7

MISSION: NOT JUST MORALITY

IN SEPTEMBER 2015, my wife and I had the chance to visit the French Quarter of New Orleans for the first time. My friend Tom Bilderback pastors Vieux Carre Baptist Church, smack dab in the middle of the French Quarter. To the locals, it’s just known as “the Vieux” (it’s French, so don’t pronounce the “x”).

Tom and his wife, Sonia, invited me to come down, to give a few talks to his leaders, and to preach on Sunday morning. My wife and I were so excited! A chance to get away and stroll around this historic city, listening to jazz musicians play “When the Saints Go Marching In” as parents drank sweet tea while kids played in the streets.

My expectations were crushed. The Vieux meets one block off Bourbon Street in the French Quarter —basically a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah. Bourbon Street is what you get when you sear a human conscience, pump it full of alcohol, crank up the music, and take away all law and moral restraint. It’s not uncommon for two drunk people to have sex in the street, puke their guts out, pass out unconscious on the sidewalk, wake up to defecate, and then drift back into an alcoholic slumber —all before noon. Let’s just say that my visions of sipping sweet tea on Colonel Sanders’s front porch didn’t come true.

But I saw Jesus. He lives right off Bourbon Street. He resides in the embodied love and grace of a radical little group of Christian misfits who call themselves The Vieux. I was blown away at the power of Jesus at work in this community. People are getting saved. Drunks are coming to Christ. And homeless people are finding family in a ragtag group of Jesus followers who have left comfort and security to live on mission in a godless city.

Over the weekend, I met several people who spent most of their lives on the streets sucking on a bottle of liquor. Yet they have found Jesus and now are serving him with reckless abandon. These are genuine converts —real Jesus followers. Like “Mamma Rose,” as she’s known by everyone in the Quarter. Mamma spent a good forty to fifty years of her life on the streets, downing two liters of vodka a day. I did the math: that’s equivalent to forty beers a day. I don’t think Mamma was sober for more than an hour since the early 1980s. Previous pastors of the Vieux reached out to her, and Tom and Sonia picked up where they left off. They befriended her, helped her, and built a relationship with her —something that the angry street preachers who parachute into the Quarter on Saturday nights to yell at the drunks would never do. She’s been clean now for a couple years, and she’s telling everyone about Jesus.

Then there’s Jim, who has been divorced three times and spent most of his life on the streets of the French Quarter nursing an addiction to drugs and alcohol. Pastor Tom reached out to him with the love of Christ. Now Jim’s a leader in the church. Jim’s one of the kindest, most grateful Christians I’ve ever met. And talk about brilliant: Jim studied to be a tour guide in the Quarter, and now knows everything there is to know about its history.

Story after story, convert after convert, I became addicted to hearing about the love of Christ that overflows the walls of The Vieux and spills into the streets of Sodom. The life of these disciples gave me life. Their sacrifice challenged my comfort. And I was reminded once again of the power of mission-centered, grace-filled discipleship when Christ followers take it to the streets.

More Than Morality

Discipleship is far more than just mastering morality. It’s even more than thinking critically about tough topics, despite my plea in the previous chapter. Biblical discipleship must include mission —embodying and displaying the presence of Christ beyond the four walls of church.

What I love about the ministry at the Vieux is that there was no clear distinction between discipleship and non-discipleship activities. The complaint among pastors that people only spend three hours a week pursuing spiritual growth wouldn’t make sense at The Vieux. If you ask Mamma Rose how many hours she spends pursuing spiritual growth, she’d probably laugh and say, “Every minute that I’m not sucking on a bottle.” Tom, Sonia, and the other leaders at The Vieux are living out their discipleship the second they get within a mile of church. Whether it’s providing a meal and a shower for the homeless on Friday nights, or praying over people as they walk from church to dinner (a daily scene), there’s never a time when the discipleship light turns off and then back on. The city on a hill is always lit.

Remember: to be a Christian is to be a disciple. And to be a disciple is to be on mission.

While Jesus went to synagogue and visited the Temple on occasion, his primary mode of discipleship was mission. By mission I mean spreading the Good News of the gospel through proclamation, love, and service. Or as Brandon Hatmaker says: “It’s good news when we speak the gospel message . . . and it’s good news when we live incarnationally and take on the posture of Christ to others, humbly serving them.”[97] Being on mission means both talking about the love of Christ and demonstrating the love of Christ. The mission includes telling others about Jesus, calling people to faith and repentance, and teaching them about the story of God. But being on mission goes beyond the words that we speak; it includes loving people with our hands and feet as tangible displays of the love of Christ. Incarnation and proclamation go hand in hand.

Living Missionally

In a large city like New York we always hear about people who get “lost” in their work, want to “be” in the right social happenings, get “caught up” in a community cause, or just “lose” themselves in any number of things. After all, “you only live once” (YOLO), which carries the “fear of missing out” (FOMO). Were it not for the faithful followers of Jesus living their lives suspiciously different yet attractively inviting, many people would be lost and without hope.

These are the people who cheerfully greet you each morning as you get your morning coffee. They are the ones who treat you with the same deference whether you are a “nobody” or a “somebody”. They set the work standard of excellence, integrity, and teaming. They are the ones you want to be around. When the world is crashing down, they have joy and peace, for they are not of this world. They provide light in darkness. They are the fragrance and aroma of Christ that permeates all of life. Their lives are attractive, and they make a difference in their work. They affect the workplace, the city, and beyond.

AL MIYASHITA, mission director, NavWorkplace

This is why Jesus touched and loved and healed lost sinners in a dying world. Sometimes his love led to faith and conversion, while other times it led to rejection. Either way, the Good News was being proclaimed through word and deed.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a classic example of being on mission. The Samaritan wasn’t on a “mission trip.” He wasn’t clocked in to do some ministry. He was just going about his daily business and saw a man in need. He gave of his time and money to extend neighborly love to a man he didn’t know. Maybe the man in the ditch was a good man. Maybe he was not. Maybe he was a tax collector or rabbi, a sex offender or pastor. The Samaritan didn’t know. He didn’t care. Here was a human in need, and his impulse to love his neighbor kicked in.

We don’t know if the man “got saved” through the Samaritan’s actions. That’s not the point of the story. The point is that followers of Jesus must demonstrate love for all people as an extension of Christ’s love for the world.

The early Christians integrated this posture into their daily lives. Peter and John were going about their business when they converted and healed a lame beggar. Stephen was going about his business when he was arrested and gave his final testimony before he was killed. Philip was going about his business when the Spirit of God directed him to an Ethiopian eunuch. Ananias was going about his business when God called on him to convert and baptize Paul, the persecutor of the church.

The first Christians didn’t just send out missionaries. They were missionaries.

Our ultimate desire, of course, is that everyone would come to the saving knowledge of Christ (see 2 Peter 3:9). But our love and service is not conditioned upon conversion. We don’t just extend love so that people get saved but because God’s love is boundless and showers down upon all (Matthew 5:44-46).[98]

Being on mission means embodying the loving and convicting presence of Christ to the world around us. You don’t need to fly over salt water to engage the mission; embodying Christ’s love is something all disciples should do. This mission is fundamental to who we are as Christians and disciples, and therefore it’s an essential piece of the church’s discipleship.

Holy Longing

Even though “mission” is central to discipleship, it’s often not included in the church’s repertoire of discipleship activities. Most of the discipleship activities (Sunday school, Bible studies, and so on) focus on teaching and learning. Or they focus on Christians hanging out with other Christians and getting to know each other better. And both of these are good! I’ve argued in previous chapters that teaching/learning and fellowship/community are essential components of discipleship. However, they are still incomplete without mission.

One of the reasons why mission is so important —aside from the fact that it’s biblical —is that people are actually hungry for it. When Packard and Hope interviewed all of their “church refugees,” they were shocked that these church dropouts were once some of the most active members in church.

Almost without exception, our respondents were deeply involved and devoted to their churches up until the moment they left. They were integrated into leadership structures and church life, often organizing daily life around the church and attending some kind of church function two or more times a week. They’re the kind of people who are drawn to activity.[99]

If they were so committed, so active, and so engaged, why did they leave? The answer is rather sad. It makes me feel frustrated yet hopeful at the same time. “Nearly all of our respondents wanted . . . the church to leverage its organizational resources and infrastructure to get more things done outside of the church walls and to build community.”[100]

There are so many people in church and outside church who passionately desire to engage in meaningful activity: confronting poverty, fighting injustice, doing good for the community, and reaching the lost with tangible love and the Good News of Jesus Christ. Even people outside the church are looking to do something meaningful. According to a recent Barna study, many unchurched adults are seekers, and 80 percent say they care deeply about social justice.[101] What a massive bridge for the gospel! Jesus cares about social justice too.

David Kinnaman shares a sad story about a church dropout named Tracy. Though raised in the church, she became disillusioned with Christianity and ended up fading away from the faith. However, she always had a passion to help the poor. She spent some time in Tanzania to work with vulnerable people. After hearing her story and her heart for the vulnerable, Kinnaman said to her in passing, “It seems like God has put it in your heart. You were made for it.” After all, Tracy’s heart for the poor echoes God’s heart (Matthew 25:31-46). Her response was disheartening: “Oh, huh. I never thought of my interest in helping the poor around the world as a calling from God. It just feels like in America everyone keeps faith separate from work and life.”[102]

How is it that someone can grow up in church and cultivate a passion for the poor and vulnerable yet never be shown —discipled —how this is deeply connected to the heart of Christ? And this isn’t just an isolated incident. Only 20 percent of Millennials who grew up in church say that they had opportunities to serve the poor through their church. Even fewer (15 percent) said they found a cause or issue at church that motivated them.[103]

Several churches I know are recognizing this incessant, God-given, Jesus-reflecting desire to serve the poor and the community, and they have integrated some sort of “Serve Sunday” into their church calendar. One awesome church in Boise cancels the church service every six weeks in order to go out into the community and physically serve others around them.[104] They partner with several nonprofit organizations in town and ask them, “How can we serve you?” Sometimes it’s picking weeds at a women’s halfway house, or maybe it’s helping out at a garden that provides food for refugees. Whatever it is, their heart is to bring the tangible love of Christ to bear on the community through real acts of physical service.

Rather than just doing church work, they’re doing the work of the church.[105]

You know what’s interesting? The pastor told me that these “Serve Sundays” are usually the most well-attended Sundays of the month! At first I was shocked. I thought that if you “canceled church” (which isn’t a theologically correct description of what’s going on), hardly anyone would show up. But the opposite is true. Deep down in the heart of most people is a desire to engage in meaningful activity.

What’s even more fascinating is that most members of this church find it much easier to bring their friends to this type of “service.” After all, it’s not just Christians who seek the good of their community. When unbelievers find out that Christians actually care about the real needs around them, they usually perk up and want to listen to what we have to say.

Most Christians (and many non-Christians) desire to do good in their community. They want to serve the poor, confront injustice, combat racism, help refugees, and share the love of Christ through word and deed —especially deed. Part of our discipleship process should empower people to engage the mission of Christ wherever they are.

We shouldn’t see discipleship activities like church services and Bible studies as preparation for the mission. Jesus didn’t take this approach and neither should we. Rather, we should view missional activities as part of the discipleship journey. We learn, we serve, and we learn by serving.

Who’s Doing This?

Mission is not something that occurs after disciples become mature. It’s part of the maturation process of discipleship. Churches that desire to help disciples “be transformed into Christlikeness” need to integrate missional activities —or let’s just call it a “missional lifestyle” —into its process.

I love what my friends at Imago Dei Church in Portland do to integrate mission into discipleship. They intentionally devote a significant part of their money to help fund missional projects that are created and developed by members of the church. They call them “missional grants.” Not every project gets funded. There’s a whole application and interview process that identifies the most promising ideas. But every year, the church gives anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000 toward missional projects that are designed to further God’s kingdom in Portland.

I love this idea for several reasons. First, it allocates some church funds toward local missions. Too many church budgets are sucked up by Sunday services, and not enough is given toward discipleship and missions. And quite frankly, many Christians are getting tired of it. They want to see more funds allocated toward meaningful and missional ventures. When Imago Dei funds such missional projects, it shows that they care about extending Christ’s love beyond the four walls of church. This resonates with its people —and with Jesus as well.

Second, by funding these projects, Imago Dei empowers the people. Remember the asset-based community development (ABCD) principles from chapter 5? As image bearers, all people possess gifts and talents that should be used to further God’s kingdom. Yet people often feel stifled or forced to fit into a few prepackaged programs that are created from the top down. By funding projects created by the people, Imago Dei empowers and encourages people to explore their own passions for God’s kingdom. My friend Joshua Ryan Butler, the outreach pastor at Imago Dei, says it like this:

We have an unwritten rule at our church: “pastors can’t start ministries.” When people hear this, they’re often shocked, like “But isn’t that your job? The Outreach Pastor to start ministries and get people into them?” But we start from the opposite end: we believe God has gifted his people, the body of Christ, with vision, talent, and imagination —they have better ideas than I do! And that’s a good thing. So I see my role as the pastor not being to create the thing and rope them into it, but rather being available to help surface, equip, and unleash them in areas God might be calling them into —and then to shepherd them as they lead our church into embodying the love of Christ in those areas of our city.[106]

I mentioned my friend Shawn Gordon, who was discipled by Francis Chan. Shawn now helps run Project Bayview, a discipleship ministry where several men, mostly ex-cons like Shawn, live together above a restaurant.[107] Not only does the restaurant serve up some killer Hawaiian BBQ, but it also becomes a holistic discipleship center, where men cook, clean, work the counter, serve tables, and learn how to integrate the gospel into a workday. Above the restaurant, each disciple is paired up with a discipler. They live together, study together, pray together, and work together. When they’re not studying the Bible or working in the restaurant, they’re on the streets sharing the Good News of Jesus in a neighborhood where his love is greatly needed.

What if churches around the country created their own Project Bayviews, not as some nonprofit that they support from a distance but as an integral part of church life? My guess is that there would be a long waiting list of people wanting to help out with this ministry. Perhaps they’d have to start another Project Bayview . . . and another.

We need to stop thinking about mission as some subsidiary part of our church experience, which usually focuses on Sunday services. When mission becomes more central, discipleship becomes more tangible and effective.

I recently read Brandon Hatmaker’s book Barefoot Church just before Brandon and I hung out on a hunting trip in Montana. I can’t remember whether I read about his story in his book, or if I got it from our campfire conversations. Anyway, it’s a challenging testimony that made me think, I want to do that!

Brandon was on staff at a megachurch in Texas —living the pastoral dream. But God started to wreck his life by telling him to serve the poor. So Brandon dragged his grill downtown to where the homeless would hang out, and he started barbecuing burgers as an avenue for relationship. Over the next few weeks, more and more people came to hang out and talk about life, love, community, and Jesus. Brandon told me that he hit a turning point in his “grilling sessions” when an unchurched, agnostic woman was on the grill cooking for the masses. Someone blurted out, “What if church was kind of like this?” Without lifting up her head, the woman said, “If church was like this, I would go to that church.” She kept on grilling. Brandon realized he wasn’t just grilling burgers and hanging out with the homeless. He was planting a church.

Brandon followed Jesus all the way to the poor, and a church sprang up. If that’s not discipleship, I don’t know what is. Mission and discipleship belong together. You can’t have one without the other.

Missional Living

Just to be clear, despite everything I’ve said in this chapter, I don’t believe we should replace morality with mission. To become like Jesus, we need to pursue sexual purity, sobriety, generosity, selflessness, and kindness, and we need to put to death personal vices such as anger, greed, jealousy, lust, and pride. My point is not to replace morality with mission but to view mission as part of morality.

I want to close this chapter by giving a more thorough description of what it means to live missionally. I just so happened to stumble upon a description of the term missional in Dan Kimball’s book They Like Jesus but Not the Church. It’s honestly the best summary I think I’ve ever seen. So instead of reinventing the wheel, I’ll just hijack Dan’s description —giving him full credit, of course:[108]