missional training 3.: incarnational living
I thought the IIB crew might be into these notes from our last missional training event here in Calgary, especially the three points of incarnational living.
We began, as we are wont, with a meditation, reading through Luke 15 in groups and teaching one another each parable. Collectively they carry a message that is one of my favorite statements made by the life of Jesus: that God seeks us out, chases us down, and anxiously awaits our return to Him. I learned some new stuff too. The reason that the father ran out to meet the son was to get to him before the village discovered him, because they would have banned him and left him outside of the father’s reach. Putting a robe, sandals, and ring on him were a way of restoring him to his place in the family, but throwing him a party was the way to restore him to the community. That’s why they slaughtered a calf: it was big enough to feed the entire village. Now imagine the Pharisees’ reaction when they realized that Jesus was talking about God’s desire for all these sinners He kept eating with. Nobody likes being the pouty older son.
Cam began the learning time by drawing the five values of missional church on a whiteboard in a circle, and pointed out that even though we’re focusing on one of the five for this training, because this is about a renewed theological vision, you can’t separate these out or drop one of them and remain a missional church. These are parts of a singular theological vision of what the church is to be and do.
The three essentials of incarnational living are 1) prayer, 2) story telling, and 3) hospitality.
A missional church prays a lot, about everything. We pray for each other, for the community, for the people we want to talk to about Jesus, for the people we do talk to, for the people who listen and don’t through things, for provision, for boldness, and generally for anything else you can think of that has to do with God’s purpose in the world. We’ve a lot to be talking with God about.
A missional church tells stories. We tell our stories to each other, we collect stories from the people we meet, and most of all, we tell Jesus’ stories. The story of the cross and of our salvation, but other stories too, stories of our failures, stories of our dreams, stories of Jesus, the things He said, the things He did, and the stories He told. We discussed the articles Believers or Disciples, and What is the Gospel? . It was said that one reason we don’t tell more stories is because of the story we’ve been taught to tell. The gospel includes people, the personal, creation, and the world, and the more of all these stories we have to tell, the more we will be telling stories.
Pop quiz. What’s the opposite of the law? It’s not grace. Nope, it’s lawlessness. Grace is the power of God working in us to fulfill the purpose of the law. Sounds a bit like all those prophecies we’ve been reading.
A missional church practices hospitality. This is more than just offering people a lemonade when they show up; it’s about valuing others enough to make space for them in your life. It’s hard to offer hospitality to your community when you’re too busy to ever actually be in it. We spent a long time on Jeremiah 29:4-7, which was God’s word to the exiles on how to live amongst people who don’t follow the same God. We did some great meditating on what it means to settle in, plant crops, and make a home in a culture where people purchase “starter homes.” You’ll find this reflected in the NT and in Romans 12:14-13:7 and Luke 10, our final meditation of the day.
Cam told the story of one of their people who showed up to meet with him and the elders not knowing what to do. The neighbors he’d been working so hard to build friendships with and love had invited him to play on the neighborhood football team, but they played on Sunday mornings. This is where it would have been really nice to have Caireen in the room. Fortunately, Cam and the rest of his crew knew what to do: they blessed him and sent him out to be Jesus amongst them, and prayed for him in the service all 10 weeks he was gone.
This was a great day, and I’ve not done it justice because so much of it was story telling, and all I’ve given you is a synopsis of the big ideas. I only hope that they are enough for you to find and tell your own stories.
Books worth stealing
Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes | Kenneth E. Bailey
Tags: missiology, missional training network, western world, church starting, church+planting, theology
