Praxis
Praxis
God's Mission Has a Church
When was the last time you felt the pressure to "bring God" to a situation? What if God was already there, working long before you arrived? This episode challenges our fundamental assumptions about mission and discipleship by exploring the conviction that God's presence always precedes our participation.
We dive deep into what "missional" truly means – not as a trendy church growth strategy, but as a theological reality that reshapes how we engage with the world. From examining Jesus' own approach of only doing what he saw the Father doing, to unpacking common misunderstandings of missional theology, we reveal how this perspective shifts our posture from striving to discernment.
When God is the primary agent in mission, we're freed from the weight of producing spiritual results through our own efforts. All of life becomes sacred ground for spiritual formation – from workplace conversations to washing dishes. Church leadership transforms from performance to equipping, and our metrics shift from outcomes to faithfulness.
With suggestions for developing a divine detective mindset, attending to God's work in others through better questions, and prayer walking with new awareness, you'll discover how to spot God's activity all around you. This isn't just theological abstraction – it's an invitation to a lighter, more collaborative way of discipleship that centers God's movement rather than our own.
Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to practice and embody the way of Jesus in our everyday lives. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. We're in a newer series focused on our mental models for missional discipleship a framework for living out our faith as disciples of Jesus in everyday life. Whether we're aware of it or not, we all have mental models, deep convictions and assumptions that shape how we see and take action in the world.
Josiah:Mental models are kind of like prescription lenses While often invisible when wearing them, they constantly shape the way we think, feel and act. So what were the mental models Jesus lived by? What convictions shaped how Jesus saw people, responded to needs, formed disciples and joined God's mission in the world? That's what this series is all about. Each week, we're unpacking a key conviction that shaped Jesus' way of life and explore how to shape ours too, as we seek to be a community of disciples living on mission in the way of Jesus. And today we're going to go look at the first core conviction, and that's this God's presence always precedes our participation. So let's do it.
Mac:Welcome everyone. My name is Mac, I'm Katie. And I'm Josiah, I thought of a fun question to get us started today. I think you guys will find this fun. We'll see. Well, yeah, we'll see. You can rate my question at the end, like you know A plus A, c, d.
Katie:F Solely on the funness scale.
Mac:Whatever Just use. I don't know you can tell me what the scale is. If you came with a disclaimer, what would it be? Oh gosh, what? I'll share mine while you're thinking. Okay, the backstory is I was doing a church internship out in California and we I don't remember what the exercise was exactly, but it involved everybody having a piece of paper with their name on it and everybody else had to, like, write down one word to describe them.
Katie:Okay.
Mac:And then there was this moment where you kind of took it out and read the words people had used to describe you. There were three or four other people involved in this exercise besides myself, and all of them wrote the exact same word, without talking to each other which is really weird, the word was intense.
Josiah:That was my guess.
Mac:And that was kind of like a like a good mirror moment, like wow, everybody experiences me as really intense. So yeah, I think I'd come with like a warning label. You know, that would be the disclaimer Like engage at your own risk.
Katie:Intensity around the other, oh man.
Mac:That's really funny.
Katie:I feel like this is something that other people should almost put on you. It's hard to say what my own disclaimer would be right, because, like to you, you're just normal.
Josiah:Yeah, that is true, it would be easier to label someone else.
Katie:Okay, like I could maybe create one for you, Josiah.
Josiah:Feel free, because I don't even have a clue.
Katie:Okay, and then I'll give you permission to create one for me.
Mac:Oh, this is going to be fun. Okay, so what disclaimer would you give for Josiah?
Katie:I think it would just be like don't plan to like how would I put this it would be something like have plenty of time for, like conversation, to dig in on things, and don't initiate conversation unless you're ready for it.
Josiah:For like conversation to dig in on things, yeah and long winded. Don't initiate conversation unless you're ready for it.
Mac:I would say for a disclaimer with Josiah is be prepared for big reactions, because you often have reactions. Big isn't bad, I'm not, that isn't a bad thing, but you, I think you react to things and then that leads to kind of to your point, katie. These really authentic conversations.
Katie:Yeah, which I really appreciate about Josiah yeah, that's a good word.
Mac:I never feel like there's a lot of pretending or faking. It's just like your reactions, especially with people you're comfortable with. I would assume to be one of those people, at least trending in that direction.
Katie:I feel like I get a lot of like raw reactions and that leads to some really fun conversations that are authentic and deep. Yeah, I would warn people that they can't get away with a lot of pretense around you. Yeah, huh.
Josiah:I appreciate that. Actually, it makes me feel good, we've got intensity pretense allergic reaction to pretense.
Mac:What would you, what disclaimer would you give for Katie?
Josiah:I'm working on it.
Mac:Yeah, the disclaimer I would have given for you, it would have been fine, not fine, and what I mean by that. It's not a bad thing. It's just that, like you are one of the most positive people that I know and you tend to kind of cruise at this level of like, always going and things are pretty good, and then there's these, so you like I'm fine, and then there's, but then there's also these moments where it's like, but are you? And then we get underneath the like, other stuff that is deep and meaningful too. You know what I mean. Yeah, and that's a disclaimer, because I think if someone were to like be around you, they'd experience you as like this incredibly positive, high capacity person who's always on the move and you're social, you're always up for fun, you're always like yeah going and like I think, if someone's really going to be your friend, they they're also going to go.
Mac:Hey wait, slow down for a sec.
Katie:Yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah, that's a good one.
Josiah:Well, I have. I do have one, but before that I have to interact with that because I'm married to a three, to an Enneagram three, and I think I used to. I used to sort of despise a three's ability to like put on a face and get through the day and like ignore all of the other stuff going on in their life, and I think that can become chronic where it is an issue. However, I have also seen it as a real talent, like it's a skill set to be able to say I've got all this other stuff going on but I can focus on this task and do it really well. I have actually found it to be like a gift, if you're aware of it.
Josiah:It's self-regulation, yeah, the ability to keep doing that and I as I'm not an Enneagram three, have a very difficult time overcoming internal emotional struggles or external circumstances. I have a hard time pushing through to motivate myself to be productive.
Mac:Keep calm and carry on. No, but I appreciate the ability to do that Like.
Josiah:I so wish I could do that better. So the disclaimer I was going to say is if you're socializing with Katie, be prepared for her to fall asleep at any moment. Oh yeah, that's a good one.
Katie:I did stay up until midnight at her house on New Year's Eve.
Josiah:That's true, wow.
Katie:That is one for the books. It had been a long time.
Mac:Well, speaking of intensity, big authentic reactions and keeping calm to carry on. Let's get into the topic today. Huh.
Katie:Yeah, so we're in a newer series right now and we're focused on mental models for missional discipleship A lot of Ms there, but that's just to say we're exploring some of our core convictions or truths that anchor us and guide us as we go about being a community of disciples who live on mission in the way of Jesus.
Katie:We believe that these were the core convictions that guided Jesus. These were the mental models that Jesus used when making and multiplying disciples to join God's mission in the world. And so today we're going to unpack the first key conviction in missional discipleship, which very much centers on the word missional, how we understand God's mission in the world and what it means for us to participate in it. And, of course, we want to submit that this is all anchored in how we see Jesus viewing and taking action in the world. So here it is. Here's our first core conviction for missional discipleship, and it's this God's presence always precedes our participation. So, although that's a simple and hopefully somewhat catchy statement, I think there's a ton baked into that. So where should we start?
Mac:Yeah, well, the idea that God's presence always precedes our participation really hits at the word that you just mentioned, which is missional, the phrase missional theology, and so I think we should start there. When I first encountered that word missional, it was sort of a buzzword. A lot of people were using it. I remember just being really confused by what it meant. It was sort of like that moment in the Princess Bride where Vizzini, the short, bald guy who is like the self-proclaimed genius, keeps using the word inconceivable right, but he's using it incorrectly because it's like anything that happens sort of defies his expectations. He says inconceivable, and then Inigo Montoya, he's like hey, you keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means, and it's sort of like that. When I first encountered the word missional, I just was like it was being used in so many different ways. It felt like a really big buzzword and I was very confused. I was like what does this mean? And we ended up as a staff bringing in someone who became a dear friend of mine, michael Bender, from at that point. He was working at the missional network and he was getting his PhD in missional theology at the time, but led our staff through some conversations, and I remember him saying something that stood out to me. I still think about this often. He said if you want to understand the word missional, you have to start with God, and the entire conversation around what missional actually means it begins with our understanding of God, and it's this conviction that God is missional, like it's part of God's character, it's part of God's essence. God is missional and because of that, god is on mission in the world. That's actually where the phrase missio Dei, the mission of God, comes from. And, put simply, the mission of God is the right relationship of all things, it's the flourishing of all things, it's shalom. We see it in Genesis 1 and 2. What God creates is the overflow of who God is and it's the flourishing of all that exists. And then, of course, in Genesis 3, it sort of gets disrupted and that's when God's mission takes on a redemptive or restorative bent. Takes on a redemptive or restorative bent. But what's really important when it comes to this phrase, missional theology or the idea of missional, is that God is the primary actor or agent in mission, like God. When we think about creation, god is the one who created everything. When we think about redemption. God is the primary actor in bringing about redemption and restoration. So, first and foremost, it's this deep conviction, like deep down, that it's God's mission, not ours. It doesn't belong to us, it belongs to God. And God is already at work. God is already at work in every single moment, seeking to bring about the completion of that mission before we even arrive on the scene. So we don't bring God to a place, we don't advance God's mission apart from God or for God. Rather, god's presence precedes our participation. God's already at work and our job is to then discern what it is God is doing and where he's inviting us to join in. Does that make sense? Now?
Mac:There's a lot more we could say about this. I mean, there's a lot of like historical movement around how missional theology came about. There was this really big uptick in the 1950s when a guy named Wilhelm Anderson presented a paper at the International Missionary Council in Germany and then it kind of got a lot of focus and attention in the 1960s, sort of went dormant in the 80s and got picked back up in the 90s. And then there was a book called the Missional Church that catalyzed all the buzz language, but many people use the word. Very few people are actually using it correctly.
Mac:And then we've tried to really build this out at our church. So, for instance, in our DNA class, we spend a lot of time here just naming here's what God's mission is and here's how we go about joining it, and part of that is just noticing how this theme develops in scripture. So if you've been through our DNA class, you've probably heard pieces of this before. But, katie, to answer your question, where should we start? I thought maybe we should just start by giving them like a high level overview of God's mission in the scripture. What do you think about that?
Katie:Yeah, and you touched on this, but I think that's true. I think I hear you saying the word missional implies that God is primary actor. God is primary agent. He's kind of first mover, so to speak. And I could see someone hearing that and going, okay, well, like how do you know, is this just another like fad or trend? Like how do we know that this is a faithful way to view God and God's activity? And so I think starting with scripture is a great place to start, because I think this idea of of God being on mission to restore all things um and being the primary mover in that is something we see throughout the story of scripture. So it's anchored in, you know, anchored in this is.
Mac:This is one of the ways I think we should read the Bible. So, when we think about lenses, what lenses do we put on when we're reading the scripture? This is the process of what's called hermeneutics interpreting and understanding scripture. One of the lenses that I think helps us get at a faithful reading of scripture is to put on missional lenses to read the entire narrative of scripture from start to finish, through the lens of God's work and God's activity.
Katie:Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned how God. This is how God created the world, like he created the world in perfect order. This word shalom implies the right relationship of all things, the flourishing of all things. I picture like the Garden of Eden, like the world was. This perfect garden. It was an Eden-like state, but it didn't take long for humans to enter the picture, for them to choose sin, which led to brokenness, entering the world and kind of destroying that perfect creation. And on that point God's mission takes on a redemptive angle destroying that perfect creation. And on that point God's mission takes on a redemptive angle. Like his perfect creation has been marred and he goes on mission to restore it back to its Eden-like state.
Katie:And I think the rest of scripture kind of follows this narrative right. First he chooses the Israelites to be his people and he commissions them to be a blessing to the world, to join his redemptive mission, to share his light, to share his goodness with the foreign nations around them. If you've read the Old Testament you know that they sometimes do this, but often they fail pretty miserably. And so eventually in the New Testament, god sends Jesus, god takes on human form in Jesus and he sort of embodies like the climax of this redemptive mission. Jesus lives a perfect life. He defeats the powers of sin and death and he completes what really began with the Israelites but they couldn't complete.
Katie:And then, throughout the rest of the New Testament, we see the early church begin to join this redemptive mission. They get their direction and guidance from the apostles who walked with Jesus and lived with Jesus, and they are taught how to live in the way of Jesus and in doing so, to join God in redeeming and restoring and renewing all that is not as it should be. And at the end of scripture we see, like in Revelation we see, god's mission will ultimately find its completion when creation is restored back to that perfect state. Like at the end of scripture, we see something that looks very similar to the beginning of scripture. We see a recreated Eden in a sense at least that's how I view it where we all will get to live as these redeemed, whole people who are no longer scarred by death and brokenness and suffering. But our mission, I think, until that point is to join God in bringing creation back to that point.
Mac:Yeah, and you used a word that is actually used throughout scripture to highlight God's mission and activity, and that is the word sent. So the Christian understanding of God is a reciprocal relationship of movement and sentness. So God exists in reciprocal relationship. This is what is known as the social trinity. Right, the Father loves the Son and the Spirit. The Son loves the father and spirit, the spirit loves the father and son, right. So there's this is what we mean by the Trinity, and that's the social Trinity, and there's a perfect loving union that defines that relationship between the father, son and spirit and that love ends up overflowing, bubbling up and overflowing. That manifests outward in love-filled sentness toward the world. I mean this is you go to a football game or whatever, and you're probably gonna see some Christian near the end zone holding up a John 3, 16 sign right, like for God to love the world that he sent or gave his one and only son. There it is Like God is moving towards the world that he sent or gave his one and only son. There it is Like God is moving towards the world and love filled, sentness and generosity. And this is one way to read the scriptures the father sends his son, right. Jesus, the father and son, then send the spirit. Remember, jesus says to his disciples like he breathes on them and says receive the Holy Spirit. And then the triune God sends the church into the world. The Father, son and Holy Spirit send us, the church, to be part of the work in the world. So when we talk about mission or the phrase missional, that's sort of what scripture has to say about it, and I think what we're doing in this series that's really important is to go. And these are glasses, these are frameworks that Jesus had. Jesus was wearing these missional lenses throughout his life and ministry. So try this on listeners, just think about this.
Mac:Notice that when you read the gospels, jesus saw himself as sent by the Father. You read the gospels Jesus saw himself as sent by the father. In John 8, 42, he says I have not come on my own. God sent me. In John 6, he says, for I've come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me. Remember, sent is connected to God's mission. So Jesus sees himself as sent by the father. Not only that, but Jesus doesn't do anything apart from the Father or dependency on the Holy Spirit. So, again, when we think about God being the primary actor or agent, jesus very much felt like his role was to participate in what God was doing.
Mac:In John 5, 19, he says very truly I tell you, the son can do nothing by himself. He can only do what he sees his father doing, because whatever the father does, the son does also. And then in John 7, he says I'm not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true, you do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me Right. And then I already emphasized this. But Jesus not only saw himself sent by the father, but he thought that the father and son would be sending the Holy Spirit, and then the triune, god sends the church.
Mac:So in John 20, 21 and 22, jesus is with his disciples and he says peace, be with you, as the father has sent me, I'm sending you. And with that he breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit. And then in Acts 1.8, he says hey, disciples, you stay here in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses here in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Do you guys see these themes Like? What we're doing in this series is we're saying these are the mental models Jesus had when it came to multiplying and making disciples. And I want to name this seems to be a really primary one that he's on mission and he's joining God's mission in the world with faithfulness and dependency on the Holy Spirit, in a spirit filled way right. It seems to be a primary lens that guided him and directed him throughout his life and ministry.
Katie:Yet I like anchoring that concept of sentness in the idea that we are joining the work that God is already doing. I think there could be a tendency, depending on your faith background, to hear what you're saying of like, okay, well, I have to be sent, as this idea that well, God has given me my marching orders and now I have to go out and do big things in the world for God. But when we anchor that and saying, no, God is already on mission, he's already at work in the world, then we're sent in a way that joins what he's already doing.
Mac:You're describing perfectly something I had to undo after grad school, because when I was in grad school, we had to take a class on evangelism. It was just part of the core curriculum and that was very much the way it was presented to me, like here's the Great Commission. If you guys don't know, the Great Commission it's all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples Go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them, et cetera. And the way it was presented to me in the class was very much. Jesus gave us our marching orders. We're to make disciples and that involves sharing our faith. That's why this is an evangelism class. Now we just need to take that seriously, get out and do it and, honestly, our assignments throughout that class was to go out and share our faith with people, whether they were ready to receive it or not, and report back what happened as we did. That's not altogether bad. I appreciated the desire to be faithful to Scripture, the desire to see people come to faith. There's a lot I would affirm about the class and the heartbeat behind it. Affirm about the class and the heartbeat behind it, but the fundamental thing that you're naming, katie, that I think I had to undo and figure out a new way of relating and being is that it very much felt like, oh, it's now on me to make disciples, it's my job. Everything that I need to do has already been told to me and it really just depends on me getting serious about it.
Mac:To me, and it really just depends on me getting serious about it, and a big part of my relearning how to do evangelism and pretty much every other part of church life goes back to this principle, this core conviction that God's presence precedes my participation. What does it look like to go? No, god didn't give me marching orders and then tell me to get to work and do things for him and then come back and present the results? What does it look like to go? No, no, no, god's already present in this other person's life before I even open up my mouth and say anything. God's presence precedes my participation. And so now, all of a sudden, every single person I talk to, the question shifts from what do I need to do to get them to open up to the gospel or whatever Notice, the agency piece. So you go. What is it that God's already doing in this person's life, and where is God inviting me to be a part of it?
Mac:That's totally different, totally different.
Josiah:You know, yeah, yeah, the knowledge of missional theology and this, all the stuff we're talking about has led us as a church and the way we do things, to have some core convictions around this and sort of like multiple catchy phrases that we use within language to sort of get at this. And one is just that the church doesn't have a mission, but rather God's mission has a church. So we don't go out and do the thing for God. Essentially, god's mission existed before and it's our job then as a church to join in that mission. But it's not the other way around. We do things with God and not for God, which we've already gone over a bit.
Josiah:Um, it starts with God. God moves first. Before we do, before we do anything, god is already active. Um, in anything that we could join, god is always present and at work. So there's never a moment where God is not active in the people in our lives and the people's lives around us. God acts before we arrive, so we don't bring God with us when we enter into a new situation, but God is already there and God is the first mover. We are essentially responders. Mover, we are essentially responders. So, yeah, there's just a few of those convictions that have sort of formed shared language we have Anytime we're in like a discipleship context or like in a preaching context. Even for you guys there's lots of ways to say it.
Mac:Yeah, let me give you an example of and here's experiential evidence that this is true. Okay, so this was a few weeks ago. I preached on forgiveness. It was a Sunday that I preached, and I preached on the topic of forgiveness and later on that afternoon, sunday afternoon, I ran into someone who was at our service church service. They were actually visiting that day and this person told me that she woke up in the middle of the night, in the middle of the night, and very much felt God bringing someone to mind who she hadn't forgiven, and that was like for her, the entire point of it. She very much narrated it that like God woke me up and brought this person that I'd failed to give forgive to mind, and then she shows up to church as a visitor and the entire sermon was about forgiveness and the challenge to forgive and why and how and so on.
Mac:Okay, so I'm listening to that going. Okay, that's a confirmation of this type. But like God was already at work in her before she ever arrived at church, preparing her for the work he was going to do during the service, and now is continuing to work in her after the service. You get what I'm saying. I'm not the primary actor, agent God was at work before, during and after I was ever involved.
Katie:Right, it's not like she woke up and called you and said hey, you should preach on forgiveness today because of that thing. Rather, God was orchestrating both of it in his providence.
Mac:It was like for me, clear evidence like God's ahead, god's already doing something and inviting me to participate in it. And this actually I was. You know, by the time you listen to this it'll be a couple of weeks later because we have some space. But we just got done with the 4th of July and my brother-in-law was in town and we were talking about church stuff and they go to a bigger church in the Twin Cities and I really appreciate this about my brother-in-law because he just has a kind of an allergic reaction to performative church where, like, the people on stage are performing, because it feels like I don't know, a little inauthentic or whatever. And so we just had a conversation around that and he was naming. That's why I think later on in life I'd really like to go to a liturgical like a high liturgy service, go back. He grew up Catholic, maybe go back to Catholicism or something that's not. I think later on in life I'd really like to go to a liturgical like a high liturgy service, go back. He grew up Catholic, maybe go back to Catholicism or something that's not as performative.
Mac:And I just kind of said, hey, man, what if we got out of that pendulum swing altogether like at Crosspoint. We try to avoid these performative moments. We're wanting to be authentic and real from the stage. We're not showing up to perform for consumers. But I also know a lot of people that go to liturgical, like higher liturgical environments and they're just kind of going through the motions. Their hearts aren't involved. What if our primary way of showing up on the weekends at a Sunday service wasn't performing or going through the motions, but attending to what God is doing in the moment? That's very different. That's very different than either me as someone on stage trying to act on you in some preconceived way you know what I mean or kind of reverting back to like something we already know how to do. What I'm saying is maybe what we're trying to do as we gather together is to attend to the gods who is alive and at work among us.
Josiah:Yeah, and also in that example you're using very much discredits or, I guess, places less of an emphasis on the place of strategy within church ministry. Like strategy is important but To think that if I have the correct liturgy, that's like perfectly going to connect with people, or if I am more performative and like making a bigger showy thing, either one has less emphasis than actually joining God's work on endearing the Sunday morning experience experience. So so, rather than the the emphasis being is it doesn't need to be more liturgical or does it need to be more big and performative? It's like, well, that's less important than than the way that you engage in.
Mac:Yeah. So if you are listening to this and you're part of our church community, try this lens on when you show up on Sunday, rather than thinking hey, did Josiah do a good job leading worship today? Were the songs what I liked? Did the announcement sound polished and did the person who gave them look cool? How was the sermon? What would I rate that?
Mac:Whatever way you're evaluating it, perhaps a different way to show up on Sunday is God is at work in this space today. Am I attuned to that? Am I paying attention to that and am I joining it? What is God wanting to do in my life? What is he doing in the life of our community? What is he doing in my interactions with other people?
Mac:There's a God focus that drives our participation, rather than a consumer focus that drives our consumption. So, you guys, mission starts with God. If you're tracking, god is a God of mission. The mission, first and foremost, belongs to God, not to us. We do get to play a role, and it's an important one, but in order for us to do so, we first need to discern what it is God is doing in us, through us and around us, and then faithfully join it. And once you get this.
Mac:You'll notice, as I have, that not everyone who uses the word missional it's still sort of a buzzword is using it correctly, and I'll just tell you there's more often than not, it's probably being misused. So let's jump into maybe some common ways that this word is misunderstood or is being misused, and I'll just throw out the first one. So, if you're hearing us, missional is not a label for churches that are externally focused. I once watched a video on YouTube, you guys, that was explaining what the word missional was. This is when I was confused and like hearing this word everywhere. So I was like, oh, youtube it, I'll figure out what it means. And the entire video focused on churches who, instead of just focusing on themselves.
Mac:Entire video focused on churches who, instead of just focusing on themselves, like focus outward, on the community and the world around them. Okay, and I want to say being externally focused isn't bad. Right, god is at work everywhere. Later on this afternoon we'll be out in our community doing moonlit movies and participating, and it is a healthy corrective for churches that are just inwardly focused, focused on themselves. But the problem is you can shift to an external focus but not have your view of God or God's agency change. You can shift toward being externally focused but still have yourself as the primary actor or agent of kingdom advancement, as if I'm gonna to go, we're going to focus externally and now I'm the primary agent of acting externally, rather than assuming God is already doing something out in the community.
Katie:I don't even know what it is and I don't yet know how God might be inviting me or us to participate in that faithfully Does that make sense, yeah, yeah, like the idea that missional is primarily just about looking and doing things out in the community could very easily turn into us creating our own mission.
Katie:Yes, like we are on mission and we're defining what that is, and it certainly could be a quote-unquote like spiritual mission or something that looks good on some level, but that's different than saying what is God up to both inside and outside our walls.
Josiah:Yeah, and also discredits what God could be doing inside the walls as well, because God's mission is still active on Sunday morning just as much as it is out in the community when we're joining it.
Mac:Yeah, the fundamental problem, if we were to name it in a word, is agency. You're still confusing agency. You're still assuming that you are the most important agent, when you're not. What else would you say?
Katie:Yeah, another one, and this is somewhat related to what you were just saying, mac. But I would say missional is not a label for churches that are just simply effective at evangelism. So you kind of touched on this already. But just because a church might be good at evangelism doesn't mean it's living missionally. I think evangelism, or sharing the gospel, is certainly part of God's mission, but being missional is about joining God in the renewal of all things, not just converting people. Yes, if we are joining God's mission in the world, hopefully we are sharing the good news and inviting people to follow Jesus. But I think a missional church sees the gospel not only as a message to be shared but as a way of life to be embodied, and that's in how we love our neighbors, how we care for creation, how we work for justice in the world, how we reflect God's character in every sphere of life. So maybe one way to say it is like evangelism is one thread in kind of a bigger story.
Mac:Yeah, and this is a big one even for our own denomination. I mean, if you walked in on the weekends you might not know that we're part of a denomination, but we belong to the Christian Missionary Alliance, which is a tried and true Great Commission theology denomination. Like we've always placed a great emphasis on sharing our faith and being faithful to the Great Commission. Now, to the credit of the CMA, I see the shift I was narrating before they've made. They're engaging the Great Commission within a missional framework, which is great. But I could see how it would be confusing for people who maybe aren't familiar with what we're talking about to think oh yeah, it's my job to bring the Great Commission to completion instead of seeing it as God's going to bring it to completion and I get to play a role or a part in this little sliver of time in this corner of the world, right?
Josiah:Yeah, another one I would name which is similar.
Josiah:Missional is not just a label to describe churches that emphasize missions, and it's important to recognize that, because those of us who aren't in the quote-unquote mission field, as it would be stated, can see the work that's happening there as different than what's happening here.
Josiah:What's happening here and it assumes that God is God sort of like isn't in those places until we send missionaries to go send God there. Yes, and that's a really important distinction, and I would even name that if you talk to missionaries who are passionate and who are living, living the quote unquote, like, like a, like a missionary life somewhere, they would be the first one if they're doing it well, like, if you would talk to them, they're going to be the first one to tell you that, no, god's already at work here. My job as a missionary is to, like, learn what they're doing, figure out which ways God is already at work and then try to emphasize that and join in that. So the word missional is referring to God's state of relating to the world, not just our attempts to save it. In that way, I think that's great.
Mac:Another one I would say and this feels like an important one is that missional is not another label for church growth or church effectiveness. There's this word. It's a big word, ecclesiocentrism, but it basically captures this idea that the church is always focused on the church.
Katie:Okay, Kind of navel gazing.
Mac:Yeah, Well, yes, but also kind of like how would I say it? The church is obsessed with being successful and strategic. Every single day, you guys, I receive emails from different groups or consultants saying, hey, here's 10 ways you can improve this or that, or like it's like-.
Katie:Increase your numbers by next Sunday. All of it, all of it, all of it, and so it's like by next Sunday.
Mac:Yeah, by next Sunday. So we're just like obsessed with strategy that's going to make us successful, and one of the ways I think this missional conversation has been co-opted is we've essentially reduced missional to a strategy for church effectiveness, like this is the trendy thing to do and, honestly, it just reflects our narcissistic tendency to keep the church at the center rather than God, god's agency and mission. It's just, once again, we're co-opting something that's bigger than us and making it all about us, and so it seems to me that, over time, missional has been completely identified with the church and, in a way that sort of actually distracts us from the main thing it's about, which is what is God doing in the world? It's not a trendy tool, it's not a strategy to make the church more awesome. It's a conviction about who God is and what God's doing in the world and our role in it.
Katie:Yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah, maybe a final one to offer is that missional is not a label for just reaching people who have no interest in the church. I could see missional kind of being used as a code word for reaching those who are skeptical or de-churched. But being missional isn't just about targeting people who are kind of on the margins of faith. It's again aligning our whole life with God's ongoing work in the world. So, as we said earlier, a missional posture means we assume God is already at work in everyone's life, and that's regardless of whether they're in the church or outside the church or even hostile to the church. Being missional isn't about creating interest in the church. It's about cultivating interest in whatever God is already doing.
Mac:Yeah, I like the way you said that it's not about creating interest in the church, it's about fostering faithfulness to God's mission.
Katie:Mm-hmm.
Mac:And that strikes me as intriguing.
Katie:Yeah.
Mac:Okay, this is where we're going to get turn a corner. Let's turn a corner here and just get a little bit practical, because I think that this conviction that it belongs to God and that we get to participate in it, and that God's always present and his presence always precedes our activity, has tons of implications and this opens up a whole new way of living and being.
Josiah:Yeah, yeah, oh, sorry yeah.
Mac:So I'm just to set it up. What are some implications of missional theology as it pertains to our everyday lives?
Josiah:Yeah Well, first one I would name is that all of life is spiritual formation. We often like to see the world and church as this sort of sacred and secular divide, like when I go into church, like that's God's spot, and then I go into the world and that's kind of the world spot, and we really like to compartmentalize our life into little areas that are God's and which ones are ours and which ones are like the enemies or the worlds. And I think that this conviction that God's presence precedes our participation and that he's always present and at work tells us that there is no divide, there is no place where God is not currently infiltrating and doing activity to further his mission. So if we're believing that, then every single part of our life is full of possibility. Daily life is full of kingdom possibility.
Josiah:And then we learn to do the work of waking up to God's presence. We're not just asking him to show up on our behalf it's not about getting God to do things for us but we just become more present to the thing God is already doing. And that can happen in daily life, that can happen in, you know, in any context. I have one example as a worship leader. It can be tempting, especially in a more, you know, in like a more charismatic context or something like that, where we're doing worship in a certain way is to assume that God's presence is going to show up at some point during the service and like we're trying to like coax God out of like some sort of I don't know sleep of some sort.
Katie:Hit the right note, the right song. Yeah, if we get the right song when you hit that C sharp bam, right and then.
Josiah:but we? It has some bad implications when we start viewing it wrong. One is that we start equating God's presence to our emotions and our, like, physiological experiences.
Mac:I got tingles in my hands, yeah.
Josiah:I felt goosebumps because I felt like those are Holy.
Josiah:Spirit goosebumps because, I feel God's presence Now. Does that discredit? No, maybe you are sensing God's presence, but it's important. And even in leading worship this has helped me to not get as discouraged when things aren't as a feely, and you know, revival isn't breaking out. Quote, unquote. Right, it's just to know that we acknowledge God's presence before we even start singing. We know you're here and I try to do that as often as I can with our people. When there's time to stop, hey, let's just stop and pray and take a second, acknowledge that the Holy Spirit's here, and we can do that before we ever sing. Our job here is just to attend to. Hey, God, what are you doing? I'm not waiting for God's presence to show up. We can acknowledge it's here before we start and if we get to feel it in our bodies, great, and sometimes we don't.
Mac:I think we need to reclaim like a theology of the ordinary because, as you're naming, josiah, I think many of us live compartmentalized lives. I mean, I'm a pastor and I still can do that where it's like. Here are the spaces where I'm really focused on Jesus and connecting with Jesus. Oh, and then I have to go about my everyday life right, and I just imagine someone who's maybe working a normal job throughout the week or you know that propensity is that much higher to just sort of reduce the spiritual formation or the spiritual part of my life to Sunday mornings and maybe my quiet times a few times a week, and this conviction that God's presence always precedes our participation and God is always present at work allows us to be present to God all the time, such that God is present at work in your workplace.
Mac:God is present at work when you're sitting around the table with your kids at dinner or cleaning the kitchen or you know what I mean or walking through your neighborhood or working out at the gym.
Katie:Cleaning toilets.
Mac:Sure, Well, I mean some of the greatest voices that have been influential. Like Brother Lawrence wrote a book called Practicing the Presence of God. It's sort of this famous book. He washed dishes and peeled potatoes, but he made it his goal to talk with God or be present to God all the time, and his words still inspire people to live out this life in a constant state of awareness of God's presence and love Beautiful.
Katie:Yeah, a couple of years ago I read a book, liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren, and she makes that exact point. She talks about the most mundane tasks. I think she specifically brings up cleaning toilets but like brushing our teeth, changing diaper, like whatever it is, and how those can be, all be not only can but really are opportunities for God to meet us. So I love that.
Mac:Yeah, and I also just love the recognition that, as we talked about with a Sunday service, for example, that that is a missional space. This is a space that God's at work and it's just as missional as serving at the soup kitchen on Thursday night. They're both places where God is at work and we're being invited to wake up to that and to join it.
Josiah:Yeah, I feel very strongly and I will name that it was. That shift was very helpful for me as well. It's easy to equate God's activity to something that I can tangibly feel in a moment, especially doing something that's really emotive, like singing and in worship, but it has a way of rebalancing the sacred-secular divide or the amount of weight we actually put to it. So I'm going to lower like I'm not going to expect that God can do more on Sunday morning than he could as I'm washing dishes with my family. What if I just put the same emphasis that at any given moment in my life God is present? He is at work in my life and in the lives around me and at any given point that I want that I choose to be present to that. It's full of possibility, which it could be on Sunday morning when we sing, and those are really beautiful times that I covet, all the experiences we can have in those. But I also know that it can also happen just as powerfully in any moment throughout the day.
Mac:And so this might be provocative. I've said it from the stage a few different times, but I would actually try to insist that the primary place of mission isn't here on Sundays, but is actually in your everyday life. Why? Because that's where you're spending the most amount of time.
Mac:People have done the math on it. If you were to attend church every single Sunday without missing a Sunday and, let's face it, most of you miss a lot okay, but if you were to never miss a Sunday from the age 25 to 65, you'd log about 3,000 hours in the pew. If you were to calculate the same amount of time working a full-time job for the length of your career 25 to 65, it's 93,000 hours. That's a difference of 90,000 hours. So you ask the question where's the primary place of God's mission and formation in your life? Well, sunday can play a big role in that, but most of your time is actually spent somewhere else, and if that's not a place where you're awake to and present to God's activity, well that's going to really have a limiting impact on your formation as a human being.
Katie:Yeah, yeah, that's good. So, yeah, we're talking about the implications of missional discipleship, right, and Josiah, what you're naming is that when we believe, god is always on mission. We see all of life as spiritual formation. I think that's great.
Katie:That's been something that I've been learning more so in my later adult years as well, yours as well, maybe another one I would name is that this missional mindset helps to put our focus and our trust in the right place. I think it can be really common to put our trust in human leaders to no surprise, whether it's like leaders of our church, leaders of our governments, whatever. But living with this missional mindset means that we acknowledge God is the one who's leading us. So, again, I think our natural default is to want to make decisions by doing what we think is best, like we set a goal and then we strategize the best way to get there. We ask the question okay, well, what do we have to do to get where we want to go? But I think living missionally means we actually ask a different question first.
Katie:Living missionally means we learn to ask what we call, on staff, god questions rather than church questions, and here's what I mean by that. I'd say God questions are questions that help us discern God's activity, like what is God doing here? What do we sense God is up to? And we ask those questions before we ask okay, well, what do we want to do? How do we get there? What strategy do we want to create? So missional theology kind of re-centers our focus on God's activity in the world and it reminds us that the mission ultimately belongs to God, not to us, not to human leaders or strategies. It shifts our attention from what we're doing to what God is doing, and then inviting us to join in.
Mac:I also want to add to what you're saying, Katie, that I think it elevates the role of average quote unquote ordinary people. Okay, Because in a traditional, maybe framework, when it comes to church leadership or clergy, we have a very clergy centric understanding of how we operate. In other words, it's very top-down leadership where the leaders are presumed to be the experts right, and within that, I think, ordinary people, ordinary churchgoers, often assume that they don't have the capacities or the training to discern what God might be doing. But the irony of all of this is, if we build on the first thing we were talking about, which is like, hey, God is present everywhere and your primary place of being formed by him and joining things with him is in your everyday life, not necessarily on Sunday morning, and God is at work outside the walls of our church in ways we don't yet know about but might be invited to join in. Well then, that means that average, ordinary people are actually closer to the future of the church, like what God wants the church to be doing, than I am sitting in a podcast studio on church property.
Mac:You know what I mean. Yeah, Like to me, there's this incredible elevation to go man. The most significant pastors in our church aren't on staff. They're working out in our community doing their everyday jobs, and if you're able to discern what it is that God's doing in our community and where he's inviting you and others to join in, well, that becomes like well vision casting for the rest of us to go. Yes, let's get behind this you know what I mean.
Josiah:Yeah, and church leadership then takes the place of equipping the saints, right, so, like that's not that takes that flips the importance level right. There's, there's a healthy humility that if you're on a church staff or you're part of church leadership in some way, that my job is like I'm equipping why? So that? To like empower them that they have access to God all the time and they have just as much stake in the game as we do.
Mac:Yeah, and that leads to the third big implication You're trending on it, josiah which is our way of doing church completely has to shift right, and there are a number of shifts that I think happen on the leadership side. Again, from like performing to equipping, which is what you're narrating. Many pastors, I think, are just trapped in this performative model of leadership where every Sunday it's their job to perform for crowds who then rate how well they did so. They produce good sermons for people to consume, and this is very different than creating spaces on Sunday morning for people to attend to what the Spirit of God is doing and then creating spaces to equip people to say yes to it and join God's work in the world.
Mac:I think that another way we need to shift doing churches for leaders on the leadership side is managing outcomes to simply following God's leading. I think many pastors feel this incredible weight to be the one casting vision to manage outcomes and ensure success, and leaders often assume control that they don't have over the agenda and the steps to bring it to completion. But Paul embodies a totally different kind of leadership in Acts, where he's like following God's spirit and the door shuts over there and then he's over here, like you don't see a guy who has like the vision and all the agenda and is sort of like command and control. There's a sense in which he's just trying to follow God's leading and be faithful to it.
Katie:He's not operating according to a five-year plan.
Mac:Right, maybe even a five-minute plan. And then, of course, there's some shifts that we've invited all of you to make on the sort of membership regular attendee side which is the big one is just from consuming to participating, right, rather than showing up as consumers, showing up as people ready to participate and join what the spirit of God is doing among us. Yeah, yeah, our way of doing church needs to shift to match this conviction that God's presence precedes our participation, and we're invited to perceive what that is and then join it.
Katie:We might say that mission isn't like an optional add on to church life. It actually becomes like the whole point of the church's existence.
Josiah:Yep, yeah, yeah, I, I think one more, one more thing to say about the how the um sort of spiritual hierarchy shifts and it like flips. When we understand it this way, is, um, there's actually, there's actually a distinct advantage that someone who doesn't work for a church or like involved in that way has in participating in God's activity in the world. There's like a like and I know you guys are, you're alluding to that already there's like a distinct advantage that you're actually out there and there's no access that someone who works for a church or you know have. You, as people have called you a professional Christian.
Mac:Oh yeah, I mean.
Josiah:Like there's no advantage we hold. In fact, the advantage is really in the person's court. Who doesn't have to do this kind of stuff. Like you have to live daily life with Jesus, accessing God's presence just as much as we have and being able to have eyes to see and living in the world in a way that sees the work that God's doing around you. I just think there's actually an advantage to that 100%.
Mac:There are even conversational advantages. As you talk to coworkers, my hunch is that they're more likely to open up to you and be real in ways that they won't be with me. People get weird when they find out I'm a pastor Do you guys experience that too.
Katie:Oh yeah, it was a shift when I went from working in just secular, whatever world to all of a sudden like oh, where do you work? Oh, a church.
Josiah:Oh, I try to wait as long as possible to interject that into a conversation and then pretty soon what Everyone starts apologizing for swearing.
Mac:Oh, I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's always this notable shift when, like, they're acting themselves and they find out what you do and it changes dramatically. Yeah.
Katie:I guess I did experience a little bit of that working in politics, but for different reasons. Yeah, probably I'm good at having to hide what I actually do.
Mac:What other implications would you guys?
Josiah:name. Yeah, another one I would name is that the measurements and the metrics we need to focus on is faithfulness, so faithfulness becomes the measure of success.
Josiah:We aren't responsible for the results. Our job is simply to be faithful and then we can entrust those outcomes to God, which we've already been talking about, and I think what this does is it takes the pressure off in a really healthy way. It can be really stressful for one being responsible for something that's really outside of our control. So we believe that, like the mission of God is is his primarily and we're participating in it, if we start to try to control something or take responsibility for the results of something that really aren't ours, it adds a stress and anxiety to what it looks like to follow Jesus. But on the other side is it can also be really deceitful to take credit for something that we can't control or produce on our own, and I think that's really important.
Josiah:I've referenced this maybe before, but the passage in John 10 where, like the vine and the branches passage, he's saying like the, you know I am the vine, you are the branches, the father's. Like this vine dresser, like the vineyard owner, and you know he talks about if you bear fruit, then you know, prune you and you'll bear more fruit. If you don't, you'll be cut off, all these things. But the point of all of this is that I think that having this lens caused me to reread that passage with a very important distinction, and that's just asking who is responsible to bear fruit in our lives. In that passage, jesus is naming. The primary responsibility lies on the vinedresser, which is the Father. So we have one main job, which is just to abide. We abide in Him, and faithfulness doesn't become a measurement of how many things we get to do for God. It's essentially just abiding and letting God bear fruit in our lives, and we're not instead of striving and then presenting God with our own accomplishments.
Mac:I think what you just narrated is really insightful, that when our metrics shift to faithfulness. I heard you say two things. One is we don't take responsibility for things we're not responsible for, and with that comes some relief of anxiety. You know, I think back to when I did evangelism within the Great Commission theology framework, where I wasn't appropriately attuned to hey, god's already present at work in this person's life. I felt so much responsibility and anxiety around trying to get people to do and say certain things in order to fulfill what I thought I was responsible for.
Katie:And then, if they don't, you feel like a failure?
Mac:Yes, and then on the flip side, I also heard you narrate and then we can end up taking credit for something that doesn't belong to us. Same thing If someone comes to faith. Oh, I saved that person.
Josiah:No, you didn't. It's like a notch in your belt Right.
Mac:Despite the fact that in that same passage, jesus says thing. So I just think what you said was really insightful and I want to highlight it that when we, when our metric is something other than faithfulness, we tend to experience we take responsibility for something that we're not responsible for and experience anxiety around that, or we take credit for successes that don't really belong to us, and both of those are dysfunctional within a missional framework.
Katie:Yeah, I jotted down something from a book that I think resonates with what you're saying. It's a book by a pastor named Pete Hughes. It's called All Things New and, honestly, the whole purpose of the whole idea of the book is just this like God is always on mission to redeem and restore, and so he has a very similar conversation to the conversation we're having here, conversation to the conversation we're having here. But one thing he said is that the pressure isn't on us, like the result of this missional idea is that the pressure isn't on us to produce transformation, it's on us just to be present, to be faithful and to be available for the Spirit's work. And he also says that God's mission moves at the pace of love and faithfulness.
Mac:I like that. Will you say that again?
Katie:The pressure isn't on us to produce transformation and it's on us to be present. I like that. Will you say that again? God's mission moves at the pace of love and faithfulness, and we want shortcuts, don't we?
Mac:Yeah, the last implication, and this one's tough, I mean, but it's true, we have a role to play, but it's not the heroic or central one. I have shared this before. I had a mentor. I can't remember who it was, but they said something to me that stuck with me. They said hey, when you're done leading at your church, whenever that will happen to be there'll be a few basic responses. Some people will be sad because you invested in them and you did life together. It'll be sad that you're going to be done. Others will be happy Thank goodness that guy's out of here. He's way too intense. Way too intense, I was just going to say. But then the vast majority of people will say who's next? And they'll just kind of move on. Who's next? And the whole idea is you're replaceable. Yeah, you know what I mean You're replaceable.
Mac:I received an email from our denomination yesterday and here's what it said. It said 100 years from now, nobody will even know that you existed. This is perhaps the greatest ouch of human misery. The desire to leave a legacy is a natural thing. They're just something that resides in the inner depth of every person that can't handle the idea of dying and being forgotten. We're not created to be forgotten and we know that. And our depravity saddles the horse and rides it into crazy places. And, like it's true, though I can't remember my great-great-great-grandfather's name, I'm sure he was a really big deal. I mean, I bet he was the biggest deal, but I don't remember. I couldn't tell you his name right now, four or five generations back.
Mac:And the scripture speaks to this reality that like, hey, you're here today and you're gone tomorrow. And I just think there's some freedom in that that I don't have to be a big deal, I don't have to be spectacular, I don't have to live this narcissistic, egocentric life where I have a big impact for the kingdom of God in order to feel like I mattered or made a difference. And I think that's actually right because it puts the order of priority in proper place. You know, I think of John the Baptist, who looked at Jesus and Jesus is literally taking some of his disciples John's disciples are now following Jesus and he says, hey, he must increase, I must decrease. I think that this missional theology rightly frames our role and responsibility in a way that takes the pressure off having to live a big life and simply live a life of love and faithfulness that advances or participates in God's mission.
Katie:Yeah, it frees us, it's freeing.
Mac:Yeah, because most of the scandals you guys that we're seeing come out, whether it's in politics or the church world, it's really no different. It's someone who couldn't handle the size of their life and had to be bigger and better than they actually were, create narcissistic sort of patterns of behaving and relating that ultimately exploited other people and were abusive and toxic. And all of that goes away when we just get right-sized, human-sized. We have to live human-sized lives and the human-sized life is I have a role to play and maybe certain things don't happen if I'm not faithful to it, but it's not all hanging on me and I'm not the primary actor on the stage. That's Jesus. And I'm not the primary actor on the stage, that's Jesus, and my job is to point to him.
Josiah:Yeah, and it's a challenge to everyone, to the over-functioner and the under-functioner yeah, you know what I mean. There's the person who you're going to be predisposed to wanting to take more credit and work harder and make it all happen yourself. Well, for that person, it's a challenge to say, no, you're just one blip and that's okay. Yeah, right.
Josiah:To the person who says nothing matters, it's also a challenge for them to say, no, it does matter, it does matter it's actually really exciting that we get to daily participate in the mission of God Like that should awaken us to want to work hard, but it's a challenge to people who are prone to both.
Mac:Yeah, you're not a big deal and yet you matter. I mean, let's face it, we're mediocre pastors in a small town of Oconomowoc, like okay, and God's doing some stuff here that God invites us to be a part of, and that's exciting yeah.
Josiah:You know, yeah, it is.
Mac:All right. Well, we've talked a lot, let's get into some practices. I mean, obviously this is sort of an abstract. Well, hold on, it's good.
Katie:Practice podcast.
Mac:There we go.
Katie:Practice podcast, practice podcast. It's enough time of hearing my obnoxious thoughts.
Mac:It's time to get into some practices. What in the world do you do with this conviction? If you have this conviction that, yes, God's presence precedes my participation, what in the world do you do to actually practice this conviction in your everyday life?
Josiah:You know, I'm noticing a theme, the peas. No.
Katie:I was going to say how do we practice that God's presence precedes our participation?
Josiah:Oh man, I can't do that. No, I'm noticing that. Number one I always get the first practice and number two it's kind of the same one every single time.
Katie:Is it A journal?
Josiah:It's just provoke awareness. Yeah, it's just awareness. It's just waking up to what's going on and using this to try to identify what's actually going on. So practice one keep a God moments journal Journal down the ways that you sense God doing something. It could be very small, it could be very big, but the goal is to just get present to what God is already doing in your life.
Josiah:You're not manufacturing something different, you're not trying to add anything new, you're simply just stating okay, if the conviction is that God is going ahead of me and he's doing everything and my job is just to wake up to it, then I'm going to try to just do the work and say, okay, god, I'm assuming that's true, so I'm going to jot it down when I notice it. And it can start really simple. It can get more complex if you want it to, but essentially you're just going to create some space to reflect on what you sense God is doing in your life and how you are participating, or maybe where you didn't participate, but just keeping a journal to track those moments.
Katie:And I want to highlight the word you said what you sense God is doing right. This is a practice we encourage people to do in our leadership intensives and a lot of people tend to respond by like I don't know, how do I know if that's God or how do I know if that's me? And my encouragement is always just like well, just start. You don't have to get it perfectly, but just kind of use that. We call it like divine detective lenses and you don't have to have it nailed, but if you think God might be doing something, write it down.
Josiah:This is just an increasing awareness. I think that's a great one. Yeah, I, I. It's a part of my um, like a daily prayer I have written out for myself is just to I just ask God to give me eyes, eyes to see and ears to hear where you, what you are doing in and around my life. Love that, that's it.
Mac:Yep, and we've got a tool on our website under resources, called the Prayer of Examine, and that's essentially what it's all about is just reviewing your day in God's presence to notice when you were participating or missed an opportunity, or whatever it is. So lots of ways you can do this. But, yeah, it's about becoming a divine detective and we're encouraging you to write those moments down. Begin to collect them.
Katie:Yeah, yeah.
Katie:Another one I would offer would be ask questions to attend to God's activity in the life of someone you love or people you love around you, and the focus of this practice would be, you know, looking at people in our lives that we care about and getting present to the work that God is already doing there.
Katie:So if you look at the people you're closest to your spouse, your kids, your roommate, your close friends I'm describing a shift from assuming to attending, instead of giving advice or correcting or fixing kind of obsessing over giving people solutions of how to fix all their problems. Try asking open and reflective questions, such what's been stirring in you lately, what's been weighing on you, where have you felt most alive this week? And then just listen, and through this process I think of listening we are reminded that God is already present at work in the life of everyone around us, not only just as a result of our influence or what we might have to bring, but God's out ahead of us in their lives, and just asking questions and listening can help us slow down and pay attention and then discern where God is moving so that we can join that work.
Mac:Yeah, it's so fun to fix, though, isn't it To jump in with our solutions?
Katie:I mean, I have really good ideas If they just listen. Yeah, if they just listen to my brilliant idea.
Mac:Their life would get better. So quick, I mean goodness.
Josiah:This is really transformative now that I'm starting to parent teenagers and I don't always do perfect at it, but kids are going through stuff and like, how do I parent them? What if this is the lens we use? It's just God is at work in my teenager and stirring stuff inside them. And what if my job as a parent is less to tell them what to do, which, of course, is a part of it, but what if it's way less important than just simply attending to that work? Hey, I've noticed blank. What do you think about that? Like ask them, you know, and anyway, it's been very helpful.
Mac:Yeah, it is a completely different way of being present to the people around us. Because I do think there's at least for me there's this default to fix, to jump in with my ideas, unsolicited advice, you know, and so on, and to go hey, maybe my role is just to faithfully cooperate with what God's doing in their life and I may not know what that is until I get proximate to it changes the way we relate. So with these practices, you'll notice, the first one is focused on yourself. I started God moments journal. Become a divine detective.
Mac:Second one is then to focus on the people in your life. You know what has God doing in their life. And then the third one is to look at the world around you. What is God doing in your neighborhood? So the practice this week is just to go on a prayer walk. Less about you walking around your neighborhood, sort of claiming it for Jesus, but rather walking around your neighborhood, simply listening and paying attention. Where is God already at work in the life of the people who live in your neighborhood? What is God doing? And it might start with just noticing patterns. Where are people congregating? When are people engaged? Who knows each other? What are their stories? Do I know who they are, but going through your neighborhood with this idea that God is already present and active and at work. And my job, instead of doing something to my neighbors, it's to join what God is already doing.
Mac:So, again, three key practices. First one, on yourself what is God doing in your life? Second one how do you learn to get present to what he's doing in your closest family and friends? And then, finally, this is a strategy also to get present in what God's doing in your neighborhood or broader Lake Country area and beyond.
Mac:So, hey, one other thing I wanted to mention, and this is a prayer practice that every single person is encouraged to do, and that is when you come to church, whether that's on Sunday morning or for a ministry during the week, I would encourage you to use your drive time to pray.
Mac:This is something we've been doing as a staff for over a year. We've been asking our key volunteers who participate on Sundays to do but to simply use your car space to go. God, I know you're gonna be present at work this morning. Would you prepare my heart to be attuned to you, to be open to whatever you have for me and for everybody else who will be present. In other words, use your car time on the way to and from church activities to just pray that we'd be available and attentive to God and, on the way home, responsive to whatever God wanted to do and for us to respond faithfully, make sense, love it. Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Next time we're going to look at a second core conviction when it comes to multiplying disciples who live on mission in the world, and it's this that God bends to meet us where we are.
Katie:We'll see you next time show and our church at crosspointwicom. If you have any questions, comments or have any suggestions for future topics, feel free to send us an email. Also, if you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review and if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts.
