Missional Living in Europe
There is much talk these days about missional church. I am more interested in missional living. When we speak of the church we can easily point out the church’s faults and irrelevance but exclude ourselves from the criticism. It is easy to find fault with “the church” but much more difficult when we accept that we are the church.
Accepting Jesus’ invitation to “go and make disciples” gets at the heart of what church is all about. That is missional living. When I think of making disciples I think of it in a holistic sense of being involved in every area of a persons’ life.
Missional living is about investing in the lives of other people. It is not a program. It is certainly more than organized outreach activities. Being a missional person means intentionally building bridges to other people – for the sake of them knowing Jesus and discovering what it means to be a fully alive, free human being. It is an attitude that says, “I will invest my life in others for the sake of Christ and his purposes on earth.” It means I will live that way in every sphere of life and every day of the week.
I met a young man a few years ago named Charles who was an infectious disciple maker. Charles was “missional.” He was driving me to the airport after a visit to his community. I asked him if he had a dream, and he eagerly shared it with me. “I want to have eight generations of disciples.” Eight generations of disciples? I was intrigued by that statement - it made me curious to learn more. So I asked Charles what he meant.
“My dream is to have eight generations of my own disciples, even more. I want to disciple people who disciple others, who reach out to still others. I want to start a movement that transforms people’s lives. I know I won’t be able to do it unless I invest my life in others, one person at a time.”
“Why eight generations of disciples?” I asked Charles. “Because I am an eighth generation disciple of Pieter!” he replied.
Charles was alive with his dream. He was busy gathering a small community made up of people who were giving their lives away to others. It was a small, simple, and somewhat fragile community, yet the members of his community were alive with their determination to live focused lives.
I have discovered in my experience that you can build a missional community with a few outward focused people. Charles had discovered the same thing. In fact, he was already dreaming of more than one community. He wanted to start a movement.
To impact people in Europe we have to have a dream, a dream of what it will look like if we impact the lives of other people for Jesus. Each of us can dream about what God wants to do through us to impact other people. It is not popular to dream in today’s Europe, especially to dream big. But unless we have a dream greater than the dreams of materialists, cynics and hedonists around us, we will be swallowed up by their dreams.
Not only do we need a dream, we also need courage to transfer that dream from our hearts to reality. Courage has to do with pursuing our dream without fear of man, but it also means saying no to opportunities that will lead us away from our dream. Courage is the willingness to take risks, face criticism and rejection, and to dare to believe God to use us to impact other people’s lives.
A third characteristic of effective missional people is the willingness to continually reevaluate one’s effectiveness in living and communicating Jesus to our friends and neighbors. This willingness is an expression of humility. We are often given the impression that humility has to do with inner spirituality, but surely it has to do with the willingness to be missional learners as well. We need humility of we are to learn how to engage our culture and effectively share the good news of Jesus with people in the culture.
If we are to be effective in living the mission of God, we have to go to people and not expect them to come to us. I think of this as stepping over a threshold into people’s personal lives A threshold is small and easily overcome if we respect those who live in a home, and we are invited into their home.
I have noticed several different “thresholds” that separate post-modern Europeans from Jesus. If we discern and step over those thresholds into people’s lives with respect and integrity, we enable those people to move toward faith in Jesus, and perhaps as important, to feel welcome in our homes and communities as followers of Jesus.
The thresholds that I discerned during my years of living in Europe involve helping people move from distrust to trust; from spiritual complacency to curiosity; from wandering aimlessly to sincerely seeking; from cynicism to faith; and finally, from hardness of heart to acknowledging one’s need of forgiveness.
During my 18 years of living in Amsterdam, I found people had different attitudes, or if you will, different levels of spiritual hunger. These are the thresholds that I am describing above. By respecting where people are, and at the same time gently challenging them to consider the invitations of Jesus, we are inviting them to move beyond where they are on their journey to faith.
Jesus taught his disciples to see missional living like sowing seed. In Mark 4:3-29, Jesus tells the story of the sower of seed. Jesus tells them that people’s hearts at like different kinds of soil. Some are hard, some shallow, some are overcome by the cares of life, and some are open and responsive.
Regardless of the response of a person’s heart, our role is to both give our lives away, and to give the good news of Jesus. We give Jesus, we don’t sell him or push him on people. We give him generously and with honesty, kindness and courage. We give him with our actions and with our words, with our involvement in the issues and concerns of our nation and community, and with our passionate pursuit of living in Jesus communities with others of similar vision and values.
I encourage the members of our All Nations community in Cape Town to dream about making a difference in peoples lives, but not by packaging religion like a commodity. The kingdom of God is a powerful force for change, but it not an object to sell. When it is let loose in our lives it has a way of infecting everyone it comes in contact with.
When I quizzed Charles on what steps he was taking to turn his dream into reality, he told me about listening to his house-mates to hear their story, and then sharing his story of how he lived before Jesus, how he journeyed to faith in Jesus, and what difference Jesus made in his life. He was also getting involved in the pain and problems of his friends, as well as celebrating life with them. He was taking simple, practical steps to turn his dream into a reality. He was faithfully working away at it, and you know what? I believe his dream will become a reality.
Living your missional life
Missional living is deliberate. You will have to be very intential if you will life a missional life. It’s more than hanging out and hoping others will ask us questions. It includes caring, listening, building friendships, being honest about our weaknesses and fears, and getting involved in the problems and joys of life around us. Most of all, it means bringing Jesus into every relationship.
We are created by God to reproduce after our own kind. If we are proud and arrogant, we will produce the same fruit in others, and if we are humble and transparent, we will reproduce that fruit as well. Living a missional life is a longing to live in a way that we can invite others to live like we do as fervent followers of Jesus. Paul said to the Corinthians:
Imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.
To the Thessalonians he wrote:
You know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord… so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.
One of the ways I encourage people to join God’s mission is to intentionally connect their passions and interests with other people with a goal of both building friendships and influencing people to come to faith in Jesus. As we ’sow’ our life into other people, and as we bring Jesus and praying blessings for people into every conversation/relationships, we should pay attention to those who are open and responsive. It is those people we should invite to spend time considering the teachings of Jesus. Many of us stumble when it comes to going beyond friendship to actually inviting people to consider Jesus. I believe the most honest, respectful way to do that is to ask people if they want to do a Bible study with us to consider what Jesus taught and did.
My prayer for you is that you will “take courage” to live your life on mission with God. You will not be alone. He promises to be with you.
