Being missional with Jesus is way more than just doing a service project or participating in an outreach event. Unfortunetly, that's exactly how many churches have trained people to think of being missional--- as performing religious "add-on" events to an already busy life of add-ons. This has turned some Christians into busy-bodies inside the church facility, thinking their good efforts are missional because it fits and satisfies the church's program calendar.
A life of mission, however, is not to be something that is additional, but intentional. It is not meant to wear-out lives, but to bust-out lives. The joy of the Lord is the igniter as well as the end result. In other words, instead of doing a missional event, BE the missional advent! That's when ordinary people suddenly find themselves doing extraordinary things because they are simply being Jesus in the marketplace of every day life. It can make something as simple and regular as going to the grocery store a short term mission trip! You may not speak about Jesus to people in the store, but you can be "incarnational Jesus" for people in the store. With this new mindset, you are not only blessing people everywhere you go by living out your faith, but you are now ready to verbally share your faith when it's called upon. By the way, when you are following Jesus, you will have empowered opportunities to share your faith....
With that in mind, YOU ARE INVITED to be a part of a pioneering ministry for developing a missional mindset that helps ignite "missional communities" where you live (see my previous blogs for more on missional communities, or as I like to call them: Transformational Communities). On Saturday, August 2nd, I will join two of the LCMC's five new Mission Team leaders in hosting a workshop on becoming a person of daily mission. We will partake at the Lutheran Church of the Cross in Altoona, Iowa. I'll share more details as the time draws closer, but please mark your calendar now for 9-to-noon. This, however, is not a one-and-done deal, but the first of many, perhaps hundreds of gatherings around the nation to encourage, train and support disciples who are living, or wanting to live, missionally. When this becomes the norm of our LCMC, we will be contagious for the blessing of others. When that happens, we become disciple-making-disciples that birth new churches.
A GREAT OPPORTUNITY! Community Life Church in Oregon, Wisconsin is set to join the LCMC because it loves our association's missional heart with the gospel of Jesus. The congregation is 10-years old, but is looking for a missional leader with a church planter's heart. The congregation's original planter is being deployed to start a new church in Green Bay (lots and lots of sinful, lost Packer People live in GB). Community of Life offers a full-time salary and benefits, a healthy core team of young-to-middle-aged-adults, and a backbone to changing lives in the community. Oregon is a small town with its own school district just outside of Madison, WI. I've been there and I like what Community of Life is doing. ALSO: a LCMC church in Detroit Lakes, MN is looking for a young ordained or contract pastor to develop an existing congregation's outreach into its city. If either of these possibilities strike you, or you know someone else who needs to look into these calls, please contact me: dan@lcmc.net.
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