Category: Missional Church

Preaching the Gospel with Your Sweat

Posted on October 2, 2018

Jesus came preaching the gospel to the poor, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor” (Luke 4:16). But he didn’t just preach to the poor; he proved it to the poor. Jesus is not merely a man of deep conviction, he’s profoundly authentic. He walks right out into the margins of society and calls us to follow him. To take our middle-class wealth, comfort, and convenience and subordinate it to the greater needs of the marginalized. He says nothing short of “Follow me…into the margins.”

The Gospels depict Jesus spending time with the mentally ill, the disease-ridden, and in the homes of the fever-pitched. We often refuse to drop a meal off if someone is contagious. Follow me, Jesus says.

In the sprawling city of Kampala, Uganda, the city center is surrounded by undulating dirt roads that wind into the slums occupied by millions of unaccounted poor. The slum roads are lined with cardboard and cinderblock homes, bordered by open sewage ditches, where half-naked children run free, some with parents many without. It was my day to depart after long two weeks of rural and urban travel, teaching, and orphan ministry among some of the poorest people I have ever known.

My flight out was that afternoon. I couldn’t wait to get home. The team was slated to go to an orphanage. I was flying out before them. When I woke up that morning, I took a warm shower, put on some fresh clothes, and began to reason why I shouldn’t really go to the orphanage with the team. I could get some shopping done, take care of some admin, and oh, when I landed in the States I had a conference to speak at! Lots of prep needed for that. I was trying to justify not walking into the margins, spending time with street kids and orphans.

Over breakfast, I read Luke 5, where I saw God–God–care so much for the marginalized that he became sweaty. Instead of avoiding the dirty, smelly, disease-ridden poor, he walked right into their living rooms, placed his holy hands on them, and loved them. Jesus’ saving message was proven in serving action. The Messiah got dirty with the dirtiest of us all. As I read, I wept. The reason I didn’t want to go to the orphanage was because I didn’t want to get dirty, sweaty before I got on that plane. I had fresh clothes on. I didn’t want to spend time with poor orphans because I didn’t want to get dirty.

Jesus is so deeply authentic, so true to his own message, that his life demands a response. His gospel is so counter-cultural, so status-reversing that it exposes the rich in their pride and compels us to love the poor in their humility. Jesus didn’t just speak a great gospel; he lived a great gospel. He brought the hope of comprehensive salvation right into the slums. He announced and accomplished the gospel, and he is calling us to follow him. He’s calling people out of their designer slums and comfortable homes into the lives of the emotionally broken, socially awkward, mentally ill, economically destitute, racially marginalized, and the eternally-separated-from-God, not only to announce salvation but to prove it with our very own lives.

But “proving” Christ is not enough. Preaching Christ is more than enough. He heals all, makes everything new.

Jesus preaches the gospel to the poor with his sweat. Will we?

Favorite Summer Reads

Posted on August 14, 2018

While I didn’t read as much as I would have liked this summer (lots of family time, travel, movies & writing), I definitely found some gems. Here are four favorites:

Favorite Fiction: The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah

This book is great for page-turning leisure and characters you care about.

After reading Hannah’s New York Times best-selling Nightingale, I thought I would try another one of her novels. I finished this 400-page novel in four days. The story follows a family’s move to Alaska in search of a new beginning. As I read the compelling descriptions of Alaska’s raw beauty, I found myself longing to see it firsthand. This beauty, however, is sharply contrasted by the challenges of rugged, remote living and a dark, inner struggle within the family. It is a story of love and loss, hope and redemption, justice and compassion. It moved me to the brink of tears several times.

Most Fascinating: How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan

This book is a trip, perhaps a sign of things to come, and evidence that rational-materialists can be converted by the hope of paradigms of greater explanatory power.

Pollan is most well-known for his Omnivore’s Dilemma, but in this book he takes a deep dive into the scientific, historical, existential, and spiritual merits (and concerns) in using psychedelic drugs. As a rational-materialist, Pollan experiences a kind of conversion to the usefulness and spiritually eye-opening power of psychedelics. It was remarkable to watch a credible intellectual long for more than his scientific worldview would allow, while also learning more than I wanted to about drugs. I

Most Timely: The Death of Truth, Michiko Kakutani

This book is excellent for preachers who want to commend truth to a secular audience.

Although left-leaning, the Pulitzer prize-winning Kakutani tries to show how conservatives and liberals have contributed to the death of truth in our modern age. While Trump is a constant heuristic of moral and truth decay, the book develops its call for truth and fact by appealing to literature, philosophy, and common sense. It is admirable to see a journalist champion truth in this way, even if it’s not always even-handed.

Favorite Christian: Disruptive Witness, Alan Noble

Everyone in your church needs to read this.

Alan’s thesis is apropos: in an age of thin beliefs, and pantheon-like approach to truth statements, Christianity and Christians must be more disruptive in their witness for the exclusive and unique claims of Jesus to be heard. He takes up major insights of the philosopher Charles Taylor, explains and applies them to various aspects of discipleship. I think just about everyone in our church would benefit from reading this book.

 

Sessions from The Mission of God (Dublin)

Posted on January 20, 2018

This summer I had the privilege of serving pastors in Ireland. The theme of the conference was The Mission of God. Dr. Tim Ward also gave two helpful lectures on preaching and application, with some interesting reflections on generating application that is, and is not, warranted from a text in redemptive-historical preaching. Here is the audio:

Session One – Jonathan Dodson  “Surviving God’s Mission in the City, Genesis 18:22 – 19:38″
Session Two – Jonathan Dodson  “Evangelism in a Secular Culture”
Session Three – Tim Ward  “Effective application (part 1)”
Session Four – Tim Ward “Effective application (part 2)”
Session Seven – Jonathan Dodson  “Gospel community in a secular society, 1 Peter 2:1-11″

T.C. Hammond Theological Lecture with Q&A: “Spiritual Friendship”  (Jonathan Dodson)

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When Mission Gets in the Way of Counseling

Posted on December 12, 2017

Should we spend time counseling when we could be out evangelizing, building community, strategizing for mission or preaching? Isn’t counseling something missional leaders “refer,” not something we do?

Well, it depends on how we define the word counsel. If we mean specialized sessions devoted to psychological issues that can not be addressed by the gospel, then perhaps we shouldn’t counsel. However, if we mean discipling others with gospel wisdom in the full range of human thinking, feeling, and behaving, then perhaps we should reconsider our default practice of referring.

Overlooking Counseling

Mission-minded people tend to overlook or look down on counseling. We may see it as an obstacle to mission. Too often I’ve heard things like, “God called me to preach not to pastor.” “I’ll save ‘em, somebody else disciple ‘em.” Or “Counseling isn’t my gift.” But this simply doesn’t square with the Bible. Counseling might not be your gift but it is your responsibility.

Even the greatest church planter, the Apostle Paul, had time for counseling. His letters are charged with gospel-centered counsel that springs from an intimate knowledge of people’s everyday lives. Very often, his counsel is to counsel (Rom 15:14; Eph 5:25; Col 3:12-17; 3:12-13; 10:23). Peter, James, and the writer of Hebrews also counseled their churches and counseled them to counsel. If we’re biblically faithful, counseling is something that is required of all God’s people, even church planters!

Professionalizing Church Planting

Church planting has already become an industry. Just Google “church planting”(897,000 hits). A multitude of conferences and businesses have sprung up around church planting. Best practices and best venues dominate planting conversations. Church planters borrow business language and practice in order to “plant” churches. Consider this string of questions:

  • What are you running? What are your numbers like?
  • Are your groups multiplying?
  • When are you going to plant next?
  • How are you reproducing leaders?

We’re quick to talk numbers and slow to talk transformation. If we’re not careful, church planter will become another religious profession in an increasingly professionalized Church. Planters will share more in common with entrepreneurs than they do with apostles, elders, and pastors. Church planters will become disobedient to God and irrelevant to his Church. They will build buildings and launch services, not pastor people and cultivate community.

Pastoring while Planting

Missional people often reach unreached, unbelieving, and very broken people. As a result, pastoral wisdom and gospel-centered counseling quickly become important skills. For church planters, the biblical office we hold is not church planter but elder-pastor. How are you cultivating pastoral wisdom? How are you growing in your capacity to shepherd your flock with wisdom, truth, and grace?

In order to plant healthy missional churches, we must grow in gospel breadth and depth. It’s imperative we train others to think the gospel down into issues of the heart and back into the struggles of their past. This will enrich our sermons with pastoral application that grows from spending time with struggling sheep. The best application is mined not from homiletical brainstorming but from pastoral counseling.

Counseling on mission is critical. If we do not counsel while we are on mission, we will fail in planting missional churches, while succeeding in starting organizations and events. Gospel-centered counseling should be the overflow of gospel-centered church planting.