Two middle-aged women have just finished cleaning a large house in the Hollywood Hills.  After a day’s work, they return to the flats of East Hollywood to take a load off and drink Tecate.  They sit down on the front stoop of my neighbor’s apartment building where he and I are shooting the breeze.  My neighbor introduces us in Spanish. 

“This is my friend Felipe.  He’s a missionary,” he says.  Oh great, I think to myself, he just ruined my first impression with these two souls.  I shake hands with them. 

“Oh, a missionary.  Like the Mormons,” one woman replies in Spanish.  A predictable side conversation takes place between them about Mormons abstaining from coffee. They laugh.     

“No, he’s not Mormon, and he’s not an Evangelical either,” my friend further explains. Funny, I’ve never been clear on what exactly an “Evangelical” is, but I always thought I was supposed to fit into that category on the religious surveys.  Apparently, he doesn’t think so.  

“This is an Evangelical…” My neighbor holds his fist to his mouth as if it’s a microphone and does an impression of an angry storefront preacher yelling about how God hates homosexuals and how you can’t be a Christian if you aren’t dressing like the people do in his church.  I make a point that there are lots of Jesus-followers not like this, to which he agrees.

“See, Felipe dresses normal,” he points.  With a serious tone, he says, “His church doesn’t hate people or look down on them.  They like to read the Bible.  I’m going to visit his church and read the Bible with him.  Do you want to read the Bible with us?”

The women decline his offer, but now who’s acting like a missionary!

Categories: Uncategorized
1 Comment »

Categories: Uncategorized
No Comments »

Sorry about Thursday’s bodiless post!  Here is what I intended to post…

This is the seventh and final post of a mini-series on my emotional journey of leaving church-as-I-knew-it to become a missionary-as-a-way-of-life in Los Angeles.  To read previous posts, click below:

Something’s Crossed Over In Me - Intro. 

Part 1A – Mildly Panicked: Missing my old trees. 

Part 1B – Mildly Panicked: Naming my old trees.

Part 2A – Ravenous: Not on bread alone.

Part 2B – Ravenous: Feeding this hunger.

Part 3 – Wildly Free to be church at will.  

CONCLUSION

This ‘fast’ not coming to an end?

In Part 2 of this series I likened our missionary experience to fasting. Only instead of fasting from regular foods my team and I have been abstaining from several of our favorite and not-so-favorite ways of doing church for a year and a half. In other posts I’ve shared why this approach blesses the ones we’re reaching, but in this series I’ve shared how it is affecting me personally. This “fast” from Christian culture has messed with me. My emotions have run the gamut. 

There is a difference between this fast and a true fast, though. In a real fast you eventually return to the things you’ve been abstaining from. You start consuming your old menu again, ideally with a deeper appreciation for God’s provision. But in this case I’m not sure that I’ll be going back to some, perhaps all, of the things I’ve been going without. This realization also messes with me. I don’t exactly relish the thought of perpetually venturing into the unknown and unfamiliar, but that’s a given part of discipleship to Jesus. And I do rejoice in the lessons I’m learning along the way and the part God is allowing us to play in his mission. Something’s crossed over in me, and I can’t go back.

A word of thanks to those on whose shoulders we stand

I still benefit from my interactions with churches who are embracing the Christian culture so prevalent in North America. We visit each other’s churches, support each other and learn from each other. None of us owns the corner of the market on joining God in mission. We need each other. 

I’m thankful to the churches I came from. It is because of their love for the Lord that they have done and are still doing many wonderful things in Jesus’ name to bless the world. It is because of their love for Ed, Katie, Meredith and me that they taught us the joys of surrendering to King Jesus. And it is because of their love for others that they sent our two families away from their Christian culture to reach “those who would never come to us”.

It gives me great joy to know they aren’t the only churches who have done this. Thankfully, more and more churches are sending out some of their own number to start church planting movements. And they do this knowing ahead of time that the new churches they help to start will look very different from them. Yet they rejoice because these new groups of believers are loving and obeying Jesus. My suspicion and prayer is that something also is ‘crossing over’ in churches in North America.   

Categories: Uncategorized
No Comments »

Categories: Uncategorized
No Comments »

This is the sixth post of a mini-series on my emotional journey of leaving church-as-we-knew-it to become a missionary-as-a-way-of-life in Los Angeles.  To read previous posts, click below:

Something’s Crossed Over In Me - Intro. 

Part 1A – Mildly Panicked: Missing my old trees. 

Part 1B – Mildly Panicked: Naming my old trees.

Part 2A – Ravenous: Not on bread alone.

Part 2B – Ravenous: Feeding this hunger.

PART 3: WILDLY FREE

Over the past year and a half I’ve struggled with fear and anxiety about leaving behind some of my Christian culture and walking into unfamiliar territory to reach God’s missing ones.  (Leaving Christian culture and leaving the faith are not the same thing.)  Sometimes I still get anxious, but with less frequency now. 

I’ve realized more fully my role as a stranger and alien in this world – not fully at home in the cultures I’m reaching and not fully at home anymore in the Christian culture I came from.  Consequently I’ve become overwhelmed with an insatiable hunger for God’s Word and his loving Reign.  This hunger, thankfully, is not going away. 

And lately I’m noticing that I am starting to live with an altogether new feeling now: More and more I am feeling free, or put more correctly, uninhibited.  I am feeling unihibited to simply be church at will, anywhere, anytime. 

To illustrate this, my teammate Ed likes to share this story with our team: 

In the past we thought we couldn’t tell certain coworkers and acquaintances about Jesus Christ because they lived too far away from our church building.  Seriously.  It didn’t matter that we had relational influence – after all we spent more time with some of these coworkers than with friends and family.  Since there was little chance that our coworkers would be in a position to commute the long distance to our Sunday services, church social events, and weekly small groups, we didn’t even make the attempt. 

But now that we are realizing church is not centered around getting people to enter a geographic location, but into God’s kingdom, we feel free to share Jesus with literally anyone.  They don’t have to commute to a church building (or in our case, to a house church gathering).  God can work with each person right where they are. 

I know what you’re thinking.  This ought to be a no-brainer.  Ed add that we all probably said as much before we started this mission.  Still, it’s amazing how much we get caught up by the parameters of what we have come to equate with “church”.  Plus, some things are best learned through experience! 

So now if we find we are crossing paths a lot with someone from Compton or Whittier or Pacoima (places in the LA area that are too far to commute to E-Ho), we can rest easy.  We don’t have to persuade that person to drive all the way to Hector and Roxy’s house for a church gathering in Hollywood, for example, just so he can know his Creator and Lord.  We can help that person discover who God is, lead him or her to a commitment to Jesus Christ, and help that new disciple to lead his or her own network of relationships to Christ.  Each new disciple and his or her household or affinity group is a potential new church …right where they are!  There are many examples like this.  

Something has crossed over in me, and I can’t go back.  Again, I’m not talking about leaving the faith.  My faith in Jesus Christ, while it continues to have its obvious ups and downs, is generally speaking stronger than it’s ever been.  I do not attribute this to the house church model, as some house church planters are prone to do.  As I’ve mentioned before, some of the churches started in LA will stay home-based and laity-led; others will assume other structures.  That’s up to them.  For me it’s not about how, when or where we do gatherings.  It’s about being Jesus’ followers as a way of life in every place we go, with every breath we take.  I don’t want anything less for myself, for my family, or for anyone. 

It’s also about a difference between having a church-centered mindset and a kingdom mindset.  Rather than building a new church with all its programs and trying to get new disciples to be loyal to the thing we’ve built, we share life among God’s missing ones and lovingly help each other receive God’s reign over our lives.  In the process new disciples are made and the Holy Spirit causes new churches to spring forth.  We serve as a guide in the process, but our focus is changed.  And more and more, I am feeling free.

For Thursday: Conclusion

Categories: Uncategorized
No Comments »

We are getting to know a Muslim couple I’ll call Raheem and Malika. They immigrated to the U.S. from a restricted access country in South Asia.  Due to much stereotyping some people would be surprised to know Raheem and Malika are very gentle and kind people, are good with children, desire peace not war, and appreciate the diversity of all peoples.  We really enjoy each other’s company.

Yet there are still walls.  Malika and Katie and Meri were in the kitchen sharing stories and rejoicing in their new friendship. Meri asked, “Tell me honestly, would we be friends if we all were living in your country?”

Malika’s response was telling: “If we had never lived in the U.S. but always lived in my country, and then your family moved there – then, no, we would not be friends.”

“But things are changing,” Malika added. 

Categories: Uncategorized
No Comments »

This is the fifth post on my emotional journey of leaving church-as-I-knew-it to become a missionary-as-a-way-of-life in Los Angeles.  To read the first post click here.  Second post, click here.  Third, here.  Fourth, here.  Thanks for reading… 

“Something’s crossed over in me…  I can’t go back.” 
- Thelma & Louise the movie

PART 2: RAVENOUS

Section B: Trying to feeding this hunger for God.

It’s amazing how ravenous my team and I became when we found ourselves without the usual mechanisms in place to ‘connect’ with God and his Word.  Here are some of our attempts to feed this hunger. 

(This is not a check list of ‘things to do’.  It’s a description of what’s been happening to me and my team.  I’m sure in a year from now we’ll have better ideas.  Despite my rebellious spirit and failures to surrender to his will, I am in awe of God who meets me in my wilderness.  He finds ways to meet my needs when I am feeling hungry and desperate for his intervention, which is about all the time now.  These are our cries for his help.) 

Without weekly sermons, Bible classes, and small group Bible studies, we felt compelled to read.  We started gobbling up scripture as if we had just read it for the first time.  This is still going on.  We read it not just for more spiritual information, but for spiritual transformation.  We wanted to be changed, so we made a commitment to obey and share the truths we discover from scripture right away.  We refused to be educated ourselves beyond our obedience! 

Without some of the old support systems in place we devoured prayer, carving out time and seeking the Lord with a growing intensity.  In this blog I’ve written about the role prayer is playing in this ministry.  We are becoming a people on our knees.  

Without worship services (as we had known them), we devoured each day as an opportunity to worship God as a way of life.  This one is really cool because God has given me a new kind of worship experience that comes as a byproduct of obeying him and sharing his love and message with others.  When I’m weak and disobedient, oh do I miss that experience!  We have focused times of worship with new disciples, but spending alone in awe and reverence of Him has also been worship.  Spending time with His missing ones in the community can be worship when I am reflecting his image.  Surrendering to King Jesus is worship.  More often than not, now the “worship experience” for me comes not from a dynamic and well-orchestrated worship service but from recommitting myself to obedience and from watching peoples’ lives being touched and transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.  It’s hard to top that.  I’m so hungry to see more evidence that God has been active in the world. I want to join Him in this! But being fruitful means a call back to obedience. It is challenging, beautiful, and possible. 

We’re ravenous for our kids’ sake, too.  Without a Sunday School program our team started taking more responsibility for shaping our children’s spiritual formation, and teaching other families to do the same.  Now instead of leaving a church gathering and asking our children, “What did you learn in Bible class today?” our goal is to arrive at church gatherings ready to share and celebrate what we and our kids learned from God and how we applied it together during the week.  For example, we make use of everyday happenings and turn them into teaching moments.  A woman in our first house church was pained when she saw someone in desperation on the street.  She and her kids who are familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan chose to be “good Samaritans” and help the woman.  This became a teaching moment for her kids, and also a way to worship as a way of life.  When we have taken our boys on nature hikes at Griffith Park, we have asked them to share parts of creation they are thankful for and we sung songs to express our appreciation to our Creator.  I started a new tradition of telling a Bible story to my children each morning and asking them to retell it in their own words, and tell me what they will do to apply and share that story. 

This is not unlike the approach we have been taking with adults we’re discipling.  Our hunger is for Jesus Christ.  We are ravenous for God’s loving reign on earth as it is in heaven.  And it is this, not our loyalty to our Christian culture, that we want to pass on to others.

To pass this on, though, we don’t just give up the bad things.  Jesus-followers must also learn to go without some good things, too, when they could serve as distractions to us or the people we’re reaching.  Sometimes (not always) we must let go of time-honored traditions that are dear to us (see previous post).  Especially if we are to connect with our families and communities in ways that are reproducible by them, and lead them to the abundant life in God’s kingdom (John 10:10).  Mysteriously, abundance and sacrifice are both part of the message. 

For Tuesday: Part 3 - Wildly Free

Categories: Uncategorized
1 Comment »