Preaching as Mission

Missional Preaching is broken into two parts: Essentials of Missional Preaching (theology) and The Goals of Missional Preaching (practice). The first part is nicely done. Tizon provides a concise theology of missional church addressing the missio Dei, a biblical theology of mission, which culminates in the teleology of mission–worship. It is clear that Tizon has a grasp of missiology, providing ample footnotes and clarifying detail, e.g. Karl Barth did not coin the Missio Dei. Throughout he emphasizes the important role of preaching, not our methodology, in the mission of the church. Tizon concludes:

We preach with the aim to make disciples. We preach to cultivate a church of missional worshippers and worshipping missionaries.

In this section, he borrows from Marva Dawn’s idea that “preaching should kill us.” A provocative thought. It should put to death the old self whose incessant pursuit of comfort disrupts worshipful discipleship. Preaching should, of course, also bring us life. His emphasis on the integrity of the preacher is also sharp. We should live what we preach. However, the gospel also exists for the preacher because no preacher can live everything he or she preaches with perfection. Preachers need Jesus too.

Goals of Preaching

This section charts a course for missional preaching by setting 7 Goals and providing sermon examples along the way, a great idea. The seven goals are:

1. Preaching for Inculturation
2. Preaching for Alternative Community
3. Preaching for Holistic Transformation
4. Preaching for Justice and Reconciliation
5. Preaching for Whole-Life Stewardship
6. Preaching for Shalom
7. Preaching the Scandal of Jesus

This book will challenge the preacher to live the message. It will push the boundaries of many. The example sermons include men and women, pastors and non-pastors, and a diversity of voices (primarily from the evangelical left). It would have been nice to see examples from some of the preaching greats of our time, and how they do or do not fit into Tizon’s theology and goals. Moreover, it would have also been nice to see how “missional preaching” compares with “Christ-centered preaching”. Tizon clearly adores Jesus and wants preachers to preach from their love of God in Christ. More attention to this would have been nice. Nevertheless, this book can serve as a helpful stretch to those who prefer to preach theologically, while leaving missional preaching to one or two Sundays a year. It is also helpful to give missional direction for any preacher, noting categories and goals for sermons. A missional preaching Evaluation Form is even included at the back.

1. Stretched Grace

2. What you Make of Community

3. Measure the Right Things

Read the whole piece

KidsLife—Jonathan Dodson from V O X A V I L A on Vimeo.

1. Building Missional Community Requires Stretched Grace.

2. Community is What You Make of It.

3. Labor for the Lord of Mission not the Fruit of Mission.

Read the whole post…

Read the whole article

Struggle to Execute on a City Vision

The vision of PlantR is to catalyze a Christ-centered, context-sensitive church planting movement for the social and spiritual renewal of Austin and beyond. Since the beginning, we have struggled to understand how to best facilitate this vision with such a diverse group of church planting methods, ecclesiologies, and theologies. Should we carve the city up into districts to prioritize city renewal through church planting? That sounds awfully parochial. Prioritize planting areas? By what standards? Ethnicity, income, poverty, least reached? The PlantR board has debated this for several years.

In the meantime, we continually pressed ahead with our vision by our three-fold purpose of Networking, Resourcing, & Encouraging church planters for city renewal. Many church planters need:

• Encouragement from someone with whom they can pray, bear burdens, and lick wounds. If the planter doesn’t make it, the church does make it. Churches have to make it to make movement.
• Networking to increase social interaction, create space for swapping best practices, establish coaching relationships, and increase kingdom partnership for Christ’s mission. Movements are typically comprised of networks of networks.
• Resourcing to equip the planter with local knowledge, missional ecclesiology, and church planting training. Some of the best resourcing can happen on-the-fly, when the leader acutely feels the need for it.

• MicroConferences are uniquely focused conferences that occur quarterly to resource a Christ-centered church planting movement.

These MicroConferences allow us to handpick leaders to speak into the movement in the various areas of theology, methodology, strategic planning, and pastoral care. In addition, the regional breakouts allow us to customize content and work for real, local challenges on mission in the greater Austin area. For instance, Hispanic church planting on the Eastside. Where can you find a breakout on that at a national conference? The Microconference connects top-level missional thinking to street-level missional practice in our city. On that note, Im thrilled to announce that Jeff Vanderstelt will be speaking into our movement on the topic of Missional Community on January 10!

• Register (ASAP) and read more about the Missional Community Microconference on Jan 10!
• Also, check out our new website which reflects the PlantR reorg!

I appreciate Mike Breen’s radical focus on discipleship. He points out that many leaders in the West, while often well-educated, are poorly trained for disciple-making. In seminaries we learn exegesis, systematic theology, church history, and pastoral duties but all too often the basics of making a disciples are left out. While there are exceptions, in general, he’s right. It’s true. Things do need to change.

Some Strengths of the Book

Build a discipleship culture. This is what Breen does well. Build. Equip. Change. If you’re looking for a book to help you to create a discipleship culture, look no more. He does this through structure and insight. The second half of the book is devoted to discipleship structure. He calls for Huddles, small groups of disciples who meet regularly to encourage and disciple one another. These huddles have multiplication built into them. They are kind of like Fight Clubs but with much more structure and intentionality.

What I enjoyed most about this book were the discipling insights, things like Invitation and Challenge. Invitation and challenge was one way Jesus made disciples. He invited them into his life, but not just to be his buddies; he also challenged them. Too much buddying is done in the name of discipleship. We need to deepen in our security in Christ to love others enough to exhort, challenge, and correct them with grace and truth. Breen notes that Jesus created a “highly supportive but highly challenging culture.”

I was teaching through a holistic discipleship class in our local church while reading Building a Discipleship Culture, and to my surprise, there were a lot of overlaps in our structures and insights. This was affirming, as Mike has been at it a bit more than me. Discipleship, if it is going to be true to God’s intention, has to be intentional, integrated, and informed. Mike says roughly the same thing when he calls for three environments: Classroom, Apprenticeship, and Immersion. Most Westerners never get beyond the classroom. Discipleship remains at arms length idea, not a personal investment.

Now, don’t jump to conclusions by lumping Mike into an anti-theology camp. He says teaching and doctrine are “incredibly important”, but goes on to point out how Jesus taught important doctrines in the context of relationship and ministry immersion. So, in building a discipleship culture its important that we integrate information with intentionality in the context of relationships. I really like this statement:

“The best discipling relationships always have an intentional, ‘organized’ component to them, as well as a less formal, ‘organic’ component.”

It’s true. Go all organic and its hard to grow well. Even plants often need support. Go all intentional and relationships can be reduced to meetings and information transfer. We need both intentionality and relationship. For these insights and many others, Building a Discipleship Culture is worth reading!

Overstatements in the Book

Now, Mike and I have exchanged a few winsome emails about some things he says in his book. And, if I understand correctly, he has a tendency to overstatement (of course none of us do!). In light of that, here are a few that I think need qualifying:

• “Disciples are the only thing that Jesus cares about, and its the only number that Jesus is counting.” Really? Jesus doesn’t care about our doctrine or church polity? And is Jesus counting disciples because he’s basing our worth as a disciple on how many disciples we have, or is he counting because he died for his disciples? Counting can be a dangerous thing.
• So what is the engine of the church? Discipleship. “If you make disciples, you will always get the church. But if you try to build the church, you will rarely get disciples.” There’s some truth to this statement, but it’s not a truism. Disciples have been made without making churches throughout church history. Very often they end up as cults. Alternatively, many churches are started that don’t mature and multiply disciples but instead gather Christians to Sunday events. This probably needs nuancing.

Read Austin City Life’s 2011 Annual Report: 

I felt strongly about these talks as I wrote and delivered them. Listening to the first talk on Pastoral Identity, I was reminded just how important they are—for me. I hope you’ll find them helpful too.

Session 1 - The Pastor’s Identity: Gospel-formed Leadership
Session 2 - The Pastor’s Church: Shepherding Sinners as Disciples
Session 3 - The Pastor’s Mission: Your Role in the Mission of the Church

• Installing (unqualified) leaders too fast
• Multiplying without vision or a clear process
• Making mission a project and unclear in focus