A Church Planter Watches The Super Bowl

Okay, I just have to say I loved watching the Super Bowl last night!  Being a church planter in the State of Washington, watching the domination by the Seattle Seahawks over the Denver Broncos was simply a beautiful thing.  It was a scene after the game that stirred me the most though:  thousands of Broncos fans and Seahawks fans jammed together, waiting while the New Jersey train system figured out what to do with them all.  The Green and Blue of the Seattle fans mixed together with the Orange and Blue of the Denver fans, reminding me that we're all in this life together, and that the most unlikely groups of people can be united on the journey toward home.

I'm pretty sure that as we all go back to work today, Broncos fans are surviving and Seahawks fans are thriving, and we really don't hate each other.  When I saw a picture this morning of a little Broncos fan crying on his dad's lap, I felt bad for the kid.  His heros lost the day, the bad guys won (in his world view), and his dad has the job of comforting him and teaching him about life.  That little Bronco fan is not my enemy.  Neither are the Broncos, actually, except when they are playing the Seahawks or the Chiefs!

Two thousand years ago though, firmly rooted in deep animosity, there were some enemies that just didn't mingle:  Jews and Samaritans despised one another.  They didn't mix, and would never stand together in line for mass transit (rent-a-donkey?).  Jews avoided Samaritans like the plague, especially for religious reasons.  (Christians would never treat others like that today though, right?)  This culture of self-exalting avoidance was passed on from father to son until one day when the gospel of Jesus Christ and the good news of the kingdom of God came to town.

Extreme persecution had broken out in the Jerusalem area against Christians, who were teaching that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah.  Under this persecution, Christians began to scatter out from Jerusalem, and some of them went into Samaria, the land of the untouchables.  This would be a good place to go when trying to get away from religious Jews, since they went out of their way to avoid the whole region!  Philip, a man of faith and powerful action, was one of these religious refugees, and he brought the message of Jesus with him into Samaria.  He was a walking, talking representative of Jesus Christ and of the kingdom of God, and many in Samaria turned to Christ when they heard Philip's words and saw the supernatural work of God at work through him.

God had a plentiful harvest waiting in Samaria, and Philip, the persecuted refugee, was His instrument to bring in that harvest.  The "unworthy" Samaritans turned out to be the very ones God was bringing into His kingdom!  I wonder what "untouchable" or "unworthy" people are awaiting the gospel around me.  Who do the religious people avoid that Jesus has nevertheless been preparing to receive the good news of the kingdom of God?  How do "Samaritans" look in my day and in my town?  Do they wear Broncos Orange or Seahawk Green/Blue or do they represent something else entirely?

The Super Bowl reminds me that the gospel of the kingdom of God still supersedes our cultural boundaries today, and that the people who call Jesus their Lord and Savior carry a unique message that brings hope to every "Samaritan."  I think this might even mean that Jesus could save Broncos fans.  (Sorry, Broncos fans, I know that was a low blow.  But it was funny.)  Maybe we should plant a church in Denver someday.  Would I have to wear orange?  I could probably learn to like orange.  (Sorry, fellow Seahawks, now I've managed to offend you too!)

The King's Mission

This was really encouraging to me this morning as I was reading/journaling.  I'm posting it exactly as I wrote it in my journal entry.

“Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.  But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”  (Luke 24:45-49, ESV)

The Christ, the rightful God-appointed King, the Savior Messiah, must suffer, die, and then rise from the dead, according to Jesus and according to the Scriptures.  The kingdom of God is to be led by a completely triumphant king, conquering even death itself!  (Now that’s a powerful ruler, one to make even the Marvel and DC comic writers envious!)  This Christ has specific instructions and specific purpose in the earth:

1.       That repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name.  This king has the power to forgive sins, and He has the boldness to call us to turn away from our sin and to turn to Him.

2.       That this news is to go to all the nations.  People all over the world are to be invited into this supernatural kingdom!

3.       That His followers are witnesses, testifiers to the good news of Jesus the Christ.  They are  representatives and living illustrations of His kingdom.

4.       That the “promise of my Father” will come upon His followers, clothing them with “power from on high,” the necessary power for global-sized mission and kingdom work.

What a Christ!  What a King!  What a kingdom!  What a mission!  What a privilege!

All According To Plan

This weekend didn't go exactly according to plan for our church plant here in Spokane.  It's January in the Inland Northwest, which means it's cold, so what a perfect time for the heating unit in our rented building to die!  The repairs were scheduled to happen on Tuesday the 21st, which, if you do the math, doesn't increase the temperature by even one degree on Sunday the 19th!  Well, we acted in the genius forethought that God has given us and ran two space heaters all night long on Saturday to raise the temperature from forty-five degrees up into the balmy fifties by Sunday morning.  Yeah, we were planning for it to be slightly more effective than that.  My fingers were a "bit chilly" and it was hard to hold my guitar pick as the band "warmed up" - I use that term loosely - and checked the sound.  But do you know what?  We had a great time!  Jesus was worshiped, we had encouraging participation, we had guests who liked the meeting and plan to come back, and we all built some great memories together.  Someone even said it was my best preaching to date - maybe because it was short!

Church life is kind of like vacationing with the family:  the best stories, and the ones we laugh hardest about later, are the ones where things don't go according to plan.  The stories where we come through difficult circumstances together bond us together like little else.  I feel silly even using the following verse to make a point since our heating issue wasn't exactly an "evil" situation, but read this anyway.  "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good..." (Genesis 50:20, ESV)  God always has a plan and He always has a purpose, whether life seems to be falling apart or we just have to shiver through a chilly meeting!

That quote from Genesis 50:20 was originally stated by Joseph, the Vice Ruler of the land of Egypt.  Here's his back-story:  Long before Joseph was an Egyptian ruler, his jealous brothers faked his death and sold him into slavery.  While a slave, he was sexually harassed by his master's wife, accused of attempting to rape her, and wrongfully sent to prison as a sex offender.  Through all of this wicked assault on his life God was with him, and ultimately the Egyptian Pharaoh elevated him from the prison to a position of great power.  When famine later ravaged the land, Joseph was perfectly positioned to rescue the people, including the very brothers who had betrayed him.

Looking back on his life, Joseph could see that when his brothers sold him into slavery, God had a bigger plan.  Even while he was lying in the pit of captivity God had a better purpose.  When slandered and then thrown into prison unjustly, God's power was at work behind it all.  The evil others meant against Joseph, God meant for good.  Even more, their very actions played right into God's sovereign purpose.  He could later declare to his brothers, "It was not you who sent me here, but God."  While others were hating, betraying, slandering, and imprisoning, God was preserving a nation!

A little perspective is always nice, and makes our frigid Sunday meeting seem a little less tragic!  Okay, not very tragic at all.  It's so good to know that God is building us together, building some really funny memories, and that when we face even more challenging circumstances together in the future, it will all be according to plan - just maybe not our plan!

Jesus, Please Describe Your Kingdom

Do you ever wonder what the kingdom of God is like?  Jesus talked about it all the time, so I had a really great thought (also very deep and very intellectual, so I hope you are impressed).  Are you ready for this?  Here it comes...

Why not just ask Jesus what the kingdom of God looks like?  "Jesus, could you please describe for the audience what this kingdom looks like?"

"What is the kingdom of God like?  And to what shall I compare it?  It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sewed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches."  And again he said, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?  It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened."  (Luke 13:18-20, ESV)

These are some of Jesus' own words about the kingdom of God, recorded for us in Luke's gospel.  Jesus loves to answer with stories and word-pictures, and he uses two of them here:

1. A man "plants" a tiny seed, really tiny, like a mustard seed, into the dirt.  This tiny seed grows into a mighty tree, large enough for the birds of the air to nest in its branches.
2. A woman "hides" leaven in three measures of flour and the whole lump of flour becomes leavened!

According to Jesus, this is what the kingdom of God is like.  When sown into your life it grows up mightily.  When sown into a community of people its effect is life-altering.  Highly potent, it affects change wherever it goes.  God's kingdom at work in the earth is a powerful change-agent, both in the human heart and in the culture at large (precisely because the hearts of real people are being "leavened" with its power).  Christians should breathe a sigh of relief here because this takes the pressure off of us!  The power is in the "seed," the "leaven," and the seed of the gospel will grow in our hearts with mighty results.  Others around us will reap the benefits of God at work.  Because Jesus has declared the effectiveness of His kingdom, Christians can also take a second deep breath and get to work, knowing that our work in the kingdom of God will be effective and fruitful!

God Himself, the King of the Kingdom, sows the seed of the gospel into our hearts.  He also sows us, his people, as seed-bearing agents into the world around us.  He sows us strategically into places of business, into neighborhood relationships, into schools and universities, and into various cities and towns of all shapes and sizes.  The seed doesn't  fall accidentally in this story, and the leaven is worked into the flour on purpose.  Imagine the trees that are to grow up from the dirt where God has placed us and where He continues to place us.  Imagine the aroma of fresh "bread" to come from the "lump" of a situation in which we may find ourselves!  You and I carry the seed of the kingdom wherever God plants us.  That means positive change will happen in due time.

Thank You, Jesus, for a little explanation of your kingdom.

Look Forward! Move Forward!

There is a call going out in the earth today.  It rings in my own city of Spokane just as clearly as it rings in New York City or London, Amsterdam or Baghdad.  "Come follow me."  It's the call of Jesus to His church, including those who don't even know they're a part of it yet!  As we respond to this call there can be a subtle whisper in our minds:  "But what about my past, what about my career, what about my family, what about my 'issues,' what about...?"  However, when Jesus calls he already knows our "stuff" and all the reasons we aren't qualified - even the ones we haven't realized yet!

Two stories stick out to me today:  Jesus commissioning His twelve disciples to go out and proclaim His kingdom, and Jesus calling a would-be disciple to move forward with Him without looking back.  The full stories can be found in Luke 9 but here are a couple of quick quotes.

“And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.”  Luke 9:1-2, ESV
 “Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”  Luke 9:62, ESV

When Jesus gave His disciples power and authority to rebuke demons and to heal the sick and to proclaim the kingdom of God he then sent them out to do it.  He didn’t wait until all their theology was sorted out (made painfully obvious by their later request for permission to call down fire from heaven on their enemies), and He didn’t wait until their motives were perfect (power hungry, anyone?) and all their inner-healing issues were all resolved.  He commissioned and empowered His chosen, yet imperfect, people.  He still does that.

Later, when another man wanted to follow Jesus after he dealt with some "stuff", He told this guy that he needed to look ahead rather than behind him.  Just as it would be nearly impossible for a farmer to plow a straight line in his field without watching where he was going, so it would also be hard to do kingdom work while stuck in yesterday.  The kingdom of God is moving forward and those who follow Jesus will be caught up in His forward-moving mission.

Are there things in your past, or even your present, that distract you and would seem to disqualify or delay you from kingdom work and purpose?  In Jesus’ kingdom you are not disqualified.  Look forward!  The call to follow is now.  The issues will be resolved along the journey.*

*(Church planters, church leaders, husbands, wives, moms, and dads:  this isn't a call to bury old "stuff" and let it fester!  Issues of bitterness, unforgiveness, and pain need to be addressed or those bitter roots in our lives grow and "defile many."  The point is that we don't wait until we have them all figured out and only then step out to follow Christ forward in faith.)

It's Gonna Be Quite A Ride

Dawa used to be a Buddhist priest in Nepal.  Seeking truth, he became a Hindu, but later abandoned Hinduism to become an atheist.  And now?  Now he serves as a Christian pastor and fellow church planter here in Spokane, Washington.  Jesus' relentless pursuit of Dawa has brought this Bhutanese man to my city where I met him this morning at breakfast, courtesy of World Relief.

God's story through Dawa's life stirs worship in my core.  While still an atheist, he became very sick and the doctors could not help.  A Christian friend whom Dawa had formerly debated brought him to the elders of his church.  They prayed and he was supernaturally healed; Dawa began to follow Jesus that day which led to persecution.  Now he serves other Bhutanese refugees here in Spokane, proclaiming the kingdom of God to his people!

Another man at our breakfast meeting was named Alex.  He is a Russian pastor leading an English-speaking church (Russians, Americans, and now a Chinese exchange student) that has recently been serving the Iraqi Muslim community in Spokane.  This is beautiful.

As we shared stories together of what God is doing in the world and around Spokane, my faith was freshly stirred by the supernatural God we serve.  To hear of the approximately 500 refugees that will be coming to Spokane in 2014, many of them who have experienced trauma I cannot personally comprehend, was heart-melting yet strengthening for my spiritual backbone.  The sense of destiny I felt as we prayed together for our city and for refugee families in particular was both challenging and empowering, as I could see a tiny slice of the prophetic calling on Grace Church Spokane for the upcoming year.

Multiple Congolese families are coming to our city.  Who will be the ones to welcome them to our nation, to Spokane, and into friendship?  Who will share hope with them?  Who can see prophetic destiny on these lovely people?  It must certainly be the people of Christ!  Just as Jesus went through cities and villages "proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God" (Luke 8:1), the church in Spokane has the unique opportunity to welcome families of various faiths and backgrounds into our town and to bring the gospel of the kingdom into their cultural community!  What a joy it is as the cities and villages of the earth are coming to us!

Thanks to the leaders of World Relief for hosting such a wonderful time of faith-inspiring challenge, helpful strategy, and prophetic confirmation of my own church's call to love and serve the nations in our own city and beyond.  The gospel is good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, fresh vision for eyes that cannot see, and freedom to the oppressed; it is the good news of the favor of God in our day and in our time.  Thank you for being a part of this kingdom and for being facilitators of the church's apostolic call to "remember the poor."

Jesus is connecting His people with His kingdom purpose!  He is more committed to this than we could possibly hope to be.  As we are led by the Holy Spirit into the "villages" and people groups in our cities and towns, we can expect to see Jesus at work.  Are your eyes open?  I feel like mine are opening a little wider and kingdom vision is flooding in.  It's gonna be quite a ride...  Who's with me?

Church Planting Doesn't Make You Great

As a church planter, the role of announcing the good news of the kingdom of God in unusual places is just part of everyday life.  As one who talks one-on-one with people in coffee shops and bistros, pubs and sidewalks, and who speaks more formally in our hip downtown venue on Sundays, I find myself championing the grace of God a lot!  Talking about Jesus as the one who forgives sin, who reconciles us to God, the one who paid the price for our sin - this is just what I get to do, and I love it.  Calling people to repentance, to genuine fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and calling them to enjoy the amazing relationship we have as sons and daughters of God Himself is such a privilege.  But I can also be so busy doing all these things that I forget to take advantage of all these benefits that I have in God.

I was reading this morning in Luke 7 when this scripture jumped  out at me:

"I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John.  Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he."  (Luke 7:28, ESV)

Jesus had just declared that John was not just a prophet, but more than a prophet:  he was the "messenger" whom the prophet Malachi had foretold would come to prepare the way for the Messiah (See Malachi 3:1).  In that sense, John was a pretty big deal.  However, after this statement Jesus then proclaims that the least in the kingdom of God is greater than John!  What?  How can this be?  How can the greatest prophet be lesser than a brand new follower of Christ?  (To be clear, Jesus wasn't saying John was excluded from the kingdom of God.  John was looking forward to a kingdom that he could not yet fully understand.)

To participate in the kingdom of God is better than to talk about it!  To be a great preacher of the glories of God cannot compare to experiencing them!  To live as a citizen of God's kingdom, as a member of the New Covenant in Christ's own blood, a citizen of grace and truth, freely approaching the very throne of God Himself, is a completely different reality than to declare that this is available.  While I could personally call people to repentance and call them to respond to Jesus - and I do - yet, I could still stand distant from the enjoyable benefits He has provided for me.

It was not John's "prophet" status that would cause him to become great in the kingdom of God; it would be his embrace of the King.  It would not be his austerity or good works that signified greatness but his faith in the Greater One.  In the same way, being a church planter doesn't make me great.  It's not that I come as a prophetic voice into my city of Spokane.  God hasn't called me (or you) to be "merely" a mouthpiece for His kingdom, a herald of things to come; he has called us to be active participants in His covenant of grace.  He has called us to relationship, to citizenship in Himself.

I can hear your theological gears working:  "But greatness in the kingdom is all about serving!  Jesus said that!  What about serving?"  You would be right, but what's the motive for all this serving?  Our service, whether it's declaring the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, clothing the poor, or feeding the hungry, is best given from hearts that enjoy the abundant provision God daily lavishes upon us.  Citizenship in the kingdom of God never begins with us serving God, but with Him serving us.  He opens our blinded eyes, softens are hardened hearts, brings us from death to life, fills us with His very own Spirit, and causes our hearts to then beat in sync with His!  The least in the kingdom of God can enjoy these benefits of grace; the greatest servants in the kingdom - whether they are cancer-ward volunteers, church leaders, or poor widows who pray for them all - will serve greatly because they are rooted and grounded into the grace, truth, and love of their all-sufficient Savior.

Here's the prophetic call:  take some time to enjoy the very benefits you love to talk about!  Yes, search the Scriptures, but also come to Jesus and enjoy the life He provides.  Speak from that place.  Love from that place.  Serve from that place.  Maybe even plant churches from that place!