Miguel Labrador's Blog, page 3

Don’t Waste Your Mission, or Disciple Making Time, On Those Who Are Not Interested?

“We must invest everything in the few who will bear fruit. Life is too short and the potential yields are too great to spend our lives babysitting fruitless people.” ~ Neil Cole

Recently, I’ve heard a few variations on this idea.  In a nut shell, it’s about Doing Mission, or Making Disciples amongst people who are receptive and productive.  Too much of the church spends its time trying to solve the paradox of  ”What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?”  God is the unstoppable force and oftentimes, human beings appear to us to be the immoveable objects.  We tweak the gospel message, enhance our liturgies, build cooler and more hip places to “worship,” and massage our sound bites while trying to figure out why things aren’t working. 

Here in the Cloud Forest Region of Ecuador, we say that we will focus the bulk of our attention on those that “have an interest in the things of God.”  It ends up working out the same way.  In our discipleship, which includes evangelism, our energies, resources, and talents are directed primarily to where the interest in God is expressed.

Now, I’ll admit that this line of thinking can be a bit dangerous,  it requires judgement.  (Mattthew 7:16)  Sometimes, it can be entirely too easy to bail out of a relationship or situation because of our own frustration, impatience, or lack of discernment.  There’s really no excuse for that.  But, knowing when and where to redirect your energies can go a long way towards greater Kingdom effectiveness.

This becomes even more sticky when you’ve already entered a discipling relationship with someone.  Life is messy, interest ebbs and flows.  If you’re working with more than one person, sometimes it becomes necessary to decrease attention for one while increasing it for another.  Likewise, when someone appears to be “straying from the faith,” you’ll have to decide if they are just escaping churchianity in search of Christ, or just having a temporary spiritual setback. 

Either way, it’s a tough issue.  But, here are a fe questions:

1.  What criteria do you use to determine where you put your mission resources, time and people?

2.  Is the idea “forget them,” (those who have no interest) and “Move on,” biblical?

3.  In your spiritual ebbs and flows, would you rather have someone stick by your side until it works out, or give you space until you “come to yourself?” (Luke 15:17)

 

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CommentsMy answers to your questions would be as follows: 1) ... by BrandonRelated StoriesCooked Rice Stains On My Christmas Pants, And How It Happened…The Top 5 God Directed Deviations of 2013You Shall Know Them by Your Subjective Evaluation of Their Fruit. 

7 Things Spurgeon Said About Apostolic Movements…

“There may be some who say the success has been proportionate to the agency, and that we could not have been more successful. I am far from being of their opinion, and I do not think they themselves would express it on their knees before Almighty God. We have not been successful to the extent we might have expected, certainly not to an apostolic extent, certainly with nothing like the success of Paul or Peter, or even of those imminent men who have preceded us in modern times, and who were able to evangelize whole countries, turning thousands to God. Now, what is the reason of this? Perhaps we may turn our eyes on high, and think we find that reason in the sovereignty of God, which hath withholden his Spirit, and hath not poured out his grace as aforetime.” ~ Charles Spurgeon

While there’s much to consider in this quote, I’d like to focus on 3 things:

1.  The agency he speaks of is people.  He believed that the eminent privilege of the Church was to proclaim the gospel, that God will rarely do his own work without instruments, and that has always employed “means” in the work of the regeneration of the world.  The stuff of Apostolic movements is you.  To some degree, methodology is important, but more so, medium and message.  

2.  Our expectations might be out of alignment.  To assume outcomes when everything is “done right” in creating a movement, is presumptuous at best and may even border on arrogance.  How often have you heard about “tweaking,” “shifting,” or “nuancing” some formulaic approach to mission?  The apostolic methods of yesteryear might not be the prescriptions of God’s people for today.  Measuring the extent of your success according to your own benchmarks  may just be like saying “mirror mirror on the wall…”  

3.  God may be withholding His Spirit.  This is not something that I hear people talking about often.  What if the place where you want to work, where you live, or where you think you need to be incarnational is intentionally being ignored by God?  What if it’s not His time to be where YOU want to be? (Acts 16:6)  What if the Lord is withholding His Spirit?  All the trend analysis and contextualization in the world isn’t going to get you where God wants to be.

“Concerning Apostolic Movements, Spurgeon also went on to say,

“We must see what the difference is between ourselves and the men of Apostolic times, and what it is that renders our success so trifling in comparison with the tremendous results of Apostolic preaching. I think I shall be able to show a few reasons why our holy faith is not so prosperous as it was then. In the first place, we have not Apostolic men; in the second place, they do not set about their work in an Apostolic style; in the third place, we have not Apostolic churches to back them up; and in the fourth place, we have not the Apostolic influence of the Holy Ghost in the measure which they had it in ancient times.”

 

A few questions:

A.  Can you give an example of where God has done something without an agency?

B.  How do you differentiate a historic account of what has happened in the early church with respect to movements, and what is prescriptive for the church today?

C.  In your opinion, does God “withhold His Spirit” from various places today?  

 

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Commentswe may remember certain people who have been called out by Him ... by MarshallRelated StoriesThe Top 5 God Directed Deviations of 2013Cooked Rice Stains On My Christmas Pants, And How It Happened…Why Words? Isn’t There A Better Medium for The Gospel? 

Why Words? Aren’t There Better Mediums for The Gospel?

“Why was the light of God-given in the form of language? How is it conceivable that the divine should be contained in such brittle vessels as consonants and vowels? This question betrays the sin of our age: to treat lightly the ether which carries the light-waves of the spirit. What else in the world is as capable of bringing man and man together over the distances in space and in time? Of all things on earth, words alone never die. They have so little matter and so much meaning. The Bible does not deal with divinity but with humanity. Addressing human beings about human affairs, whose language should be employed if not man’s? And yet, it is as if God took these Hebrew words and breathed into them of His power, and the words became a live wire charged with His spirit. To this very day they are hyphens between heaven and earth. What other medium could have been employed to convey the divine? Pictures enameled on the moon? Statues hewn out of the Rockies? What is wrong with the human ancestry of scriptural vocabulary?” ~ Abraham Heschel

Simon Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life! (John 6:68) 

Concerning words, Jesus said “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”  (John 6:63) 

Before we get into any silly distinctions between “The Rhema Word,” and “The Logos,” Let’s entertain the idea that they are virtually synonymous.  Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” (John 5:24)  The heard/spoken “word” there is logos.  

The point of this post is to marvel at God’s use of words and Heschel’s quote above.  A few questions:

1.  If words are as important as Heschel seems to indicate, then shouldn’t we always be improving our vocabulary?

2.  What would you say is the distinction between gospel and non-gospel words?

3.  What biblical word has most captured your imagination this past year? 

 

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                        Related StoriesThe Top 5 God Directed Deviations of 2013Cooked Rice Stains On My Christmas Pants, And How It Happened…You Shall Know Them by Your Subjective Evaluation of Their Fruit. 

The Top 5 God Directed Deviations of 2013

The highlight of my blogging experience this past year was when a couple and their family traveled 7000 miles to meet me, encourage me, and tell me how the blog has encouraged their faith community.  I am so grateful for the hope and peace they left behind.

I never know which blog posts will be the most popular.  This year’s top 5 include a total spoof, a post from 2012, and a single quote.  All of them have something to do with what some would call an “organic” expression of church. 

Subscribe to this blog in various ways here. 

 

 

 

#5 – A Wolfgang Simson Quote That Could Rip Your Church Door Off Its Hinges! 

#4 –  7 Debilitating Lies Of The ‘Covering Doctrine.’

#3 – 5 Ways to Topple a Church Regime 

#2 –  7 Types of Evangelism to Avoid, and 7 to Embrace 

#1 – 5 Solidly Biblical Reasons Why There Are No More Apostles And Prophets. 

 

A huge thanks to all who have commented in 2013.  Look out for some even more provoking deviance in 2014.

Additionally , I’d like to acknowledge the most personally influential books of 2013:

# 5 – Unleader by Lance Ford – While published in late 2012, this remains one of my favorite “got to” books in 2013.

#4 – Accidental Pharisees by Larry Osborne – Hard hitting, funny, and transformational.

#3 - Walking With The Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development (Revised and Expanded Edition) by Bryant L. Myers  - Published in 2011 and expanded and revised later, this book continues to inspire and challenge our work amongst the marginalized in the Cloud Forest Region of Ecuador.

#2 -  Connect the Testaments: A Daily Devotional by Barry, J. D., & Kruyswijk, R. – This one is older and part of the Logos Bible Software, but it has been a very engaging and thought provoking work for me.

#1 - ESV Literary Study Bible by Crossway – Again published in 2011, I read it tenaciously this year.  It highlights the Bible’s story lines, complex characters, historical settings, literary genres, motifs, theological themes, imagery, and important terms.  It’s just plain fun to read.

Also… It would be a disservice not to mention “Missional Essentials: A Guide for Experiencing God’s Mission in Your Life.” by Brad Brisco and Lance Ford – I’ve translated this missional primer into Spanish and used it extensively throughout the year.  It’s a phenomenal tool for catalyzing a missional movement right where you are.

I’ll be concentrating most of my social media efforts on Goodreads in 2014.  You can follow me here. 

If you’re still considering making a Year-End Tax-Deductable donation, please consider Pathways International.  

 

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At the Point Where Disfellowship Began…

There’s an interesting phrase in Spanish, “El Punto De Partido,” which literally means “starting point,” or “match point” if you put an “a” at the end as in “partid(a).”  It can also mean point of separation, division, or split.  In the past few weeks I heard “Punto de Partido” used in the sense of Christian community or fellowship.  In that context it has come to mean “point of disfellowship.”

For Ecuadorian Christians, it’s critical to examining broken relationships and try to understand where, or what, caused the break in the chain of fellowship.  I think this is admirable.  In a time when “unfriending” someone is just a click away, it has become entirely too easy to cast aside personal responsibility and perhaps some culpability in broken relationships.  Going back to discover the root of disunity is both honorable and biblical.  

When promises made but not kept, when expectations groomed but not met, when understandings are assumed and not checked, then prime conditions for disfellowship exist.

“So if you think you’re serving or being sacrificial and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, or you against them, Then go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your service or sacrifice to God. (Matthew 5:24) paraphrased. 

Do you have an unresolved “punto de partido” in your life?  What are you going to do about it? 

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                        Related StoriesCooked Rice Stains On My Christmas Pants, And How It Happened…To Hell With Integrity?You Shall Know Them by Your Subjective Evaluation of Their Fruit. 

The Idea That ‘I AM saved, am BEING saved, and WILL BE saved,’ and its Relationship to Disciple Making.

Have you ever heard anyone say, “I have been saved; I am being saved; and I will be saved?”  Have you said it?  Do you believe it’s true?  It can get a bit tricky to explain how salvation “works,” but it often goes something like this:

God HAS saved us (regeneration) – Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

God IS saving us (sanctification) – 2 Corinthians 4:16  ”Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.”

God WILL save us (glorification) – 1 Peter 1:5 “Who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

I’m sure we could spend hours debating the finer points of “The Order of Salvation,” but that’s not the intent of this post.  Rather, If we accept the idea of salvation having past, present, and future components, and we also accept that being saved is synonymous with being a disciple of Jesus, then doesn’t discipleship, or the Making of Disciples, also have past, present, and future components? 

What are the implications of your answer?

 

 

 

 

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                        Related StoriesCooked Rice Stains On My Christmas Pants, And How It Happened…Advent Apologetics Day #7 – The Samaritan ApproachYou Shall Know Them by Your Subjective Evaluation of Their Fruit. 

Cooked Rice Stains On My Christmas Pants, And How It Happened…

So there I am kneeling and praying on a floor made of wooden planks not quite fit together for keeping out the elements or critters.  It’s not something I haven’t seen before, but today was different.  It wasn’t the wet rice that I was kneeling on that scratched my soul like fingernails on a chalk board.  It was something else.  You see, yesterday, we began our annual project of getting food to the poorest of the poor in the Cloud Forest Region of Ecuador.  It’s usually an emotional time of the year for us in that we miss our family, home-centric traditions, and modern conveniences.

This past year, our group has been ministering in a house in a remote area where two families live.  The mother of one of the families has “come home to die.”  One of her sons asked us if we could come in and pray for her.  ”She’s got terminal cancer,” he said, “Her name is Rosalea.” We entered the house as the sun was setting and the light shined through the gaps in the walls.  She sat up from her rickety bed with the noise of the television in the background, and was definitely “out of place” in this home.  There was a smell there, to me at least, a fragrance of death.

Things quickly began to change as Claudia sat beside her on her bed and prayed for her.  One of the others in our group began preaching/proclaiming/sharing “the gospel” with her.  As he spoke, others including myself and Claudia continued to pray.  I had my eyes closed for a time, but then opened them and began to observe all that was going on.  The gospel was being spoken, the person speaking the message was hitting all the “right points.”  Rosalea seemed not to hear the message.  She could hardly speak because of the cancer, but when asked if she had ever heard that message, or those words before, she shook her head and said, “no.”

 She had never heard the gospel before.  

This same person who was speaking the gospel into her life felt pressed to see if she would pray with him and confess Jesus as the Lord of her life.  She hardly reacted.  In fact she seemed resistant to all that was being “said.”  Then something changed…

Claudia began to just talk to her.  Claudia identified with the woman’s pain, fear, and need to be noticed.  Claudia had discerned that Rosalea was feeling these things and ministered to and through them.  The scripture says,

“We are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.” (2 Corinthians 2:15) 

Claudia’s actions, heart, and words brought comfort, care, and charity to a bleak situation.  Rosalea lit up.  She opened up.  She became, in that moment, something she wasn’t in the previous.  She was literally transformed right before my eyes.  As folks continued to pray, Claudia continued to love on her, hug her, kiss her, and be fully human with her.  I’ll have to admit that I’m growing weary of people talking about being “incarnational,” (putting flesh to faith) and imagining that they are doing so when I see these kinds of things happening.  Maybe it’s because our environment demands it.  Maybe it’s because we really have gotten into God’s groove for our lives.  Maybe it’s simply because we see mission in a much more holistic way.  I don’t know.  What I do know, is that for Rosalea yesterday, was one of those days that she’ll not soon forget.  

I want to be clear, I’m not knocking the import of the gospel here.  I believe it is THE POWER OF GOD unto salvation for those that believe.  (Romans 1:16-17)  I believe that to proclaim the gospel boldly or unashamedly is critical for the transformation of people’s lives.  So many get this wrong.  People think the gospel is just the right combination of words to illicit a predetermined response.  The way I hear some tell it, it sounds like they’re talking “about” the power of God, as if it only applies to others, instead of the gospel being the power of God for all including those that already believe.   

In Rosalea’s case, she did not receive the former, but the latter captured her attention.  For a theology buff, for one who sometimes thinks that if I can just tweak the message, contextualize it better, or use a lot of Greek, these sorts of situations disassemble me.  I hate the quote often attributed to St. Francis os Assisi,

“Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”

He never said that.  That quote tends emphasize action at the expense of the gospel message. St. Francis did say, “No one should preach contrary to the form of the Church.   All . . . should preach by their deeds.”  Essentially, make sure your deeds match your words.

Regardless, Yesterday Rosalea needed touch more than touting.  She needed hugs more than declarative hastiness .  She needed to be noticed more than nuanced to fit our preconceived intentions.  As Claudia held her and prayed for her healing, I did too.  I stood up and noticed the wet cooked rice stains on the knees of my pants.  I laughed to myself, and thought “Such a trivial thing to carry some dirt away form Rosalea’s house in the light of what was left behind.

We spoke blessings over her, her family, and the house.  Afterward, I spoke with her son who told me that she had tumors in her brain, in her lung, and that she had about 2-3 months to live.  I asked her son how old she was thinking she must be in her 70′s at least, and he said, “Fifty One.”  Just one year older than Claudia.  We’re going back to visit with her again this week.

Afterwards, Claudia said to me privately,

“If she has never heard the gospel before, then she needed to be introduced to Jesus.”

I think Claudia did that very well

 

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Commentsso beautiful in His Grace when He extends His Life through us. ... by MarshallAll the theology in the world does not explain one thing, JESUS ... by JeanneRelated StoriesAdvent Apologetics Day #7 – The Samaritan ApproachYou Shall Know Them by Your Subjective Evaluation of Their Fruit.To Hell With Integrity? 

You Shall Know Them by Your Subjective Evaluation of Their Fruit.

If it were only this easy with thorny people.

“You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” ~ Jesus (Matthew 7:16)

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” ~ The Apostle Paul addressing the church in Galatia. (Galatians 5:22-23) 

We Christians think we’re good at fruit inspection.  We think we’re uniquely qualified to evaluate fruit, or the lack there of, in others.  I’d have to admit though, that for the most part, I think the Church has caved into relativism regarding fruity terminology.  Likewise, anti-fruit terms like arrogance, pride, hatred, discord, jealousy, rage, selfish ambition, divisiveness etc., are often relegated to the purely speculative and fanciful notions of the person speaking them in the moment.   For example, when someone tells me that they think I’m being arrogant, I often ask, “How am I being arrogant?”  Other than the response, “well, you just are,” I’ve heard very few reasonably laid out explanations of what being arrogant is.  I’ve rarely heard arrogance be defined in such a way that would help me recognize it in myself and convince me to be otherwise.  Take any other word, positive or negative, regarding someone else’s behavior, and it seems to fit the pattern.  ”You’re not speaking the truth in love!”  What does that mean?  ”You’re being prideful!”  How am I being prideful?  etc. 

What does unkindness look like?  How is it properly defined?  Shouldn’t a believer be able to describe and define it if they’re going to accuse others of being so?  What about “hate speech?” and “bigotry,” and “Judgmental?”  Believers and non-believers alike throw these terms about without consensus or clarity.  How are believers suppose to incarnate change amongst others when they aren’t adequately able to differentiate between an ass and an apple?  How can you possibly presume to know anyone by their fruit when you can’t even describe or define fruit?  We talk past each other like we’re rooting for opposing teams and yet both sides demonstrate an express laziness.  As far as believers and unbelievers together, it is unlikely that they’ll be able to come to a consensus on many of these terms because “spiritual things are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)   But as to the Christian community, there’s no good reason to remain in abject ignorance and be ruled by our existential, emotional, and subjective notions.

The assumption, according to Jesus, Is that we have the capacity to identify both good and bad fruit.  I don’t think that the fruit by which we identify people should be left to sheer speculation and unfounded subjectivity.  What do you think?

Are the fruits expressed by others in their actions and words able to be objectively identified?

Can fruitful or unfruitful actions and words be defined?

Is it ok to question others as to why they think you are being  _________?

 

 

 

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Advent Apologetics Day #19 – The Apologetic of Prayer

In “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as a Disciplined Community,” by Stanley Hauerwas, he says; 

“After many years of vain attempts to “explain” God as trinity, I now say, “Well, to begin with we Christians have been taught to pray, ‘Our father, who art in heaven. . .’” I then suggest that a good place to begin to understand what we Christians are about is to join me in that prayer.

For to learn to pray is no easy matter but requires much training, not unlike learning to lay brick. It does no one any good to believe in God, at least the God we find in Jesus of Nazareth, if they have not learned to pray. To learn to pray means we must acquire humility not as something we try to do, but as commensurate with the practice of prayer. In short, we do not believe in God, become humble and then learn to pray, but in learning to pray we humbly discover we cannot do other than believe in God.”

Ultimately, the purpose of apologetics is not to “defend our beliefs,” but to give a reasonable hope of why we hold to them.  This quote by Hauerwas is genius in that in learning how to pray become the path to that hope.  Imagine the power of tossing out “the sinner’s prayer,” in favor of teaching people how to pray correctly and continually.  This simple approach could forever turn evangelism and apologetics from their hit and run image to one of communal hope and discovery.

You can read the entire Hauerwas article here.

Help feed a family in need in the Ecuadorean Cloud Forest Region.  Click Here for Details.  

   

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Mission and Church Planting Amongst The Poor – Losing Souls While Finding Sustainability?

My Wife and I, along with band of highly motivated indigenous and itinerant gospel laborers, seek to create mission outposts (plant churches) here in the Andes Mountains Cloud Forest Region of Ecuador.  Our direct goal is not to “plant churches” per se, but to Make Disciples and to help guide the local gatherings as they may form.

We do this work primarily amongst the poor.  We could not do what we do without outside support.  That support, when committed, is put into the mission in various ways.  We ourselves, live on very little.  Some would suggest that a church is not “planted” or a mission is not really a mission until it is financially self-sustainable.

There are a multitude of opinions about what constitutes a church plant or a successful mission.    We will not consider those here.  Instead, I’d like to focus on the single aspect of financial sustainability of church plants.

For me, chasing after sustainability , trying to copy successful models, or trying to tap in to the latest perceived move of God is fleeting.  Every community in which disciples are being made is different.  Sustainability often assumes something longer than a season.  We can miss out on what God is doing in the present when we’re constantly tweaking it for a sustainable future.  I want to be clear, I am not suggesting that we don’t try to participate in development that transforms community in the long run, but not at the expense of the harvest. 

Consider this quote:

“Church planting cannot be the final objective of mission, only the beginning.  A church full of life and love, working for the good of the community in which God has placed it, is the proper end of mission. Transformational development that does not work toward such a church is neither sustainable nor Christian.”*

And also, few questions:

 

Should financial self-sustainability be a criteria for a church plant?

Isn’t interdependency amongst many parts of the body more biblical than the self-sustainability of one?

What, in your opinion, is the proper course of action for a community, church plant, or mission work, that can not sustain itself?

You can help support our current project to provide food for families in need, or keeping us mobile in 2014.

 

*Bryant L. Myers (2011-11-09). Walking With The Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development (Revised and Expanded Edition) (Kindle Locations 2210-2212). Orbis Books. Kindle Edition.

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