Notes from Week One

On a Mission from God
a body of people shaped and sent by God
Session one :: Have we been shaped to undermine the mission?


We have a mission from God
Why are we here?
What is the purpose of our lives?
What is the good life?
What is the best way to live?
How can we make the most of our lives?

With your group read through these scriptures that in one way or another address the big questions of life. As a group, talk about the scriptures; asking questions like those above. Then as a group, write a sentence or paragraph that captures how scripture suggests we are meant to live. Include both our mission and our attitude as we go about our mission.

Matthew 6:25-35
So if you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
"Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch?
All this time and money wasted on fashion— do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers— most of which are never even seen— don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?
What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works.
Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

Romans 1:2
Here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life— your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life— and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Philippians 2:3-7
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant….

Jesus in Matthew 10:39, Matthew 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, Luke 17:33, & John 12:25
If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me you will find it.

Are we following another MISSION?
What is our mission according to USAmerican popular culture? Based on advertisements, television programming, song lyrics, films, and other expressions of pop-culture, what emerges as an outline of the purpose of human life? As a group, talk about the advertisements; asking questions like those below. Then as a group, write a sentence or paragraph that captures how USAmerican pop-culture suggests we are meant to live.

Why are we here?
What is the purpose of our lives?
What is the good life?
What is the best way to live?
How can we make the most of our lives?




After your group writes up the ‘mission’ according to popular culture, spend a few minutes reflecting on which agenda you find yourself pursuing?



Where do you see American Christianity reflecting the mission of God? Where do you see it reflecting the mission of popular culture?




We have been shaped
Whether you know it or not, you have been shaped. Your character, your dreams, your motivations, your opinions, and your perception of the world around you have all been molded by a complex and wide-reaching set of influences throughout your life (including your own choices and responses to these influences). Our challenge is to discern the nature of our ‘shaping’ thus far to see if it has been enabling or undermining our ability to live in the kingdom of God. The following questions will help us understand how we have been shaped.

React to the following questions at a ‘gut level.’.
What do you feel/think is the worst thing that could happen to you?




What do you feel/think is the best thing that could happen to you?





Consider how you answered the two questions above. Do you think these answers are consistent with what the scriptures suggest as the worst and best things that could happen to a person? Where are they consistent? Where are they not consistent?


Practice a prayer of listening. Ask the Spirit to point out the things that have shaped you (are shaping you?) in opposition to the kingdom. Ask the Spirit to point out the things that have shaped and are shaping you in cooperation with the kingdom.






We can be re-shaped
How do we allow Jesus to re-train us?






How do we open ourselves up to be re-shaped by the Spirit (see Rom 12:1-2, Col 3:5-10)?







The Nature of our Mission
More important than having a mission statement is having the sense that you are on a mission—that you are participating in something bigger than yourself and working for a purpose that is good and right and lasting. Mission statements can be very helpful in bringing clarity about our quest—our assignment, our mission—but without a sense that we are actually on a mission (God’s mission in particular), statements are about that mission are meaningless.

So our real challenge is to start seeing ourselves as a people on a mission--and that is to say that we are "a body of people sent". That mission begins by God’s initiative, and therefore it is God’s mission and we are invited to join up with it. We do not have the prerogative of making one up for ourselves. We can certainly talk about the specific ways we will live in and from that mission, but the mission has already been given. We have already been sent.

Being on this mission involves three primary actions. First, it involves representation—simply living as a faithful people. We are sent to ‘colonize’ (see Phil 3:20-21) our neighborhoods and workplaces and schools by simply being ‘heaven-ized people’ together in those places. We are to be the present representatives of what life-with-God-as-king looks like.

Kingdom Colony: A body of people who demonstrate what life together with God as king looks like. Colonization is not isolation, but dynamic engagement with surrounding culture in order to subvert the present order. It is what Rome did with Philippi (among others), and what Paul used to describe the task of the believing communities there.

Second, being on this mission involves participation—active cooperation with what God is doing in the world. We are not just to talk about what should be; we are to be actively engaging in what God wants done. We look where there is injustice, violence, destruction, and suffering, and we work to bring justice, peace, healing, and wholeness. Being on this mission means that we are pulled forward by God’s desire for the healing of our broken world.

Kingdom Agents: A body of people who see their activity as subversive action. Our good deeds have a larger agenda than benign social action. We want to see God's rule and reign become a reality where we are. This includes everywhere from home to work to nation to planet. It is where we work for justice and peace grounded in and springing from kingdom theology.

Third, being on this mission involves invitation—calling people to receive and enter into the rule and reign of God. We are not calling people to make travel plans for the afterlife—we are calling people to align themselves with God’s kingdom, and thereby enter into the life that is truly life. We do this as our lives together (representation) and our engagement with the world around us in the reality of the kingdom of God (participation) present a tangible and attractive option to the people around us.

Kingdom Heralds: (There must be a better word than 'herald') Here, I think of the servant/messenger in Jesus' parable of the king who threw a great banquet. We invite people to the party--into the life that is truly life. This is not conversionism, but evangelism in its original sense of 'heralding' good news about a new King. Today, in the ruins of Christendom, this invitation only has weight insofar as it is demonstrated by the Colony and its Agents.