Incarnation As Mission

• We are sent like the Father sent the Son–incarnation.
• Jesus is in the neighborhood for 30 years and nobody knew.
• This way of incarnating the gospel is the most profound way God has ever engaged the world.
• If the incarnation is the way God sends, then we must become incarnational.
• The apostles worked with the message Jesus is Lord and that was enough.
• You don’t commute to your mission.

As I share in Fight Clubs: gospel-centered discipleship, for years I approached discipleship as a program, as a meeting, and as a professional/novice relationship. Progress has been made. I moved from the top of the stairs to floor of the living room, where I can sit in the circle of my City Group, staff, or neighborhood friends. I am grateful that I have been inconvenienced by actually sharing my life instead of simply sharing my insight.

I’m also on mission. I’m trying, very imperfectly, to share my life, my struggles, my hopes, and my dreams with those around me. I’m also trying to listen to others struggles, hopes, and dreams so we can all make progress together, some of in the faith, others toward the faith. Dinner with the neighbors. Outings with the City Group. Breakfast with leaders. Evenings in the projects and pubs. A lot has changed in my life, but not enough.

If missional defines our being sent out into the world, then incarnational must define the way in which we engage the world.

The Hirsch’s put a point on mission when the say: “If missional defines our being sent out into the world, then incarnational must define the way in which we engage the world” (Untamed, 234). The proof of our mission is our incarnation of Jesus into un-Christian communities and lives. It doesn’t matter how much you know about culture, missiology, or urbanism if you aren’t actually engaging real people in context (I want names!).

So many church planters ask me what to do in the “Core Team Phase”. They ask: “How do I build my core?” I ask them: “Do you know your neighbors? Have you had them all for dinner or a party?” Inevitably the answer is “No” or “Wow.” Church planters, disciples of Jesus, if we aren’t circumscribed into others’ lives, we are not on mission. Stop waving the flag and join the race. Jump in with people now. This was Jesus’ whole agenda. Let’s make it our agenda–incarnating the hope of the gospel in relationship.

Spirit-led Discipleship (most of us don’t experience it)

As someone who aspires to a robust trinitarian faith, I gravitate to good treatments of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 3 offers us just that, not in a work of pure theology or exegesis, but as a compelling, creative, and culturally savvy reflection on the person and work of the Spirit in the missional church. The Hirsches write: “Discipleship is birthed in the Spirit, but it is also very much maintained in the Spirit.”

Unfortunately, there are theological camps that cut him right out of spiritual life. Even some of the circles I run in, I find a serious neglect of the Spirit, as if “the gospel” substitutes for the Spirit. The gospel is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the Gospel of God, a trinitarian God–Father, Son and Spirit. I have addressed this at length in Spirit-led Ecclesiology: Following the Spirit through Church Planting (new article on this forthcoming). But perhaps the more threatening aspect of missional church to Spirit-led discipleship is our reliance on models, methods, and books. In a word, “technique,” which is a terrible substitute for God, the Spirit. The Spirit does much more that regenerate.

The Creative Holy Spirit

“The Holy Spirit is the most creative person in the universe.”

This quote has stuck with me for weeks. It prods me to write more, dream more, create more, rely on the Spirit more. On Sunday I was praying that the Spirit would stretch his wings over our congregation and flap new life and healing into our people. He did it in the beginning (Gen 1); he did it with Israel (Deut 32); he did and continues to do it with the Church (Acts 2).

The Hirsch’s point out that the “Holy” Spirit is set on making more than our morality holy. The Spirit wants to release powerful, creative waves of mission through disciples of Jesus, but before he can, we must repent of our sinful dependence on comfort, convenience, and technique. Once we do, the Spirit can release a “sanctified imagination” that envisions and enacts an entirely new way of living that brings hope in all places to all people. The Spirit produces “lots of little Jesuses” that bring hope and renewal into our present world.

Let’s repent for neglecting and assuming the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Let’s turn to his creative, sanctifying power to envision new neighborhoods and cities, wonderfully transformed by the Spirit of God through the disciples of Christ.

God-centered Discipleship

Given the age of programs, systems, and missional techniques, it was very refreshing to see the Hirsch’s start off with a profound theological focus. Chapter Two lays a God-centered foundation for discipleship by explaining the difference between a healthy and a sick disciple. The Hirsches set the tone by saying: “A book on missional discipleship must first get the basics right in relation to God.” They make it clear that missional discipleship isn’t about being trendy or socially active; it’s fundamentally about worshiping God. They write:“If we are going to be missional disciples then we need to put our best efforts into knowing God, into the pursuit of the Holy.”

Shema Spirituality (holistic discipleship)

The problem with every disciple is that we worship things and persons other than God. Drawing on Lewis’ distinction between ordinate and inordinate love, they point out that the sick disciple is one who inordinately loves anything other than God (very Augustinian). A distinction is made between idol worship and worship of the one, true God, what they call Shema Spirituality. No, it’s not Eastern mysticism, it’s based on the Great Shema of Deuteronomy 6 which tells us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. “Discipleship is loving God first and foremost, and then loving everything else in light of that love.”

True discipleship involves a right knowing of God, and right knowing includes feeling, thinking, and acting. Mature disciples grow in all three areas. They note that these ways of loving God are more natural to some than others. In fact, each way of Shema spirituality tends to align with certain spiritual leaders: Pastor (feeling), Activist (acting), and Theologian (thinking). Each of these types of leaders need to spend time with one another for mature discipleship to come about. And all disciples need all three types of people in their lives.

Reflect on your Discipleship

We do well to pause and consider where we need to grow as disciples—as theologians, pastors, or activists? Are there other Christians in your life that can “round you out” to foster a God-centered knowing and maturity in your discipleship? If so, ask them to lunch and explore ways you can grow together as disciples of Jesus. As with every chapter, the Hirsches provide helpful application points and questions for discussion.

Structure of Book

Those familiar with The Forgotten Ways will immediately recognize that Untamed is an expansion of one of the 6 Elements of mDNA—missional discipleship. However, the book does not assume this familiarity.

The Introduction is extremely helpful in laying out a map for reading the book. There are four main sections (Theology, Culture, Psychology, Mission), each containing four Signature Themes (Jesus-shaped discipleship, Shema Spirituality, No Mission, No Discipleship, & Of Idols and Prophets).

Recovering the Incarnational Jesus

Chapter One is a cultural exorcism of distorted American Christology, a calling out of moralistic and hypermasculine (read=Mark Driscoll critique) views of Jesus. Could Hirsch be more Jesus-centered than Driscoll?! He levels an irenic but incisive critique. Speaking of men more effeminate than Driscoll’s “caricature of Jesus,” he writes: “they are unacceptable to Jesus as they are…but this strikes a blow against the gospel itself.” Before we start defending and accusing missional leaders, let’s be sure to make this about about Jesus, not personalities, something both Driscoll and Hirsch would want.

Hirsch keeps centering on Jesus. Warning us of cultural stereotypes of Jesus, he says that Jesus must be freed to relate to all people. Hirsch doesn’t simply exorcize the demons, he replaces them with an incarnational Jesus, a Jesus who enters our humanity and empathizes with our condition as the basis and example of mission. On this incarnational note, a couple quotes are worthy of reflection:

• “It is true that Jesus is like God, but the greater truth…is that God is like Jesus!” (36)

• “Jesus holiness was compelling. Sinners flocked to him.” (46)

• “For Jesus, acceptance must precede repentance.” (48)

I love the first two quotes but have some pause on the third. I’m sincerely grateful for this book, chapters one and nine in particular, which underscore and unpack an incarnational way of following Jesus. I’ve been provoked, challenged, and encouraged. Thanks, Alan & Deb!

• Review of ReJESUS
• Church Planting or Gospel Planting?
• Organic Systems
• Partial review of Forgotten Ways
• INCH creation a truly missional church

Alan Hirsch launched the wave with some dense missional aphorisms, followed by a host of speakers and breakouts that seem to build and build. I’m hopeful that the dam of disobedience will break, in my life and all our lives. Hopefully we all walk away motivated for mission, not by mission, but by Spirit. Here’s a quotation sprint through VERGE.

Alan Hirsch returned mission to it’s inception for every Christian:

Your baptism is your commission.

Matt Carter called us to Gospel before Mission:

If you love your mission, more than you love your Savior, then your Savior will have no part of your mission.”

Stetzer fired us up with his impassioned plea to release the church into mission:

“You shouldn’t have to say missional disciples; disciples are mission.”

Something is happening. Maybe it will result in a movement, maybe not. It depends on us…depending on the Spirit. It will require an absolute shift from mission as leisure to mission as lifestyle. But this missional movement will die out, burn out, and go nowhere if we aren’t continually brought to repentance and faith in Christ ourselves, over and over again, for our idolatry of mission and indifference to mission. May Christ be more precious than mission, but may mission be more precious than our very own lives.

Today I spent the whole day with other missional leaders in the VERGE pre-conference. We thought hard about how the gospel should work through the church in our culture on mission. Alan Hirsch & Leadership Network facilitated our time together by leading us through best practices conversations. Mega and Micro churches were represented. Here are a few take-aways:

• We need a Missional Imagination to break through our inherited forms of church and really see the gospel take root in our communities and cultures. Falling back on top down, heavy-handed methods have moved us away from the DNA of gospel movements.
• Church as Family must permeate everything, from the way we run staff meetings (less telling people what to do and more listening to people) to how we spend our time (more missional less administrative “staff”).
• Invite people into my life, not just my Missional Community. Mission must be everyday life, not an occasional event, a monthly practice, a new Christian language. I am excited about upping this in my own life, about inviting our City Group leaders into my life more. More dinners and mission together, less formal meetings and trainings.

My point is that scripture sets the agenda and has provides direction for all three� one does not �come from� the other but they are all derived from scripture, interact with each other, etc

Ed Stetzer

Hirsch explains: We believe that Christology is the singularly most important factor in shaping our mission to the world and the forms of ecclesia and ministry that form that engagement…Before there is any consideration given to the particular aspects of ecclesiology, such as leadership, evangelism or worship, there ought to be a thoroughgoing attempt to reconnect the church with Jesus; that is, to ReJesus.

Alan Hirsch

Stetzer sets Scripture as the starting place and Hirsch begins with Jesus. What are the implications for these slightly different starting places? Do these differences matter?