“Rebuilding” the Jesus Way

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rebuilding the Jesus way

Over the past few weeks our EFCC Blog has focused on “rebuilding.”  Last week our Executive Director, Bill Taylor, talked about the foundation and Cornerstone of our rebuilding, a reminder needed before we “get to practical suggestions.”  Well, today I want to offer just one practical suggestion from the model of our Cornerstone – Jesus. This is, I believe, an essential step in building and rebuilding, especially as we consider the work of the Church.

That essential step is this: invest in your key leaders. I know you have heard this before. But I believe it is even more vital, formative, and non-negotiable than ever. I am also convinced it is something everyone of us can do if we just give it the attention it deserves.

You see, it matters little how great a strategy you might build if you don’t have a healthy team of leaders who own it and work it.

It doesn’t matter how great your facility, your technology, your plan, and even your budget is; without strong leaders who are united to each other, AND to the vision, you will not be able to rebuild much of anything.

I know this is not rocket science. Of course, as the leadership guy I will talk about the importance of “growing leaders.”  But I simply cannot overemphasize this. Do you have good leaders already? Wonderful, you still need to invest in them. Do you have a good relationship with your leaders? That is great, but you need to keep working on that relationship. Do you need more good leaders? Start now investing and growing them. In fact, I think we need to stop just looking for people who already shine as leaders and broaden our search to potential leaders who have yet to show their leadership chops.

This means we need to shift our gaze to younger people. Invest, empower, and release the young people in your church. Give them opportunities, responsibilities, appropriate authority, exposure, prayer support, and friendship. I am pretty sure if Timothy joined any of our churches, he would lower the average age of the leadership.  The biblical model is clearly there for us to invest early. At whatever age you are presently looking for leaders, I would suggest you start investing in people younger than that.

Beyond the call to invest in young people let me say this to pastors:  build deeply into your leadership board. Invest in them as a group and invest in them individually. Spend time with them. Visit them in their workplace. Invite their families into your home. They are key. The New Testament speaks often about the role of elders in the leadership of the church. And you have the privilege of being their shepherd.

And Elders, invest deeply in your ministry staff. They need you more than you know. They are not superhuman, they are often wounded, tired, confused, but still committed. Pray for them. Find ways to bless them. Get to know, and care for, their families.

And if you are not a pastor or Board member, I would encourage you to find someone around you that you can invest in. If you are retired, take a young person under your wing. If you are an older couple, take a young couple under your wing.

You first step in strategy when it comes to rebuilding is to invest in the key people around you, building into the leaders. I wanted to write about the need to develop trust as you rebuild. I thought about talking about the benefit in starting program/events as trials and experiments rather than waiting for the perfect and risk-free plan to come along.

But I resisted those temptations to instead say that rebuilding is about people first, not programs. Many teams and relationships have been stressed, fractured, distracted, and disconnected over the past few years. So, start rebuilding there, with the key leaders of your ministry.

When I look at the example of Jesus, I marvel at how he invested specially in the key followers he called, building relationships with them long before they even understood what he would be asking of them. Let’s follow his example.  We will never be sorry when we do that in the service of His bride, the church.

Terry Kaufman
EFCC Leadership Catalyst

Rebuilding on Foundation and Cornerstone

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rebuilding on foundation and cornerstone

So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. We are His house, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself.  We who believe are carefully joined together, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through Him you Gentiles are also joined together as part of this dwelling where God lives by His Spirit. 

I love the above verses from Ephesians 2:19-22! During this season we are considering what “rebuilding” the church post-Covid looks like. Over the past few weeks, Terry Kaufman talked about deconstruction, Ike Agawin shared about missional identity, and Neil Bassingthwaighte highlighted the firm foundation of God’s hesed. In my last post I ruminated a bit about building on divine calling. Before we get to practical suggestions for rebuilding ministries post-Covid, I want to briefly consider Paul’s words to the church in Ephesus.

Firstly, I am struck by what we should be rebuilding. If we build in alignment with the redemptive heart of our God, then our primary goal must be to build family. We were strangers and aliens to God’s family, but now we have the privilege of being a holy people who are citizens of His Kingdom. We have the missional task of inviting other “foreigners” into His family. If we build according to God’s heart, then neither buildings nor programs nor reputations should be our primary goal. In dependence on the Holy Spirit, we invest our energies towards the building of people – both as unique individuals and as family.

Secondly, I consider where/on what we build. We are His house, and we build upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Himself is the cornerstone that holds the entire house together.

There is no power in building God’s kingdom on a foundation of human technique, strength, and fame. One can build only a temporary human kingdom using human ingenuity. Building something eternal takes the supernatural power of the gospel of Jesus and His Holy Spirit. We dare not build on anything else but the Living Word.

Lastly, I notice how we rebuild. I love Paul’s point about how carefully each believer is fitted together as an integral part of God’s holy temple where God lives by His Spirit. There is something beautiful about how our God lovingly builds us into His dwelling place. Oh, how He must value every one of His children!  God purposes that each believer be a strategic piece of His temple and a priest who ministers His presence in this world. We dare not treat believers as mere cogs to keep “church machinery” running.   As we rebuild His temple presence in this needy post-Covid world, we must do so in ways that treat each family member with care and honour. After all, believers are entrusted to one another, and are being joined together into a loving, holy unity by the Master Builder.

So, let’s arise and rebuild! Our God will give us wisdom and ability to do so.  Yet may we be clear about what, where, and how we build!

Bill Taylor
EFCC Executive Director

Underneath the Foundation

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Under the Foundation

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods. His faithful love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords. His faithful love endures forever.

Psalm 136:1-3

Whenever I have seen a larger structure being built, it always amazes me how long it takes before all the foundation work is done. The rest of the building seems to rise almost instantaneously in comparison. A lot of that initial work is in the ground, underneath the concrete.

Our current blog theme is rebuilding. Much of our rebuilding focuses on recovery from Covid. That is needed. Some of our rebuilding discussion reaches out from that context and asks larger questions for today: What does the church need to look like? How do we as disciples live in this changing culture? What are the core beliefs and practices we need to continue to live out? What are secondary beliefs and practices that may need to be recontextualized? Rebuilding is hard work and usually requires change. For many people rebuilding feels like someone has pulled the rug out from under them.

A firm foundation is important. What we rebuild upon is crucial. The foundation we, as Christian, are always building and rebuilding on is our Triune God. Our faith is all about relationship. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all play crucial roles in calling and empowering us as we enter life and mission with God.

But what lies under the foundation? How do we know it will hold up in the shifting sands of culture? Ultimately, why do we trust God?

Most construction requires piles which anchor and support the foundation. Depending on the soil, piles need to be driven deep into the ground to ensure the stability of the entire structure. Using this analogy, I think of the character of God as the piles underneath the foundation.

We know we can trust God because we can count on the faithful love of God that always endures.

Chesed (or Hesed – the Romanized form of the word) is a Hebrew word used in the Old Testament. It appears over 250 times, more than half of those are in the Psalms. It’s difficult to translate. Some English attempts to do so are: “Unfailing love”, “faithful love”, “mercy”, “lovingkindness”, and “goodness”. It ultimately speaks of a deep faithful loving covenant commitment.

In Exodus 34, God allows Moses to catch a glimpse of his glory. As part of that revelation, he reveals His name, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.” Moses finds out “Hesed” is part of the essential character of God, part of how he is known by us. This understanding refocuses Moses’ leadership after the golden calf.

Psalm 136 is a history of the nation of Israel in verse. Every line of their story is interwoven with the unfailing love of God. Through the good and the bad, times of flourishing and languishing, God’s faithful love endures forever. What a great way to recite their story! Think through your own story. Even though you may not always see it, “God’s faithful love endures forever” is interwoven into it as well. It could even be said that your story is part of a much larger story of God’s faithful love which endures forever.

“Hesed”, God’s faithful love, is like the piles in the ground that guarantees our foundation for rebuilding is strong and will not shift. It is the essential character of God that undergirds everything he does. As we debate what rebuilding is, and engage in the process, the way ahead is not clear. However, I hope and pray that for you, the faithful love of God that endures forever is crystal clear. May that assurance help all of us rebuild well.

Neil Bassignthwaighte
ServeCanada Director & Interim Prayer Catalyst

Rebuilding the Church’s Missional Identity

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rebuilding the missional identity of the church

Dr. Darrel Guder coined the word “missional” in His book, “Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America.” In that book, he chose the term “missional” to talk about the missionary nature of the Church, that mission is not a program of the Church but rather the essence, purpose, action and character of the Church, all wrapped up in this larger understanding of God as a missionary God. God is engaged in the mission of redeeming all of creation and has commissioned His Church, the Grand Collective, to be on mission with Him.

Unfortunately, the term “missional” became so popular and became a cliché in our churches today. “Missional” seems to be used to describe almost anything. We have missional communities, leadership, cohorts, cafes, and countless books which claim it in a title. The term became a fad or an attempt for relevance in our current ecclesial environment. There is no end to problematic use of the word especially to imply that if everything is mission, then nothing is mission.

But the term “missional” is still significant and crucial in our understanding of our missional identity as God’s people. The call to be missional is also timely because of the significant changes that have been happening in our world today. There had been a shared consensus among theologians and missiologists that we are living through the end of Christendom in the West, and yet we are still living as though Christendom were intact.

The context where the Church is located has already changed. We live in a society marked by religious pluralism, ethnic diversity, and cultural relativism, yet we are not doing enough to reach our next-door neighbour.

We know Acts 1:8, which commands us to be God’s witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth. Yet, the reality is that Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth are now in one place, and frontier missions can now be done right where we are! God has sovereignly brought many unreached people groups right on our doorsteps (Acts 17: 26-27), yet very little outreach is done among them. We now live in the glocal (global and local) era where the paradigm of global and local mission exists together.

In light of this present context, the call to be missional is as urgent as ever. If God is a missionary God, it follows that God’s people, the Church, are also missionary. In the Triune God, God the Father sent His Son to the world on a mission to redeem His creation; Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is sending the Church to the world on mission with God. Jesus said, “Just as the Father has sent Me, I also send you (John 20:21). That is the Church’s missional identity in Jesus.

The question is, how do we rebuild our missional identity?

First, we need to have broader mission theology that will help us define our missional identity in Christ. In the past, there was no theological framework that could provide the basis for mission. Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology are good, but they are inadequate. As you can observe in most Bible Colleges and Seminaries today, mission theology is not being taught. Missional identity development should be an intentional effort of the Church and needs to be emphasized in the discipleship process in our local churches.

Secondly, our missional identity begins with recovering a missionary understanding of God. By His very nature, God is a “sending God” who takes the initiative to redeem His creation. Understanding the Missio Dei will cause us to redefine our understanding of the Church. Because the Church is comprised of the “sent” people of God, the Church is the instrument of God’s mission in the world. However, most people believe that mission is just an instrument of the Church, a means by which the Church is grown. Although Christians frequently say, “The church has a mission,” but according to missional theology (Alan Hirsch), a correct statement would be “the mission has a church.” This understanding is essential in rebuilding our missional identity.

Thirdly, “missional” or “missional living” is a Christian term that describes a missionary lifestyle. Being missional includes embracing the posture, thinking, behaviours, and practices of a missionary to reach others with the message of the gospel. The basic premise of this thinking is that all Christians should be involved in the Great Commission of Jesus as commanded in Matthew 28:19-20.

And fourthly, to rebuild our missional identity, we need to understand that the Church is sent to every culture wherever they may be found. The scope of the imperative to make disciples is to all nations – (Grk. panta ta ethne in Matthew 28:19-20). We are to engage the nations with the gospel locally and globally.

The task of reaching the nations for Christ often feels overwhelming and insurmountable. Nevertheless, God has gifted people in local churches to fill every need and conquer every obstacle. The task of reaching the world can only be accomplished by renewing Paul’s vision of developing every Christian for his or her place in God’s kingdom. This can be done by developing or rebuilding the missional identity of local church members so that they as a church can represent Jesus to the world by “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).

Ike Agawin
ServeBeyond Director