My fascination with this phrase is probably 50% frustration and 50% inspiration. The frustration is that so many people just “don’t get” The Mission. They are content to throw in an occasional offering for the missionaries (or not!) and then get back to their lives – real life. The more spiritual even pray for the missionaries – sort of. My frustration is that they just don’t get that The Mission is for all of us. We are in this thing together.

The inspiration part is dreaming what can happen if we all really move together in The Mission as the church. What could happen if we really understand that every single one of us is needed in The Mission. All Summer long I have been pouring out my little heart about The Mission. This Sunday I am going to give my best shot at explaining what I mean (at least what I think I mean) by the church as the missionary.

Meanwhile, tomorrow morning, a group of 25 is leaving KCBT for China to teach ESL. In a group that size, experience, skepticism and wisdom tell me that a few are on this trip because it is very cool to go to China. Others are going because someone else is going. Some are going because of a profound sense of The Mission. Still others are sincerely seeking their place in The Mission.

I’m just thankful that they are all going on this mission together. Right motives, wrong motives, semi-right motives – whatever – I am thankful that this group is going together. I know that God will work in their lives together and accomplish all he wants to accomplish.

I mean, isn’t this what God does each and every time his people assemble together as the church? We assemble together for all sorts of motives – good, bad and indifferent. But, when we assemble together, there is God in our midst just as he has promised. Without fail, he does his work in us and uses us to accomplish his mission.

Whatever your spiritual condition and whatever your motive, let’s assemble together Sunday morning and allow God to do whatever he wants to do among us. If we can get our heads around what it means for the church to be the missionary some amazing things can happen!

Also this Summer, we are doing something we have never done before. I am teaching the same series on La Misión in Spanish on Wednesday evenings. This has been very interesting. I was thrilled to see such a good group in our Spanish study tonight.

Now, here is the really neat thing that is happening in the background. As we go through this series on The Mission, the podcast appears on our website immediately after the service. By the next day, The Mission is up in streaming video. Not long afterward, the Spanish version follows. Very cool.

You would be amazed at the visitors to our website from the Spanish-speaking world. Many are completely fluent in English and do not have to wait for the Spanish version to be posted. From Morelia, Mexico this week I heard from a pastor friend who has been profoundly affected by the series. Others have also weighed in with comments and thanks.

A young woman from Costa Rica visited us a few weeks ago. She is involved in a wonderful ministry to college students in San Jose. The ministry has a thorough and systematic approach to making disciples not unlike what we do here at KCBT. The leaders of this ministry asked my friend to add a missionary component to their teaching. Having just been with us, she is teaching the same series to them!

Monday night she taught lesson #1 to a group of about a dozen students in San Jose. Tonight, as I taught lesson #5 here in Spanish, she was repeating lesson #1 to a different group of students. Last Sunday in English I taught lesson #8. This is fun! This is the biblical concept of reproducing ourselves and making disciples of Jesus Christ. This is The Mission!

This morning’s topic was The New Missionary in the Mission. We learned that the new missionary really the old missionary, the biblical one. We often have a lot of add on’s in the way of tradition, methodology and techniques that, over time, rise to the level of sacred doctrine. Pretty soon we are doing things because that’s just the way we’ve always done them.

Every so often it’s a good exercise to the examine what we are doing and be sure it’s still close to what the Bible teaches. Our current model of missionary is between 200 and 300 years old. It has been an fine model, but even your old Honda might need to be replaced after that many miles!

We examined four characteristics of the new/biblical missionary this morning, the last of which was that they live our their faith through their natural spheres of influence, whether that be economics, family, the arts, medicine, justice, governance, education or agriculture. In other words, instead of dividing their lives up into spiritual and secular, they see life as a single integrated system.

Instead of loading the kids into the minivan and spending a couple of years going from church to church raising support, the new missionary sees this as only one of any number  of viable possibilities. Paul received support from his sending church of Antioch of Syria, from partner churches like that of the Philippians, from wealthy individual like Philemon or from the exercise of  his own vocation of making tents.

A few decades back, tent-making became a trendy way to think of entry into creative access areas to minister among least-reached peoples. The idea was to find some business, educational or medical opportunity, for example, that could justify their presence to be able to plant churches.

Those who engaged in tent-making were soon reporting that it was extremely difficult to work a secular job and plant a church among a people of a different language and culture at the same time.  Working a “secular” job and trying to engage in a “spiritual” activity as tough as planting a church is a very hard act to juggle!

Enter BAM – Business as Missions. Rather than viewing business as a “cover” to be in restricted access areas, those engaged in BAM prefer to see their vocation as the sphere through which they normally and naturally live their faith and take advantage of the opportunities God gives them to interact with others and share their faith as appropriate. In many cases it is not long before they are engaged in making disciples.

BAM also offers potential as a means to make contact with identified people groups, provide employment opportunities for new believers as well as community development. There are many other aspects to BAM that merit serious consideration.

The pressure of trying to plant a church while working is lessened as the new missionary understands another point I was sharing this morning. If we make disciples, Jesus builds his church, not us. If  missionaries focus on making disciples of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ will build his church even though it make not bear much external resemblance to the church in the missionary’s sending culture.

Entire books are written about BAM, and this is nothing more than a scratch on the surface of an encouraging movement in the world of missions that is helping us gain what I consider a more biblical perspective on the task of going about the mission in challenging areas.

Next week, the church as the missionary!

This will be interesting for me, too, since I preached this same message in El Salvador Thursday night. I just hope I can keep focused on speaking English.

Speaking of the new missionary, I can’t believe how much things have changed in my short lifetime. I can remember packing all our belongings into a VW Van and driving south through Mexico into Central America. The trip took several days and involved a ferry, hopelessly bad roads, a series of chaotic border crossings, armed guard escorts and all sorts of dangers and surprises.

Today I left the home where I was staying in San Salvador at 5:30 this morning and was pulling into my garage in Kansas City at 7:30 pm complaining about being several hours late. My 7:15am flight sat on at the gate for almost 3 hours this morning with a mechanical problem. Of course I missed my connecting flight in Houston.

Not to worry! Continental already had a spot on the next flight set aside for me and I’d only be an extra hour or so getting home. All went reasonably well until we were on approach to KCI, when I noticed we were circling. Some big storms temporarily shut down the airport. The flight right before us made it in, but we did not. Tight on fuel, we were diverted. I suddenly found myself in Omaha. No offense, but that was not where I wanted to be. I finally made it home around 4 hours late. I suppose I only have to remember not that many years ago to keep things in perspective and not get upset about being a little bit late.

I am so thankful to those of you who prayed for Gabriel, the adult son of the widow in whose home I stayed while in El Salvador. The surgery to remove his kidney yesterday went according to plan and they believe that the cancer was totally contained.

See you tomorrow!

An advantage of being a “church for all peoples” is that we have real life opportunity to communicate cross-culturally on a daily basis. This is an amazing advantage for raising children and also for our growth as adults. In our church you don’t have to search far to find someone from a different culture.

Let me reiterate something I said Sunday. One of the greatest gifts you can give to someone who is in our city from another culture is to invite them into your home for a meal. In many cultures, an invitation to a meal in someone’s home is like making a covenant of friendship and something that is taken extremely seriously. Sadly, there are countless thousands of foreign college students who spend years here without ever having the chance to be in a typical American home.

Not just students, but those who are here on business also appreciate an invitation to friendship. Our youngest daughter and her family met a Japanese family here on business through having children of the same age in school. The mother is an avid student of American culture, but had no contacts to be invited to American homes. We invited the family to a Christmas meal and they absolutely loved seeing our seasonal decorations and the inside of our home. A wonderful friendship has ensued and they have been back several times. Th e mother has even visited our daughter’s church – a huge step for her.

Here’s a very important element. Do NOT invite a foreign guest to your home just as a “hook” to “present the Gospel” to them or invite them to church. Do not do this unless you are willing to be friends no matter whether they ever come to share your faith in Christ or not. For many, many cultures, to invite someone to your home and then press your faith upon them, even in a gentle way, is considered the ultimate of insults and demonstrates the insincerity of your character, even if you consider yourself totally sincere.  If you are living the life of Christ, your ensuing friendship will give you plenty of opportunities to answer questions and share you faith at some point in the future.

A lawyer once tried to trip up Jesus by asking him what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds by asking him what the scripture says. The lawyer smugly quotes the law by saying that one should love God with all his heart, strength, soul and mind, and to love his neighbor as himself.

Jesus says that this is a fine answer, but that he should actually live this out in addition to being able to quote scripture. The lawyer, wanting to justify himself, asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In his mind the lawyer is probably categorizing different types of people to congratulate himself that he loves all the people who are like himself. Jesus, though, responds with the famous parable of the Good Samaritan, a story of selfless love that crosses fierce ethnic barriers.

Though the lawyer’s question had impure motives, let me throw it back at you. Who is your neighbor? Are you willing, like the Good Samaritan, to cross ethnic barriers to be a reflection of God’s saving love?

Some things to consider:

• How many people groups are represented in your immediate neighborhood?
• Remember how kids sometimes plays games in the car on a long trip by counting the state license plates they see? Why not see how many ethnic groups you can count at your local Wal-Mart (or similar store).
• How many different ethnic groups can you identify as servers in restaurants? You can say something like, “You are a great server and your English is impeccable. But I have a hobby of trying to identify accents. Could I ask where you are from originally?”
• Do you have any idea how many languages are spoken in your local school district? Why not find out!
• Who do you know at KCBT that is of ethnic group different from yours? Why not invite someone of a different ethnic group to your home for a meal?

The plural form “peoples” is most intentional and is meant to reflect that not only is anyone welcome, but that we purposely desire to reach out to every ethnic group – all peoples.

Matthew 28:18-20 is probably the most recognizable expression of what we often call the Great Commission. The command is to make disciples of  ”all nations (KJV).” When we hear “all nations” today, we commonly think of geo-political nations. The Greek phrase is panta ta ethne, or literally all ethnic groups.

Sunday we continue in our series The Mission. This week the idea is to understand what we really mean by saying that KCBT is a church for all peoples. And, what is the biblical basis for that? What’s a people? Who are the peoples? 8:00, 9:30 and 11:00am

Del has been a member of our church for a long time and has a fascinating story. In 1982 he was involved in a near fatal car/train accident that left him in a coma for weeks. If he recovered, no one expected him to be able to walk again. God and Del had an encounter, along with a great support team of family and church. It wasn’t long before Del was walking and talking. To this day, his walk and speech are greatly labored, but he has been able to live better than many people who function fully. God provided a loving wife, great kids and they are now even grandparents.

Some months ago Del began losing strength on his right side, a condition diagnosed as Brachial Plexopathy with no known cause. As you might imagine, he was very concerned. Del is a big man and very powerful. His grip can normally crack cast iron pipes. I’m not a particularly small guy myself, but Del has always loved to give me a hug by squeezing the senses out of me while lifting my up off of the floor and resulting in a full chiropractic adjustment.

Some months ago he asked the pastoral team to pray for him, which we gladly did. It’s not perfect, but over time he is gaining more strength on his right side. Last night he asked to give glory to God for this progress. He did a fine job and everyone was thoroughly blessed. Afterward, in another segment of prayer, he asked me to pray once again for his right arm.

As we prayed, a phrase we commonly use flashed through my mind. We often say, “I’d give my right arm for ___.” Such a statement reflects the value we place upon the right arm (apologies to all the lefties out there, but you get the idea). That thought brought real compassion to my heart as I thought of my friend Del struggling to think of moving forward in life with a right arm diminishing in power.

This morning I was doing my daily Bible reading in Psalm 118 when the following phrase leaped off the page three times in verses 15 and 16 – the right hand of the Lord. I can’t ever remember that phrase hitting me with the same impact, not because of the context of Psalm 118, but the context of having just prayed with Del. The exact phrase  right hand appears 161 times in the Bible, most of them referring to God’s right hand.

Look it up. You might be surprised. God’s right hand is filled with righteousness and eternal pleasures. By his right hand he saves us, sustains us, rescues us and teaches us among other things.

Whether we are afflicted like Del, or have full use of our right hands, the psalmist has some good advice. With or without strength, we should make him our strength. Or, as the psalmist says, to put him at our right hand.

I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Psalms 16:8

My favorite story, and one that I told to begin each service: It’s early before the first service, and a mother and her little girl are coming into the new building. Seeing the little girls wide eyes, the mother says, “Now, just remember that this is NOT Heaven.”

The little girl looks up at her mother and says, “But Mom, this IS Heaven for kids!”

My list of favorite things from this morning:

• Watching the reactions of people as they came in and looked around. Listening to them as they tried to explain what they were feeling and yet were at loss for words.
• Seeing the line at the coffee shop.
• Seeing people just mill around, converse and interact, just like this was really the living room of the church – that was the plan!
• The same little kids who broke ground with me over a year ago turn in their hard hats and shovels and lead us in prayer.
• Singing the Revelation Song in the middle of the “sermon” to the accompaniment of smoke and banners.
• God’s own personal visit this morning with a torrential storm, lightning, thunder, a brief power outage and what seemed like a foot of rain.

Here’s my list of the most important take aways from this morning:

• Don’t forget the connection to The Mission.
• This is not the end; it’s the beginning of the next phase of The Mission. This is not time to relax; it’s time to focus on ministering to the people that God brings across our paths. This is not the time to coast; this is the time to push forward.
• If God has done all of this for us, he must have quite a plan for us in The Mission. He has give to us; now it’s time for us to give back to him.

How about you? Any stories, pictures or observations to share?

This Sunday will be special. Rather than preaching a sermon, we are going to live one together. I am taking 1Kings 8 that tells of Solomon’s dedication of the Temple and using that as a template for everything we do Sunday morning. Together, we are going to dedicate this new campus addition to the glory of God.

There will be no adult or youth classes Sunday, but all three services will be at their normal times – 8:00, 9:30 and 11:00am. Each service will be led by their normal praise team, but the rest of the service will be the same in all three services.

My normal rhythm has been totally interrupted this week. Every so often I feel the urge to get up, go out into the new area and just see what is happening. I have been amazed how things change after just a few hours. People are rushing around like ants, and each time I poke my head in, more and more things are falling into place. I can’t wait for Sunday!

Lobby about a month ago

Surely you have heard of  or participated in prayer walks that have become very popular over the past years. Tonight was absolutely wonderful as we did a prayer walk through KCBT’s new campus expansion as part of our Tuesday night prayer ministry.

Executive Pastor Jeff Cox shared some of the lessons that God has been teaching him through this process. Jeff has led the team that God has used to make this dream a reality. This evening he shared how God has been teaching him faith. He showed us one of the Bible’s dynamic paradoxes in Philippians.

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

We are to work out our salvation, but it is God who is working in us. It is fascinating that God never really explains this tension. He just presents it and expects us to accept its truth.

Jeff went on to share the hard work of his team and complemented that with the many evidences of God’s miraculous provision through this whole process. I’ll share some of those Sunday in the dedication.

Following that, we moved into the new lobby to begin our prayer walk. I sneaked out and went ahead so I could be standing just past the door as people entered. What fun! Their expressions and comments were priceless!

The crowd divided up into small teams and went room to room as they prayed. I stayed alone so as to be available to help, answer questions, and, most importantly, to be able to go around and watch their reactions and listen to their comments.

Here’s the evidence of a great design and mission accomplished – no one wanted to leave! Everyone just stood around and talked. I am SO excited and can’t wait for Sunday!!! You don’t want to miss this.