This is the second of four small group discipleship studies I’m working on right now. The first was “What is the Missional Church?” I plan on breaking this study also down into a four week study: 1) The gospel & the biblical story; 2) the gospel as public truth; 3) the gospel & the cruciform life; and 4) the gospel & the new creation. I’ve posted the cover and the last page of the study.
Now I just have to think about how to lay out the actual week’s readings and questions. There are a lot of great small group studies out there on this topic. Two of the ones I’ve found the most helpful are Tim Keller’s & Redeemer NYC’s study called “The Gospel & the Heart”; and World Harvest Mission’s new study called “The Gospel-Centered Life.” Since both of those studies are much longer than the one I’ll be composing and had the benefit of being the process of several hands working on them I still plan on using them again and again in the right settings. But this study will be something that because of its brevity will I hope but appealing for substantive yet brief small group discussions on the gospel.
I plan on listing some of the resources for each week that I have found helpful as I create them. I anticipate using Keller and the World Harvest Mission’s resources, as well as Lesslie Newbigin, NT Wright, Michael Gorman, Michael Bird, T. Desmond Alexander, Christopher Wright, Miroslav Volf, and more. Now onto the actual labor of creating it.
(If any of you as readers have any ideas or helpful charts or illustrations or authors you’d suggest just comment below.)
“. . . evangelism may be defined as that dimension and activity of the church’s mission which seeks to offer every person, everywhere, a valid opportunity to be directly challenged by the gospel of explicit faith in Jesus Christ, with a view to embracing him as Savior, becoming a living member of his community, and being enlisted in his service of reconciliation, peace, and justice on earth.”
- David J. Bosch, Evangelism: Theological currents and cross-currents today
(Photographic art by Thomas Hawk, piece entitled “Tracks“)
Greetings feeders and readers. For those of you who’ve read the recent four week small group study I posted on “What is the Missional Church?” and have wanted to talk more about the paper or the topic in general you’ll have a great chance to do that at the Jesus Creed on Monday around noon. Scot McKnight is going to post the paper in four parts over a four week period on Monday of each week.
Scot McKnight is the Karl A. Olsson Professor of Religious Studies at North Park in Chicago and a visiting Professor at Biblical Theological Seminary. Scot is also an international conference speaker and a published author several times over. Scot is well known as an authority on the Emerging Churches and is a world class historical Jesus scholar. I first met Scot at a conference I created and lead on the Emerging Churches at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia (see the pic above). I have had the pleasure of following Scot on his blog and in personal conversations as well as a few blog interviews with him since that conference. He is a great blog mediator for hot topics and draws a very wide and engaging blog reading audience so the discussion should be very helpful for everyone involved. Please make sure and head over there and contribute.
We had our first “Young Marrieds Ministry” gathering for Grace Christian Fellowship at Taylor Park today. Here are a few pics. Great turnout (around 40 to 50 couples with kids included) and start to a new season of building and sustaining meaningful community in the life of our young married couples. (This is one of the ministries I’m helping lead during my interim period of seeking a new pastoral call).
If you’re a young married couple in the Tampa Bay area or a young married couple at GCF looking for community and great pouring into by seasoned married couples click here to download the GCF “Young Marrieds Ministry” calendar for the next three months.
Others have canvassed the topic better (like Tim Keller) but this is how I explain what the missional church is. I believe it represents a four-part shift that the church in the West has experienced: a situational shift from a Christian culture to a Post-Christian culture with a host of new contextual questions to face; a theological shift in connecting mission to God’s attributes rather than merely an interim program of redemption between the Fall and New Creation; a missiological shift from viewing missions as largely a cross-cultural geographic movement from the Christian West to the pagan East to now reclaiming the early churches vision of being a sent people in their community & their world; and an ecclesiological shift where missions moves from being a program in the local church to being an essential shaping influence in the local churches identity, a calling every member has daily.
UPDATE: I just noticed late last night while reading through Michael Goheen’s dissertation (“‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you’: J.E. Lesslie Newbigin’s Missionary Ecclesiology”) that he uses these same categories to talk about the missional church in regards to Lesslie Newbigin’s missionary ecclesiology. Looks like I was on the right track in summarizing the subject this way.
I’m considering turning this into a four week small group discussion that I can use. Here’s the link to download the four week small group discussion in its first-draft form. (This is a leaders guide, I need to develop a participants guide with stories, illustrations, and more).
Ideally I’d like to create four others video shorts that accompany four week small group studies (ex. “The Gospel”; “Discipleship”; “Community”; and “Evangelism as preaching grace and doing justice”). When I have time and access to the right historic church setting I’d like to reshoot this video to make it more universally usable and less jargon heavy.
Each small group resource would follow a simple weekly pattern: a short reading section a page or two in length, small group discussion questions, suggestions for life application, and then resources to go further at the end of the small group guide. For a while now I’ve wanted resources that were more substantive in what the offer people but were no less artistic and relevant because of that. Redeemer NYC has a host of great substantive resources but they aren’t artistic and lack video-shorts media. Rob Bell’s Nooma films are very artistic resources but limited in the content they engage their audience with.
Perhaps in time I can incorporate this into a small upstart business with local Indie musicians laying down the background tracks; and have young unfound videographers helping create artistic video-short montages for each resource; and in time get some of the leading influencers in the topic area’s share in the construction of the small group resources and videos.
Opportunity is wide open for someone to do this well they just need the right audio and visual talent, and a theological sensitivity to what they’re trying to construct and why and how it can pastorally minister to those who use it.
If you click here you can download a PDF entitled “Ministry Metrics” that explains how to measure ministry flow in metric terms. This PDF is the outcome of a conversation that begin with another pastor friend of mine regarding how we could become better stewards of our ministries. Ministry metrics are becoming more popular among larger churches that are budget and staff heavy and are trying to be good stewards of their resources. Smaller churches aren’t as quick to get on board with metrics because the need to use metrics is not as pressing but nevertheless is important. As long as pastors chasten how they use metrics to measure ministry growth by having a philosophy of ministry that is Spirit-dependent and always mindful of the grace of God in the gospel; using metrics can be of great value.
Qualitative metrics are best done on a monthly or bi-weekly basis by the ministry director of a particular area of ministry (ex. Youth, Family, Community, Mission, Discipleship, etc.). In qualitative metrics you look at the smaller pieces of ministry, the nuts and bolts. Quantitative metrics are best done quarterly with all the leaders of the ministry areas together. Quantitative metrics focuses more upon larger growth and flow of ministry: events, new leaders being developed, evangelistic growth, etc.. Quantum metrics involve the whole body of leaders in the church joined together for an annual or tri-annual intensive discussion about how well the vision and mission of the local church is being realized. At this gathering volunteers, pastors, deacons, elders, etc. are all present. This is also where discussions regarding revisiting the vision for the sake of revision or reformulation occur.
You should notice trends in each area of metrics: they’re all aimed at small, large, and directional growth; they’re done in community with one another; and they’re inclusive to every leader in the body no matter how great or small their responsibility loads are.
I’d love to hear whatever thoughts you have on using ministry metrics, or testimonies to how they’ve been effective or destructive to your ministries growth.
This is an out of print booklet by Joel Green written at a popular level to encourage believers to consider what the meaning and mandate of the Kingdom of God is. You can purchase it at Amazon starting at only 0.46 cents. I’ve been a fan of Joel Green’s writings since I first encountered his “Theology of the Gospel of Luke” book during an in-depth bible study on Luke I was leading. He is sensitive to the social-scientific issues of the setting of Scripture but also has a prophetic interest in the churches role in culture today.
This book is only 75 pages long, broken into four chapters with a preface and a note section at the end of the book. The chapter titles are: 1) Last things first; 2) ‘As it is in Heaven’; 3) Thy Kingdom come; and 4) Seeking the Kingdom. Each chapter closes with a few discussion questions. It is a non-technical book, including typical Sunday school charts throughout it to encourage a visual learning experience for the reader.
Summary & Review:
CHAPTER 1 LAST THINGS FIRST – Jesus was concerned with the end, not just how things in redemptive history would end, but how that end shapes the present. The early Christians, says Green, were likewise concerned and framed how they answered those concerns in light of Jesus death, resurrection, ascension, and promised return. These concerns can be summed up in the central theme of the Gospels, the Kingdom of God. Green says in order to understand what Jesus understood by the phrase “Kingdom of God” there are three questions that need to be answered: 1) what is the kingdom?; 2) where is the Kingdom?; and 3) when is the Kingdom?
The phrase the Kingdom of God while not present as a phrase in the Hebrew Old Testament was present in its thematic parts, especially among the prophets writings. Relying on George Beasley-Murray Green notes three parts to the prophetic vision of God’s Kingdom in the Old Testament: 1) it was a universal Kingdom; 2) it was a Kingdom of righteousness; and 3) its presence established an age of Shalom (wholeness and abundance; peace). So what is the Kingdom? According to Green, “It is the coming of God! It is the coming of God to reign in peace and justice.” (pgs. 19-20) So where and when is this Kingdom?
“Where is the Kingdom? When is the Kingdom? whether we know it or not, all of us who think about and are involved in the mission of the church already have answers to these questions. Whether or not we have thought about the end times in a deliberate way, such end-time-related questions as these already influence the ways in which we live out our lives as Christians.” (pg. 20)
The what, the where, and the when of the Kingdom and how they illuminate the churches mission and the Christian life will occupy Green for the rest of this short book. The next chapter will focus more upon the where of the Kingdom, its prophetic nature. The chapter following that will focus more upon the when of the Kingdom, its apocalyptic nature.
CHAPTER 2 ‘AS IT IS IN HEAVEN’ – What is the prophetic vision of the Kingdom of God? Green looks to Amos to answer that question. Amos was a classic prophet who not only spoke of God’s coming judgment against the nations but also against Israel for the social atrocities that were being committed as Israel moved from an agrigarian people to an urban people and the rich began to get richer and the poor poorer. Israel was moving away from her covenant with God which in turn meant that she was practicing more and more dehumanizing acts of sin. As Green puts it;
“Amos recognized, as did the other prophets, that how one relates to God is inseparably related with how one relates to the needs of others. To neglect the covenant of God, then, was not a spiritual matter only but had remarkable repercussions for the life of the people. Indeed for Amos the sphere of morality and spirituality includes what we today might refer to as international politics, social justice and civil rights. To follow God, in his reckoning, was to commit oneself to an ideal of a society willed by God to be just and righteous…God’s rule, he insists, extends beyond Israel to embrace the whole created order (see 4.13; 9.5-6). Nevertheless God’s reign was very much this worldly in its concerns.” (pgs. 28-30)
Amos and the other classical prophets were looking for the Kingdom of God to come in this world, here was their answer to the ‘where’ of the Kingdom. Green says that Jesus also believed that the ‘where’ of the Kingdom was here. See Matt. 11.2-5 for example: Jesus answer to the Kingdom question of John was to quote Isaiah 61.1 which expressed life after the Kingdom had come and relate it to his ministry. A number of people in the church today, says Green, have a prophetic understanding of the Kingdom and are looking to establish peace and justice here and now. Is this a right conclusion to make? Green says yes and no, the Kingdom has come in Jesus life and ministry and in the life and witness of his people BUT it is still coming. There is an apocalyptic side to the Kingdom that we must also have. Something many people are missing in dangerous ways like the “health-and-wealth gospel” crowd. The Kingdom has not yet come in its fullness.
CHAPTER 3 THY KINGDOM COME! – There was a significant situational shift that occurred for Israel between the classic prophets and the latter prophets and New Testament writers, that shift came in two forms: the exile and Hellenization. Tying to Kingdom of God only to the Land and the Temple in the exile period seemed pointless because both were lost. After Israel returned in part from the exile the Hellenization agendas of Alexander the Great were carried out and a new sense of the cosmic scope of creation and empire fell upon all people at the time. Therefore the Kingdom of God in apocalyptic vision took on a cosmic scope, acknowledging that the Kingdom was coming in present history but eclipsing prophetic concerns of land and temple with a grander vision of the peace and justice of God for all things finally through a promised Davidic king. For the early church this King was Jesus.
The contemporaries of Jesus looked for the Kingdom of God in largely two ways, a return to how it was or a cataclysmic shift to the eternal cosmic kingdom. In this apocalyptic vision of the Kingdom of God people began to reconsider what time and space where. Green says concerning the apocalyptic views new understanding of time and space that;
“…they opened their eyes to a new way of viewing time. These people did not attempt to mask over the evils of their present experience. They refused to pretend suffering was not a major component of their experience in the present world. However they broadened their vision so that it placed the present in a larger temporal context. They came to appreciate that what God was doing could be viewed on a macro-scale, that their present circumstances could be seen in the context of God’s overarching redemptive activity. In this way they developed an appreciation for a greater sweep of history, embracing creation and new creation…
…these people began to look differently at space. They developed a more cosmic view of reality, a view that focused on the existence of a cosmic battle, such as that portrayed for us in the Book of Revelation.” (pg. 45-46)
The apocalptic view saw the where and the when of the Kingdom in wider terms. God would bring his shalom (peace and justice; wholeness and abundance) but He would bring it largely in the future, not the present order. Jesus, says Green, also had an apocalpytic understanding of the where and when of the Kingdom that he held in tension with his prophetic understanding (see Mark 13, 14; or the prayers of the disciples Matt. 6.9-13). Modern adaptations of this view can treat the present time as a lost age and make the work of the church be one largely of discipleship and evangelism and not social and political action. Green says this misses the already/not-yet tension Jesus encouraged his followers to live within, a Kingdom tension he encouraged them to seek.
CHAPTER 4 SEEKING THE KINGDOM - Does Jesus hold to a prophetic or apocalyptic understanding of the Kingdom? The answer, says Joel Green, is yes and he finds it in Jesus understanding of Mark 1.15;
“Jesus’ announcement focuses on the fulfillment of past expectations in the present and leaves for the future the completion of the Kingdom of God. Does Jesus, then, adopt the prophetic view of the Kingdom? Yes. Does he adopt the apocalyptic vision of the Kingdom? Yes. Jesus holds these two previously competing notions together, rooting the apocalyptic vision in the prophetic. In this way he is able to announce that the Kingdom of God is already breaking into the present world, even if the definitive rule of God is still to come.” (pg. 58)
Joel Green spends the rest of this final chapter helping us understand the practical significance of this tension held together by Jesus for the Churches mission. He starts off by going to the Parables of Growth in Mark 4.26-32. In these picture we get a glimpse of how the already/not-yet growth of the Kingdom works in the life and ministry of the church. We see that God’s Kingdom while small in form as it grows finally reaches a grand cosmic maturity latter. We also see in these parables that for the church the presence of the Kingdom of God is not something that she merely gives assent to, rather “The presence of the Kingdom calls for action, for response.” (pg. 64)
This call for action helps us define what discipleship is all about;
“The coming of the Kingdom of God brings a new time, a fresh way of life, a new kind of existence. Because the Kingdom of God is breaking into present history, life can no longer be the same. People are called to a new life, a life of repentance and belief, a life that revolves around the good news of the coming of God.” (pg. 64)
What are the implications for the churches mission in light of what we’ve said about the Kingdom of God?
“According to this way of perceiving the Kingdom of God, our answer to this question can never be either evangelism or social witness. Rather, the answer can only be both involvement in the ministry of reconciling persons to God and in mission of all kinds that incarnates God’s peace and justice in the world…God’s grace is present in this world, in this time and place, so we continue the ministry Jesus himself began…
…This means that no aspect of life exists outside the ambit of God’s Kingdom. And it means that we are challenged individually and collectively to serve the kingdom in every aspect of our lives. In doing so, we understand that such activity does not bring the Kingdom, of course. God brings the Kingdom. On the basis of the entry of God’s reign into the world in the person and work of Jesus, however, we are called to live and serve according to a new time. Meanwhile we continue to pray for the fullness of God’s reign: “Thy Kingdom come!” (pgs. 65-66)
This is what it means to seek the Kingdom of God corporately as the church and singly as an individual. God’s Kingly agendas in world are not something we prioritize in a list, they shape the act of list-making itself. “…the mission of the church must embrace all of life…for the church is called to serve the Kingdom, and God’s Kingdom knows no boundaries. The rule of God extends to all of life...” (pg. 69) The collective call for all believers is everyday discipleship: Seek ye first the Kingdom!
Afterthoughts & Interaction:
I think Green’s book is one of the best brief accounts of what the meaning and mandate of the Kingdom of God is. The way he connected his topic to the mission of the church and to discipleship was invaluable and should be something that every pastor should likewise be able to do. Jesus understanding of the Kingdom of God should be what shapes our ministry philosophies, and what empowers our pastoral care. I highly recommend this book!
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