Everything is Biblical

Everything is Biblical, even disagreeing with God.

Leading the Church on Mission

What exactly does this mean? Where do we start?

Well, I think we start my acknowledging two important Bible verses::

1. John 20:21: As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. This tells us that our mission as the church is to join The Father on His mission. It is not to have our own mission and continue in our own ways. Our vision for our church or ministry should have His mission at it’s core.

2. Ephesians 4:11 - And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. One thing I learnt very early on in my own ministry is that leadership isn’t about my dynamic personality, my trendy clothes or making sure our church has the coolest graphics, cutting edge ambiance, or powerful music. Leadership is about how I train people so that they are living their lives on His mission, building His church.

Now, these two verse hold some very important principles when we apply them to leading a local church. Here are some points that I have been working on for the last 7 years and am passionate to see mature in my own leadership and in the leadership of my leadership team:

• Missional Leadership is turning every member into a missionary
  • It is not for me to ministry to everyone, but for everyone to minster to each other. It is not for me to only preach and declare Christ, but I must lead every member to a place of understanding whereby they realise that Missionary Christianity is real Christianity and anything less is fake. Now this, of course, doesn’t mean that I will be seeking to send every member overseas! What it means is that I must bring people to understand that “church” refers to a group of people rather than a building. A group of people who are called to represent Christ and to be on His mission. We do not GO TO church, we ARE church. It’s a partnership with God to represent His will and His purposes in this place.
• Missional Leadership is an opportunity to let egocentrism give way to Jesuscentrism
  • Since the mission is The Father’s through the Son, the focus of attention should be Him and not me. It also means that His mission is carried out how He sees fit. God’s methods are men. Therefore my part in His mission is to train men for mission. Ed Stetzer would say that it’s “not about Me about about We”. We haven’t been called to mission so that we can become someone but we have been called to mission so that we can proclaim Someone.
• Missional Leadership is replacing power for empowerment
  • 1 Peter 4:1 – As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. The church isn’t a body for me to wield power over but a place whereby power is distributed for the name and fame of Christ.
• Missional Leadership is emphasizing the Kingdom over the Church.
  • If we lead people of mission then it has to be about the Kingdom of God rather than the church. This isn’t to say that the church isn’t important, of course it is vital. What I am saying, however, is that the scope of the mission isn’t confined to the church. This means I need to be praying about raising leaders who can be sent out to different cities to plant new works. It might even mean that I raise up leaders to plant churches in our own city! Many would hesitate to do this because of “competition” but there are no territories, no borders in the Kingdom! If another (good) church finds it has more members because of my churches actions that God be praised.

Leading Missional Living

I’m starting to teach the Book of Daniel in September and it strikes me that it is a very missional story. Daniel and his friends are living in a foreign country, learning to live in the tension of being a blessing to God and being a blessing to Babylon. The first few chapters are about this struggle – the city wants to change their identity, teach them their ways and eventually denounced their God.

I’m looking at how I can lead my people to fully live out the missional call that Daniel and his friends were living out. What can be done to bring people who are not on mission in line with the mission? How can I lead people to help them serve Jesus’ mission in our culture through our church?

PROPHET, PRIEST, KING

Man kind has a 3-fold problem:

1. Ignorant (Rom 1:21, Gen 6:5,  Eph 4:17-18,  Rom 1:25, 2 Cor 4:4)
2. Guilt (Rom 5:12, 18-19, Psalms 51:4, Psalms 130:3,
3. Corrupt (Romans 7:14-19, Eph 2:1, Psalms 14:1-3

God gave three major Offices to Israel:

1. Prophet ~Speaking God’s words – “Thus saith”, representing God to the people
2. Priest - Offering sacrifices & praise because on behalf of the people, representing the people to God
3. King – administering justice, represented God’s rule over the people

Jesus is the Prophet, Priest and King

• PROPHET like Moses (Deut 18:15, Luke 13:33, Matt 16:13-14, Luke 7:16, John 4:19, John 6:4,
  • In John 6 we see some remarkable things when we contrast the feeding of the 5000 and the manna that came from heaven (in relation to how Jesus fulfills the role of a “prophet like unto Moses”. In John 6:5 there was a question raised by Jesus, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?”. This echoes the question that Moses raised in Numbers 11:13, “Where can I get meat for all these people?”. In John 6:41 the people grumble. In Numbers 11:1 the people grumble. In John 6:31 manna is described. In Numbers 11:7-9 the manna is described. In John 6:9 – “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?”, Moses raised this very question in Numbers 11:22, “We don’t have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them.”
  • However, in Acts 3:18-26, Luke 24:27 we see that Jesus isn’t a messenger from God but He is the very source of the revelation. The prophets would say ”Thus saith the Lord”, but Jesus said “The words that I speak” … “I say unto you”.
• PRIEST – He is often called a priest
  • Hebrews 5:1 = characteristics of a true priest, symbolically talking the people before God - Heb 4:14, Heb 9:24, Heb 6:19-20, Heb 3:1-2, Heb 10:19-22, Heb 4:16
  • He offers gifts and sacrifices for sins - Heb 10:4, Heb 9:26
  • He makes intercession for the people – Heb 7:25, Heb 7:25, Rom 8:34
  • He intercedes - 1 Timothy 2:5, Zech 6:13
• KING - In the Old Testament the King had authority over the nation.
  • People wanted to force Jesus to be King - John 6:15, John 18:36, Matthew 4:17
  • Kings rule over people hearts - Matthew 21:5

Conclusion
Jesus is the solution to the threefold disease of ignorance, guilt, and tyranny. Our ignorance is healed by the PROPHETIC as its light scatters the darkness of error; The PROPHET shows God to us, as Jesus said “If you have seen me you have seen the Father also”. GUILT is pardoned by the PRIEST, based on the merit of the Priest. The Priest leads us to God. Tyranny and corruption by sin is conquered by the KING. The King removes the bondage of sin and death and subdues rebellion.

Bones them Bones them, dry bones

For thousands of years, attention has been focussed on items associated with Jesus or His apostles. Take, for example, fragments of the cross currently housed in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. These items have been worshipped since the earliest centuries of the churches history, reaching their highest status when officially sanctioned at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787AD when it was decided that every church should have some relic at the altar.

Now, much attention is being given to some bone fragments that have been found which are believed to belong to John the Baptist. Clearly, the artefact means something to some people as it is gaining quite a bit of media coverage. Why is the adoration of a relic so popular? Well, because the Roman Catholic (as well as Greek & Russian Orthodox) church believes that the possession of relics proves God’s favour. They believe that through the relics God imparts His presence and His blessing. But the problem with this is that the authority for our faith is not based on these things (either they are truly belonging to the person or not). The Christians faith should be based on the fact that God has spoken to us in His Word. We are to trust the truthfulness of the written Word of God, not the existence of some bones, authentic or not.

Before we get too bogged down in the matter of whether the bones are authentic or not … with respect, that is not the issue. It’s not really a question of authenticity. It has to do with what people put their belief in – God’s Word or relics? Of course we can idolise the Bible and use the Bible in the same way people use relics. This is equally as wrong. We as Christians are to find happiness and satisfaction in the words that the Bible speaks and the person that the words point to rather than in the paper and cloth than bind them. Having said that, the Bible is sufficient for this! The Bible

If archaeologists later agree that the bone fragments are indeed from John the Baptist then that will be of great interest to Christians, but this should add nothing to our confidence in the Bible. If the fragments are found to be authentic or, most likely, if there is no agreement amongst scholars at all, this will not take anything away from the truthfulness, authority, and sufficiency of the Bible.

Christian friends, our faith is built on hearing the Word of God (Rom 10:17) and whilst it is most interesting to postulate about relics, our confidence is in the Bible as the Word of God, not in bones.