New Year's Check Up!

Earlier this year I challenged readers (you, if you're reading this latest update) to consider setting New Year's goals that engage them in personal mission outreach.

Four goals were identified:
1. Praying daily for lost people you know
2. Praying daily for lost people in other lands
3. Strategically serving the lost and needy
4. Giving away words of hope

God has called each of us to be like windows to reveal God's glory to those enshrouded in darkness.

We're at the point in the New Year when many give up on their goals instead of pushing through so those goals become powerful habits.

So, what's up with those goals you set? Have you been faithful to them? Or have you fallen off the wagon?

If you've not been faithful to them, why not restart?

One of the most powerful action steps I've discovered is accountability - that dedicated friend and confidant who checks on your progress regularly. If you're having trouble staying on task, this could be the catalyst that propels you forward. Call someone asking for help!

Others desperately need your prayers, your service and your hope. I pray you won't give up!

Joining Jesus

Joining Jesus in His Mission. An opportunity my family and I received and accepted recently when The Mission Society, a global sending organization near Atlanta, Georgia, offered me a full-time role as senior director of church ministry.

The Mission Society adopted this gold nugget of Joining Jesus in His Mission as a significant piece of our organization’s mission. It’s growing on me, especially as I rethink theologically and practically the ways in which I function in missional ministry. Here is what I’m learning:

By Joining Jesus in his mission I daily acknowledge that Jesus owns the mission. Like some of you, much of my life has been as a self-starter: owning a paper route business as a kid, launching a new church, and now owning a small coaching and consulting business. It’s natural to think about “my vision for kingdom ministry” or “my business” as if I’m large and in charge.

In Jesus’ kingdom economy there can really be only one boss, CEO and chair of the global mission, and that’s him. Further, he has the capacity to sustain the mission, with or without me.

I can take a day off and the mission will go forward.

And what is that mission? To redeem hopeless and sinful people who are eternally lost.

Joining Jesus in his mission means I retain the power of choice, that I’m free to join Jesus or not to join Jesus. It means I daily choose to raise the white flag of surrender - it’s his mission, he’s in charge, and I am not. 

Joining Jesus in his mission means I take each day as a step of faith. In his book, Wild Goose Chase, Mark Batterson addresses the reality of circumstantial uncertainty when we follow Jesus. He writes, “A part of us feels as if something is spiritually wrong with us when we experience circumstantial uncertainty. But that is precisely what Jesus promised us when we are born of the Spirit and start following him. Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time.”[1] If I’m honest, I want the certainty and control that comes from knowing I’m in charge of my destiny (or at least today’s food supply) instead of walking by faith each step I take.

To hear stories from many of our cross-cultural co-laborers of the tangible ways Jesus is miraculously making his mission happen around the world is a powerful reminder that it is Jesus’ mission. For example, to hear how Jesus was able to take a friendship that began in Wisconsin, USA, causing it to bear fruit thousands of miles away in another land is simply amazing. Jesus is doing so much around the world, yet we see and hear only a fraction of it. Perhaps that’s a reminder to us of how Jesus is working through us without our knowing it, or perhaps despite us, when we’re unwilling to acknowledge his Lordship of the mission.

Joining Jesus means many things. But, I don’t think it means operating from a blank slate. I’m still riding the learning curve of how I submit to Jesus’ mission while holding close to my heart those deep desires and dreams for the team I lead.

Like many of life’s dilemmas, Andy Stanley’s advice is priceless: it’s not a tension you solve…it’s something that you manage.[2] I’m giving myself permission to slow down the envisioning process for my new role in order to fully understand the ministry reality (by the way, my first job as team leader is not to define reality, it’s to represent Jesus well before co-laborers).

In coaching myself forward, I’m asking, what has Jesus been doing in this place, with these people? How can I listen well to Jesus so that I let him connect the dots for me in my new role? How does Jesus want to bring together the skills, experiences, gifts, passions and mistakes that are of him in order to contribute to the fulfillment of his mission here? what does it say about my view of Jesus and my humanity in relation to Jesus when my works are planned and my plans are worked with little thought to learning and discerning how to join Jesus in his mission that is happening? What is lost by working hard at the wrong work? As these questions are addressed, my goal is to learn and discern the roles and responsibilities Jesus has for me in his mission.

Perhaps you’re thinking that the “learn and discern” approach is for mystics or contemplatives.  “Jesus has given us a Great Commandment and Great Commission; we do have an Acts 1:8 calling to be witnesses to our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the whole world,” you say. “Time is better spent getting busy for God because God blesses hard working Christians.”  If we have to first pray Jesus into our work then it’s possible it’s not his mission in the first place. Of interest to me is that the letters used to spell “listen” are used to spell “silent.” To listen is to be silent before Jesus.

And, lastly, because Jesus’ mission is already happening, the investments I make must be about leaving a legacy that honors Jesus, a lasting example that points my co-workers to a life of self-surrender to Jesus’ principles. 

---

[1] Batterson, Mark. Wild Goose Chase, Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Press, 2008:2.

[2] Retrieved on 09 September 2015 from https://vialogue.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/leadership-summit-2010-andy-stanley-the-upside-of-tension/

Your Personal Mission Outreach Goals for 2016

2016 is here. How prepared are you for what's ahead?

Many New Year's resolutions we make are broken or forgotten within a few weeks of being established - 36% of us will break them by the end of January. And many of those resolutions focus on improving self, not others. Has that been your experience?

As you finalize your resolutions for 2016, I'd like to propose several mission outreach goals that focus on others:

1. Be resolved to renew your daily prayers for lost people you know. Identify those top 5-10 persons you believe are spiritually lost and make it your goal to pray daily for their salvation. Prayer is, to me, one of the first foundations we lay in any effective personal mission outreach strategy. Through prayer we discern how God is working and the role God is calling us to in reaching the lost. So pray daily, pray fervently, and pray expectantly.

2. Be resolved to revitalize your daily prayers for a lost world. May your mission outreach vision be expanded to include the world beyond those comfortable borders that you've set for yourself. There's a world out there, beyond North America (or whatever continent you call home) that needs God's hope. And God wants to use you to make a difference through prayer to help change the world for the better. One resource I've learned to appreciate is Operation World, a resource to inform your prayers for each country of the world. And, don't forget to pray for those fleeing their homeland and now coming to your region or city in need of relief.

3. Be resolved to strategically serve the lost and needy. Ask, how is God uniquely calling me this year to serve the lost and needy? As you look at the problems in your community or region, will you allow the deep pain and sadness you feel motivate you to be an agent of transformation? In light of what you see and feel, perhaps it's time to begin serving at your local food bank, or senior center? How about a short term mission trip to another state, or even another country, where you can be involved in service-learning projects that help to alleviate the sufferings of others. The point of all this is: do good things, and do them often, for hurting and needy people all year.

At this point I've encouraged you to be praying and strategically serving others. And there's one more goal you should have . . .

4. Be resolved to give away words of hope. A twinge of hopelessness surged up my spine earlier today as I read over the problematic prognostications being made for 2016. People are hurting from a deep and pervading sense of hopelessness about their future. So, with that reality in view, maximize your good deeds by linking them with hopeful and encouraging speech. When you faithfully serve others you earn a hearing. Don't waste that hearing by keeping that hope to yourself. The scriptures are chocked full of hope for the spiritually deaf. One practical goal you can set, "I am going to have ___ # of conversations with people this year where my goal is to share God's hope." What number will you set: 100 conversations? 500 conversations? Perhaps the most life transforming hope to give away is this: "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16

Thanks so much for taking the time to consider my thoughts. I pray you'll have an awesome 2016 serving others.