Who is your “them”? Is it conservatives? Maybe your “them” is liberals. Perhaps your “them” is cishet white males. Your “them” may very well be homosexuals. It could be that your “them” is people of color. Whomever your “them” is, to be on mission is to move towards “them” in love and forgiveness.

In the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray he said, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This could be understood as “trespasses” or “sins.”

I love how Eugene Peterson puts this in The Message,

Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.

After he teaches the prayer, Jesus talks even more about this and says that you can’t experience forgiveness yourself if you don’t extend forgiveness to others. Think about this, Jesus is getting at the root issue for many people. Many of us are harboring bitterness, anger, and hatred in our hearts. There are tons of folks who are “them” to us and we refuse to forgive them.

If we are going to be a people on mission in the world, we must become agents of forgiveness.

This does not mean that we are doormats. It doesn’t meant that we don’t speak truth to power. It doesn’t mean that we ignore evil.

It does mean that we move towards people who we consider to be “other” in love and forgiveness.

After Apartheid in South Africa they developed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “The TRC operated by allowing victims to tell their stories and by allowing perpetrators to confess their guilt, with amnesty on offer to those who made a full confession. (Wikipedia)” The goal was not punishment. It was reconciliation and forgiveness.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5 that we are to be ambassadors of reconciliation. This means that we are to be agents of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is lived practice. We show our forgiveness by moving toward the “other” in love.

What does it look like for you to move towards the people in your neighbor in love? Whom do you need to forgive? How can you love well?

—

I’m slowly working my way through the Lord’s Prayer as a roadmap to missional living. Do you want to catch up? Here you go:

Program vs Presence

Present in Prayer

Our Father

On Earth…

Today

Originally published at write.as.

I’m slowly working my way through the Lord’s Prayer as a roadmap to missional living. Do you want to catch up? Here you go:

Program vs Presence

Present in Prayer

Our Father

On Earth…

I am always amazed by how full my calendar is. I have dates on there months into the future. It’s crazy! This reality makes it very difficult to live in the moment. I am often thinking, planning, worrying, and dreaming about the future. Today is not something that I often pay attention to.

I live in the future.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray told them to pray, “Give us today the food we need.” He didn’t tell them to pray for weeks, days, month, or years of good. Today’s food is what he told them to pray for, even demand. The “give” here is an imperative, it is a command, not a request.

What is going on here with this bit of prayer and how could it possibly relate to mission?

This goes back to the issue of presence as opposed to program. I think what Jesus is saying here is to be aware of the needs of the moment. What is happening around you? Be present in the here and now, don’t miss what is going on right here and right now.

We need daily food. It’s a necessity. When we don’t for a day, we notice.

Often I get busy and focused on work that I forget to eat. I become consumed with my thoughts and plans. This focus is great because it allows me to create and produce. But, if I continue to forget to eat all of that would be naught.

When it comes to mission we, particularly leaders of congregations and communities, get so focused on our concepts of success that we miss the moment. We often don’t see the hurting and the pain in our midst. It becomes easy to not see what is going in our most immediate communities, our families and close friends.

Why do you think so many pastors get divorced or have to leave the ministry to work on their marriages?

If we can’t be present with our families how can we expect to truly be present with the congregation or our neighborhoods or our communities?

To be on mission with Jesus is to be present in the moment. Our body can’t be in the future even if our mind can be. We must work hard to bring unity to the mind and body. To be an embodied presence our minds must be in the moment.

So, we pray, “Give us today the food we need.”

Body and mind united, in the present.

This is easier said than done. So, we pray, “Give us today the food we need.” And we pray it every single day.

Originally published at danielmrose.com on February 11, 2019.

Part four in a series on using the Lord’s Prayer as a roadmap to mission.

I’m slowly working my way through the Lord’s Prayer as a roadmap to missional living. Do you want to catch up? Here you go:

1. Program vs Presence
2. Present in Prayer
3. Our Father

Love that is just an idea is not love at all. Grace that is just an idea is no grace at all. Mercy that is just an idea no mercy at all. Peace that is just an idea is no peace at all.

All these things need to be embodied. Love, grace, mercy, peace all need to be lived to be something. If they are not lived and carried out in the body, then what are they? Nothing.

Mission that is carried out only in ideas, strategy, or concepts is no mission. It is nothing. It is dream and talk. A friend of mine constantly says, acta non verba. “Action, not words.”

Jesus in the prayer that he taught his disciples said,

Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus was keenly aware about the necessity to embody the mission in the world. The word we translate “earth,” can be understood with a range of meanings. It can be translated as “soil” and “people” and “country.” Now, we know that Jesus didn’t speak Greek. He most likely spoke Aramaic and Hebrew. Matthew when trying to express what Jesus was saying here uses this word that can mean “earth” and all these other ideas. Why? Because Jesus was trying to tell his disciples that what he wanted was for the kingdom, his kingdom, to be lived out right here, right now.

The mission, the faith, whatever you want to call it is not a sales pitch, it’s not a media strategy, it’s not to be a marketing campaign. No, the mission is to be something lived. It is to be the living of, the embodiment of, Jesus kingdom right here in the flesh, on the dirt, and with the people.

What is this supposed to look like? I think it’s supposed to look like the poem that Jesus taught earlier in Matthew,

“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth. God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied. God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God. God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God. God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

Oh that we who claim to follow Jesus would live this way in our bodies.

Originally published at write.as on February 7, 2019.

I’m slowly working my way through the Lord’s Prayer as a roadmap to missional living. Do you want to catch up? Here you go:

1. Program vs Presence
2. Present in Prayer

The next bit in the prayer is, “Our father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.” You may be thinking, “What does that have to do with mission?”

First, mission is to be rooted in the identity of God. It is to be shaped by who he is. The driving values for mission are to reflect the nature of “our father.” As we step into mission we must ask, “Who is God? What are his values? What does it mean to serve his kingdom? If he were sitting here with us what would he be encouraging us to pursue?”

For entirely too long mission has been reflective of ourselves.

I will never forget reading Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. It was the first book that began to make me think about the reality that mission ought to be shaped by who God is and not by our cultural preferences. Taylor was one of the first Western missionaries to practice incarnation mission. He entered into the culture that he was seeking to serve. He dressed like the Chinese people he lived with. He wore the same hairstyle and facial hair. Taylor was not seeking to bring people to English-ism he was seeking to bring the gospel to the people. His mission was rooted in his understanding of the identity and nature of God.

Second, mission is to be embodied. This is rooted in the first. One of the things that I love about God is that he doesn’t wait for people to become “godly” to engage them. He enters into their lives and meets them where they are. This is becoming, for me, the single most important aspect of seeking to be on mission. The incarnation, God becoming man in Jesus, points us to the merciful, gracious, and loving identity of God. He didn’t stand far off, he entered in.

My favorite story about Jesus is quickly becoming his interaction with Thomas. Jesus could have written him off. Instead, he invited Thomas to touch and feel him. This is what embodying looks like. “Thomas, you doubt? That’s OK, touch my hands and my side.” Ah, I get choked up thinking about it.

Finally, I like the way that Eugene Peterson in the Message writes this verse,

“Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are.”

I think this points us to one more bit about how this line ought to shape mission. Our mission really needs to be about revealing God to the world. I have seen much mission being about revealing ourselves. We make much about ourselves and what we can offer to the world.

Consider the phrase from the church planting world, “Launch Large!” This is a branding, marketing, and business approach that really works well. The new church creates a marketing campaign that is supposed to make a “buzz.” The buzz will bring people in to fill the auditorium. It’s all about making much of the new church and congregation. Usually these campaigns try to communicate how the new church is better than the other churches in town and how the particular can better meet needs than the other churches in town too.

I think that this approach is antithetical to what we ought to be about. We ought to be about revealing God as he is. Not seeking to make ourselves great and the center of the story.

What is churches sought to engage the world these ways? What if they first and foremost rooted their mission in the nature and identity of God? Then, they sought to embody that mission? Finally, their emphasis was on revealing the God in whom they rooted everything in in the first place? **I think what would happen is that we would see more gospel, greater love for the other, and healthier faith communities.

What do you think?

Originally published at write.as on February 5, 2019.

Part two in a series on the Lord’s Prayer as road map to mission.

The other day I wrote about the difference between program and presence. I stated that I though that the Lord’s prayer is a road map to presence. Lord’s prayer starts with, “When you pray…”

Jesus has just been asked by his disciples to teach them how to pray. He makes an assumption that they will indeed pray. As I consider my own spiritual life that this is an appropriate assumption. Praying is really hard for me, it is not natural or top of mind. I like to fix things and make things happen, prayer feels like the exact opposite of that.

Yet, for those of us who are seeking to follow the way of Jesus the expectation is that we will pray. That is the starting point for this journey into presence. It is prayer.

I’m curious, do you see or understand prayer to be the central driving force to being on mission in your community, neighborhood, or city? I certainly don’t.

There, I wrote it, I don’t see prayer as the central driving force to mission. I see physical presence to the be the center.

Throughout the gospels we see a pattern of prayer then teaching then miracle. I think the pattern holds. Often, Jesus disappears to pray. I think we can understand this to be his regular practice.

Yet, I have grown up in my spiritual life to believe that bible study is the foundational practice, followed by evangelism, then prayer, then serving “least of these.” Attending regular worship gatherings is in there too as an underlying expected practice.

I am growing to believe that prayer is possibly the singular most important thing that we can do.

When I make that statement I am not talking about the wish list kind of praying that many of us think of when we think about prayer. I am also not thinking about saying “grace” over a meal.

I’m coming to believe that prayer is the practice by which we open space to engage the divine presence in our lives. We quiet ourselves and listen more than speak. It is in prayer that we are able to engage with God as who he is, Spirit.

What do you think? Am I making too much of prayer? Is it really necessary for us to truly practice mission in our communities, neighborhoods, and towns?

Have you noticed how we think about “them” and “us” or “them” and “me”? It’s not something that I notice myself doing very much. I see it in a lot of other people.

That’s the point though isn’t it? Them, not me. Today, I was reading in the Psalms and I was struck by this reality.

In Psalm 5 there is a call by David for God to judge his enemies and protect him. He wants God to declare them guilty and destroy them.

In Psalm 6 David opens by saying, “Lord do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.” Not me God! I’m so sorry. I know I messed up, but don’t discipline me. Let me off and forgive me.

Them. Not me!

On the one hand this is what I love about the psalms. They are brutally honest. I read them and think, “Wow. These people were messed up.” I also read them and think, “Oh man, I am so these people.”

I have been thinking about this today, this juxtaposition of “Them. Not me.”

Why is that we demand grace for ourselves and judgment for our enemies? What is it that is in us that is like this? Have we ever thought about the reality that for some other person we might be the “them?” Could you imagine if you knew someone was beseeching the divine to destroy you and pour out wrath on you?

How might we change if we try to let go of the “them, not me” mindset?

I wonder if I might be able to love a little better. I think so, but too often it’s them, not me.

– Originally published on December 3, 2018 on Medium

If you’re at all like me, you rest very little. You work a bit too much. Your mind never stops running and you are always thinking days, weeks, months, and years in the future.

Today it is cold.

It is so cold, that everything is shut down. Schools, churches, County offices, all closed. I have a home office and it is my normal place to work. Yet, today I’m forcing myself to take a bit of a snow day.

Every once in a while we need to find down time. We need to rest. We need to try and shut down our minds and get quiet. So, I’m doing that today. I’m shutting down notifications, grabbing a book, and a cup of tea (chai if you’re wondering), and I am going to rest.