Exploring meaning

There was a good question raised last week in a comment and today I want to explore the answer. As I was blogging the things that stood out to me from the Church Planting Congress I found myself often using the phrase "Alerting people to the reign of God" a phrase I learned at the conference.

Here is the question,"Tell me more about 'the Reign of God'? What does that mean?"

Mike Frost was the one who got me hooked on this phrase -" Alerting people around us to the reign of God." The way I see it, here are some other ways I could say this - Show people the way of God's Kingdom - Be Jesus where we go.
Matt 10:7-9 Jesus tells his disciples "As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give."
And in Ephesians 1 Paul also tells of what we Alert people to " our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ..he chose us in him before the creation of the world ...he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ ...his glorious grace, which he has freely given us ... redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, ...he made known to us the mystery of his will ....to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ."

When we who know the freedom, salvation, grace, forgiveness, peace, love, purpose, supernatural go out from our safe homes and places of gathering(ie.church) we may be the only Jesus that pre-Christians ever see. So we need to speak about what Jesus Kingdom brings and we need to let our lives show it.

I love the example that was giving of this; when we go to the theater there is always a trailer for a new movie coming out. Well our lives need to be a trailer for the kingdom. The full length movie is coming in the end of time but until then our lives show glimpses of what is to come, We need to be true representatives for the kingdom. We need to live lives that make people want to be there, lives that point people to Jesus.

So the "Reign of God" is evident in all his wonderfulness that we see happen and all that we know he has promised.

That is how I would explain it. Anyone have thoughts to add or questions?

#7 The people

This is the last post of a weeks worth of blogging about what I learned/gained at Renov8 the Church planting Congress in Calgary.
I saved the best for last. The best thing in all this was the relationships that got built and the people I met face to face. This is one thing the Internet can not do as much as we try.
- I meet a couple with 6 boys, 2 of which were 4 month old twins. We only talked for 20 minutes, and likely will never talk again but in that time a bond is created. They are heading to Medicine Hat in Spring, Lord willing, to plant a church. I was blessed by meeting them.
- Sitting around a table with complete strangers, many of which are way out of my league in knowledge and practice of faith, but yet you know me I got right into the discussions regardless. I liked that discussion a lot, we talked about how to add to our numbers daily those who are being saved.
- Having a FUN late at night at Denny's
- Getting to know the EMMCers that came from Ontario and Belize and Mexico.
- The conversations on that long bus ride, some 16 hours I think, getting to know people from all over the province that care about God's mission for the church.
- I made a lot of friends, I'd like to list all the friends I made but I won't, afraid I'd miss some:)
- Plus Ben and I got to do all this together.

Thanks to all those involved in getting us there.

#6 Friend of Sinners

Last session by Mike Frost - The number one non-negotiable in church planting is - Jesus is our reference point.
Jesus is the root and example of all we do, yes it's true what you learned at age 3 in Sunday School, the answer to all questions is "JESUS". Oh and in case you're wondering this is not just for labeled "church planters", I think we can safely say Jesus is the reference point for all of his disciples. Kinda a no brainer...right? .... but wait, read on.
Jesus was a friend of "sinners" and "Holy people" didn't like him very much.
I think the reason this point about Jesus being our reference point is so important is because we have this thing switched around, we the disciples of Jesus, too often, have become people-pleasers to the "holy people" and we have alienate ourselves from "sinners". The total opposite of what Jesus did. Why is this? I think one reason is we are afraid of looking bad, looking like a "sinner" to the other "holy people". The whole way we have identified ourselves as different from the worldly has often been associated to who we hang with and where we hang. We have this mental list of where it's "Ok" for Christians to be and where it's not and we judge people and forget- Jesus would have been in the Bar too.
So when we think of reaching people with grace and truth we have to be like Jesus, and not let the fear of what it might look like stop us from bringing the kingdom into places that "sinners" gather. Besides let's get over it, we're all sinners.

#5 Wagdi Iskander

There can't have been a soul in the auditorium that was not captivated by Wagdi Iskander's testimony and challenge. In my opinion he was the most moving and challenging presenter of the week.
I was trying to summarize his testimony(struggling to do so)so instead I found this written about him which will give you an idea of his story.(read the full article here)

Iskander grew up in northern Sudan,.. Although he was not a devout Muslim in his youth, he said he harboured bitterness toward Christians, especially one Muslim convert who shared Christ with him.

"I used to hate him," Iskander said. "But he cared about me and showed me the love of Christ." ... After Iskander completed his university degree and began working as an accountant in Khartoum, his friend continued witnessing to him.

"I was looking for forgiveness, but I didn't know where to find forgiveness," Iskander says. "But when my friend showed me the love of Christ, I found forgiveness and became a Christian." As a result, he was estranged from his family; some family members think he is dead. He also spent more than three months in prison. Although he was released, two of his friends imprisoned in the same jail were killed.

He challenged us to reach out to Muslims, in fact he is so passionate for the church to grow among his people that he has resigned his life, even to martyrdom, to advance the mission of God. He said he'd die for the church! It was a very powerful ending. Many people could not exit the sanctuary, they remained in their seats, searching their hearts for even a shred of courage that Wagdi portrayed.

We are planning on getting the Audio recording of this session for the church library, so if any local readers have an interest in hearing this session for yourself check the EMMC Library some time in the near future.

#4 After all this was a church planting congress

If you've been following my blog this week you'll know where I'm heading again today. I am sharing things I learned from the Church Planting Congress in Calgary, which was put on by Church planting Canada. The funny thing is, you may or may not have noticed, Considering the topic, I haven't actually said anything about church planting, well not specifically anyway. There are a few reasons for this, firstly, the congress was mostly focused on Church Planting in an urban setting(I found that hard to connect with, but I could connect it to my existing church and community involvement). Secondly, this conference blew my mind open as to what church planting is all about, so church plant talk doesn't look like it used to. The phrase was said -We used to know what church planting looked like, we Just took what worked well in one community and replicated it all over the place, but now it's different. To reach people we have to be relevant to their neighborhood. So the things I have learned may not look like church plant talk but they are... or so I've learned - this is all very new to me. There was a concentrated focus on being sent into your neighborhood as opposed to being sent to a new location, which of course was pretty much the only way I thought about church planting before the congress. This is not to say that going out to a new location is not needed, I'm just saying they didn't talk about it a lot. My mind was opened to how I can be a church planter right here and how I can use these things I've learned to enhance the church I belong to. One phrase I will leave you with today is Again from Mike Frost "We're not in the business of planting churches.(how ironic) We're not in the business of expanding our denomination. The Goal of Christian Mission is to Alert people to the reign of God." "God is the sent and the sending one and there is no such thing as an unsent Christian. Your mission is not inward."

I hope you could follow my ramblings today.

#3 Brain Numbing Risk Averse Society

Some friends of mine from the Build a Village team are heading to El Salvador in a few days to stand in solidarity with their friends who have lost nearly everything in a recent disaster. When they told me about the risks and danger involved in this trip I was telling them not to go, "You are unwise. Use your head. Be safe" But they were certain God had called them no matter what the risks and dangers. The day after saying this to them I was sitting in a safe cushioned seat at the renov8 Church planting Congress, again listening to Juliet Kilpin. And she says "Fear is rapidly affecting the church." She was saying that God is not about safety he is about his mission, alerting people to his reign. Fear was a poison I had been letting in especially in this area of blessing my friend to enter the danger zone. ... I had forgotten. We live in a "brain numbing risk averse society", Juliet said and this is resonated with me because it is something I have long been ranting against. Society is becoming too dictating on the safety issue, too safe and too afraid to let us take risks, so much that it is slowly rendering us ineffective in God's mission and leaving us terrified to try anything new or different. I had been objecting to societies suffocating risk aversion yet unknowingly becoming part of encouraging it, which was made obvious as I let my fears rule my words for my friends going into El Salvador. You may not go to El Salvador or move far from your community but I want to encourage you, go out, take the risks, don't let fear stop you from reaching out with God's mission. That is what I was reminded of and will endeavor to live out. Even if we return in body bags let's go where God calls us.
Are you willing?

#2 Has the church become too important?

One thing from Juliet Kilpin:
She was bold - "Sell your church building."

Her point is that we get too caught up in thinking that "church" only happens in the building and what happens in the building has to be restricted to certain activities. She points out that if we are limited by the building then that will hinder God's mission for the church(the body of Christ).
It was talked about that real church is in the community of believers sent to do God's mission, alerting people to the reign of God. Church can happen anywhere, on a school ground, a youth center, my home or yours, the restaurant for lunch, seniors center, the bar, the park, any place that God's people live and speak out God's mission and this can happen in multiple ways that reach the heart of a target group of people.
It seems so often that we Christians enjoy the safety and security of our building and don't get out in the trenches of life with people enough.
Did she really mean it(sell your church)? I think she did. I know it's not right for all but what is right is to rethink our church building use and how active we are outside it's four walls.

Do you think Juliet is crazy?

Renov8

Just got back from 'Renov8' a gathering of church leaders learning to advance our understanding of church and our passion to be missional -- a Church Planting congress. It was a fabulous event, I was overloaded, inspired, crushed, energized, exhausted, challenged, opened, pulled deeper into Jesus and sent out. If you are a regular reader of my blog you know I do not like long posts, though in this case I am tempted to just write all my thoughts out in one splatter, quotes of Mike frost and Wagdi Iskander, plans that bubble in my head, and challenges I want to share ..... but No won't do it, I think I will try something different, for one week I am going to blog everyday something that stood out.

#1 Alerting people around us to the reign of God
Mike Frost was a very intriguing speaker, he says the goal of Christian Mission is to alert people to the reign of God, and he says it seems for too long Christians have reduced christian mission to evangelism, but it is more we must go out like Jesus proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. Announcing it and demonstrating it.
If I asked you(my Christian readers), what is your mission in life, what would you say? Is your mission grounded in God?