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Outreach Requires Intentionality |
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There are millions of paths we can go down in our lives. Each opportunity, relationship, career or context is unique and full of possibilities. In a world of countless opportunities how do you ever decide what God wants you to focus on in ministry or how He wants you to reach out?
It all comes down to intentionality. God reveals His plan to us as we move along in our journey of faith. He is expecting obedience and attention to detail that is difficult to sustain. And because it is difficult we seldom bring that kind of intentionality to our ministry endeavors.
One of the bloggers in the Lausanne Blogger Network, James Carroll, recently started a conversation about an intentional urban church that is adapting to its surroundings in order to reach out effectively.
As I read his entry, I began to think about this topic of intentionality. Truth be told, I have been thinking about it for a long time. When we are intentional every step in our journey has value and purpose. That means that every phone call, every meeting, every quiet time, every blog post, every walk in the part . . . can be a significant next step in your ministry.
If we take this idea of intentional ministry seriously, the implications are significant and quick to show themselves. If you are about to go to bed, look on your night stand. The book that sits there has specific lessons you need to learn to grow. If you are planning out your day, look at your calendar and ask God how He will use each of the meetings that you have in front of you today. If you are about to take a trip for business or for vacation, look at the stops you will make. There will be people that God puts in your path during this trip that will teach you many things and will need a word from you.
So how are you approaching ministry today? Are your efforts going in a million directions? Are you debriefing your opportunities? Do you spend time praying ahead of the events that populate your day? If not, let me encourage you to bring that intentionality to your ministry and see what God will do.
Participate: Take one thing on your schedule tomorrow and do the following: 1) Ask God to reveal to you what He wants you to learn through the activity. 2) Write down some key questions that you want to get answered as a result of the activity. 3) Debrief the activity with someone you trust. 4) Pray through the follow-up items and ask God what He might be doing through these tasks
Engage: Identify a ministry that you are involved in regularly and come up with a list of 5 things you can do to be intentional in that ministry.
Own: Next time you go to a meeting without much of an agenda, challenge the people around the table to approach their topic intentionally.
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Watch Out When You Ask A Question! |
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Recently I asked a question of the active and growing facebook community for Lausanne. I asked expecting to get some response but was excited to see my question pick up speed and receive around 20 responses. This is just a small example of the global conversation building around the Lausanne Movement.
So what was my question? I asked . . . “If you had to explain to someone what the greatest need in global evangelism is, what would you describe?”
I agree that this is a big question that could be thought about in many different ways. That is part of why I asked it. I wanted to get a sense for how people might communicate the greatest need in global evangelism.
And what I found is very interesting and worth some thought as we interact with this together. As I studied the comments, I found that I could break them down into three groups:
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Aspirational comments that spoke of things eternal and the global scope of the effort
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Tactical comments that spoke of specific solutions that could be applied, measured and duplicated
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Incarnational comments that spoke of the desire to face these needs with a holistic perspective
As we are interacting through the Global Conversation Web site, on facebook, via twitter, at lunch tables and in churches, I think we need to be mindful of how different people approach the great challenges of global evangelism.
I don’t look at any of these and say, “That is not important!” In fact, each one of these inputs is a key piece to what we are learning in community. The essential piece is to know who you are speaking to and what they bring to the table. If you are interacting with someone who sees the evangelism needs at 30,000 feet and you are taking a very tactical approach, you might be frustrated with the lack of detail and measurable solutions. If you are approaching the evangelism needs from an incarnational approach and your counterpart is taking a tactical approach, you will feel like their solutions are focused on programs rather than transformed lives. And we could slice it many other ways. The important thing to realize is that these ways of thinking (and many others) exist and define people’s approaches.
We need to be inspired, we need tools and techniques and we need to look at our ministry holistically. In short, we need each other to meet the challenges of global evangelization.
Participate: As you read people’s responses below, think about how you would answer that question and ask yourself how you can learn from the groups that approach the question differently.
Engage: Watch as you respond to key discussions within Lausanne and in your broader ministry context and try and identify the way you approach issues. Ask God to help you understand how He has designed you for His service.
Own: If you are in a discussion and people are not connecting, be the one to help them understand why and find the tools to engage in a God-honoring discussion that leads to Kingdom work being accomplished.
See the facebook responses below . . .
Aspirational Comments:
- God so LOVED the world that...
- Matthew 24:14 "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."
- That there would be enough workers for the harvest.
- Our "Mission": Worship the one, true living God and follow Jesus as His disciple, then go to all people everywhere to make worshipers of the living God and disciples of Jesus Christ. Repeat process until the King returns.
- The heart of Christ.
- Go back to sharing biblical Gospel.
- salvation
Tactical Comments:
- Make the Gospel relevant to those that you are telling it to
- Gumption
- Equipping the saints for the work of ministry from an international platform.
- three things: senders, sent ones, and cents...
- If each one of us "christian"really tried our best to live just a part of what we preach... The Holy Spirit would reach,teach and Evangelise. John 13:35
- Get the Word out.
- Supporting the hundreds of thousands of native missionaries barely surviving on $2 a day. They are the key to reaching all nations.
Incarnational Comments:
- Is getting people to incarnate evangelism as a life's style among their community: relatives, friends and neighbors.
- In over 30 years of research at the Institute, the biggest problem is Christians not being real, faithful and fruitful giving our Lord a bad rap…
Them.
- Christ-likeness.
- Obedience
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Your Part in Advancing the Cause |
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I love the word “advance!” It communicates momentum, action and intentional activity. But in a world where everything is moving at
lightning
speed, the advance can loose some of its punch.
The truth is that unless we know where we are going, advancing is simply an act of physical movement without the intentionality that we desire to see. This is true with the Lausanne Congress just as it is true with so many other arenas of ministry.
So I want to pose a challenge to you that is critical to the success of the congress in October. Lausanne is currently releasing what they call “Advance Papers.” These are the work of key groups of thinkers around the main topics of the congress. The idea is that these Advance Papers will become the catalysts for your ideas and input in order to inform the events on the ground in Cape Town.
Only one problem—the movement can’t advance without the effort of people like you (whether you are going to the congress or not) to review these papers, add to the conversation and engage on the issues.
Before we get to the “calls-to-action” at the bottom that I always have, let me share a few thoughts on what it takes to advance a movement:
- You don’t advance a cause unless you spend the time.
- You don’t see the foundation of a movement develop unless you come prepared.
- If we want to see breakthroughs in our efforts towards global evangelization, we have to invest in understanding the issues.
- Even if we spend time, prepare and seek breakthrough as we understand the issues, we will not see global impact unless we are interacting with the same vocabulary, topics and content.
I know that each person reading this blog wants to see evangelism advance and at the same time I know that each person is very busy in their ministry/professional lives. So here is what I suggest . . .
Participate: Go to the Advance Paper section and select just one to read and interact with. Put aside one hour to invest in reading one and posting a response.
Engage: Take the topic that you responded to and commit it to prayer over the next few months leading up to the congress. Ask God to give you insights and for insights to those interacting on the topic online and in person.
Own: Pick a meeting you are leading this week within your sphere of influence and challenge each person there to read one of the papers and respond.
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Barriers Don’t Equal Thwarted Ministry |
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 How many of you have ever made your way through a maze or completed the same sort of activity in paper? The interesting thing about mazes is that they are full of barriers. In fact, it wouldn’t be considered a maze if the barriers didn’t exist!
Our goal, of course, is to get to enter in from one door and either find a central point or find our way out through the second door. As we walk through the maze barriers keep us from seeing where that destination is. So we must keep trekking around one corner after another trying to make sense of our surroundings so that we can progress towards the goal.
Many times ministry feels like this as well. Our goal in ministry is to reach the lost and help them grow in Christ. But the entire journey seems to be one barrier after another. Many times we wonder whether the dream that God put in our heart is even possible!
But it seems that God allows these barriers in our ministry lives as a way of creating opportunities and challenging our faith. As we come around each corner of the maze, we have to decide whether we will do the ministry set before us and continue even when we hit a wall we did not expect.
A great example of this is Paul’s life. After sitting in a prison for several years, he finally was put on a boat to Rome. Imagine what he must have felt when the ship floundered and they had to swim for an island! But Paul’s words ahead of that swim are telling: “But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed.” Acts 27:22
What an amazing ministry opportunity. What looked like a barrier – a huge storm – became a ministry to the soldiers, prisoners and those on the island where they sought refuge.
One place in ministry today where we see many barriers is in the area of Bible Poverty. Everywhere we look there is a barrier that seems to keep people from engaging with Scripture. It might be language, culture, access or indifference – all barriers that seem to tower above us as we reach out. That is the theme of the Advance Paper for the Lausanne Congress written by the Scripture in Mission Multiplex Resource Team. The team has identified many of the key barriers and developed the paper around the major priorities we must have as the Church in this area.
Participate: Please take a minute to read “Major Priorities in Eradicating Bible Poverty” and think through the priorities they have defined to overcome the barriers that exist. Make sure to leave some thoughts as these Advance Papers need input from our Global Conversation.
Engage: Sit down in your next quiet time with the Lord and make a list of the barriers that exist in your own ministry. Use that list as an ongoing prayer tool as you seek to overcome these barriers in Christ.
Own: Challenge others who are involved in similar ministry to yours to consider the barriers that they are facing. Share how you began praying for victory in the face of barriers and encourage others to do the same.
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