Here goes...
If the kingdom of God is the upside down, inside out, backwards, paradoxical reality…why do most of Jesus’ followers live pretty much like everybody else, only hoping for heaven? The Christian life looks like one long waiting game of bible studies and boring parties. We have entered CS Lewis’ wardrobe, full of anticipation, but instead of standing in a magical place with fawns and witches and every kind of possibility, I had somehow managed to walk through the wardrobe and into a dentist office.
What are you supposed to do in a waiting room except try to kill time? We do a lot of that. Kill a lot of time doing “churchy” things. We need to realize that the walls of the waiting room are actually paper-thin. Behind the veil exists an untamed, revolutionary reality…the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is NOT a kingdom of words & waiting BUT a kingdom of Action!
When Mother Teresa was asked about her work in Calcutta among the world’s poor; how it was going, what it was like, she would say, “COME AND SEE”. You see the Kingdom of God cannot be easily defined with words nor concretely measured by nickels and noses. May it be said of Mars Hill, "Come and See".
Matthew 10: 7 As you go, proclaim this message: 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, [b] drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.
Notice "As you go". The church is a community on the move. And because we have gone we can now say to those in need of the Kingdom to break in, "The kingdom of heaven has come near". As long as you are there, the kingdom is there. As long as you are there, there is no church-forsaken place.
Now from the Message translation: "Don't begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don't try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously.
Not sure about you, but I have not healed anyone, raised anyone, or kicked out a demon recently.
Jesus says in John 14:12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
So, while I haven't done anything "miraculous" recently, Jesus is telling me that I and we will do greater things. But what if the miracles that Jesus did were expressions of love, not merely power? What if the real miracle was that Jesus touched a leper, not healed a leper?
I have always hope that this community, Mars Hill, would be a community marked by love. And not the expected measure of love, but that we would love more than others think is necessary.
After Jesus went to heaven, some friends of mine Dan & Lynn, decided to start showing what heaven’s response to homelessness might look like. Every night during cold weather, they would load up their car with blankets and socks and roam Portland looking for people sleeping on the streets. If they didn’t look warm enough, they’d pull out an armload of comfort and tuck them in.
These days they have mobilized a team of like minded agents. They call themselves Blanket Coverage. They’ve gotten some media attention, but they still mostly operate off the radar and out of sight, and they like it that way. “What we hope is that when homeless people wake up to find that they have a new blanket and new socks, they’ll think about God taking care of them, not us.”
To the cold homeless person, this is a miracle. Because they went to bed cold without a blanket and awoke to find themselves tucked in, cozy and cared for.
Just before Jesus went to heaven He said, Matthew 5 14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
After Jesus went back to heaven, two college students I know, Kindra and Heather, decided to adopt. What they had in mind to adopt, actually, was a whole apartment building – a low income complex if possible. They wanted to show heaven’s response to a particular group in a particular place. So they went on a prayer walk asking God to show them the place He wanted them to adopt, and He did. The place where they ended up turned out to be a rehab center for single moms. Kindra and Heather walked in and asked, “What can we do to help around here?”
The girls started out just holding babies. Week after week, they showed up to help the moms and listen to their stories of grief. Through it all, their message to the residents never wavered: Even if you reject us, we’ll come back. We’re not better; we’re just here.
Before long the girls got permission to take families out for the day – to the zoo or to the park and Dairy Queen. Anything to feel normal. At Christmas, Kindra and Heather asked their church to help the moms buy presents for their kids. A year passed before any mom from rehab came to church. Even later, when one of the moms was baptized, she told the church that it was the tricycle for her son that did it. “That’s when I felt in my heart that you cared.”
READ MARK 16:15He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.
The invitation of Jesus was to go and spread has been complicated into programs best left to missionaries and pastors. We’ve reduced “all the world” and “all creation” to just the folks who walk through the doors at church.
The word sent occurs 650 times in the Bible and in a majority of its uses, God is doing the sending. God is attentive to needs, and so He sends.
John 20: 21Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.
The father sends the son, the son sends the spirit and the father, son and spirit send us, the church. This is not unique to Mars Hill, this is the heartbeat of God.
When God sends us, we don’t have to go. It is our choice to remain within the paper-thin walls waiting and killing time doing "church" things. For a while the early church kept the Good News in Jerusalem. I can understand why they didn’t want to leave. People were responding, lives were being changed. Why leave the program that was breaking all the records? But God wanted them to GO into all the world and to all creation with the Good News.
Before returning to OKC to be a part of the beginning of Mars Hill I was on staff at a large church. This church was 14,000 members strong. Had a youth ministry bursting at the seems with over 1400 students participating weekly. A college ministry that grew from 30 to over 1000 in a handful of years. A worship band that was crankin' out great cd's. A Pastor that was leading an organization representing 30 million evangelicals nationwide. This place was on the rise with opportunity and influence galore. And I was leaving to plant a new church. On my final Sunday (packed house, band jammin', lights swirling), one of the Sr. leaders asked me, "Are you really leaving? You're really leaving all of this?" To this I said, "Yes". His reply, "You're crazy". It was my choice. And for me to receive the invitation of Jesus to Go, I had to make the choice to break through the paper-thin walls of this mega church into a new land of mystery and adventure.
We have spent so much time and energy trying to reimagine what it looks like for us to DO church in a “relevant” way. A lot of people say the church is not reaching America because she’s not relevant. It’s as if the church doesn’t look sexy enough and if we could give her an extreme makeover, the culture around us would fall in love with her. Sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? But we do it; we try so hard to be cool.
I am not willing to waste any more time trying to figure church out. I'm ready to BE it, to be a part of the Kingdom of God here and now.
Relevance is a consequence of kingdom living. Authentic relationships make us relevant.
When my friend Laura started volunteering at a local AIDS hospice, I remember how emotional the experience got for her at times. She decided that doing tasks around the hospice wasn’t enough. She would love her patients – and keep on loving them until they could feel it. Since she’s a musician, she’d play music for them. Over time, the people she met became her friends, not simply projects. When a patient died, she wept and mourned. The people at the hospice knew she loved them. She didn’t have to work at being relevant because love given without any other agenda is always relevant. Relevance comes from relationship – it means we matter to someone, he or she matters to us, and we both know it.
Answering the call of Jesus to GO actually requires so little of me, it’s un-American really. All we need to say is YES. We are a church that says YES. Mars Hill does not exist for me. It is not about people helping me fulfill the vision that is in my heart. I am here to serve you. So, what's your passion? What's in your heart? Go after it. Chase it. Let it come alive. And let us serve one another, empower one another, resource one another.
What does it look like for us to say YES and GO?
1. People come first – all people matter to God, but at Mars Hill we continue to see that the people in the margins are the first ones we should go to. Jesus was born into the margins. He could have entered into a higher class, more influential segment of society. But he entered into the margins to show us where the kingdom of God was meant to break in and be lived out.
2. Community is an indispensable strength – There are no lone rangers in the kingdom of God. Jesus sent the disciples out in groups of two. Our community groups are not the magic formula for community. They are simply an on ramp into the lives of each other. They are simply an attempt to get us Being the church in 2's and 3's.
3. The genius of the kingdom is almost always in simplicity – We keep asking, what’s the need? And how can we meet it simply? We are looking at a one square mile area around KAMP's asking, "What's the need? And how can we meet it simply?" I think about the boys and girls club at 36th & Classen, I think about the Paseo Arts District, I think about broken neighborhoods that need beauty, Classen SAS High School, Cross & Crown, etc.
Let’s start the dialogue for a few moments here:
What would you say are the top three places of need in our community (as defined by where you live, work, go to school)?
What do you imagine the kingdom might look like if it broke in there?
What are some creative simple ways that you, your family and your friends could represent the kingdom in those areas?
What keeps you and those you know from being signposts of heaven in your community? How could you remove those obstacles?
Check out Tim Hughes' latest album "Holding Nothing Back". And make sure to listen to "God of Justice". We ended the Gathering listening to this together as a benediction of sorts. Below are the lyrics.
God of Justice, Saviour to all
Came to rescue the weak and the poor
Chose to serve and not be served
Jesus, You have called us
Freely we've received
Now freely we will give
We must go live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go
To act justly everyday
Loving mercy in everyway
Walking humbly before You God
You have show us, what You require
Freely we've received
Now freely we will give
Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out Lord
3 comments:
We had a fun weekend in which we "accidentally" got to dog-sit for neighbors we don't even know. We had met Buddy the Dog before on other escapades of his getting out of his yard (his owner referred to him as a furry, four-legged Houdini). He has earned such a reputation for this that his owner's cell phone number is on his dogtag. So I called it on Saturday, saying "Hi, I'm your neighbot at..." The person on the other end says, "Oh, no - So how is Buddy?" He states that the family is out-of-town so he will call a friend to come and get him. My reply is, "Well, I know you don't know me, but we really don't mind Buddy staying here until you get back (they would be home the next day)." He jokingly replies, "well, if you don't mind him sleeping with you - he gets scared at night!" So all of us, especially our huge dog Anna loved having him with us for those 2 days. We were at church when they came and got Buddy so we didn't get to meet his owners. But who comes over last night with a mini Thank You cookie cake? Buddy and his family! What a great experience of just BEING open to a stranger's dog being in our yard for a couple of days! As always, blessings return manifold - even in the form of a cookie cake!
Love it...BEING wins again.
I believe "Kingdom" means something like 'sovereign power' in most Biblical-cases ... e.g. we don't 'make this place the Kingdom of God,' but we 'make this place Heavenly if we RECOGNIZE the Kingdom of God.'
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