starting a new semester, the last semester. I have been struck by the fact that what God is going to lead my wife and I to is coming closer and closer. Of course we recognize that what we are doing now is just as much a part of Gods leading as what we will do, but being at the point of planting a church in San Jose is approaching quickly. So I have been asking the question “what is the identity of a movement?”

This is something that I think church planters should look to. In my mind I dont know that we should look to anything else but to be movement makers, but what does that mean? what does it mean to be a movement maker? and what do people have to be willing to do in order to see a movement formed?

I think the answer is a willingness to let go. starting a church that you know ultimately you will have not authority over, because someone else will raise up to lead that particular body. which means what is the next step for the planter? I think it is to look toward expansion of the ministries impact. In my case the expansion of the network.

to see the movement take root, i think neil cole said it best when he states “we need to plant Jesus.” when we plant Jesus, in the hearts of people they can see their potential to be a part of the growth of the kingdom. to this i think it is a true statement and one that all Christians need to understand, that every christian is a disciple, and every disciple a discipler, and every discipler a pastor and every pastor a church planter and every church planter a movement maker. Alan Hirsch would talk about this in reference to mDNA. this is deeply imbedded in the life of every believer as they come into Christ.

There has to be the desire to be citizens of a kingdom that is greater than anything we experience in our life. a citizenship that means more than any citizenship that we carry here on earth. there is a weightiness to what our mission is in disciple making, and because it is we have an obligation to it. and with disciple making comes disciple gathering which is the church in its simplest definition.

this week I was a part of an interesting conversation, one of which the concept of a Christians nature was brought up. as some of the participants in conversation began to bring up Christians having a “sinful” nature as reason to not do all of what Christ commanded, or to not completely pursue holiness. about this point my blood began to simmer, as the conversation continued i began to ask probing questions to figure out exactly what they were trying to say, i found that they along with so many others were looking to offer excuses for believers who are not doing as they ought.

this idea that we can not pursue holiness, or do what Christ has commanded us because we are “sinners” is bogus. over the last few months i have found that we have much more potential than what we give ourselves, we have more abilities than what we give ourselves, we have a greater power than what we recognize. 2 Peter 1.3-11 tells us that we have the divine nature, and with having the divine nature that is our ability make sure our election and calling sure.

there is no excuse, we have been called to be holy as our God and Father is holy. we need to pursue holiness with all that we are, Christlikeness should be our aim and goal. when we choose to sin, we are actively choosing against God. as we begin to realize this and embrace it there is a great deal of freedom that is to be had. we now come to our life in Christ as a whole person, viewing ourselves as a whole person because Christ has made us whole. we are no longer fractured, we are no longer bonded to sin, but we are bonded in Christ. this is the call to salvation, Christ reaches in to the prison that is sin and pulls us out bonding us to himself that we might live in freedom; the freedom to obey, the freedom to live and the freedom to love.

so what does this mean? we are to offer no excuse that Christ did not give us. we are called to live life wholly, not moving back to our old ways. we are need to renew our minds not being enslaved to that which we were enslaved to before Christ. when we choose against God we need to repent, not in a meaningless ritual looking only for a hand slap, but a repentance that recognizes a choice against God and the forgiveness that he offers in it and from it. from repentance comes freedom, when we repent we should then never return there. our aim should be to walk the narrow path, the path that is hard to walk. this is the call of Christ to be holy, choosing to live for Christ to be transformed by Christ to live whole in Christ.

This week i had an assignment for a class to read Bill Hybles “Volunteer Revolution” as i read the book i thought to myself these are some greets stories about some great servants of willow creek community church, but what does that mean for Kingdom living? Further what does that mean as we consider what service should look like in the church today?
One of the biggest revolutions in the church today embodies the return to hard and fast kingdom principles, which seem to have been lost by the western churches concept of the empire building. If we are to have a real “volunteer revolution” then there needs to be a returning to community, where we see a true reliance toward one another through Christ.
In short it will only be when people reconnect with the idea that we are a body that we will find things that need to be done in the church start to take place outside of a desire to do good deeds in the name of Jesus so that we can feel better about our lives, so that we can check one more thing off of our list of spiritual things to do that week.
To and for His glory.

This last week it has come back into regular conversations the tensions that Christians face when interacting with two natures: The Divine nature given to us when we come into faith in Christ and the sin nature that we leave behind at that same moment. So if we only have one nature then where does the tension lie? we fall in love with our chains, because they are all that we have known since we came into the existence.

Liken it to a time when slave trade was at the height of major civilizations, shortly after the abolition of slavery both in the UK and United States those who were slaves found it hard to leave the only thing that they had known. While they were made free by something higher than themselves they chose to continue on in their bondage enslaved because they didnt know what was out there. The simply knew nothing else.

So how does all that slave talk relate to us? We can understand this same struggle as we have been freed by Christ a power and person much higher than ourselves or anythings else, given the divine nature, power and authority that Christ has, only to turn our back to it and tell ourselves and others that we are “sinners” or that I struggle with the “sin nature.” These things are simply not true we are lying to ourselves when we say this for two simple reasons: 1) we are no longer sinners when we come into Christ. We might still sin, in fact we do but the choice is ours, we are not naturally given over to sin any more we choose it. It is our active choice against God not something that we do because we have such a nature. 2) we have been given the divine nature, in effect Jesus has switched out our natures the bad for the good, the corrupt for the pure. Having the divine nature empower us to be and do much more than we think we can do, further we have the same authority over sin that Christ does as we come into him and can flee those temptations that plague us.

So what does that mean for us right now? how should this affect the way that we live? how do we carry on in our vernacular? I think it starts with an active reminder that I dont have to do this, I am not bound by anything on earth, I am only bound to Christ to which leads to freedom. We should let it empower us so that as we walk through each day we know that not only do we have a choice to sin against God, but that in not sinning we shine a greater witness and can attract people toward the kingdom because it is such a freeing life. we change our vernacular, stop saying the things that propagate our self imposed bondage to things Christ has freed us from. we have been made Free by Jesus and so we should live actively in that freedom introducing all around us to in in word and deed so that they too might enter into a life of freedom, a life into the Kingdom.

So normally this blog exists to examine the thoughts and dialogue’s that surround the person of Jesus, and his church. Today however is a different day, today is a day of reflection and wrestling with what God has moved in me over the last couple weeks.

I have found it very easy not to post over the last months, due to a huge lack of discipline. There was a time that I found class a great place to interact with the thoughts of the professors that were being thrown out for students to soak up, that then became very boring… because they are not saying anything different. Every couple of months I would move through the cycle of rants, rants of frustration and irritability.

At a conference two weeks ago I was struck by something that shook the core of who I am. Francis Chan walked up to the podium to speak, as he did I awaited his words like a giddy school girl waiting for a jonas brother’s concert, when to much delight his words would rip me to shreds.

All I have been able to process over the last two weeks has been this thought provoked by Chan: “I just want to do what you told me to do (speaking to God in a prayer), none of this other stuff matters, how large the church is I pastor, how many books I write because thats not what you told me to do. all you want me to do is be a disciple and disciple…”

This has still become something hard for me to digest, something that I thought I understood, but realized how much reprograming still has to happen in me. I have to reflect on the Words of Jesus often and let them take root in my heart not just my head.

so at the end of the day (and this post) 3 things become the most important pursuit in my life. To love God with all my being, love others as I love myself, and to make disciples. nothing else matters because these are the things that you told me to do, this is the way to hear “well done”.

I recently heard it said “you can choose to see wonder, beauty and awe, and there is plenty to see. What you look for you will find.” Jesus said “ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” how profound a thought is this? as we act toward God the return will be in proper response. there needs to be an understanding that this asking, seeking and knocking is done with a heart that is transformed by God, one that lives in the light of the experience of supernatural love.

something that i have come to understand in the last year is that those who are in Christ, should live a life of balance, because the Gospel is a Gospel of balance. in Matthew 5-7 one of the largest recorded teachings of Jesus we see this being emphasized in each topic. as we live in balance, as week seek the Kingdom there is a great amount of beauty to been seen, wonder to behold awe to be had. we are given time on this earth to find joy in these things, but the joy will not come if we do not live in balance and seeking His kingdom to be established here and now.

as we move through this life we have to look for God where we are, because he is there. as we seek God we will see beauty we will have joy we will live in awe. as we seek to see God’s kingdom established we will find beauty, wonder and awe. our responsibility is to these things, it is to seek after the Lord that we might find his favor. in all of these things we have to live in freedom, enough freedom to open our eyes and see all that God has for us.

It has occurred to me that there are those who stand in the face of what has become “traditional evangelicalism” and say something is not right here… upon this statement the leaders of the “traditional evangelicalism” rise up in attempt to shut down the questioners, claiming them to be heretics or liberal. have those who lead “traditional evangelicalism” forgotten so easily the roots of evangelicalism, roots that sought to see God’s kingdom established here on earth wherever believers would congregate, roots that would stand in the face of opposition to acting out side the confines of a “box.”

The problem here in is this, there are those who get so intrenched in the way that they do something that there becomes no other way to do it. There is an “evangelical box” that everything has to fit in and if it does not then it is not evangelical, it is liberal. those of us who stand in the face of the “evangelical box” have to stand up and not be afraid of how the leaders of “traditional evangelicalism” view us, because the heart of evangelicalism is to see God’s kingdom established wherever Christ followers maybe.

The call for Christ followers to rise up and stand for change, biblically grounded change to happen. reevaluate how we practice church, worship, relationships. we need to look to see how we can radically move out of the confines of the “box” and go until God says stop. this is not to say we through caution to the wind, but it is to say that we allow the bible to define how we do things rather than the tradition of the “evangelical box.”

at the end of the day we have to be committed to reshaping evangelicalism so that the Kingdom of God is established to the ends of the earth. that believers are not confined by the “box” rather defined by scripture.

Recently i heard it stated that the majority of the population solidify what they think about religion by the age of 13. this is something that has struck me as shocking, not because i did not believe that it could be true but because of all the false pictures of what true faith looks like through out the western world. specifically in the church in the west, there is a huge crime being done in shaping a generation of people to think that they wont have to be responsible to their faith, outside of inviting them to a building to see a display of Christians worshiping, through teaching of the word, expression in music and prayer, and giving. the process of disciple making has been deduced to teaching people how to offer an invitation to a building, rather than teaching them to live a life in which faith expressions define who they are. these faith expressions manifest themselves in showing the person of God in the way that they speak and act.

The fundamental problem with what is happening in the church in the west today is that it has no congruence with what Jesus commanded of the disciples “all authority has been given to me on heaven and on earth therefore go and make disciples of all nations  baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold I am with you always to the end of the age.” as we look to what Jesus is saying there is an importance of teaching people how to live in the same manner as Jesus did, to teach them to express their faith in incredible ways, to observe the gathering of believers in a way that is encouraging and moves them to reach out and share Christ with others.

So what does this have to do with the earlier stat? as we engage in church it should be done in a way that does not misdirect children to think that the gathering is the end all. likewise as we express faith it should be in such a way that is consistent with the biblical standard: caring for the helpless, loving one another, living lives of balance, so that children might have a good example of what it is to be a Christian. if the charge toward true Christianity is not real and taken up by all believers we will find a smaller and smaller percentage of children who will have a favorable view of God. Moreover if we do not look toward practicing real expressions of fellowship (church) we will find fewer and fewer children who will look to be apart of fellowship with other believers.

at the end of the discussion we must be willing to ask the question is what we are doing consistent with the biblical standard? are the expression of fellowship and faith consistent with what the bible says about them. are we defaulting to a tradition that has been refined and “perfected” over the last 100yrs? as we ask these questions they should drive us toward the bible so to see what Jesus has to say about the actions of those who follow him, and what true fellowship really looks like.

There is a sense today that in a church context the person who holds the title of “pastor” is someone who sits high and lofty heads and tails above everyone else who fellowships with person. we find that we are people who look to place responsibility on someone so that we dont have to hold any, we pass any spiritual responsibility to the “pastor” because he was educated in such things. however this is not the biblical standard. in fact the biblical standard does not recognize the distinction between clergy and laity. the biblical standard calls all to the ministry of reconciliation, all to serve one another and all to make disciples. none of these is the job of one single person, but collectively as a community of faith we are all responsible.

the division of those responsibilities that we place on one person (the pastor) is a crime to whomever has been deemed the “pastor”. God has gifted each fellowship of believers with various talents and giftings as to be able to accomplish the roles of hospitality, teaching, leading, etc… to not exercise the gifts that people have been given is to say “they simply are not good enough God,” we really just want to sit back and have a couple of guys do it for us.

Jesus makes the point that there is no one greater in the kingdom than he, that His followers were to be equals and exercise their giftings accordingly. in fact Jesus make the point to say that to ask the question is not the right question to ask. in a discourse with the disciples about who the greatest was Jesus says “the kings of the gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. but not so with you. rather let the greatest among you become like the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.” pastors today at least in the west lord over their congregations, they demand that their “flock” bring them items of homage. yet all of the blame cannot go to them, while “pastors” should be responsible enough to reject such an attitude christians should not have appointed such an office for them to live under.

we are all equal in the Kingdom which means we all have the responsibility to care for one another, it is not something to be placed on one person, although there will be some who have been given gifts to vision cast and lead and we should follow that as it is consistent with the biblical standard, but the overarching theme we see is the equality of all believers in the Kingdom, the priesthood of all believers that we are responsible for one another.