• Our hope-filled future is bound up in sharing the story of Jesus, in discipling others, in bringing those disciples together into communities of believers, and in developing and releasing those believers to create other communities... till Jesus the King comes again!

“Inbetweeners”

Posted on March 18, 2011 by wtdavid

I ran across this quote today and thought it was worth posting in place of our ongoing discussion on what we mean by “church”.  I have used the word “workers” to replace the normal word used:

“All workers now have a new role of inbetweeners.  They are bridge-persons, culture brokers, who stand between worlds and help each to understand the other. They stand between the church and unreached people and between churches and missions in different lands.  This calls for a new understanding of the psychological, social, and cultural nature of the workers of the future.  They must truly be bicultural or transcultural people, living in different worlds but not fully at home in any of them.”

I am an “inbetweener” in my life as a believer as I experience the “already and the not yet”, seeking to bridge living in this world with the longing to be in the full presence of my Father.  But I am also an “inbetweener” in my work with others, seeking to build bridges of relationships whereby the message of the Father can be shared with many.

There’s a lot to consider in being an “inbetweener”.

Filed under: Contextualization, Crossing cultures, Mission | 2 Comments »

Reading & Studying the Scriptures Together is Two

Posted on March 17, 2011 by wtdavid

The early church is described as being “devoted to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42) Though this is not an exhaustive list of the possible elements or functions of a church, it certainly provides an insight into those elements which were considered vital. 

The community of believers were devoted to, committed to or “continually keeping in close company with” the Word of God that had been revealed to them through the apostles teaching (the ‘didache’).  In other words, they were giving significant time and effort to reading, listening to and studying the Word of God together .

What we have said so far, most of us would consider a given.  The difficult question to answer is how this works out when the community gathers.  This is where we confront our own cultural backgrounds or biases towards a particular way or outworking of this element of community life.

The Bible, however, provides a variety of examples for our reflection:

*        Sometimes each member shares teaching or challenges with the other members of the community (Colossians 3:16)

*        Sometimes the community “studies” together to understand the Word (Acts 17:11)

*        Sometimes time is given to the straight up reading of the Word (1 Timothy 4:13)

*        Sometimes a person “teaches” others in the community from the Word (Acts 6:4)

*        Sometimes shared teaching is done so as to equip other members of the community for service (Ephesians 4:11-12)

In each of these examples, we see an interaction between members of the community; all are participants together in reading and studying the Scriptures.  Martin Luther talked about the need for “brotherly conversation and the Bible”.

As we think about what we mean by “church”, we must grapple with the appropriate cultural forms of these functions of the community, in particular having a passion for God and reading and studying the Scriptures together.

Filed under: Church, Community, Contextualization | 4 Comments »

Praying In Real Life

Posted on March 14, 2011 by wtdavid

I encourage you to read the last section in the book, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, called “Praying in Real Life” (chapter 26-32) as we finish our discussion of this helpful book.

David M’Intyre, who I quoted in “Thursday Prayer” last week, wrote this about prayer: “When prayer rises to its true level, self, with its concerns and needs, is for the time forgotten, and the interests of Christ fill, and sometimes overwhelm, the soul.  It is then that prayer becomes most urgent and intense.  It was said of Luther that he prayed “with as much reverence as if he were praying to God, and with as much boldness as if he had been speaking to a friend.”

It is towards that “boldness” in speaking in prayer that we now turn in this final section of Paul Miller’s book.

I would like to invite any of you to submit a blog post to me (international.director@worldteam.org) on one of these final chapters (chapter 26-32) or on a theme that runs through these final chapters.  Each Monday for the next four weeks (starting Monday, March 21st), I will post one of the posts submitted.

Probably even more important though is the prayer we should be praying on behalf of one another, taken from Paul Miller’s comment in his introduction: “that through this book my relatively light suffering will overflow into your life as comfort, freeing you to touch the heart of God.” (12)

Filed under: Community, Prayer | Leave a comment »

Passion for God is One

Posted on March 11, 2011 by wtdavid

Knowing that fundamentally the church is the community of all those God has brought into His family, His body, then how do we describe what the church does, in other words, what are its functions, markers or expressions.

I think we would be hard pressed to not say that worship is a central expression or marker of the community of believers.  John Piper writes: “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church.  Worship is.  Missions exists because worship doesn’t.  Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.  When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more.  It is a temporary necessity.   But worship abides forever.”  

When the community gathers, passion for God must be a central expression of that gathering.  Worship, then, cannot be confined to just one part or one “activity” of the community; it is to infuse the life of the gathered community.  But, passion for God is meant to also inflame our daily lives as the community scattered, for “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17)

So, how then does the community work out this central expression, this critical function?  Through allowing grateful hearts, passionate hearts to find substantive outward expression.  Let me try to give an example.  People will often cite ‘singing’ as a key element of worship.  Certainly, singing can be a means of worship.  But if the ‘form’ is mistaken for the substance, then singing becomes an activity in the program, rather than a true expression of grateful hearts, passionate for the God they love.

This is certainly not an easy conversation, but remember that we are looking at “what we mean by “church” so that it provides a common base for all from which to work and which allows the functions of the church to take appropriate cultural forms where the church is established.”

Filed under: Church, Community, Worship | 3 Comments »

Universal … and Local

Posted on March 8, 2011 by wtdavid

God, by His initiative, draws us into His community; “the community of all true believers for all time.”  We quickly want to move on from this ‘universal’ concept to the more practical ‘local’ concept.  Communities of believers are both, but the universal concept highlights for us the reality that we are not alone, that we are not marginal.  The people of God are a community bigger than we think.

The Scriptures describe the people of God at numerous points as those called to gather or stand before the Lord (for example: Exodus 19; Isaiah 2:2-4; 56:6-8; Hebrews 12:18-24; and Revelation 5; 19:6-10).  Reading chronologically, this gathering becomes larger and larger.  In some way, when we come together as a community of believers, we gather in the presence of a much larger community.  

One author put it this way: “Our gathering together is not incidental – the church is the assembly of the people of God.  Moreover, as we gather we stand in the presence of the Lord.  We are in the company of the angels and of all believers.  We gather with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; with David, Elijah and Isaiah; with Peter, James and John.  Above all we come where Jesus our Savior is.”

In a very real way, when we come together as a community of believers, we gather in the presence of our Master Jesus. 

We also recognize that God’s drawing of His people into community, to stand in His presence, always give rise to a particular expression or response.

So, how are you doing discipling your Singaporean student to grasp the concept that ‘church’ is first of all a community of believers called to gather with Him, defined by their relationship to God and initiated entirely by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

Filed under: Church, Community | Leave a comment »

Hope And Prayer

Posted on March 7, 2011 by wtdavid

Thanks to Mark for today’s post:

“At a recent gathering of workers from the part of the world in which I serve I opened the sessions with a prayer for the group that we would experience community, joy, and hope. Hope, the great center point of the Gospel, is a reality of our pilgrimage with the Master Jesus, but is amazingly one of the least considered elements of prayer we Christians pause to consider.

When you think about it, hope is why we pray. At a minimum it will be difficult to pray if we do not believe, by hope, that God not only hears us (which is only the start of hope), but that he also responds to the cries of his people (the middle of hope), and finally draws together all our yearnings for him in the grand finale of our eternal life to come (in a sense the end of hope, for we will no longer need hope, since all will be revealed in the new heavens and the new earth). But to pray without hope is worse than difficult, it is impossible.

In chapter 24 of his book A Praying Life author Paul E. Miller reflects on hope in the context of family life and he strikes this same chord on the relationship between hope and prayer. “As we wait and pray, God weaves his story and creates a wonder. Instead of drifting between comedy (denial) and tragedy (reality), we have a relationship with the living God…”

Together with you and with our literary companion Paul Miller I want to say “yes!” The dynamic of the relationship between the Lord Almighty and us provides the terrain for hope to grow wild in our bodies, souls, minds, and spirits. And with hope we come again and again, daily, in our prayers to our God and we affirm: our hope is built on nothing less than you, Oh God!”

Filed under: Hope, Prayer | Leave a comment »

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