I guess that’s the heart of the missional mentality. Some people phrase it differently. You might say, “What is God doing and how can I be involved” or something like that but the underlying sentiment is the same. We believe God is busy doing stuff and being his follower means getting involved in the stuff he’s doing. I’m finding more and more that people are wanting to know how to get started.

One resource we like is the APEST (you can take it for $10 at www.theforgottenways.org/apest/). It comes out of the Ephesians 4 passage that says Jesus gave gifts to the church of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor (Shepherd), and Teachers. Taking the test is meant to help you reveal which of these five roles you are most closely aligned with. It doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to get a job that pays you to live out one of those roles; it just helps identify how you are likely to approach your life with Jesus and the mission he has you serving. But here’s what we’ve been noticing lately – we often impose our preconceived ideas about those roles onto the test and answer the questions based on those preconceptions. Does that make sense?

So instead of being able to answer purely and come out as say, an Evangelist, we compensate, trying to move away from the tired old stereotype of the red-faced, bombastic street preacher. Cuz if THAT’s an evangelist then we can’t be that! So I think it would help quite a bit to allow the Holy Spirit to redefine each of those roles for us. First of all, let’s liberate them completely from the idea that they must mean vocational ministry! They don’t. You could be a shepherd and a plumber. You could make your living as a landscaper but be a teacher. In fact, the goal would be to better understand how Jesus wants to give you away as a gift to the people on your job, in your neighborhood and in your family.

So I’m thinking a lot lately about these roles. What does a Shepherd look like in everyday life? How does a person who fits the role of a Prophet be used as a gift to the people she works with? A friend of ours, Rusty Wimberly, has been writing about the modern day prophet lately. Check him out here – http://aboutaburningfire.com/wordpress/prophetic/christian-prophets-series-types-prophets/

These are worthwhile questions. The kind of thing we can be helping each other discover. According to the Ephesians 4 passage that mentions these gifts, they are Jesus’ vessels for equipping the mission and ministry of others. If you thought a person in your life was an Apostle, how could you help get that person going in the mission of his daily life? If I know a frustrated teacher, how can I help her see that role outside of the standard classroom setting? How can we liberate these gifts from the preconceptions too much of the American church culture has loaded upon them?

I’d love to hear what you’re thinking.

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The next place I ended up gave birth to the call we’re sensing and pursing right now.  It was a place of undoing and unlearning in many ways.  We went from the stability of our own house with a great backyard and steady paycheck each month to the complete unknown.  A brand new city with no one nearby that we really knew and no idea how our bills were going to get paid.  Then, just as we started to carve out some solid footing in this new place, we moved again.  Into more uncertainty and more instability.

I’ve written before about being involved in a church plant in Florida.  Its relevance to this story is that when we first arrived in Tampa, I thought that was “it.”  We were finally “there.”  We were at THE place the Lord had been preparing us for.  That’s what I thought.  I was on this team of church planters and was getting to do exactly what I thought I always wanted to do.  Church planting was in my heart and mind since college.  Everything I’d heard and seen about it intrigued me, but I always thought, “there must be a better way.”  That’s what were doing in Tampa – the “better” way.  At first, I loved it.  As far as the team goes, I and one other guy were the men on the ground.  For a month or so we had our fill of helping with the small groups, meeting new people and dreaming about what this new church would be like.  I can hardly describe what started happening on the inside of me as that church planting process developed.

It still was everything I thought I wanted to do.  Five months after we arrived in FL and had put on our first Sunday AM meeting, I knew it was nothing I ever wanted to do again.  I can’t do something that is built around getting people to attend Sunday morning meetings.  I won’t be any happier if you move them to a coffee shop and start having them on Saturday nights.  I had an email exchange with a friend that continues to serve on that church planting team in Tampa and things are still clipping along, I guess.  No doubt, people have been and will continue to be touched and reached through that church.  There are a few things that I came away knowing for certain, and I am now dedicated to exploring what they mean and how they function:

• Jesus is the Shepherd and he doesn’t want any help
• People can and need to hear God speak to them directly
• You can be an outstanding member of an American church and never a follower of Jesus
• We have seen only the quickest glimpses of what God intends to do through a community of Jesus’ followers
• Discipleship does not happen unless it is directly connected to personal relationships and the mission of following Jesus

The list could go on but this will probably keep me plenty busy for the next several decades.  If you look carefully at the articles in this month’s issue, you’ll notice that collectively, they hit upon all of these themes.  Once again, I hope you’ll contribute to the health of this community by adding your comments to the articles. [This editorial first appeared in the December 2008 issue of Next-Wave. You can browse that issue by clicking here: http://www.the-next-wave.info/archives/issue120/index.cfm.html]

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I love Next-Wave.  “Humbling” does not begin to describe my feelings about this opportunity to serve as editor.  I know the story behind Next-Wave because my dear friend and mentor, Charlie Wear, told me all about it.  I know that Charlie has been plowing this field long before anyone was using words like “emerging” and “missional.”  His passion for whatever God is doing to gather a generation disenchanted by church and religious culture to his kingdom is something that I am continuously inspired by.

Charlie is one of the only people that really “gets me” when I talk about what I’m hearing from the Spirit and how I’m trying to follow his lead.  In the mission that my wife and I are on right now, laying the foundation for what might be a church in Northwest Indiana, it’s Charlie’s counsel that I seek.  Mostly because I know he’s going to force me back to the Lord.  “Listen to God.  He’ll talk to you,” he says.

To me, that’s what Next-Wave is about.  That’s what comes out through so many different voices, every month.  I catch a whisper from the voice of the Spirit with every issue.  This is my goal as editor – to continue to listen to God and let him do all the talking through Next-Wave.

Church as I have known it (American, cultural Christianity) is no longer serving God’s purpose of intimacy and relationship.  So that’s why the conversation that goes on here is so important.  It may have been ordained and sanctioned by God and maybe it was serving His purpose at one time.  I do not believe it has the ability to go on serving Him in the future.  The next wave or “new wine” that He is bringing into the fold of His kingdom needs a new wineskin.

In Isaiah Chapter 1, God speaks through that prophet to condemn the religious practices of the Jews of that day.  What suddenly occurred to me while reading the chapter is that God was not dealing with idol worship.  He was talking about the religious system inherited from Moses.  The system he once allowed had lost all of its original meaning.

They were going through all the correct motions but it was not serving the purpose of drawing them into relationship with him.  The challenge was to surrender their notions of serving God and accept the “new thing” he was trying to give birth to within them.  God seems to force this type of confrontation in several places throughout Scripture.  Another encounter I think of is found in Mark 6, when Jesus sends his followers away in the boat while he stays on land to pray.  The gospel makes a special point of telling us that the storm blew up when they were “in the middle” of the sea.  They were too far to turn back and not far enough for the safety of shore on the other side.  In this journey out of conventional church, I’ve often felt out in the middle with nothing to grab onto at either side.  It’s pretty scary even when I remember it was Jesus who told me to take this trip in the first place.

Jesus does something wild and dramatic to come to the aid of his friends.  He walks on the waves and then quiets the storm with his presence in the boat.  I think he’s ready to do these things again.  I think he is glad that we’ve gotten ourselves out here in the middle, with no more props to cling to and no more comfortable “normal” to soothe ourselves with.  I thinks he’s on the water now and heading toward people all over the world who have followed his call into rough seas.

© Andrzej Dro?d?a | Dreamstime.com

So how can we go about building this new wineskin idea of service and worship?  God gives us some great direction in Isaiah chapter 1:

Think about your intimacy and relationship with God in these terms.  If all the props of church were removed, would there be anything left?  Have you had that encounter yet?  Are you too far from shore to turn back, but not close enough to the other side to be certain that you’ll make it?

What if He did away with the praise and worship band and all the external stimulants?  Would you still find ways to worship?  What if there were no more children’s programs or church ministries to kids?  Would you still find ways to lead your children (or any children) to be disciples of Jesus?  If God eliminated all the missions programs and “outreach” initiatives, would you still find ways for the Gospel to be advanced through your life?  If there was no more church to receive your tithe, would you still be a fountain of giving and generosity?

What if God really is finished with our systems of service and worship, like He was expressing in the days of Isaiah?  What if His soul hates them (Isaiah 1:14)?  Are we ready to leave it behind and find other ways to serve His purpose of intimacy and relationship?  Again, I see direction coming from Isaiah the prophet:

That is the mission and all these centuries later, it still needs doing.

I’m thrilled to be part of this Next-Wave community.  I love the risks that are taken here and the passion that is expressed here.  Next-Wave People really wear it on their sleeve.  You can feel it in the comments and emotions ebbs through each article.  But I’m most excited just to be included somewhere in the story that our Lord is writing.

To this Next-Wave community:  Thank you for the fire you’ve provided to purge and refine my life.  I look forward to serving you!

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I could put a whole story together around this dirty, smashed mess of diapers.  With two kids in diapers right now, I understand how important they are.  When you go to the store to buy diapers it is because you need diapers.  And they’re not cheap.  When my wife goes to the store, she has four little kids with her.  Each one demands 100% percent of her physical and emotional attention.  Do that math – that keeps moms spread awfully thin.

She’s always carrying at least one – often two and trying to keep tabs on the bigger ones as they navigate the busy parking lot.  Then think about inside the store… everyone grabbing at things and asking for things.  The two year old screaming because he wanted the cart with the plastic truck attached.  The baby chewing on the part where everyone in the universe has placed their sweaty, filthy hands.  Moms are good at managing this stuff through repeated practice.  It takes a lot to really wear down and wear out a mom, but the grocery store provides all the right stressors to do it.

Can’t you imagine that her mind is on a million things at once as she opens the lift gate and fills up the back?  The diaper box goes on the roof while she wrangles the kids and in the chaos, never makes it into the van.

The diapers ride on the roof of the van for a little while.  As she accelerates to get onto the road and get home, the diapers tumble off the roof and hit the pavement behind her.  If she noticed right now, she might be able to pull over, jump out and rescue them but there is too much going on in the van and there is way too much on her mind.  She drives on.

At home the mission of unloading begins.  Think about the mix of painful emotions as she searches the van for the diapers.  Where are the diapers? The most important thing she went to the store for is not here.  I can vividly empathize with the horror and the helplessness of that moment of realization.  All of this flashed upon my heart in the seconds it took me to pass the evidence of this drama, spilled across the road.  I could feel the agony in my own body – my guts churned as compassion for this anonymous person swelled within me.

I prayed as I drove, asking God to put a stop to this kind of senseless loss.  “Intervene,” I pleaded.  As I prayed, helplessness was beginning to wash over me as well.  It’s too late.  I can’t pick up these diapers – I’d never be able to find the person that lost them.  There is nothing for anyone to do to help.

Are you in touch with the pain of others?  Do you notice the evidence of their loss?  Maybe it’s not diapers that would get your attention, but is there something?  I’m trying to become more sensitive to the compassionate heart of Jesus.  I want to see what he sees and I want to feel what he feels when he looks over the people who live where I live.

© Yudesign | Dreamstime.com

This story of the diapers is one of the rare ones in my life because it has a resolution.  It was an amazing revelation of how connected we are and how the Spirit partners with us when we allow ourselves to be moved with compassion and bear the burdens of others.

Seeing these diapers scattered all over the road behind the grocery store launched an entire story in my mind.  I have no way of knowing whether it was a “true story” or not, but that was not the point.  Something was happening on the inside of me and the destroyed diaper box was only the sign pointing the way to the journey that I’m on. Discovering how compassion links us to the work of the Spirit around us and through us.

Compassion for the person who lost their diapers was mixing with the grief of being so incapable to do something about it.  But why do I feel this way?  Why is that I don’t consider praying about things like this as the “something” I’m supposed to do?

Have you ever noticed how most of our prayers (or maybe it’s just most of mine) are totally self-centered?  I can remember several years ago feeling like a girl that I worked with at the time was struggling in some way and being gripped by this same compassion.  I prayed all day but never once for her.  I prayed for myself, asking God to equip me; give me the right words to say; open the right opportunity for me to talk to her; open her heart to receive what I had to say… blah, blah, blah – me, me, me.

This was the trap I was falling in again.  Compassion was churning within me and my reaction was to feel helpless because there was nothing for me to do about it.  This story of the diapers got really interesting almost two months later.  We were at my parents’ house and I overheard my mom talking to my wife about something that had just happened to her that day.  We were living with my parents at the time and the story my mom was telling was one of those no-big-deal-just-sharing-my-day kind of stories.

My mom was telling Sheryl about coming out of a store and seeing a lady in the parking lot pushing her cart back into those outdoor cart stalls.  My mom noticed a big box of diapers still in the bottom of the cart and rushed across the lot to the lady.  She stopped her and asked, “Are those your diapers in the cart?”  Of course they were and this woman was very grateful to the stranger who stopped her from driving off without them.  As I overheard this little story, a quick thought went off in my heart:

“See?  That’s how it works.”

At the end of Matthew 9, Jesus tries to get his disciples seeing things through the same compassionate lens as he was.  He tells the disciples to look upon the people as weary and scattered, like sheep that don’t have anyone to watch over them.  Just after calling upon their compassion, he directs them to, “pray to the Lord of the harvest, asking him to send out laborers into the field.”  If you speak Christianese, “harvest” means sinners who need to be saved – “the world” – “the lost.”  But let’s stop limiting Jesus’ words by that meaning.  Jesus was just talking about people, specifically the people around him at the time.

I was moved with compassion by the diapers in the road because he was moved with compassion.  The response that Jesus wants from that exchange of compassion is to pray that laborers – other people – be sent to care for that need and watch over those involved.  Hopefully, I’m communicating the significance of this realization because it has truly changed my ideals about making disciples and starting a church in Northwest Indiana.  I’m not interested in starting a bunch of “ministries” in an attempt to make shotgun blasts at the needs in this area.  I want to equip people to get engaged in the mission Jesus has them on.  But how?  What does that mean?

It is certainly a growing and evolving thing, but the disciple making process really begins by helping people spot the diapers that are scattered across the roads they travel.  There are ways in which we can increase our sensitivity to the signs all around us.  We can become better listeners to the voice of Jesus, urging us to see through his compassionate lens.  Then, we just ask him to put laborers in place to watch over those needs and care for those people.  In many cases, we’ll never even get to know how he answers those prayers, but my mom stopping a lady from driving home without her diapers give me the faith that he does answer them.

This is certainly not the end of anything.  I think it’s just the beginning of the beginning, but it is something I’m very excited to be part of.  Can you imagine how much things can change when we stop trying to manage and maintain the work of the Spirit?  Just let him go, Scott!  He’s good at this stuff and he’s been doing it a lot longer than you have.

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