Creating a missional life and missional community

In New Zealand and many western nations numbers attending christian churches have been dropping. In New Zealand, less that 10% of people attend a church. We live in an increasingly secular reality, where christianity is just one of many faiths contending for peoples lives. It seems christianity isn't relevant to many people any more.

But what is the matter, is it that "christianity isn't relevant any more" or that we have forgotten about the relevancy to many people.

In our quest to make christianity relevant to people we have forgotten the message of salvation and have missed the point. Instead of living lives that are changed loving examples of Gods righteousness, we have become marketers, trying to sell our message that "God Loves you" - Christianity has become a commodity that we try to sell. Christianity has become one of the many products that we can use so we can have a better life. The church pastor has become CEO and his elders, a board of representatives, the music team, the marketing team and the mission statement the slogan that makes that church different from the rest other churches and religions out in the marketplace. This all sounds well and good and many have come through christ through this model but there are problems with this, in our aim to do this we have watered down the truth of the gospel to make it feel good, we have sold Jesus the solution to lifes unhappyness and pill to solve all our worries.

Lets look first community of beleivers. They were left to figure out how to make the message of christ relevent to thier environment that they lived in. If you look at the message its rather laughable, the message was of a crucified messiah who rose again on the third day. The cross of all things isn't really cool. To a first centuary Roman citizen it was both an object of terror and an object of scorn. It was foolishness to beleive that a man who died on a cross could show a gods love for humanity. In Jewish tradition a person who died on a cross was seen to be cursed by God, it didn't seem possible that the Jewish messiah, a man chosen by God would die a cursed death on a tree. On top of this there were many more faiths that you could follow, from the cult of the emperor, to a mix of pagan beliefs. Many Greeks pursued the wisdom of the stoics and the cynics and beleived that if they chased after earthly wisdom while giving up the passions of the here and now they would find fulfilment. The early Christians were living in a world quite like ours. They had a message that was foolish, and were competing with a whole lot of other religious traditions vying for the attention of the Roman citizen.

The astounding thing about the foolish message of the Gospel is that people came and became christians. Why did people do this.

Something in the community of followers of beleivers made them look different. Something made the early christians look and smell different from the world they lived in. Something made them a dangerous subversive force in the world they lived in. What was it?

I beleive that the reason why the early Christians became to be seen as attractive was that they were different from the world that they lived in. They served one another first and then they served the community around them. They lived at peace with other, while others fought and complained and bickered with one another. They sacrificed their lives for one another while people in the world put themselves first. They put christ and his cross at the centre. They served the poor and healed the sick. They were Jesus to the community that they lived in. And as a result people realied something was different about them. They were attracted to the good God deads they did.

Our Ministry should aim to put Christ at the centre, intending to live a life like Jesus. It should share the good news of the Gospel that Jesus came to earth as a man humbly and obediently living a life in communion with his father. Jesus came to serve and teach people and then show the love of his father for his creation through his obedient death on the cross. He called people to repent and take up thier cross and follow him. We should do this too! His whole life showed the love of God for humanity, and showed humanity what it means to live differently than the world, it attracted people, criticism, pain and suffering and changed the world forever. (cf.Phi 2:6-11)

I will end on this point, we are not perfect, we aint going to get this right all. It is only by the grace of God and by his spirit. We are going to fall and God is going to pick us up, but we strive to immitate our Lord, and by doing so, show Gods love to the world. Even through our weakness we show Gods goodness.

Our aim in that we should see the world reconciled to himself, sharing the wonderful message of reconciliation to all humanity (2 Cor 5:19).