"But how?"

That's a good question. Living missionally is a biblical and exciting theory, but it doesn't matter if we can't answer the practical question concerning how to actually do it. There are a lot of answers to that question, and we examine some of them in Session 5 of Sent. In that session, we take a look at Paul's example of cultural engagement when he walked into Athens, the pre-eminent city of learning and philosophy in his day. Rather than avoiding the Athenian culture, Paul actually found a way to use it as a bridge to walk his hearers to the gospel.

We can put ourselves in a position to talk about the gospel through an understanding of culture. Paul didn't ask the people to come to him; he went where they were. He listened. He examined. He learned. Then he spoke. We can do the same thing.

It's called cultural engagement. But not in the surface-level, doing-what's-hip-so-people-will-like-us variety that we sometimes see played out. It's being relevant in the look-at-what's-happening-at-the-core-of-who-people-are-variety. It's loving people as they are but then showing them a better way.

In Athens the culture of the day was one of debate. That may not necessarily be the best mode of conversation in your circles. But maybe a helpful approach is to look deeper at the themes of films as a way of entering into talks about what seems to be driving or motivating humanity today--and then having conversations about a new way of life. Maybe it's time to read books of substance so that you might have conversations of substance. Maybe you need to go to the places where real people live real (and sometimes messy) lives and have honest conversations. Regardless of the method, it's about meeting people where they are and then giving them the choice to go further.

Wander through your own Athens. Look at the cultural idols. Let this burden your mind and spark your imagination. Let godly passion drive you to say "Give me Athens or I die." Then confidently share the gospel with those who may see its uncluttered message, trust its validity, and receive its Savior--Jesus Christ. You don't have to make the gospel, God, or the Bible relevant. They're already relevant. But we need to find relevant means to communicate that eternal truth.

You can find more information about Sent here.

Donna and I returned from Europe last night. I will tell a bit more about our time there in the coming days. If you are so inclined, you can find some interesting pictures at Twitter).

When Donna an I talked on the plane coming home (faces 11 inches apart), we were struck by how these church planters live incarnationally. Europe was their home-- and they were seeking to live sent on God's mission.

When we went to the Vatican, we did not find it to be a spiritual experience. It spoke to us, but not about faith. It spoke to us of power. It did not evoke "go and tell." Rather, it was clearly "come and see." (And, that same sentence would be true in many non-Catholic settings as well-- including a few I know all too well.)

We taked some about the contrast of "being sent" and "maintaining structure" in a Bible study with Threads called Sent: Living the Missional Nature of the Church. In Session 3 of the study, I tried to use an illustration of a yo-yo to describe how a church should constantly be pushing outward into its surrounding culture.

The logic goes like this. Most of us have a Constantinian model for church which, very simply, is summed up like this: building + clergy + program = church. We saw it quite clearly in St. Peter's Basicillica. The fallacy comes when we start to see those components as rules rather than tools-- that was clearly found at the Vatican but is often found in my church and denomination as well. When you create a system with God-given tools, then turn them into rules, you end up with a system that needs to be serviced not a mission that needs to be lived.

A better equation is this: body + mission + kingdom = church. We need to be a body on mission for the Kingdom. The session goes onto explain:

The biggest disparity between the two models can be seen in the focus. In the Constantinian model, the force is centripetal, moving inward. In the biblical model, the force is centrifugal, pushing outward...

Think of it in terms of a yo-yo. When you swing a yo-yo around, two forces are at work simultaneously. The centrifugal force (technically 'inertia') pushes the yo-yo outward, and at the same time, the centripital force is exercised by the string, pulling the yo-yo inward. In the yo-yo, these forces are in balance at the same time.

The church's challenge is similar. At any given moment, there is a centripetal force pulling us inward, tempting us to care most about ourselves, our comfort, and our development. This strong force is actually part of human nature, and it results in things like the Constantinian model of church. What makes it even more conplicated is that the thicker the string, the greater the force pulling inward. So the more stuff we have-- the more programs, buildings, and clergy we add-- the greater the temptation to focus primarily on ourselves. When that happens, the church becomes little more than a spiritual department store, a kind of Wal-Mart for Jesus, providing religious goods and services to Christian consumers.

Now there is certainly a balance to this argument, but for far too long we have been dominated by the thickness of the string. So we tend to look in rather than looking out.

It was enlightening to stand with missionary church planters on the steps of the Vatican while we talked about starting New Testament churches in Rome and Marseille. These churches might meet in homes, cafes, or storefronts, but they would seek to make them missional in their contexts. These missionaries are making great sacrifice, being far from their families with little resources so they could reach people far from God and tell them about a relationship, not a religion. They would let them know that Jesus would live in their hearts and not a temple built buy human hands.

Be sure to drop by the other posts to follow along on Europe missions week:

Post 1: Why We Are In Europe.

Post 2: Vision and Video from Europe.

Post 3: Planting in Budapest and Beyond.

Post 4: More Video and Info on Central and Eastern Europe.

Post 5: Teaching English and Telling the Gospel.

And find out more about Sent by going here.

Last week, I told you about the Bible study I'm releasing with Threads called Sent: Living the Missional Nature of the Church. You can read the full post here, where I discuss that "sent-ness" is in the DNA of the Church.

But, as we point out in the Bible study, we aren't just sent on our own accord; we have to understand something about the nature of God if we are really to understand our sent-ness. Many are quick to jump on the missional bandwagon (or throw rocks at it as it passes by) without seriously considering the theology that drives it.

As we look back through the pages of the Old Testament, we see over and over again the God who sends. He sends Moses as an agent of redemption (Ex. 3:12), he sends prophets to proclaim both judgment and restoration (Jer. 1), to his own people and to those who are not (Jonah). Even when he sends his own people into exile as a form of judgment, he sends them with instructions to seek the welfare of the foreign city in which they found themselves sojourning (Jer 29).

As we read through the New Testament we see the Father sent the Son to accomplish redemption for his people and indeed all creation (John 5; 8:42; 1 Jn. 4:14; Rom. 8:18-25; Col. 1:15-20). Then we see the Father and the Son sending the Spirit to bring conviction and conversion to the lost, and to empower the church for the spread of the gospel and the work of making disciples (John 14; 16; Mk. 13:11; Luke 11:13). And finally we see Jesus sending the church into the world, just as the Father sent him (John 20:21; Acts 1:8).

God has always been, and continues to be, the Sender.

So if we, as the church, do not live as sent ones to the people we live among, we are denying that we have come from God. If our identity is found in the God who sends, then "missional" will be more than a buzzword. It's meaning will remain central in defining who we are as the church.

That's what we cover in the first session of the study, in an effort to first lay the theological groundwork for living missionally as the church. You can learn more and get your copy of Sent here.

In the next few weeks, I will be releasing a Bible study with LifeWay's Threads initiative. It is called Sent: Living the Missional Nature of the Church.

I'm hoping that the study will be a helpful tool to put in the hands of church leaders who want to ground their people firmly in an understanding of the mission of the church and what it means for the body of Christ to live together as the sent people of God. The study has 6 sessions, so I'm going to be writing over the course of the next few weeks some summaries of the main points of the sessions to whet your appetite. Today we deal with the title and the idea behind the study.

Jesus said over and over again in the Book of John that He was sent from the Father. Then in John 20:21, He said: "As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you." We take from that the idea that the very nature of the church is this "sent-ed-ness." It's part of our DNA. The problem is that many churches have the "arrived" mentality rather than seeing themselves as sent out from Christ on mission. It's time for us to reclaim the core of our identity, that we are a people sent by and for God. It's more than a choice or a program; it's about a fundamental understanding of our Savior and ourselves that leads us forward as his people. That's why it's called "Living the Missional Nature of the Church."

Love for you to check out the study; you can download a free sample and get more info here. For people establishing a church's DNA, or trying to reconfigure a group of people to think rightly, you might consider taking your entire church through the study. I think it will provide a good understanding of what the church is supposed to be in the world.

More soon...

Here are some updates on friends, life, ministry, and conversations:

Avery Willis

Avery Willis and I have been friends for a few years. I believe we first met in a small "called meeting" in Orlando at the start of the Global Pastors Network. There were about 50 of us planning together to plant 5 million churches worldwide. Bill Bright had recently gone on to be with the Lord, but as this idea was his passion, Vonette Bright (and John Maxwell) gave each of us a baton to symbolically "pass the baton" on this plan.

It was there that I heard of Avery's passion for orality. From his web page:

I had thought for so long that the Guttenberg revolution was a worldwide phenomenon. I grew up thinking that literacy was the one thing the world needed to level the playing field for everyone. Then one day I made an alarming discovery: five hundred years after the invention of the printing press only thirty-three percent of the world are truly literate. This stopped me dead in my tracks. Imagine the banner headline: "Approximately sixty-seven percent of the people of the world are non-literate oral learners! Read all about it!"

If you printed that headline in every newspaper in every country of the world, in every language known to humanity and you threw it on the coffee table of every home on earth, close to four billion people could not read it!

You should visit his page and learn more. Avery Willis is one of my heroes. He has served as a missionary in Indonesia, written a discipleship program that greatly changed me (MasterLife), served at LifeWay (where I work), then retired from the International Mission Board so he could spend his life, well, doing the same thing he did before he retired-- telling people about Jesus.

Now, all that may make him sound old. And, that would be accurate (grin). He calls himself such-- but I just call him "wise."

But, guess who was my 1000th friend on Facebook? None other than Avery Willis. And, for that (very dubious) honor, he gets a mention here and a copy of my newest book, Compelled by Love.

Set Free Church

Some of you know of my friendship with the folks at Set Free Church in Yuciapa. We wrote about them in Breaking the Missional Code.

They have an important statement at their website that they are a church, and not a motorcycle club. And they are in no way connected with the organization with a similar name whose leaders were recently arrested. (Phil Aguilar and his Set Free Soldiers, known as a Christian motorcycle group, were arrested.)

The two groups have had some history that I will not rehash here, but you should continue to be excited about Set Free Church in Yuciapa and in dozens of daughter churches around the United States. I've been in the office with Pastor Willie in Yuciapa and they are reaching and serving those far from God with an unparallel passion. I love their ministry and do not want people to be confused.

Alltop: Church

Alltop now has a church site, and edstetzer.com and several great blogs are featured there. Not familiar with alltop? It's a series of websites that seek to "help you explore your passions by collecting stories from "all the top" sites on the web." They pick a series of "top sites" in each catagory. Related sites are grouped together into collections, called "aggregations," and can be found in individual Alltop sites. Like church.alltop.com. You can find more helpful details here.

Jim Poit at the Crystal Cathedral

I had a fascinating call with the Executive Pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, Jim Poit. For more about Jim, he was recently interviewed in Church Executive Magazine.

I was surprised because I don't move much in that world. But, it was good to hear from Jim on Thursday and learn what is happening there. This summer, Jim is preaching on Sunday mornings and going verse-by-verse through the Book of Acts.

I was surprised (and blessed) that he held up a copy of Comeback Churches to the congregation this Sunday and recommended they all get a copy to work through it as a church. Thanks, Jim!

For those of you who read the blog, you would know that my approach would be pretty different than the Crystal Cathedral. But, it was great to hear from Jim and look forward to hearing more.

Bobby Vaughn at Glocalnet

Had a great talk with Bobby Vaughn this week. Bobby is the new Director of Glocalnet at Northwood Church. Bob Roberts is the Sr. Pastor.

We talked a bit about young leaders, church planting, and the future. I have had the privilege of training for them before and look forward to another time. He explained,

We have our normal 9-month internship which is for those who have an interest in church planting, have the right skill sets and a definite calling, but may lack the ministry experience necessary to jump right into Church Planting. It is a class one night a week where they are taught by Bob and the rest of the NorthWood staff, along with other key leaders. We can accept as many into this program as we want. This program runs from September through May of every year.

The other program we have is called the Residency, where we choose 4 or 5 very well qualified Church Planters who raise their own funds to come be "on staff" at NorthWood for 12 months. They are a part of the daily life here at NorthWood and get to go on trips and be involved in our daily ministries around the world. This program can start at any time, just depending on the Residents timeframe, it's just 12 consecutive months.

To be a part of either program, a planter must first take our online pre-assessment at churchplanterprofiles.com (and used "Glocalnet" as the agency). Once they have completed that, we do a formal interview with the planter and wife either by phone or in person. We do not pay our Interns or our Residents, just putting that out there, because that is always the first question!

Another opportunity that we have for Church Planters are our Turbo Trainings. We typically hold two per year. Our next one is coming up next week (August 14 & 15), but the first one of 2009 is March 5 & 6. We cap our registrations for these events at 100 people in order to keep a more intimate and informal atmosphere where people feel free to ask questions and get to spend one-on-one time with NorthWood leadership and other key leaders. Registration for the March Turbo will be open Monday, September 1st. People can register at www.glocal.net and click on "Turbo".

Threads Video

My friends at Threads have posted a video for our new "Sent" study that will be first available at Catalyst. Watch the video here.

My Current Message Series (Zag)

A few people (well, really, two people) have asked if they could download my Sunday messages. Yes, you can. If you are interested, you can listen to them here.

The series I am in right now is called "Zag." The focus is the Kingdom of God in the teachings of Jesus in Matthew. The idea is that when the world Zigs, in the Kingdom we Zag.

This Weekend

I will be gone most of the weekend, finishing a very late book, preaching on Sunday, and making sure I spend some time with the family. Have a great weekend, worship on Sunday, and get some rest.

Once I am done with this book, I will be doing the same!

Warning: I am talking about resources and conferences... beware of shameless plugs!

As I've mentioned before, I'm doing some work with LifeWay's Threads initiative. They are good folks and I've enjoyed working with them. We'll be releasing a new Bible study this fall called, Sent: Living The Missional Nature Of The Church. I am excited about seeing the ideas of missional living in a small group format.

I've also told you about my new co-authored book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and The Churches That Reach Them. It will release this October in Atlanta at the Catalyst Conference. One of my co-authors, Jason Hayes, serves as a face and voice for Threads by providing teaching, consulting, writing, etc.

All this to say, Threads is hosting a series of regional events this fall that I would encourage you to check out called, Connect Conferences. I'll be participating at several locations along with folks like Jason, Margaret Feinberg, Michael Kelley, and several others. Click here for more information.