the missional church on Service

The Holy Spirit says: You are it. You are God's plan. In a thirsty world, people need to be refreshed. It is a broken world, and people need to be healed. Now get out there and do it!

Leonard Sweet shares an interesting story in the introduction to Neil Cole’s book, Organic Church , about a parish pastor who lived in a Scottish village near Edinburgh called Davidson’s Mains. ...

Mission . . . must take the form of servanthood. Only in this way can it escape the charge of arrogance.

When I was growing up, my dad was a farmer, not a Christian. He had little interest in faith, having been told by his father that the Bible was a fairy tale. But then a local pastor took an interest i...

Preaching Commentary Parakalō There are a lot of interesting words in this passage, including the second one. In the NIV, it says, “I urge...” In English, “urge” has some range. If I “urge you to r...

Parakalō There are a lot of interesting words in this passage, including the second one. In the NIV, it says, “I urge...” In English, “urge” has some range. If I “urge you to reconsider,” we all kno...

Social responsibility becomes an aspect not of Christian mission only, but also of Christian conversion. It is impossible to be truly converted to God without being thereby converted to our neighbor.

This scripture guide is adapted from the Summer Settings sermon guide Road Trips II . For more Summer Settings sermon guides, click below. Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered A...

Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered Abram and the way that God may send us out on a journey, waiting to see his will without knowing the destination.  Today we move forward to Saul on...

Preaching Commentary Approaching a Difficult Text I think it’s good to start with the observation that Matthew 15:21-28 is not an easy or straightforward text. Trying to turn it into an easy text w...

”Paul and his band were “released,” not sent. Let’s get the exegesis right. First, the operative agent here is the Holy Spirit, not the local church or any other human entity. Second, what those aroun...

Preaching Commentary An Introduction from Luke Our passage begins with a note from the author (Luke) to his reader (Theophilus), which reminds us that Luke-Acts was initially meant to be two parts ...

If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?

Every Christian a missionary; every non-Christian a mission-field.

As a missionary … it was always comforting to realize that I did not bring God along with my physical and cultural baggage to my new host country.

People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa....It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege.

The missionary activities of the church are the circulation of its blood, which would lose its vital power if it never flowed to the extremities.

Tom and Angela had lived in their neighborhood for about twelve years without really getting to know many people. They lived in a cul-de-sac of eleven houses and had limited communication and interact...

I've seen far too many Christians who are more than willing to travel halfway around the world to volunteer for a week in an orphanage, but who cannot bring themselves to take the personal risk of...

Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes.

A missional theology...applies to the whole of life of every believer. Every disciple is to be an agent of the kingdom of God, and every disciple is to carry the mission of God into every sphere of li...

We are not bringing Christ to poor communities. He has been active in these communities since the creation of the world, sustaining them, Hebrews 1:3 says, by His powerful Word. Hence, a significant p...

Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.

Many of us don’t have to board international flights to reach people from other religions and cultures. We just need to open our eyes, look around, and engage the nations in our own cites and towns….8...

It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church.

[Jesus] sends us into the world as he was sent into the world (John 17:18; 20:21). We have to penetrate other people’s worlds, as he penetrated ours: the world of their thinking (as we struggle to und...

Approaching a Difficult Text I think it’s good to start with the observation that Matthew 15:21-28 is not an easy or straightforward text. Trying to turn it into an easy text will probably leave your...

The very first word of the Rule of St. Benedict, that famous text that has guided the life of monastic communities since the sixth century, is listen . I want for us to put listening back where i...

He who dares to teach must never cease to learn.

The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.