from January 24, 2010 prayer email

I had the privilege of spending last weekend with the missions leadership team (see photos below) at Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa (a family focused, evangelical, non-denominational, 30 year old church of 1100). We met for 48 hours in a 19th century barn (that had been converted into a home) in a beautiful rural setting NW of Tulsa.



The missions leadership team had been struggling for some time with a “tyranny of the urgent” mentality. And many team members were discouraged and nearing burn out.

We spent all of Friday evening in a guided time of worship and prayer (a great way to start any retreat or extended meeting time).

All day (and night) Saturday were devoted to grappling with three major issues:
1. ALIGNMENT: How to best align local and global outreach with the vision of the church’s leadership, rather than having the missions leadership team function as a silo.
2. STRUCTURE: How to best structure the team to shift focus from urgent to important issues, how to decentralize responsibility and authority to avoid burnout, and how to empower those given delegated responsibilities.
3. STRATEGY: How to bring focus and intentionality to several dozen mostly unrelated engagements around the globe, shifting focus from the current 35 field workers to a few strategic local and global works.

God provided clarity and consensus as we interacted together. We were able to use our Sunday morning time to identify initial steps to take with the first two major issues. Sunday afternoon was devoted to dealing with a long laundry list of urgent issues that some on the team anticipated would take the entire weekend. But when viewed through a new grid, were handled in less than two hours, allowing us to wrap up our weekend together an hour early.



We anticipate on-going interaction early this year as we work through details of clarifying and aligning better with the vision of FBC’s leaders (senior pastor and elders) and put together a new decentralized structure for the missions leadership team. Once that is in place, we anticipate launching a major effort that will result in identifying a few field focus areas for the church. This will be followed by an effort that will grapple with a spectrum of church mobilization issues as they relate to these new field focuses.

The issues that FBC’s missions leadership team was struggling with are certainly not unique to them. Many MLT’s function as silos, somewhat divorced from the vision and dreams of the church’s leadership. Many MLTs are consumed by countless urgent and administrative issues, with little time to deal with the truly important issues. And they have a structure that insures that this pattern will continue indefinitely into the future. The number one issue I encounter in my work with churches is the issue of focus and strategy. Very few churches are focused in their mission efforts, and as a result see far less happen on the field than what could be.

Please contact me if I can be of service to your church as you seek to identify and grapple with the big issues that may be limiting the Kingdom impact of your church, locally or among the least reached globally. I would be delighted to talk with you.

from January 3, 2010 prayer email

It is easy in churches that aspire to be missional to begin to believe that “it is all about the lost”. Although this is a huge improvement over “it’s all about me”, the Scriptures are very clear that it is not all about me or the lost. It is all about God and His glory. This emphasis placed on this truth is one of the things I find most compelling about reformed theology.

God’s heartbeat and mission in the world certainly includes bringing prodigal mankind back under His Lordship, one people group at a time. But it is much broader than that.

The worldview represented by “it’s all about me” cannot understand or even acknowledge God’s purposes in suffering, adversity, or persecution. The prosperity gospel has its roots in this worldview. The Christian embracing this way of thinking has underlined hundreds of promises in his Bible related to God blessing them. But they tend to ignore or minimize passages that speak of human responsibility and those that speak of the character and purposes of God. These believers view God as their servant (helping them to achieve their personal goals and advance their agendas), little more than a cosmic Santa Claus. The entire Jan-Feb 2010 issue of Mission Frontiers magazine is devoted to exploring the theme of God purposes in suffering. Some excellent reading.

The worldview represented by “it’s all about the lost” is embraced by many committed Christ followers. Unfortunately, it represents a narrow understanding of God’s priorities. Let me mention three among many that could be highlighted.

1) God is glorified through what He created. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” (Psalm 19:1).

2) God brings glory to Himself through revealing His justice through harsh judgment (rather than sparing or saving) a people group that has resisted and opposed Him for generations. Think of all mankind in the worldwide flood in Genesis 6-9, Egypt in Exodus, the nations of Canaan in Joshua, Israel when she was sent into captivity, and the final judgment of the lost at the great white throne judgment in Revelation 20.

3) God is glorified through the life of an individual who is fully devoted to Him. Certainly this includes their engagement with the lost, but also includes issues of personal surrender, dependence, obedience, and the transformation of the inner person into one that is more like Christ. “Whoever serves Me must follow Me; and where I am, My servant also will be.” (John 12:26a). Following Christ precedes meaningful service (and outreach) for Christ. God receives great glory when these issues are given priority.

Let me suggest two personal responses that would bring glory to God in this new year:
• Make walking with God and allowing Him to transform you from the inside out a higher priority than your involvement in service and outreach this year.
• Conduct an experiment. Devote a month in your devotional reading to looking at Scripture solely through the lens of God’s character, purposes, and glory. Not through the lens of what’s in it for me (or for the lost). You might be surprised to discover how prevalent a theme “the glory of God” is in Scripture.