MISSIONAL LIVING CAN'T BE FAKED! IT'S EITHER REAL OR IT'S NOT!

Watch this weeks Missional Living Devotional to learn about the need for sincerity when it comes to shining the Light of Christ in your part of this dark world.  Once you've watched the video take a few moments and honestly evaluate yourself to see if much of what you've been doing in the name of "Missioinal Living" is more of a show than it is a reality.





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THE ORDINARY CHRISTIAN YOUTUBE CHANNEL

THE PAINFUL LOVE THAT FORGES A CHARACTER THAT GOD CAN USE

"And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, 

and do not lose heart when he rebukes you" 

Hebrews 12:5

I have to admit I am getting a little sick and tired of hearing the whining of people who have gotten their feelings hurt because their pastor or spiritual mentor was brutally honest with them in an area of life that needed to be changed.  It's as if we have Christian love that only speaks of nice things and shares what people want to hear and not necessarily what they need to hear.  We see God's children jumping from church to church, like some dis-functional family, simply because they got their feeling hurt. And their reason for leaving? It's because they say that they don't feel loved.

Well if love is giving me what I need so that I can function as the missionary that Christ has called me to live - then some of the most loving people in my life have been those you have been the hardest on me!  To be truthfully honest with you some of the men that I appreciate the most, who have contributed the most to me living a missional life, or who have help me form the leadership qualities I have today I didn't always appreciate!  As a matter of fact I was angry at them and thought all manner of evil against them. At least at the time when I was being confronted by them.  But now, in hindsight, I am so grateful to them. Because of their loving hardness and unrelenting pressure I now have the Christian character that allows me to live a missional life that shines the Light of Christ. Because of their tenacity I am more of the man that God would want me to be.

Therefore, I am grateful to such men like my father who loved me enough to discipline me for my bad behavior; my football coach, Bill Marsh, of whom I uttered more than a few "cus" words under my breath because of his hardness and unwillingness for me to settle for anything less than being a strong leader that our team needed; for my church planting mentor, Tony Rosenthal, who on more than one occasion called me on the carpet for a bad attitude or being neglectful of my responsibilities.  These men cared more about my character than they did about my comfort and God used these men to forge in me a Godly character that He could use for His glory. 

The comfort we all seek and the handholding that we desire will come when Christ returns and He wipes away our tears.   

BUT THAT'S NOT TODAY! 

Today we need to allow God to forge a character in us that will allow us live in this sinful world but not of this sinful world. Today we need to embrace the hardness, the discipline, and the unrelenting pressure that God brings our way that will produce a life fully devoted and prepared for every good work.  And God uses other people in our lives, sometimes pastor and other times ordinary Christians to be the instruments of that refining process. So don't get upset but rejoice for God wants to use you.

Let's take Hebrews for what it says and an encouragement to not take lightly or to lose heart when we are being disciplined by the Lord.  He does it because He loves us. Discipline, hardness are not signs of Gods lack of favor but of His love for us.

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A NEW TESTAMENT STRATEGY FOR IGNITING A CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENT

I have been kicking around this idea about a strategy for igniting a Church Planting Movements/Disciple Making Movements. It's not new to me and others have discussed it in terms of how Christ made disciples. I'm just applying it to CPM's/DMM's. I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

In the 4 Gospels we see three different invitations that Christ and his disciples extended to people depending upon their level of commitment.

The First Invitation: COME & SEE: This was an invitation for people to come see and experience the power, presence and message of Christ. Sometime these turned out to be a large gathering of people but only lasted a day or two. As ordinary people came they got to meet Jesus, hear his teaching on the Kingdom of God, experience his power when he performed miracles and healings and they would receive an invitation to join him in a deeper committed which was the second Invitation.  The goal of this event was to discover the Person of Peace who would open their home that would form the beach head for the new movement and to find those who were prepared to follow Jesus and become His disciples.

The Second Invitation: COME & FOLLOW: These were people who were willing to leave everything to come and follow Christ. They considered the cost of discipleship and made a decision to be Christ's disciples. As they did Jesus taught them how to become spiritually mature through laying a strong foundation of himself/Christ and his teaching, about living in the Spirit, how to relate to one another, spiritual warfare and pursuing His mission. As he watched and prayed he then would extend a third invitation to some of those the Father identified.  The goal of this following was to establish his follower to be strong in their faith and to identify those who would form the apostolic leadership from which the movement would gain momentum.  

The Third Invitation: COME & BE WITH ME. The few that Jesus identified through prayer He made them to be His apostles. He would teach them to do what he did and implement the same pattern (come and see, come and follow and come and be with me). They would watch Jesus do it, they would practice it under His supervision and he would them unleash them to go do it themselves in teams. As they did the work they then would gather those who were identified from the Come and Be With Me to be the second generation of apostolic leadership and then repeat the process. This time not with just twelve but with seventy-two.  It is here with this third group THE COME & BE WITH ME that we see the rapidly reproduction begin to happen. They were the apostolic leadership that would leave to go to other unreached groups to share the gospel. 

As the process was repeated over and over again more disciples increased and more apostolic leadership were developed thereby increasing the momentum of the movement. It is important to note that this strategy was used to raise up, train up and unleash ordinary christians, people, to create this church planting movement.  The church planting was done by ordinary christians who had no special training.  These regular guys were used by God to do some pretty extraordinary and amazing things. These ordinary christians or regular guys were the one's that God used to be His missionaries!

So here are some question for us to consider:

• What if we were to follow the same pattern? 
• What would it look like in N. America? 
• What would COME & SEE EVENT look like? 
• What would a COME & FOLLOW GROUP look like? And what would a COME & BE WITH ME TRAINING look like? 

Share your thoughts in the comments space Let's brainstorm and begin to experiment and see what God does.

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