The Ones Who Are Sent

One of the themes that has been dominating my thoughts lately is the idea that all Christians are called to be missionaries. A few may feel God's urging to go overseas to a foreign land and culture. But the vast majority of us are sent to be missionaries to our families, clients, co-workers, friends and neighbors.

The New Testament is filled with Jesus' commands that followers of Christ are sent to teach and live His message. "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.., " Matthew 28:19.

"As you have sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world," John 17:18.

"The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field." Luke 10:2

In the past, it has been very easy for me to ignore these commands and to be busy doing spiritual things. Going to church and getting involved in good programs have led to passive participation on my part. As I look at my life, I am frustrated at what little effect I perceive that I have had on others. I know Christ as a result of faithful men and women who did not ignore the call of God to proclaim and reinforce His message to me. They sought me, just as God sought me.

I want to share with you some of my thoughts and practical ways that I am trying to be faithful to God's call on my life to be sent: proclaiming Christ in actions and words.

1. I feel a burden to be a missionary to my family. I am troubled reading the statistics. 90% of kids who are involved in youth ministries drop out of any church related activity by their sophomore year in college. Only 4% of 16-31 year olds have a Christian worldview based on answers to a survey of questions about beliefs.

The church in America is in trouble. 80% of the giving comes from those 55-years and older. I think Barna is right that the institutional church may lose half of its members by 2030 if these trends hold (I am praying that they don't and that we have another Great Awakening in this country).

Unless there is a dramatic change, it is likely that my kids will grow up in a culture that is thoroughly humanistic and where faith in God is looked at as weak or irrelevant. So first and foremost, I am a missionary to my family. I establish spiritual habits with my kids- prayer, reading the Bible, talking about God regularly, etc... where they see authenticity and consistency in daily life.

2. I feel a burden to be a missionary to my neighborhood. My family recently moved into a new home in Hurst. The neighborhood is new and this is a plus for building relationships. People seem a little more open to community. We had some good believing friends- the Chang's- that moved in across the street. We have talked about starting a home fellowship and potentially allowing it to become a church plant in our neighborhood. We had our first meeting last night. We have four couples- including my family and the Chang's- who have expressed interest.

For now, we are focusing on building relationships, prayer and preparation. I printed out a map of my neighborhood and started filling in names of families as I meet people. Hudson- my 3-year old- and I walk in the evening on weekdays and mornings on weekends. This has lead to many conversations. I pray for my neighbors. I don't believe God has placed me here by accident and I am excited to see what He will do in this neighborhood.

3. I feel a burden to be a missionary to my clients. I have a practice that is probably 60% believers and 40% unbelievers. I like that. I hope that my clients identify me as a Christian by the concern I have for them and the service I provide. I am surprised that I don't drive more of them away with my material on http://stewardshipmandate.com. I pray that doors are open to share the hope that is within me and that my clients make progress in their relationship with God.

I pray for 5-6 clients a day. Every month I pray through my client base. I know that my clients are not clients of mine by accident. God has a purpose in everything. I want to be available to how He might use me in building a relationship with my clients.

My heart is not where it should be on any of these things. But I thank God that it is further along than it was. Deeper faith in God daily. Life transformation. Service/usefulness to others. These are my goals. Jonathan Edwards once said, "My aim is to do the maximum amount of good to the maximum amount of people." I pray that this becomes my aim also. Lord, prune me so that I will bear much fruit for Your kingdom.

For His Glory,

Ashley Hodge

Bare Necessities

One of my 3-year old son's favorite movies is Jungle Book. In that movie, there is a song called The Bare Necessities. Being the strange person that I am, I tend to analyze and think about lyrics to almost every song I hear.

God seems to be reinforcing an old message to me in many ways: simplify, simplify, simplify. I just finished reading a book called Simple Church. This book makes the claim- backed up by research- that churches with simple processes and purposes grow. Most churches stagnate because they get caught up in doing good things. But those things distract the focus and the church becomes ineffective as a result. The same is true in business. As Clint Eastwood said in a Dirty Harry film, "A man has to know his limitations."

The last verse of The Bare Necessities reads:

And don't spend your time lookin' around
For something you want that can't be found
When you find out you can live without it
And go along not thinkin' about it
I'll tell you something true
The bare necessities of life will come to you

Look for the bare necessities
The simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities
Old Mother Nature's recipes
With just the bare necessities of life

We have a tendency to make life more complex than is necessary don't we? I was struck by a fact that was released over the weekend. The United States is arguably the wealthiest, most technologically advanced nation in the world. But our life expectancy is 42nd among nations. This means 41 nations have longer life expectancies for their citizens than the US. There are reasons for this: overindulgence and stress would be high on my suspect list.

I am beginning to re-evaluate everything in my life (again) with the goal of returning to a more strategic simplicity. Ecclesiastes 7:29, "God has made man simple; but man seeks out many complexities."

I am thinking about the implications for stewardship. I feel called to make whole-life stewardship my purpose in life. My vision is to help others make progress in becoming better stewards of money, abilities, time and health in order that God would be glorified through a transforming life.

My method for promoting this has been too complex. I have encouraged clients and friends to set goals for making progress in stewardship. Some have participated in this exercise. The focus or lack of focus I should say has been on setting a large amount of stewardship goals- somewhere between 10-25. What has happened in my own life is that this number is way too large to focus on and therefore accountability to these goals has been low.

My renewed simple concentration is to set four goals for making progress in daily stewardship of the Lord's resources. One goal for each letter in the MATH acronym (Money, Abilities, Time and Health). These goals will be my focus for six months. Hopefully, at the end of six months they will become such entrenched habits that I can move on to another set of four goals. But if they are not, I will continue with these original goals until they become part of my daily life.

Soren Kierkegaard said, "Define your life forward and live it backwards." We all need a transformation process to shoot for. The Lord is in the transformation business. Paul says, "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day Christ returns"- Philippians 1:6.

The goals of every Christian should be:

1. Deeper understanding and relationship with God (Father, Son, Spirit).
2. A transformed life into the image of Christ.
3. A commitment to the mission of God to redeem others. We are to be ambassadors for His kingdom on earth as it is and will be in heaven.

We make it more complicated than it should be. Everything else is noise. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

For His Glory,

Ashley Hodge

New Way to Think About Church

I have been reading with interest about a growing movement around the world to redefine how church is done. Books like Revolution by George Barna; Organic Church by Neil Cole; The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch and The Radical Reformission by Mark Driscoll. These books and others have challenged conventional thinking about how a church should be organized and executed.

In summary, these authors make the case that the institutional, attractional model of church is in decline. The organic, missional model of church is in rapid growth. In this blog, I will attempt to outline some of the important ideas that I learned from these books and also define some of the terms that surround the traditional church growth model and the organic church growth model.

First, we should start with a definition of church. Wayne Grudem writes in Systematic Theology that church is the community of all true believers for all time. Grudem goes on to write that the church is local and universal; visible and invisible. The visible church is as Christians see it. The invisible church is as God sees it. The church may be a local group of believers meeting in a private home. It may also be a large group of believers meeting in a large building.

Grudem writes, "We should not make the mistake of saying that only a church meeting in houses expresses the true nature of church, or only a church considered at a city-wide level can rightly be called a church... Rather the community of God's people considered at any level can be rightly called a church.

There is an unhealthy debate going on in some circles about what constitutes a pure church. Many who have embraced the "house church" movement believe that this is the only viable church model. Others who have been trained to think of a church as only a large building and institution believe that you can only have church in this context.

Common sense would lead us to believe that the model is not the issue here. There are heretical, scripturally unsound house churches and institutional churches. And there are many biblically sound, Spirit-filled churches of both types as well.

But a bigger question is this: what is the most effective model to reach our culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Are we not supposed to follow the Great Commission that Jesus commands in Matthew 28:19-20 to go and make disciples of all nations?

Let's look at two methods of accomplishing this task: the traditional church growth model that has been prevalent in America; and the organic, missional church model that is rapidly gaining interest especially on the West and East Coast.

Traditional, Institutional Church Growth Model (Attractional)

This is the model we are all familiar with. The way the model looks in 2007 is that you build a church that seeks to attract believers and non-believers. Churches that have large growth usually follow this formula:

• Excellent preaching on subjects that relate to the real life experience of hearers.
• Inspiring worship by professionally trained musicians
• Parking facilities that minimize inconvenience in finding a parking spot
• Emphasis on children and youth programs
• Cell groups where you can connect to church members socially and build community

There are some great churches that have built dynamic organizations upon this model. Thousands perhaps millions have come into the kingdom of God through these type of churches. I praise God for the faithful men and women who have served Christ and continue to serve Christ in these type of churches. I have been members of these type of churches and have grown spiritually through my involvement in them.

There are some potential weaknesses however. First, the model can promote passiveness among church members. Trained ministry professionals do the teaching. The rest of the people do the listening. This can stunt the spiritual growth of those who are not actively participating in church.

Second, many of the fastest growing churches are growing through pew-swapping (attracting other Christians to leave their current church and join this fellowship). Some churches are doing a great job of seeing growth through new converts. But other churches are seeing numbers increase without the conversions.

Also, this model is becoming increasingly ineffective in reaching an unchurched culture. Adult church attendance is at 18% nationally and dropping. Some churches using this attractional (let's bring them to us) model are growing. This gives inspiration to the 80%+ traditonal growth model churches that are stagnant or in decline from an attendance standpoint.

Organic Model of Church (Missional)

Frank Viola defines organic church to mean: a non-traditional church that is born out of spiritual life instead of being constructed by human institutions and held together by religious programs. Organic church life is a grass roots experience that is marked by face-to-face community, every-member functioning, open-participatory meetings, non-hierarchical leadership, and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional Leader and Head of the gathering.

This model is gaining acceptance and interest in the West. It has been the primary model for church in the East for financial and political reasons. The model has been inspired by two great church growth stories:

1. The early church grew from around 25,000 Christians in AD 100 to 20 million by AD 300. It did this under intense persecution, without buildings, seminaries, Bibles, books, etc... People were attracted to the devotion, community, love and integrity of these early believers. As these early believers lived out their faith, the Spirit was active in bringing multitudes into the truths of Christianity.
2. The Chinese underground church. Estimates say that there were 2 million Christians in China when Mao Tse Tung tried to expel all religious life in the 1940s-1950s. Tung killed, imprisoned and tortured many Christian leaders. Yet, the number of Christians grew rapidly. It is believed that there are as many as 100 million evangelical Christians in China today- most of whom worship in small house churches. The similarities to the early church are many: persecution; no church buildings; no evangelical seminaries, etc...

Alan Hirsch in Forgotten Ways says that this explosive growth happened for six reasons:

• Simple confession: Jesus is Lord.
• Focus on disciple making. These churches worshipped Jesus and wanted to become like Him.
• Outward focus towards others. The emphasis was how can we connect to the world of our friends, family and co-workers and share with them this life-changing truth.
• Passionate, Spirit-filled leadership. Leaders were filled with a vision to see lives transformed daily by the gospel.
• Organic system- no centralized institution to block growth through control. The early church and Chinese house church stories spread like viruses and were structured like networks and not organizational charts.
• Communitas- shared mission that lies beyond self. Persecution helped to create tighter focus and mission among Christians as they were reminded daily that faith cost something.

There are potential weaknesses here as well. The organic church can lack organization, focus and leadership. Without a continual focus on biblical Christianity, these types of churches can quickly venture into unhealthy cults.

Many of the books I have been reading advocate a return in mission and focus to what made the early church and the Chinese church such great Jesus movements. It appeals to me because I am convinced that we make things more complicated than they have to be. I have absolutely nothing against professional Christian workers. I think they are needed. I have nothing against church buildings. They are often useful to accomplish the purposes of ministry.

But I believe every Christian should be asking the question: what are we doing here? Are we creating an environment where people can learn to love God with all of their heart, mind, strength and soul and love their neighbors? Are lives being transformed for the better? Are we becoming more useful servants to our world? If not, change is needed. May God raise up churches and people to effectively do His work irregardless of the type of church model used.

For His Glory,

Ashley Hodge