As we seek to grow in our mission I thought i’d put together a bunch of my thoughts into one place. Here’s good stuff I have stolen or gleaned or developed in the past month as I have thought lots about mission.
I present to you my mission cheat sheet.
Let’s be thinking: how can I bring Jesus to my friends OR bring my friends to Jesus!
Here’s a taster:
1) Don’t overlook the need to prepare the way. If Jesus needed John the Baptist to come first and clear the ground and prepare the way for Jesus, then we too need to do that in our day and age. If we just run up to someone in our workplace and blurt out “I have found the Messiah”, we shouldn’t be surprised if they book us an appointment with the workplace counsellor…most often the way needs to prepared, the ground cleared, relationships formed, and this all takes time.
2) Be mindful of plausibility structures. These are “accepted beliefs, convictions, and understandings that either green-light truth claims as plausible or red-light them as implausible.” (Sam Chan). E.g. For most people the believability of the gospel is similar to us saying we were abducted by an alien last night whilst watching Television. Almost everything in our culture red lights Christianity at the moment. So we need to be aware of the communal, experiential, and intellectual factors that can either aid or dissuade against belief.
3) Conversations have three layers. Most conversations work in three concentric circles from: interest > values > worldview. The outer layer = interests: footy, food, cafes, movies, books, music, holiday places. The middle layer = values: what’s good or bad, better or worse, wise or unwise; your views on raising children, political issues, how to manage the environment, same-sex relationships. The innermost layer = worldviews: the core beliefs of our life, our views on God, what happens after death, spirituality, identity and personhood. Etc. These three layers also move from safe > vulnerable, public > private, open > closed. Given our toxic cancel culture, its no wonder people only want to stay in the safe ‘interests’ zone! But for most Christians, we are very used to talking about our worldview beliefs openly and publicly. Most people, who aren’t high schoolers or uni students, are formed in their beliefs, and very rarely talk about it or want to…we need to be mindful of this and work safely and sensitively from the outside to the inside, earning trust, and loving them along the way not trying to push or pry, otherwise, we will be seen as unsafe and untrustworthy. Look for hints they want to go deeper, ask permission to take the conversation there, ask questions or ask them to keep going “tell me more”. Don’t do what I do too often, try and have a deep worldview conversation with someone whilst waiting in line for a sausage sandwich at the soccer club. It often takes a long time in our day and age to get their and see someone change their worldview, of course, we know the Spirit can act instantaneously and may he do so more and more!
