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Luke recorded these words:
17The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.
Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
~ Luke 4: 17-19 NIV
Becky Garrison wrote this piece for God's Politics-- here's a short blurb
Soccer moms, NASCAR dads, and now holy hipsters have been touted by political pundits and the mainstream media as the group du jour that political candidates must court in order to win the coveted presidential prize. Using select books and blogs, they conclude that these missional millennials have abandoned the political party of their parents and will be casting their ballots for Obama come November. However, as Jim Wallis wrote earlier this year, "This doesn't mean young evangelicals are automatically becoming Democrats (and I don't think they should). It does mean that their agenda is broader and deeper, no longer beholden to a single partisan ideology."
Instead of voting Republican or Democrat, I think the issue voting Christian. In other words, voting your Christian beliefs and values.
Source: God's Politics
Relevant Magazine is running a 7-part series dealing with such hot topics as gay rights, war, consumerism, etc. Here's an interesting tidbit from the article on consumerism:
What is enough is defined by our relationship to our neighbor—if our neighbor has four cars, then we think we are living simply if we have two cars. If our neighbor doesn’t have water, then two cars is probably too many. We have this command to love our neighbor as ourselves, but I think the great tragedy of our culture is that we are pushed away from suffering, away from poverty to the point that it’s enough if we give a tax-exempt donation or volunteer for a week out of the year. And yet if we’re really in relationship with people who are suffering, that messes with us. It keeps us up at night when we are faced with the reality that we have people in our neighborhood living in a cardboard box in the winter, and we have shelter.
Source: Relevant Magazine
Something interesting from Shane Claiborne:
Every culture has particular ways of eating. Some folks eat with chopsticks, others sit on the floor, in India we ate with our right hands. How do Christians eat? Christians eat with poor folks, with the outcast, the marginalized, and the excluded-- all who were never invited to anyone else's party. Ours is the different kind of part. It's more like a divine banquet than another political program. Society's misfits are our people, our "constituency."
Source: Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne, p. 241.
Here's a YouTube video of Shane leading the Jesus for President Litany.
From Kingdom grace:
The organizing purpose of most churches is the organization itself and the Sunday service. Most believe that the growth of their church and service within the church is the same as building the kingdom. They may be genuinely interested in mission, but it is not their central purpose.
HT: achievable ends
Source: Kingdom grace
I really like this:
What is missional? It is...
Out not In
An important distinction of missional is that it is Out rather than In. This is a 180 degree shift from traditional ministry methods. Ministry is a lifestyle out in the world rather than service to or within an organization. As we love and serve others around us, we participate in the life of the kingdom.
With not For
As we walk together with others in their faith journey, we walk in mutual relationships, both giving of ourselves and receiving from them. When we share the love of God with others, we encounter Christ himself in their midst. The idea of mutuality is expressed by doing things With rather than For others. This necessitates that we take the time to know them. We develop relationships of commitment, to be with them in their journey rather than to simply show up for charity work.
Us not Them
Another necessary shift in thinking is to view the people that we minister among as Us rather than Them. We are all invited to share in Christ’s table. We don’t view others as a project, but we identify with them as our family - broken as we are, in need of restoration. Our own restoration and shalom is wrapped up in the reconciliation of those around us. God is already at work in their lives. It is our missional privilege to share in God’s mission of reconciliation among the people in our world.
Missional - sharing God’s love out among the people in our world
Source: Kingdom grace
Here's another post from the SynchroBlog day:
There is a fondness in missional circles for speaking of how Jesus came and dwelt among us and how we too are called to “come and dwell”; to incarnate in our communities; to “move into the neighborhood” so to speak. Coming from a church context where all members live within two miles of one another and most within walking distance, I can testify to the ways that committing to dwell in a place powerfully impacts witness, community transformation, and discipleship.
HT: achievable ends
Source: The Margins
I like this:
A missional understanding of the church places us within a historical context. It removes the ticket to heaven pressure that the Western Evangelical Church has placed upon itself. Missional people recognize that God is on the move in our villages, towns and cities. We need to engage with Him in what He's doing. Rather than building big box church warehouses that "vacuum cleaner up all the surrounding Christians" (to paraphrase Al Roxburgh @ the end of the video, Three Churches and a New Age Mall) and calling that the Church, we are to be the leaven that permeates our neighborhoods with the lived out good news of Jesus Christ.
Source: achievable ends
For additional perspectives on what it means to be missional, be sure to read today's SyncroBlog.
Rather than getting bogged down in a quagmire of theological terms and definitions, this church chose to concentrate on a few important basics:
We at [insert church name] acknowledge that God's coming to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and recounted in the Gospels turns upside down what we used to think about concepts like "truth." For in him, "Truth" walked around, talked to people, and even cried and bled. We're left with a faith that, while deep, is also paradoxical and difficult. As a result, we committed to leaning on each other as we collectively try to follow Jesus. We're confident about some things: Jesus' coming to the earth was good news, it's still good news, and there's more good news to come. You're welcome to join us anytime.
Source: The New Christians by Tony Jones, p. 162.
I am posting these for my own personal edification and information:
1. Substitutionary Atonement: God’s wrath, directed at us because of our sin, could only be satisfied by the death of Jesus (who replaced the OT sacrifices with his perfect self-sacrifice).
2. Ransom: Because of our sin, we belong to Satan, and God buys us back with the death of Jesus, then turns the tables on Satan with the Resurrection.
3. Christus Victor: We are dead in our sins, destined for the grave, but Jesus’ death and resurrection triumphed over death itself, enabling us to be made alive with Christ.
4. Perfect Penitent: We are all in need of repentance (God will forgive us out of the goodness of his heart if we do), but we can’t really repent perfectly - we always hold back, we always fall into sin again. Jesus is the perfect penitent (or “repenter”) in our place, and so secures our forgiveness.
5. Moral Influence: Jesus’ self-giving love, expressed in his death on the cross, leads us to love God and love others fully, giving our lives back to God.
6. Powerful Weakness: By becoming vulnerable and submitting to death on the cross, Jesus shows us God’s love for us, as well as the nature of His Kingdom (sacrifice, not violent victory).
7. Embodied Betrayal: Our sin is a betrayal of God, and he showed us that in the only way adequate - through his physical torture and death at our hands.
Which of these contain elements of truth? Which rely on misconceptions? Are all of them partly right? Which has the most potential for helping us understand the Christ-event today? Which, if any, are based on a Greek (Hellenistic) worldview?
