Characteristics of a “Church on Mission” according to Matt Chandler with some of my thoughts

Matt Chandler spoke on what a church on mission looks like at an Acts 29 boot camp.

A Church on mission…

1. …Embraces the functional centrality of the gospel
2. …Believes in the full authority, sufficiency, and inerrancy of Scriptures (expository preaching)
3. …Embraces the call of God as sent missionaries
4. …Is actively seeking to be trained and equipped as missionaries as a community of believers.
5. …Is dependent on the Holy Spirit to use us as agents for evangelizing the lost world.
6. …Develops relationships with the lost for the purpose of incarnating Christ in their lives
7. …Practices sacrificial love as a reflection of Jesus in their relationship with others
8. …Humbly helps others to find Jesus in their own timing rather than forcing them to make superficial decisions for its own glory
9. …Is committed to practicing faith in community (sharing a common mission together) risking time, money, emotional pain, and often failure.

Figure out how to die to yourself and your own desires.

“The church on mission is a theologically informed, gospel-centered, Spirit-led fellowship who seeks to faithfully incarnate the purposes of Christ. The mission of the church is found in the mission God, who is calling the church to passionately participate in God’s redemptive mission in the world.”

My thoughts:

1. It seems that a lot of church’s that don’t use the missional language are indeed churches “on mission.” Capitol Hill Baptist Church in DC led by Mark Dever and Grace Community Church in LA led by John MacArthur come to mind though not typically thought of as churches “on mission.”
2. I love this vision of the church, and I pray and want CrossView Church to be this.
3. The definition of the mission is a bit unclear, though I think I know what he’d define it as. He uses “missionary” in #3 and #4. I think the mission to Chandler is to be an agent for evangelizing the world (#5), to incarnate Christ in relationship with lost people (#6), to help others find Jesus (#8). According to his last quote, the mission is to incarnate the purposes of Christ and participate in God’s redemptive mission in the world. That is unclear. For some that includes social/righteous justice. For others it is primarily evangelism. It needs to be clear (read this post on clarifying the mission).
4. How do the purposes of evangelism, worship, fellowship, and loving our neighbors relate to each other? They are not simply 4 co-equal purposes. They have some hierarchical and defined relationship and we would do well as Christians dedicated to serving with our local churches to tease out what that relationship is.

Sad thing: Churches that won’t plant another church because “their church” will diminish

I’ve seen this and it’s sad to think of the members who are not mobilized, the gap that other members step into, and the people that will hear and believe the gospel if churches would just think outside of their local church and see their local church as Christ’s and not theirs.

From R. Scott Clark:

Recently I became aware of a situation where a congregation, with the necessary resources, refused an opportunity to extend Christ’s kingdom through planting a church. Why did they refuse? Because they were afraid of losing members to the church plant. They seem to conceive of the church as a zero sum game, as if somehow, if members left “their” congregation that “their” church would be diminished. Their stance toward the church proposal seems to have been: let the outsiders come to us. I’ve seen this phenomenon more than once. The underlying assumption seems to be, “the church exists for us.”

Read the whole thing.

Mark Dever on a successful church.

Mark Dever writes (emphases mine):

In such a day, we must re-hear the Bible and re-imagine the concept of successful ministry not as necessarily immediately fruitful but as demonstrably faithful to God’s Word.

We need a new model for the church. Actually, the model we need is an old one. We need churches in which the key indicator of success is not evident results but persevering biblical faithfulness. This new (old) model of the church focuses on two basic needs in our churches: the preaching of the message and the leading of disciples. The first five “marks of a healthy church” (expositional preaching, biblical theology, a biblical understanding of the Gospel, a biblical understanding of conversion, and a biblical understanding of evangelism) all reflect the concern to preach rightly the Word of God. The last four marks (church membership, church discipline, a concern for discipleship and growth, and church leadership) address the problem of how to rightly administer the borders and markers of Christian identity, i.e., how to lead disciples.

So this model of church can be called a preaching-discipleship model.  The church is to preach, teach, guard, and propogate the gospel message.  The church is to nurture, hold accountable, and provide leadership to disciples.  It’s that simple and clear.  So the priorities of a pastor derived from this would be teach and preach the gospel and its supporting biblical truths and disciple people.  Mark Dever would say: preach, pray, personally disciple people, and be patient.

Driscoll’s description of a pastor-elder’s duties

Mark Driscoll’s list of duties for the elders-pastors (from Vintage Church, [Crossway: 2008], 72):

1. Praying and studying Scripture
2. Ruling/leading the church
3. managing the church
4. caring for people in the church
5. giving account to God for the church
6. living exemplary lives
7. rightly using the authority God has given them
8. teaching the Bible correctly
9. preaching
10. praying for the sick
11. teaching sound doctrine and refuting false teachings
12. working hard
13. rightly using money and power
14. protecting the church from false teachers
15. disciplining unrepentant Christians
16. obeying the secular laws as the legal ruling body of a corporation
17. developing other leaders and teachers

To see the lists I’ve compiled in one post including lists from D.A. Carson, Mark Dever, and John Piper, go here.

Michael Frost on the Missional Church and my thoughts on his talk

See and hear the video of Michael Frost on the Missional Church on youtube if you want to see where I’m getting these notes.

“The whole idea of missional church thinking is a fundamental and prophetic call for the church orient everything it is doing around the agenda of mission.  In other words, of all the practices of the church ought to legitimately be involved in, missional church thinkers believe that mission ought to be the organizing principle of all those things.  We don’t think that worship is the primary organizing principle… we don’t think the creation of Christian fellowship or community is the organizing principle… we don’t think even that the expression of evangelism is the primary or organizing principle… We are talking about a church in which worship, community, leadership, evangelism, social justice, theological thinking, is oriented around or organized around the fundamental agenda of mission.

(5:49) “It’s about the church of Jesus Christ galvanized into a viral movement sent outwards, propelled into every nook and cranny of, in your case, American culture, for the purpose of lifting up Jesus.” (He actually used this point in the context of an if/then statement, but I drew out from it this point).

Three things will happen if you embrace this paradigm:

1. You will see God differently.  They don’t believe God is far and distant in heaven only.  God has not separated himself but you have a God who moved outward and is into the world.    Missio Dei is not translated “Mission of God” but is a way of describing the very nature and character of God himself.  It is better translated as “The Missioning God” or “The God of Mission.”   The Missio Dei is going out in search of those who’ve not yet redeemed.
2. You will see the church differently (15:01).  We see the church as participatio Christi.  What is the church?  The gathering of the redeemed ones sent to participate in the work of Jesus in this world.  What does it mean, it is actually to go forth as salt and light in this world and not to huddle, not to gather, and not to pour most of our energies and most of our times and indeed most of our money on serving ourselves or our loved ones.  Participate in what Jesus is doing in this world.  You will be astonished at what you discover.  – The Missio Dei makes the church ask: Whom can we serve?  Whom can we love? and to whom can we go?
3. You will see the world differently (34:29).  Church thinking has been typically been how wonderful things are in church and how icky things are outside of the church.  Every person bears the imago dei, the image of God.  His fingerprint is on their souls.  He pointed out the wickedness in the church and goodness out of the church.  Forget the boundaries.  There are weeds and wheats in the church and out of the church.

49:17 – “The Missio Dei is inviting you to participate in what Christ has planted in the depths of their souls and the imago dei, the belief that every one of them has buried in the deep dark black rock canyons of their souls, the stuff of faith just waiting for a word or a prayer or an act of service from you his sent ones.  Are you covetous of that mission?  Is that the greatest happiness of your life?”

The Mission (51:06): finding your treasure buried in the hearts of every soul, [God's] fingerprints on the spirit of every person.

MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTION:

1. I was rebuked in point two about the church that gets ingrown and is not aware and out there loving the people who are not yet in Christ.  What a great word of rebuke!  It brought clarity afresh to why I moved out to LA.  The Spirit convicted me sharply there and for that I’m grateful to God and to Michael Frost.
2. The outward/movement focus and ethos of the paradigm and lecture were as encouraging as the talk itself.  I loved the ethos and again stand corrected and helped because of it.
3. When he asked if the mission (as he describes and defines it) is the greatest happiness of my life, I thought to myself that I should be more passionate for the mission (of reconciliation as defined by 2 Cor. 5:4-21 in my view) and that the mission is not to be the greatest happiness in my life, lest I become idolotrous.  I appreciated his passion for the mission.  That was just a great overstatement to say that the mission is to be the greatest happiness of my life.  Very clearly God in Christ is to be the greatest happiness of my life, infinitely greater than the great mission.
4. The distinctive of the “missional church thinking paradigm” is a set of emphases and a philosophy of church.  So the philosophy is everything in church is oriented and organized around the mission.  I agree with that and actually think that that is inevitable in all churches and the difference is what they define their mission to be and what their functional definition of mission is.  But the emphases which gives flesh to Frost’s definition of mission is that (1) God is the missioning God who is seeking the unredeemed, (2) the church participates in what Christ is doing in the world and not allowing the church to be self-focused, and (3) everyone in the world is valuable because they are made in God’s image.  I appreciate these emphases and they are very corrective of much Christianity and evangelicalism that I’ve seen.  But I see this in many churches that would not be considered missional by many who use the term (like Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC).
5. I think the definition of the mission is real poetic and at the same time uclear.  How is this different from someone defining the organizing mission as evangelism of those not yet redeemed?  I love the passion and outward ethos of the lecture, but I don’t see how this is different than one saying the mission is evangelism of the lost unless they say it’s also social justice/good.  But even then, that’s not new and doesn’t seem distinct to this new label “missional church thinking paradigm.”
6. For other critiques of missional thinking, one should look at Dave Harvey’s notes and hear his talk on it and then also read Jonathan Leeman’s article on it.  I need to review these myself.

Piper’s Reasons for Elder-led, Congregationalism Polity in the local church

This is taken from his seminar on Biblical Eldership.  You can read all the notes for the class here.  If you want to read all 11 principles, since only principle 5-7 are listed here, then go here.

Principle Five

Not inconsistent with this equality, God has ordained the existence of officers in the church, some of whom are charged under Christ with the leadership of the church.

1 Timothy 5:17

The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.

1 Thessalonians 5:12

But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction.

Hebrews 13:7

Remember those who led you, who spoke the Word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.

Hebrews 13:17

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

Acts 20:28

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.

Principle Six

Under Christ and his Word, the decisive court of appeal in the local church in deciding matters of disagreement is the gathered church assembly. (This is implied, first, in the fact that the leaders are not to lead by coercion, but by persuasion and free consent [1 Peter 5:3], second, in the fact that elders may be censured [1 Timothy 5:19], and third, in the fact that Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 5:4 depict the gathered church assembly as the decisive court of appeal in matters of discipline).

1 Peter 5:1-3

Therefore, I exhort the elders among you. . . shepherd the flock of God among you. . . not as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.

1 Timothy 5:19-20

Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning.

Matthew 18:15-17

If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

1 Corinthians 5:4-5

In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, [you are to] deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Principle Seven

The local congregation therefore should call and dismiss its own leaders (implied in the preceding principle).

Darrin Patrick on Leadership

Session 1 – Darrin Patrick on Priorities of a Leader

Session 2 – Darrin Patrick on Tensions & Pitfalls Faced as a Leader

Why the Church Exists (according to Art Azurdia)

Taken from Art Azurdia’s message (16:23):

CrossView Church exists to joyfully exalt the Triune God, faithfully declare the Christ-centered Word, intentionally demonstrate Christian love, and zealously evangelize its community and world.

Wisdom from Azurdia on Spirit-empowered preaching and the greatest need in evangelicalism

Taken from an interview on The Exiled Preacher.

On Spirit-empowered preaching:

GD: What do you mean by Spirit Empowered Preaching? [The title of Art's book, published by Mentor, 2007 - see my review]. AA: I mean a kind of preaching that possesses a vitality from another world—a clarity, authority, immediacy, and efficacy that is authored by the Spirit of God.

GD: How may we seek God’s empowering presence in preaching?

AA: Firstly, we need to connect our preaching purpose to that of the Holy Spirit’s purpose. His aim is to glorify Jesus Christ through the means of the Scriptures—the Christocentric Scriptures. Therefore, I must be resolutely wedded to His intention in the sacred text: explaining the text in its context, applying the text as was originally designed, and displaying its inner-canonical connections which will lead me to Jesus Christ.

Secondly, we need to pray for that which only the Spirit can supply: potency to transform the human heart.

Thirdly, we need to be willing to suffer. Why? Because the apostolic pattern seems to indicate that God’s power is perfected in weakness. Are we willing to be weak so there are no competitors for glory when God does what only He can do?

Beyond this, of course, we must remember that Spirit is sovereign. “The wind blows where it wishes.” Anything that smacks of a formula is sure to quench the Spirit rather than arouse His empowerment. This is the occupational hazard of the Christian ministry.

On the greatest need in evangelicalism:

GD: Sounds like a good book. What would you say is the biggest problem facing evangelicalism today and how should we respond?

AA: I think I’ve already mentioned this earlier. And, of course, it must be kept in mind that my response reflects the limitations of my own cultural (i.e. American) context. In my mind, the most significant problem facing evangelicalism today is that evangelicals are assuming the Gospel—and, because of this, I fear we are a generation away from discarding it altogether. The reasons for this are many: the legacy of the seeker-sensitive movement with its emphasis on pragmatism, the rise of postmodernism, theological preaching that lacks the evangelical priority, et al.

How should we respond to this? Christocentric preaching and teaching! Christocentric ministries! We need to pray for a generation of pastors who will be: 1) courageous enough to disregard popular ministry methodologies that undermine the Gospel; and, 2) consumed enough with God’s glory to cease measuring success by the numerical size of a congregation.

Read the whole thing.

3 interviews – Chandler, Schreiner, and Azurdia

Chandler inteviewed

Schreiner interviewed

Azurdia interviewed