Apostolic

How Does Environment Effect Mission?

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This is a guest post by Nick Johnson. He is the Director of InterVarsity for the State of GA and he is working hard with his team to make a culture shift to own the whole field of college campuses and commit to reaching all 90+.

Shortly after my wife and I got married we were wrestling with how we could better love the poor in our city. After reflecting on why it was hard for us to make it a priority, we realized it was where we lived. The Starbucks, nice shopping mall, and trendy restaurants nearby were a distraction. To fully press into this value we had, we needed an environment change. So we moved into a low-income neighborhood.

I wonder for how many of us our environment is hindering our abilities to fully press into our mission?

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Proclaiming the Gospel Always Comes First…

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By Chris Nichols

2 Cor. 5 :11, 20

11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others…20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

2 Tim 4:2,5

2 proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching… 5 As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

Planting new ministry is complex, exciting, and all consuming work. The apostolic leader and the community they develop must be able to communicate a kingdom mission, gather others around it, and keep an outward focus even as they are deepening community centered on Jesus.

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Uncontrollable Joy

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[tentblogger-youtube Ls9Cg8iaq1s]

This is a great video of a son who sets up a secret camera to capture his dad’s reaction to his C grade in math.

The he kid has been working hard, hasn’t been able to pass and now finally he makes it over the hump.

Shawn Young shared with us a great word about the joy of the Father in planting and he uncontrollably celebrates our success (even a C) in planting. For some of us planting is so hard and we feel like we’re working so hard to pass.

How does the fathers reaction help you glimpse The Father in Heaven’s reaction towards you?

Don’t Let Your Weakness Fray Your Leadership

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“People are going to judge you by your weakest areas, not your strongest.”

I was having a great conversation with my father in law and brother in law yesterday and this is one golden nugget was shared with me by my father in law. He just retired as the President of AT& T in the South East and he has led thousands of people.

He went on to inform me that once you start to rise in leadership, people are going to judge you by what you are weak in.

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4 Ways My Dad Has Shaped Me As A Leader

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one thing I didn't get from my dad was his jump suits :)

one thing I didn’t get from my dad was his jump suits 🙂

Bobby Clinton, an expert in leadership development, talks a lot about the sovereign foundations the Lord gives us growing up. Even if we are not believers growing up, the events good and bad, lay a foundation that God uses to shape our character and our calling in ministry as we grow old.

I did not grow up a Christian, we never talked about it in my family, and so my dad did not lead me in the way of the Lord. But who my dad is in his ethic as a person and the way he developed me and modeled for me life growing up were essential to who I am as a planter of ministry today. So much of how God has used me as an evangelist and apostolic (planter) leader is because of my dad’s life and input.

In honor of Father’s Day (I was going to post on Sunday but my neighbor came to faith), here are four concrete ways my dad shaped who I am and how God in His sovereign plan has used these qualities to extend the Kingdom through me.

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Expelled: Evangelical Groups Being Removed by Universities This Fall.

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In a collision between religious freedom and anti discrimination policies Christian groups are being removed from campus. Any group holding to the policy that one must be a Christian to be in leadership is being systematically removed this Fall.

We who work on the campus have known this was coming for a while, but this recent NY Times article brings it to the forefront for many of you.

At Cal State, the nation’s largest university system with nearly 450,000 students on 23 campuses, the chancellor is preparing this summer to withdraw official recognition from evangelical groups that are refusing to pledge not to discriminate on the basis of religion in the selection of their leaders. And at Vanderbilt, more than a dozen groups, most of them evangelical but one of them Catholic, have already lost their official standing over the same issue; one Christian group balked after a university official asked the students to cut the words “personal commitment to Jesus Christ” from their list of qualifications for leadership.

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Five-Fold Partnership: What Apostles Need

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By Jon Hietbrink

If indeed God gives us the five-fold gifts to play a “symphony, not a solo”, then it’s critically important that we understand both the unique role that each of the five gifts play (differentiation) AND how that gift interfaces with each of the other four (integration) to create a rich kingdom harmony. Perhaps more clearly than with any other gift list in the New Testament, we can see how the five-fold gifting of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds, and Teachers are designed to work interdependently as a beautiful all-channel system given by God to develop the body of Christ into maturity.

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4 Questions To Ask Before Joining A Church

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I found this article really helpful over at Missio Alliance on how to pick a church.

The long-standing effects of a Christendom-shaped imagination incline us to misunderstand the nature and purpose of the Church. It continues to influence the way we view leadership, mission, and evangelism. It can even shape the questions we ask when we find ourselves in the position of seeking out a church community to belong to. One example of this can be seen in a current post on The Gospel Coalition website. The article presented four questions to consider before joining a local congregation. I understand the limitations on fully articulating a position via a blog post. Further, I realize the author limited himself to just four questions. I would assume, if given more time, there would be additional questions to consider. However, recognizing the limitations, I still found the post to be woefully inadequate. I believe the essence of each of the four questions highlights the deeply rooted, and some cases, devastating effect the legacy of Christendom has on the American church.+

In my opinion each of the questions flow out of a Constantinian ecclesiology that is organized around an understanding of church leadership that is skewed towards the gifts of shepherd and teacher, while at the same time void of the apostolic, prophetic and evangelistic gifts. As a result, the body doesn’t mature (read Eph. 4), and does not experience multiplication. Apostolic movement (which I believe is at the essence of the church) simply will not happen if we rely only on the ministry of shepherds and teachers. We need to understand the “marks of the church” from a fully functioning five-fold ministry model.

Get the 4 questions by reading the whole article

People Group Grows By 1400%: Still Unnoticed by Church Planters

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Saudi photo

picture credit to http://www.sacm.org/AcademicSupervision/TrasferAcad.aspx

This is guest post is by someone who oversees international student ministry and has a vision to see every American fellowship in her organization engage with international students. She chooses to remain anonymous as she is writing about a highly sensitive population.

Do you know who some of the most unreached people are? Do you know who’ve been most overlooked by missionaries and evangelists? And, did you know that this group is right here in the US?

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