:You are either a missionary or a mission field.” We have seen this written somewhere in a church or heard said with great gusto from a pulpit. While I can appreciate where it is coming from, it is not true. Everyone is not a missionary. Everyone is not going to cross a cultural barrier, live amongst people who are from a different corner of the globe, learn another language, and do all they can to make disciples among them. Everyone is not a doctor and everyone is not a missionary. To say casually that we are all missionaries is to nullify the unique calling and position that many have right now and have had for centuries.

 

Several years ago there was this term that began springing up everywhere. Missional. Missional living. Missional church. Missional worship. The premise was that we are going to do all that we can to live, worship, and play in a way that is oriented around the mission of Jesus. I am into it. Clearly, the church in North America has lost its place to a large degree and if we will ever recover our voice it will take a missionary posture to do so. What we found to be effective 10 or 20 years ago in terms of church strategy is simply not true today. Gathering for church things for church people misses the point of mission. Further, if there are no longer any religious church folks to prop up all those gatherings and initiatives, we kind of are in deep water.

 

A third sort of wave to this conversation is the whole mission enterprise itself. For a long time in missions history, the traditional understanding of missions has been someone from a Western country going to a non-Western country on the backs of middle to upper class folks who supported the mission. The kinds of ministries were mostly conducted by ministry professionals who were bible college or seminary graduates who did things like church planting, evangelism, and other church related work. 

 

Along the way, we began to develop a broader understanding of missions and people in every vocation began to be sent out to serve cross-culturally by various missions agencies. Nurses, social workers, humanitarian aides, computer designers, agricultural experts, coaches – all kinds of people began to raise money through their churches and other missions minded folks and started working cross-culturally. 

 

We are so good at extremes. Where the missionary was once a professional, the missionary eventually became a secular leader who worked cross-culturally. Some of them were trained theologically or missiologically but many were not. What began to happen, from my analysis at least, was a really strange competition between missionaries as trained professionals versus missionaries as secular workers. The Trained professionals can tend to say the secular workers who serve cross-culturally don’t have enough training to do traditional missions work. Agencies and those who are sending out secular workers are arguing that traditional missions is very limited and doesn’t place anyone other than the pastor/teacher types on the mission field.

 

Sadly, an incredibly important conversation that has largely been silenced with all of this is the voice of the majority world who is serving cross-culturally in profound ways. Africans, Asians, and Latinos have been leading the charge in cross-cultural missions for many years now. They don’t have the sophisticated budgets and long history that the West has but they are sending out missionaries nevertheless. The majority white missions agencies from the West haven’t figured out how to honor this contribution or include this major pool of missionaries in their efforts. They are often not even considered part of this whole discussion which is tragic at best and sinful at the worst. 

Can anyone agree that we need all these people working together at the same time? Can anyone agree that we need ministry professionals as well as secular workers serving among the nations? Can we agree that when ministry professionals do not have those with secular skills meeting holistic needs that we limit the transformation that Christ wants to bring? Can we agree that when we send out very educated secular workers without giving them missiological or a theological foundation for why they are there that they will wash out within a short period of time? Can we figure out a way to give a seat at the table to minority leaders and missionaries where they are not bystanders but the frontrunners that they actually are? We can have it all.

 

We are not all missionaries. Every person with a trained skill can’t serve overseas and be effective. Not all have a specific calling to do this sort of work. When times get tough, people without that calling and direction from God will bail. Missional living is great. Missional churches are great. Take that missionary posture wherever you go. Cross cultural barriers, learn language, and serve with all our hearts. Do whatever it is that we have been called and commissioned to do but in our world when we want to make everything the same, let’s stop calling everyone a missionary.

 

 

 

 

 

This week has been a fun one as we have been out in the community a lot engaging people in a variety of ways. On Monday we were at a crime watch meeting composed of mostly older white residents in the community where they addressed some of the problems in the neighborhood. On Tuesday we were with a youth group (again mostly white) from Michigan who helped us clean up the street’s main corridor. On Wednesday, we chatted with several Nepali folks at a 4th of July parade and grilled out with some Nepali friends in the evening. On Thursday we had mostly African-American and Hispanic kids come to a summer feeding program we are doing and today we are gathering for house church and I really never know who will show. 🙂 All these things cause my mind to spin at times wondering how in the world to bring these cultures and races together. Is it possible? Is it worth it?

Today at our house church gathering we are discussing the Samaritan woman story from John 4 and how Jesus toppled over every “us and them” barrier possible. He centers everything on new life – when we get Jesus and His life, we get it all. Justice, love, beauty, welcome – it all happens in and through Jesus. This is such a fresh reminder as we continue to explore what Love Carrick and our journey will be as we move forward.

One of the things that I am learning ever so slowly is that community takes a long time. The white majority doesn’t just suddenly start listening to our African-American and Nepali neighbors. Nepalis don’t just suddenly learn English nor are they so awed at my Nepali language ability that they quickly include Americans into their sub-culture. Whites and blacks don’t just start hanging out because they couldn’t think of anything better to do. Seeing class and race shattered through the Cross takes time, patience, commitment, and most of all, extravagant love.

As I am sitting here thinking about our gathering tonight for house church I am so aware that I have been more educated than many of my neighbors. I am well aware that I have not seen things that some of my older neighbors have seen. My knowledge of the drug scene is limited and I have not personally struggled with addiction. For those with severe mental disabilities, how much will they truly feel heard?When classes and races blend together, how much can we expect to gain quickly. I just continue to bet the farm on Jesus. It is only in and through Christ that His reconciling power can bring true life, justice, and love. Jesus, give me a fresh dose of that life again today.

So is multi-ethnic and multi-class possible

‘ What is impossible for people is possible with God. We bet the farm on Jesus. We engage, commit, declare justice, and love. . . . .Jesus gives new life to all who will drink.

Last week I wrote a bit on why Love Carrick has chosen to do house churches as the way we gather. Another equally important and potentially confusing thing about our ministry is why we focus on such a concentrated area. I mean didn’t Jesus die for the whole world and doesn’t everyone need to be influenced by His love. Yep and yep. I’ll do my best on this one as well.

For us, church and ministry is not some sort of job or duty to gather people to have weekly worship services. For many years churches have focused on this as a primary strategy. Less than a decade ago I attended a church planting workshop for one week where the leaders basically said you just need a good worship band, a good speaker, and decent parking to start a church. Ok kill me. That is not a church and we all know it; that is some form of a christian conference that is definitely not where we are headed. We want to make sure that we do some things right out of the gate that sets us up for long-term permanence in our neighborhood so let’s try to do that.

First, we start with the incarnation of Jesus. Jesus came and dwelled among us. One translation that describes the Immanuel God (God with us) talks about how Jesus moved into the neighborhood. So Love Carrick has this overwhelming assumption that we start with the incarnation of Jesus. He was rooted in a particular time and place, making His dwelling among us. I could write a lot more about what all that means but basically being rooted in a particular place has rich theological and biblical roots and this starts to lay the foundation for why we focus so narrowly on a neighborhood.

Proximity and presence are two key words for us when it comes to being a neighborhood church. We cannot truly follow Jesus into a particular context without knowing that context. This obviously does not take place mechanically as if we are filling out a rubric but it takes place as we “dwell” as Christ did in a particular place. When you are present and live in close proximity with people in a small geographical area, you begin to start to see the same people all the time. You begin to learn what makes a community tick – what are the joys, what are the assets, what are the needs and problems, what are the factors that have contributed to its peace? Living in close proximity and being present answers these question pretty easily.

In the Old Testament, there was something that some have called centripetal mission. Centripetal force may be a familiar term for those of us who paid attention in 7th grade science class; in sum, it is a mission that pulls all to the center. The temple of David and Solomon explains this quite well. The elaborate plan to build a beautiful building that would reflect the beauty of God and its presence would draw people into its courts was the aim. When Jesus came however, He becomes the temple and by virtue of our conection to him, Christ-followers themselves become the new temple. We no longer live under this centripetal mission canopy but are called to incarnate the presence of Jesus where we live and work.

I could say so much more but for Love Carrick we choose to integrate in every nook and cranny of our neighborhood because we love it. Our friends are here. The places where we shop are here. The schools where our kids attend are here. We could, of course, choose to not integrate and have all the different components of our lives not be in a specific place. We choose to swim upstream as we believe that there truly is a longing for community and a longing for home.

We are thrilled to join with community organizations, schools, the local government, the library and anyone else who has a passion to love this place.As we spend time hanging in all these spheres, our longing is that Christ would be reflected in the fullness of His beauty and that a community would be embraced.

We realize that we will not be the church that influences an entire region of the country in a matter of years. Perhaps though, our neighborhood will be better and more Christ-centered because the Kingdom of God has come in and through us. And perhaps, more and more neighborhoods will catch the mission and message of Jesus and see the Kingdom come with proximity and presence in their areas.

We know this is going to be super slow and take a long time. We also realize that this doesn’t pay clergy or provide church staff with financial stability. That isn’t actually our number one goal if you can imagine that. 🙂 But we are convinced that slowly but surely a neighborhood can be influenced by the beauty and radiance of Jesus and transformation can come.

Lastly, and I just have to keep saying it out loud, we are just one of hundreds of ways that the presence of Jesus can express itself in the world. I want to see every kind of church possible serve every kind of person in every kind of community. No one involved in our ministry is upset or railing against the established church. This is just where the Spirit has led us and we’re doing all we can to follow him down that path. To Love Carrick is to live in community and join Jesus to bring His love, liberty, and hope to every pocket of our neighborhood. Gonna take a while. . . 🙂

I would presume that there are probably hundreds of blogs with this title so the creativity score is pretty low this morning. Do another google search and you probably will get thousands of ministries trying to explain why they have chosen to posture themselves as they have. I will take a short stab at it for a couple minutes early this Sunday since apparently this house church has their Sunday free.

We have a lot of reasons why Love Carrick has chosen to meet in homes as our main venue for worship but here are a few that come to mind right off the cuff.

1. We desire to return church structure to the simplest form as possible. House churches are probably a lot messier but the likelihood of multiplication shoots way up as we simplify structure.

2. Everyone knows each other and being a spectator in the body of Christ is not really an option. Each week people are challenged to put into practice what is discussed and are held accountable by those around them.

3. With a discussion format in the house church, the pastor doesn’t hold all the marbles on content. The goal is that we truly are all priests, have something to contribute, and we can all learn from one another.

4. In an urban setting such as ours, salaries and buildings are unlikely to come easy. Rather than focus on raising thousands of dollars on a pastor’s salary and renting out a big meeting hall, we focus on mission, friendship, and discipleship.

5. The home is a beautiful place to invite friends and developing relationships into. This is furthered by inviting others into community events andn hangouts that naturally flow into worship in a home.

6. House churches lower the emphasis on attracting people to a big gathering with an expectation to produce whatever attraccts people in the first place. I have heard it said that what you win people with is what you win them to. We want to win people with love, simplicity, and hospitality and hopefully that can stick.

7. Certinly there is a biblical basis for meeting in homes. Personally, I do not think house church is a return to the purest biblical form of worship. Huge gatherings of believers met together in the early church. We do feel that it is biblical and has validity but it is one of hundreds of church forms that can be effective. We obviously believe it is the most effective form for us to do church in a multi-ethnic post-Christian society in the US. No one chooses to do church their way because they think it is the 2nd or 3rd best option. 🙂

8. Discipleship and access to one another’s lives. Hinted to previously, this is the crux of the matter. We want to make sure that everyone has access to our lives and to disciple one another intentionally. This happens as we join together at picnics, spending time with one another throughout the week, text of phone calls in crisis, praying together, partying together – discipleship and shared life hits the nail on the head for us.

9. Discipleship. Did I meantion this? To pull it out just a little more, we feel that we can challenge one another to directly be sharing our story with others, sharing the Scriptures we study wit those who do not yet know Jesus, and training each other in the process. Evangelism, discipleship, compassionate ministry, friendship, community involvement, leadership development – it is all summed up in discipleship for us and ccanot be separated. So yeah, we do house church cuz discipleship.

10. Mobilization into all sectors of society. The org that I work for does something we call integrated community transformation. In a nutshell, it is seeing the Kingdom of God established in a community where all sectors of society are served and working together. For us, multiple house churches in every pocket of the community is the foundation to integrated mission that can spin into every part of society. Again, it is simplicity and reproducability (is that a word) that can lead to the most substantial transformation.

There are definitely other things I could say that are much more theologically and biblically developed. I am confident I could say something more sociological or cultural in terms of our rationale. For now though, that gives you a peek. The Kingdom of God often comes slowly and in a manner with little fanfare. We stand in a long line of those who have gone before us. What we are doing is not all that unique. We are simply following Jesus into our neighborhood. Whatever structure, whatever model, whatever whatevers we use, may all of it be rooted in Jesus and a desire to know and love Him and others well.