. They bring a boundless energy to their time and effort. They are willing to try things that I may not try. They are willing to talk to strangers and try to strike up a conversation with most anyone. They pray for our city and people and do it for hours. They minister to me and my family.

I have come to realize that you indeed can do it and I need to help and even sometimes I need to just get out of the way. Sometimes people expect the missionary to have some special and mystic abilities to do things others cannot do but at the end of the day the Great Commission was given to all followers of Jesus and the part that sometimes we forget to emphasize is that the Holy Spirit goes with us. We are not alone as we go on the journey.
The Holy Spirit will guide, give strategic direction, give you Divine appointments, the words to say, boldness, and you can keep adding to this list.

I am so grateful for the people who have a calling to come here to minister alongside of us for short periods of time. We could not do it without you. Thanks for being obedient to the Great Commission.

the intangible mission trip

"Doing" versus "Being".

To me this was a big shift for me regarding the use of time with short term workers or volunteers. Often churches (myself included) want to send groups over to "do" something. It needs to be tangible is something we often hear.

• We need to put on a program
• Hold a concert
• Hand out bibles or Jesus films
• Pass out water bottles

We need to fill the time with activities that are tangible.
But what about the intangible things that are "done" on a mission trip? Are they significant? Can they make a difference? YES!!!!

My friend Spencer in Birmingham told me that we need to talk about "The intangible mission trip". I like that idea.

How does a church prepare for that? ( I would love to hear your thoughts on this)

How does the church feel "fulfilled" by going on such a trip? Often the questions that people want to hear when they return are:

• how many people came to the event?
• how many times did you share your faith?
• how many bibles did you hand out?
• how many churches did you start?

enter The Intangible Mission Trip -
I think this is a title of a new book in the making. Or should be.

The longer I am on the mission field in Europe the more I see that "the intangible mission trip" is of great value. We often see less and less interest in people coming to our programs. There are some good examples of exceptions. I will write about that later. It also has to do with relationship and credibility that you have in the community.

So since my conversation with Spencer I have been thinking. What does one "do" on a mission trip when all you are suppose to "do" is to "be"?

How do you prepare to go on such a trip?
What does your church call "success" on a mission trip?

I think it has something to do with the way a church is hardwired.
I believe some churches are "program driven" and feel most comfortable "doing stuff".

About 7 years ago I remember hosting a group of "doers" one time on a vision trip. The goal of that trip was for this group of leaders from the church to come and pray and get a glimpse of what God wanted of that church. Then they would return to their church and seek the Lord's direction in that partnership. By the second hour of their week they were so preoccupied with what they could do. They wanted something to hand something out or to do or to start some program in the city. I finally had to tie their hands together (just kidding) It was a daunting task to simply have a "vision" trip for this group. They were "doers".

I had another group that came to our city some time later that was from a church that was highly relational in their approach to evangelism. As they did the prayer walking and vision thing I was expecting to hear about all of the programs and stuff they wanted to do but their response was different. However they told me that they felt that they could best two things.

1. Help my family connect in the community in a natural way with activities that are already taking place there: tennis team, golf, fitness club, etc...

2. They felt as a church when they came over to help that they would bring small groups where they could connect as naturally as possible in that culture. They would go find a group of guys playing basketball or soccer in the city and simply play and hang out with them and then afterwards go for drinks (coffee of course) and hopefully get to know them. They were completely dependent on the Holy Spirit to guide them and put them into conversations. At the end of their week they were not concerned about the numbers to report but they were able to meet some people, have some spiritual conversations, pray for people. From what they told me they felt "fulfilled".

I am a "doer" by nature. I want to see results and "do" stuff.
I sometimes confuse "busyness" with "success". It may explain why I write out tasks after I complete them on my "to do" list just so I can feel accomplished. grin.

I have had to re-program myself in some major ways in order for me to have a sense of fulfillment in this type of mission trip. I am still learning. It is still much easier to do something but part of my journey is learning it is not always about me.

later,

larry

college road trip

I watched a silly movie on the plane over from europe the other day. It was called Road Trip and it was about an over protected father who takes his daughter on a road trip to visit a potential school.

Right now Iam living that movie. My wife and I are taking our "little girl" our "first born" to look at potential colleges. I cannot believe she is that old and what that naturally makes us. OLD.
She will be a senior this year at an international school in Germany. She has her ideas about colleges and what she wants. We have ours. smile

We are so fortunate on the first visit to spend some time with her aunt who works at Samford University in Birmingham. She was like a parent guidance counselor for us. We learned a lot.

I am still trying to figure out what questions i need to ask. Let me know if you have a question you wish you asked when you were looking at schools. I do know a major one. How much does it cost? Then i hear you add about 10 percent to it.

We are now in Nashville taking a look at Belmont.

Next week she will go to her number one choice ... for now, NYU in New York City.

check out the updates

Many of you may know that we launched a new network called the upstream collective.

Caleb Crider and I are travelling this summer in various locations. I guess we are on tour. I have always wanted to have tour. We are not selling t-shirts or hats. Sorry.

We are calling it "About Europe". We are talking with various pastors and church planters and other mission influencers. We are blogging about this as we go so please check out the updates on http://www.theupstreamcollective.org/

Membership Decline

The SBC and church membership decline.

(okay - for my many non SBC friends- SBC is the Southern Baptist Convention)

It seems many people are writing on this membership decline topic. I figured I would attempt at writing an angle.

I am not including a lot of numbers. You can find that elsewhere.

I read this in The Tennessean, a Nashville newspaper this week.
"The resolution (regarding church membership) , which reflects the growing influencing of Calvinism in the SBC, comes on the heels of denominational statistics that showed the 16 million-member convention shrinking. Membership fell in 2007 for the second time in a decade. Even more discouraging, officials said, baptisms in SBC churches dropped for the seventh time in eight years – down 5.5 percent in 2007."

So there you have it. The SBC is in decline.

What do we do about?

I am sure there are lots of reasons that people are citing.

• Too narrow as a denomination
• Too broad as a denomination
• People are not loyal to denominations any more
• We have lost the passion to evangelise
• The SBC needs new programs or methods for evangelism
• The SBC needs reach the next generation of leaders
• They need to come together as a convention and work together

On and On the reasons go.

Some of them could even make sense.

I am also sure that this list is not extensive.

I want to explore another angle. It is simply an observation that I want to make.

One reason I feel we are in decline is that most churches (I would venture to say inside and outside the denomination) are churches who are more "attractional". By this I mean their primary way of growth is to invite people to church. This can be done in various ways but often through cool programs or outreach events. A lot of energy and resources are spent on building the church to be an attractive place for the community to come. I have been a part of this approach for nearly all of my ministry.

However, I believe this approach makes a dangerous assumption. It is assuming that people want to come to church. It is assuming that people are looking for a church to attend. I am not that old but I do remember the late 80s and 90s in church growth. I was a young child then. smile.

You could offer quality childcare, relevant preaching, good programs with cool logos and brands, a great band and then you could "attract" a crowd. We have seen churches grow in this way. I personally think much of that growth has always been transfer growth but nonetheless many churches gained a lot of attention by growing in numbers and thus many people felt - IT IS WORKING and this must be the way. However, I would not want to minimize what some times took place in those days for I know that many people came to know Christ personally. Many others renewed their commitment to Jesus. Some great things happened and their are places where great things are happening today.

BUT --- I noticed upon living and ministering in Europe that it is an uphill struggle when you are trying to use attractional methods in a post Christian culture where the vast majority of the people are not looking to go to church. For the majority attending church of any sort on Sunday is not a blip on the radar screen. I think America is quickly following suit and we need to discover ways to minister amongst this culture or we will continue to see decline.

The HOPE is this.

I would say a couple of authors Allan Hirsch and Michael Frost articulate this much better than I in their book "The Shaping of Things to Come". I think the church has to become "missional" in it's approach to ministry. The church has to get out of it's building and programs and traditions and get into the streets and neighborhoods and take the Gospel to the people by living amongst them. Our lives as Christ followers should be the attraction to our lost friends not the building or programs of the church.

Instead of extracting new believers out of their culture and into the church where we expect them to be many hours during the week we must find ways to evangelise, disciple and plant churches (or cell groups / small groups) amongst the people where they are living and working. I believe this is best achieved by what is called "incarnational" ministry. Living as a Christ follower intentionally amongst the people who need Him the most. Sharing Jesus in a natural yet intentional way.