10 Tips for Missional Living

1. Understand the Gospel. The mission of God is consumed with the person and work of Christ. As you understand Christ, you can accurately participate in God’s work of redemption. So read the Gospels-a lot.

2. Take an eternal view of people. The friends, neighbors and co-workers around you have an eternity in front of them. We need to see them as God does and care for them accordingly.

3. Be friendly. A Christian should be the most trustworthy confidant another person has in the world. Believers should be the kind of people everyone else wants to be around.

4. Watch for a chance to serve. People use up all of their energy on family, work and menial chores. Look for ways you can care for your neighbors-even if it is just cooking a simple dinner for them.

5. Be truthful. Missional believers contend for the faith while speaking in a way understandable to the hearer. No matter what, be ready to talk about the truths in Scripture.

6. Love like Jesus. He lived a robust life of caring for the lost. In elevating sacrificial love far beyond any previous thinking, He gave an example for us.

7. Be on guard. As you work alongside the King to extend His Kingdom, our spiritual enemy will immediately attack. Guard your heart in holiness.

8. Live missionally at home. Family is the first place for the mission of God in your life. When people see the impact it has on your home, they will be more willing to trust its veracity for their own lives.

9. Show patience. People are farther away from understanding the Gospel than in previous generations. Do not hesitate to invite them to submit to Christ, but know that they have plenty of questions that might need answering first.

10. Do it for one reason-the glory of God. The only reason to be missional is to make Christ more widely known. God is worthy of being honored by all of creation, and it should be the main reason why we participate in His mission.

- Ashley Wolpert, Neue Weekly

Lost and Found

 

I have just began reading Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them by Ed Stetzer, Richie Stanley, and Jason Hayes who point to four makers of young adult ministry, based on there own responses.

Community - life is meant to be experienced together, and they sense a need to be involved in genuine relationships with others. . . they want to walk through life with their friends.

Connection - with people  who will walk alongside them and advise them . . . to have someone pour their lives into them and teach them along their journey . . . and they are willing to do that for someone else too.

Depth - Young adults want to be people of significance. . . They care about who they are and what they’re becoming.

Responsibility - is strongly valued because young adults know their choices make a difference.

While I have yet to read the following chapters that take a more in-depth look at each of these markers, my first observation is that all four seem to be inter-related. That is, doing community together insists on depth of experience and taking responsibility for one’s own actions because a connection has been created.