lifeasmission

Missional Preaching Part 3: Preaching as a Call for Response

February 21, 2010 // 16608 Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2010/02/missional-preaching-part-3-preaching-as-a-call-for-response/Missional+Preaching+Part+3%3A+Preaching+as+a+Call+for+Response2010-02-22+02%3A13%3A33JR+Rozko

This is the third and final post in a brief series on the practice of preaching in missional communities.  I’ve already argued that preaching in missional churches is a communal activity and that it aims at the proclamation of biblical truth.  Lastly, I want to suggest that missional preaching calls for and invites a real response from its hearers.

It is a travesty of (quite literally) biblical proportions that we would gather as the Body of Christ, hear from the Scriptures, and not be called – in a meaningful and accountable way – to respond. This is where the theological rubber meets the ecclesial road.  When the theological vision of a church is adapted to meet an individualistic and consumer-driven society, the practice of preaching is bound to the fate illustrated by the cartoon above.  However, where and when a church embraces a missional theology, it sees little point in the practice of preaching if it doesn’t lead to a meaningful and accountable means of response. By this I don’t mean that we have some nugget of wisdom to try and apply to our lives once we leave, I mean right then and there, we respond.  All of us.  Not, “Respond if you want to get saved,” but “Here’s God’s truth for all of us to which we are all called to respond.  Do it!

Typically, at Life on the Vine, we do this through spoken prayer.  The preacher will guide us in a way to respond to the truth and everyone has an opportunity to do so.  For instance, this summer I preached from Genesis 49 and proclaimed the truth that, “Our hope in the promises of God rests on God’s character, not ours.  We all responded to this by praying, “Lord, though I am/have _________, you are/have ___________ and so I pray, __________.”  Those who pray conclude with the words, “Lord, in your mercy,” and the entire congregation, if they can, affirms the prayer by saying, “Amen!”

Because our community is an accessible and sustainable size, these responses are quite public, making them all the more meaningful.

Responding to the truth of the text for the morning doesn’t end on Sunday.  At the center of our community are what we call “Missional Orders,” groups of couples and singles who are trying to share life and serve together.  These missional orders carry the truth with them throughout the week and when we gather we continue to respond to one another by noting the effect the sermon is having on us.

Any thoughts on this?  Are there aspects to the way preaching is practices in your church community that get at this vision or embody something different?  Are there implications of a missional theology/ecclesiology for preaching that you’re thinking of that I haven’t mentioned here?

Posted in LOV, church, community, corporate worship, liturgy, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, theology

Rozko Update | Feb., 2010

February 16, 2010 // 1676No Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2010/02/rozko-update-feb-2010/Rozko+Update+%7C+Feb.%2C+20102010-02-17+03%3A08%3A12JR+Rozko

Amy and I are both networkers through and through.  Each of us has enjoyed cultivating networks and communities of friends in the various places we have lived across the US and abroad.  These are people who have helped, encouraged, shaped, and loved us.  Because we want to do what we can to stay in touch with these people (you?), we’ve decided to compile a 1-page letter about every other month that highlights what’s been going on, what’s coming up, matters in which we hope you will rejoice with us, and others in which we hope you will support us in prayer.

We got our first one out in the last few days.  If you didn’t receive it, there are 2 possible reasons.

1) We had no idea you might be interested in receiving it.

2) We tried to send it to you, but must have had the wrong email address.

In either case, if you didn’t receive our letter and would like to, leave a comment or drop us an email via the contact page and we will add you to the list of folks that we email these letters to.

Thanks for continuing to allow us to share our lives with our – nothing means more.  We’re also hopeful that this might be a pathway to more of you sharing what is going on in your lives as well.

Click the image below to download our first letter.

Posted in Amy, community, family, friends, networking, newsletter

Missional Preaching Part 2: Preaching as the Proclamation of Biblical Truth

February 12, 2010 // 1659No Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2010/02/missional-preaching-part-2-preaching-as-the-proclamation-of-biblical-truth/Missional+Preaching+Part+2%3A+Preaching+as+the+Proclamation+of+Biblical+Truth2010-02-12+18%3A23%3A47JR+Rozko

In my last post I was making the claim that given a missional ecclesiology, the practice of preaching is a communal activity.  On top of this, I would like to suggest that preaching in missional churches seeks to proclaim biblical truth.

Now, don’t miss this. I don’t mean “proclaim biblical truth” in the fundamentalist, “The Bible says it, so that’s the end of discussion and you’re stupid if you don’t see it” sort of way that’s maddeningly common, but in the, “In faith, we proclaim this to be true about God and life in God’s Kingdom,” sort of way.

Because missional churches seek to shape a people for mission in a Post-Christendom world, every activity of the community, including preaching, is meant to be a formative practice in this regard.  As Stutzman says in the paper mentioned previously,

Missional preaching deliberately draws contrasts between the gospel message and the practices and values of American civil religion, aiming for conversion from habits shaped by participation in American democracy to habits formed through Christian discipleship.

In preaching, missional churches seek to proclaim the truth of the reality of God’s Kingdom in the midst of every other competing reality.  The point of preaching for missional churches is not anthropocentric/therapeutic - meant to make people feel emotionally better.  Nor does it seek primarily to be relevant in order to captivate or entertain an audience.  It is not even so concerned with being exegetical or expository – patently cerebral types of communication.  Missional preaching is theocentric – it is a practice in which we look for God’s reality to intersect with ours and DO something in us and in our midst.

So, for instance, each and every sermon preached at Life on the Vine features a rhetorical phrase of some sort.  This is a simple way to articulate the truth that is being proclaimed from the morning’s text.  The rest of the sermon, normally about 20-25 minutes since it’s not seen as more central than any other part of the liturgy, is spent, not unpacking a text, but proclaiming a biblical truth from that text that addresses us and calls us all to some response.

For instance, this summer I preached from Genesis 49 and proclaimed the truth that,

Our hope in the promises of God rests on God’s character, not ours.

The aim in my preaching of this sermon wasn’t mainly to explain the text so that people could understand and try to apply it to their lives, but to proclaim the truthfulness of the text by calling out what it was DOING, namely, calling its hearers to believe, not believe by intellectual assent, but believe by ordering their lives around, this biblical truth.

And the only way to get at this, is to call for a real response.  That’s our topic for next time.

Posted in LOV, church, community, corporate worship, liturgy, missional, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, theology, truth

Missional Preaching Part 1: Preaching as a Communal Activity

February 9, 2010 // 163910 Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2010/02/missional-preaching-part-1-preaching-as-a-communal-activity/Missional+Preaching+Part+1%3A+Preaching+as+a+Communal+Activity2010-02-09+17%3A44%3A18JR+Rozko

Not too long ago I offered a post on, “Preaching in the Missional Church.”  Basically it was an excuse to pimp this awesome paper by Ervin Stutzman of Eastern Mennonite University.  Apparently that wasn’t enough for my good friend Wess, who asked what missional preaching looks like

To try and do justice to Wess’ question, the importance of the topic and to make space for better discussion, I’ve decided to divy this up into three posts.  I’ve got in mind to describe three unique attributes of preaching in missional churches and then illustrating them by way of examples from Life on the Vine, the missional community Amy and I are a part of. (Dave Fitch, one of the co-pastors of LOV, offers some reflections on this same topic here.)

In missional communities, preaching is a communal activity which seeks to proclaim biblical truth that calls for and invites a real response.

In most churches, the task of preaching is the responsibility of one individual – 9 times out of 10, a man.  Not only does the task of preaching often remain unshared, but the scope of preaching does as well.  This reality conflicts with the communal nature of missional theology and ecclesiology.

In missional communities, one of the central aims would be for a team of teachers, whose giftedness is affirmed by the congregation, to share responsibility not only for preaching and teaching, but for giving their time and attention to identifying and equipping other gifted teachers in the body.

Life on the Vine is shepherded by a 3-person team of bi-vocational pastors.  Not only do they share teaching and preaching responsibilities, but they also facilitate what we call a “College of Preachers,” every summer.  This gives those who have (or at least want to discover if they have) the gift of teaching, the opportunity to use and explore this gift in a guided way.

In addition, we follow the church calendar.  This means that we are all aware, well ahead of time, of those texts which will be preached each Sunday.  Whoever is responsible for the preaching portion of our liturgical service also facilitates a time of teaching and dialogue for an hour or so before the worship service.  This time gives the entire body the opportunity to speak to the text for the morning and it gives the preacher the opportunity to (re)shape their sermon in light of the insights, questions, and concerns of the body.

I’ll speak to the issue of missional preaching proclaiming biblical truth next time.  For now, what are your thoughts on preaching as a communal activity?  Is this important to you?  Why or why not?  What might be other ways to achieve the same goal in different ways?

Posted in LOV, church, community, corporate worship, liturgy, missional, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, theology, truth

Transitioning Traditional Churches into Missional Ones

January 29, 2010 // 161921 Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2010/01/transitioning-traditional-churches-into-missional-ones/Transitioning+Traditional+Churches+into+Missional+Ones2010-01-29+17%3A29%3A51JR+Rozko

A little over a week ago, my cousin-in-law Josh, asked how one might go about transitioning traditional churches into “something more missional at its core.”  Since I have banged my head against this wall for years in several different churches, my response will be a mixture of, “here’s where I failed,” and “here’s what I think is most helpful.”  For anyone who might have missed them, my posts on, “The Move: The Journey from Attractional to Missional,” and “What is Missional?” would be really helpful in understanding where I am coming from.

I should say a few things at the beginning to help frame my thoughts.

1) This is a wine skins issue (Mt. 9:17).  Anyone considering this topic who thinks (whether they realize it or not) that this is basically about getting new wine into old wine skins is destined for frustration and failure – I speak from experience!  Missional churches represent brand new wine skins, not just new wine.

2) This takes a long time.  The most experienced people will tell you 8-10 years minimum.  When we are talking about changing the core identity of, not just a person, but a community, we have to expect a long hard road.  An apt analogy – God got Israel out of Egypt in pretty short order, but it took another 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel.

3) No one person is capable of maneuvering this transition.  Solo pastors are dead in the water in this regard.  And this isn’t to say that the better way is having a team of top-down leaders – this will end up being damaging as well.  One of the keys to instilling missional DNA in a church community is inspiring and encouraging new imagination from the bottom.

Those things being said, what does it take?  What might the process look like?

My short answer is,

A Spirit-guided intermingling of communal practices, teaching, and prayerful reflection.

Here’s my slightly-longer expansion on those three things.

I take for granted that fundamental to the distinctions of “traditional” and “missional” is a vision of what it means to be the church in Post-Christendom vs. Christendom.  My personal opinion (others may disagree) is that there is no point in talking about what it means to be a missional church until Christendom has been rejected as a cultural value. Thus, transitioning traditional churches to missional ones is a non-linear process of deconstruction and reconstruction.  Communal practices, teaching, and reflection are the tools which assist in this ongoing task.  It would be a (classically modern) mistake to think of this as a mainly intellectual enterprise.  Instead, in the integration of these things, deconstruction and reconstruction happen alongside one another.

Since there is no universal model to apply to this topic, we are better served by asking general questions that need to be answered in specific contexts.  Here are some questions which I think would serve us well in maneuvering this sort of transition.

– In both small numbers as well as large, what are the practices we can engage in as a community that will shape us into people and “a people” who think and act like Jesus?

– As we try to be honest with ourselves, what things are we doing as a community that don’t seem to be contributing to our spiritual formation?

– How do we incorporate space in our times together (in homes, in meetings, in gatherings) to intentionally reflect on and respond to what we sense God is speaking and doing in our community?

– Who are those in our community who seem most gifted to teach (identified by the fruit of their teaching helping people become more like Jesus)? How can we encourage these people to engage with authors and speakers who are dealing with the subject of missional ecclesiology on our behalf?

– How do we make incremental yet strategic changes in the percentage of money that goes to those things which ensure our security as opposed to those things which necessitate faith in the midst of great risk?

Over and above questions like these, I would also suggest these sort of biblical principles for those who shoulder the responsibility for a transition like this:

– Find people of peace who can be trusted and are willing to commit to the journey. Ask for their help.

– Demonstrate servant leadership by being open, transparent, and broken.

– Commit to structures of biblical conflict resolution.  Entrust to God’s care those who choose to leave (there will be many and this is not necessarily a sign of poor leadership).

OK, there’s some initial thoughts.  I’m sure I’ll have more so I hope to continue the discussion by way of comments.

Posted in christendom, church, community, leadership, missional, modernity, post-christendom, prayer, preaching/teaching, questions, spiritual formation, theology

Cultivating Missional Communities (& the Rozko’s)

January 1, 2010 // 1574No Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2010/01/cultivating-missional-communities-the-rozkos/Cultivating+Missional+Communities+%28%26+the+Rozko%27s%292010-01-02+00%3A51%3A44JR+Rozko

In a new book, Fresh + Re:Fresh: Church Planting and Urban Mission in Canada Post-Christendom, Dave Fitch offers an introductory chapter entitled, “Fifty Years of Church Planting: the Story as I See it…” in which he summarizes the dominant approaches to church planting over the last few decades and discusses some of the major differences within Post-Christendom.

In speaking of the differences in the multiplication of church communities in Christendom vs. Post-Christendom, Fitch says,

Among the new missional leaders, church is the name we give to a way of life, not a set of services. We do not plant an organized set of services; we inhabit a neighborhood as the living embodied presence of Christ.

In agreement, I’d say that “cultivating missional communities” might be a better way to describe what we have more often known as “church planting.”  In that vein, Fitch goes on to talk about the sorts of leaders necessary to cultivate missional communities suggesting that…

– they will be survivors

…the new missional community leaders must have patience, steady faithfulness and the ability to live simply. They must be able to get jobs and not see the ministry as a privileged full time vocation. They must have a mental image of how they are going to sustain their lives financially, relationally, spiritually and personally.

– they will be communal shepherds

They are not starting and managing an organization. They may not even be good at organization. Instead they are cultivating a communal sense of mission identity among a gathering people ‘for this time and place.’

– they will be interpretive leaders

Interpretive leaders do not dictate from the pulpit a list of do’s and don’ts and solutions from God for every problem. They interpret the Scriptures to open our eyes to what God is doing and where He is taking us. In other words, they cultivate other interpreters/listeners.

– they will be directors of spiritual formation

We must ever navigate against putting on a show that will attract; rather we must develop a liturgy that is simple, accessible and Scriptural and that guides our lives into Christ and guards us from the distractions that would take us away from Mission. …there will be no missional community of people formed and shaped for mission if we just preach Mission as a legalistic requirement. Mission requires patience, a sense of vision and a level of self-denial that can only be formed inwardly in living bodies, trained in the simple organic disciplines/liturgies of the historic church.

– they will be leaders who give away power

Hierarchy is the product of Christendom. It hails to a day when Christianity still held power in society…  It is my belief therefore that missional leadership needs always to be multiple. Most missional pastors/leaders need to be bi-vocational (bi-ministerial) for their own survival. Such leaders must learn to mutually submit to the other leaders as they guide the journey of the community. They must mutually learn to mentor leaders and give away power.

A final insight from the chapter is this little gem,

This kind of leader often does not come from our (all too often) modernist seminaries. They are grown in a community which gathers to worship the Triune God so as to discern Him at work in our midst. (my thoughts on that here)

Beginning the year with this post is no coincidence.  Amy and I have committed to serve alongside others from Life on the Vine to help cultivate a new missional community in 2010.  There’s a lot more questions than answers at this point, but we’re excited to see what God might do as we make ourselves available.

While I am sure to offer tid bits on this process on the blog from time to time, if you would like to get the inside scoop on a regular basis as someone who would commit to be praying for us, leave a comment or let us know through the contact page. Peace to you in the New Year and thanks for your prayers & support.

Posted in LOV, bi-vocational, chicago, christendom, church, community, leadership, missional, theological education