August.19.2009

Last Sunday night I found myself on the second floor of a sports bar with a group of people who are seeking to know Jesus more. We are all desiring to share an expression of community that goes back to what we find in the early church.  We spoke about a dream of a community who worship together, serve together, love people together, and grow as followers of Christ together.  We spoke of a church that was more focused on the Great Commission and the Great Commandment than our own personal desires and comforts.  We spoke of a community of people so passionately in love with Jesus that we would spend our time with the sick, the disenfranchised, and those who don’t know Jesus.  For me it is beautiful, messy, and scary all at the same time.

Over the past four years of my life I have been reading, praying, seeking council, and dreaming of a church that looks like the bride of Christ.  I have uprooted my family, left the world of a consistent paycheck, and engaged in my local community spending upwards of 80% of my time with people who don’t know Jesus.  And in the midst of all of this I have found myself trembling and crying out to God feeling like I never know what’s next.  And yet God always proves faithful!

The words “this will be hard” were almost whispered in the top of that sports bar, and we all nodded in agreement as we talked about creating the kind of church that would be intentional and missional and Christ centered.  It was as if the unspoken had been spoken and yet as the thought filtered through my mind I found myself asking the question, “What will be hard?”

The mission I believe we are called to as followers of Christ come from two foundational principle in  Scripture.  The first is the great commission and it comes in a few passages including but not limited to Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8.  In these passages we are called as followers of Christ to spread the Gospel of Christ everywhere, from our immediate neighborhood to all nations.  The second foundational principle comes in the the Great Commandment.  In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus says; “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

I believe our mission as the church can be summed up in one statement.  We are called to love God, love people, and follow Jesus everyday.

And while this mission seems so simple and easy, yet I find myself trying to get every detail down on paper, every problem fixed before it occurs.  We all want a sense of control and security while God just wants us to give it to Him.

Church can seem so complicated and while I believe real church is messy because real people are involved, I do not believe it needs to be complicated.  Our mission simplifies church and it can be broken into three areas:

Love God- we will worship together in community, study the Word of God, pray with each other and for each other.  We will keep our focus on the Cross.

Love people- We will reach across borders into community, serve those in need, seek out the hurting and disenfranchised, engage with the broken hearted, and genuinely love those in our community and those outside our community.

Follow Jesus everyday- We will strive to live as Jesus lived, encourage one another in our journey, seek to share the Gospel, live Christ centered lives, and practice a life of submission to the Father.

Practically speaking it looks like this:

Journey Groups- small groups of people who encourage us in following Jesus everyday.  We read Scripture together, pray together, and get intimately involved in each others lives.

Missional communities- Mid-sized communities that love people together, we serve together, we reach out together.

Neighborhood Churches- grouping missional communities together from a single Baltimore neighborhood we gather together to worship, pray, celebrate, share resources, and focus on Jesus together and the mission He has given us.

City Celebrations (every quarter)- As missional communities multiply and cross neighborhood boundaries new neighborhood churches are formed.  Every quarter these neighborhood churches unite to experience the beauty of a diverse and exciting movement of faith.  These are celebrations of God’s redeeming work in Baltimore and an exciting opportunity to live out worship in the context of a larger body of faith.

In Matthew 4:19 Jesus says; “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  This short statement makes it clear to me that if I am faithful to follow Jesus, if we are faithful to follow him as a community, than He is going to make us fishers.  We follow and He does the rest.   So is this hard?  Yes!  Following Jesus is hard, loving people who don’t love us is hard, stepping from comfort to unpredictability is hard, but the reward is great!