Missio Dei

This post is part of a Missional Synchroblog. To participate, please see the original post. The first question is, “What does missional living look like to me?”

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About two years ago a friend and I went to a conference. The speaker was a well known pastor that shared his thoughts on the concept of “missional”. And his words really captured me in a way that clarified what this term means. He said, God is already doing something to restore his creation. Are you participating in that? This single statement radically reshaped my life and understanding of what it meant to follow Jesus. Missional wasn’t just some theological concept but a practical experience I could participate in.

And what was interesting is that I was at a place in my life that I was ready to chuck all the stuff that I had done. Because if I were truly being honest with myself, my stuff looked like me. And no one really wanted a ministry that was about me. People wanted to participate in something that looked like God, that had His hand all over it.

And as I looked at the other faces around the room I could see the same sense of exhaustion from trying to “be all things to all people.” Here around me were so many pastors and leaders who had built reasonably effective ministries but they were dying inside. And not in a healthy way. We were all trying to do ministry on our own.

It was at that moment that I surrendered to missional. I had a new trajectory. Instead of coming up with 1,000 different ways to do ministry to suit a thousand different opinions, I was began asking God where he was calling me to meet him. And what was extraordinary was that he called me to focus on love and trust, very fundamental things. And these became the foundation for Missio Dei.

Was I really going to trust him. Not appease him, but trust him. Was I going to practice surrendering my own desires so that I could discover what He had for me. And this trust always required me to face my obstacles.

And as I began to practice trust, I was constantly reminded of my own desires not to follow. Trust required me to face my own immaturity and brokenness. It required me to get honest with myself about my own need for God, that I was separated from relationship.

But trust allowed me to hear and begin to follow His voice. And this was a very strange process. Sometimes He would lead me to some very strange places, ones that seemed ridiculous. But ever time I did He would meet me there. I kept having these really stupid conversations with myself. Every time.

“I’m not really hearing this. Did you say go here? What was that again. Can you say it one more time?” My own resistance was so ridiculously strong to trust that it sometimes baffles me. But when I would get to where God was calling me, He would always show up. And then the conversation was, “Why do I keep questioning myself? Why won’t I just get in gear?”

But over time this impulse to fight it wore down. The evidence of God’s capacity to act was becoming too strong. I now had a story.

And then I began to notice the second practice, to love. Within each calling was God’s desire to restore His creation in some way. In the beginning it was a lot about my own heart. Would I let God love me? Would I let God create a story within my heart that was captivating and profound. Trust had brought me to love.

And as I began to let love in, or in the words of Lenny Kravitz, to let love rule, I began to see that each time God was calling me to a specific place was an opportunity to be love for someone. Love was the fullest reflection of my Father’s image. It was Jesus in the moment. I didn’t have to be someone’s god. It wasn’t a program. It wasn’t thought out ahead of time, and it didn’t have my stamp all over it. It was divine.

In fact, much of the joy over the whole process was simply seeing God’s Spirit work through me. When I loved, I got to see my Father’s reflection too. And I needed that.

And as I began to choose love, I began to see that my own restoration was intimately tied to the restoration of those around me. The more I began to be love for people the more my relationships grew, the more people began to ask questions about this God I apparently believed in. I didn’t have to attract anyone through show. Love was doing it for me.

So what does missional living look like to me? It looks like trust and love. It was meeting God where He’s already working. And it was good.

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Synchroblog Participants

Ben Wheatley - Are Things You Are Living For Worth It

Blake Huggins - What Does Missional Living Look Like

Alan Knox - Living in the love of God

Dave DeVries - The Missional Challenge

Bryan Riley - What Does Missional Living Look Like To Me

Jeromy Johnson - What is missional living to me

David Wierzbicki - We are missioning

Tim Jones - Living Like the Word Says

Nathan Gann - Inevitability?