Author: Jonathan Dodson

The 7 New Deadly Sins

Posted on March 10, 2008

The Roman Catholic church has added seven more “deadly” sins to the prior seven. Among the new deadlies are genetic engineering, social injustice that causes poverty, and excessive accumulation of wealth.

“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbour’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos.” – Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary

The complete list is here. The news article here.

Metaphors for Missional Community

Posted on March 10, 2008

Joe Thorn has posted on his metaphors for missional community. Using a Circle, Inverted Triangle, and a Square, he describes the three areas of church ministry as:

  • The Table – domestic ministry
  • The Pulpit -liturgic ministry
  • The Square – civic ministry (HT:SM)

Kevin Rush has formulated a similar paradigm using the metaphors of Towel, Table, & Text:

  • The Table
  • The Text
  • The Towel

I use the metaphor of a house with it’s respective entrances to designate pathways in and out of the community of faith:

  • Side Door – gospel motivated relationships
  • Front Door -gospel messages from the pulpit
  • Front Yard -gospel activity in the city

Five Characteristics of a Missional Community

Posted on March 7, 2008

Here are five characteristics or “rules of order” for a missional community taken from Frost’s Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture.

  1. Bless. We will bless at least one other member of our community every day.
  2. Eat. We will east with other members of our community at least three times a week.
  3. Listen. We will commit ourselves weekly to listening to the promptings of God in our lives.
  4. Learn. We will read from the Gospels each week and remain diligent in learning more about Jesus.
  5. Sent. We will see our daily life as an expression of our sent-ness by God into this world.

Here are the Four Practices we developed for our church, which are grounded in Four Gospel Principles. These principles and practices shape all our City Groups (what we call missional communities).

SHARE life and truth through stories and Scripture

PRAY for one another and the city

ENGAGE people and culture of your community with the gospel

LOVE one another by eating and exercising hospitality

Does Mission Motivate Mission?

Posted on March 7, 2008

The biggest reason our churches are not healthy is that God is not a priority, specifically God as he has revealed himself through Scripture. God is missionary God–the Father sending the Son, the Son sending the Spirit, the Spirit sending the Church. However, all this sending is not about local versus global missions. It does not follow that if we are passionate about missions locally that we will be active globally or vice versa. Missions is not what should motivate us. Instead, we will be missionally motivated when we see that the missionary God invites us into the story of rejoicing in his glory, which means that we participate in God’s reconciling the world to himself. We will be healthier and happier when we put God above all things, from missions to money. If we participate in the self-glorifying, self-sending God, we will find ourselves living sent and glorifying lives, something that will compel us to share Jesus with the world.