Steve McAlpine and I go back a long way – to under 14’s baptist basketball at Kent St High School in 1976. I liked Steve and his Melville Baptist comrades because they were the only team worse than us and each time we got to play them we managed a win. Steve also came from Northern Ireland so we shared a bit of heritage and Steve still has a twinge of Norn Iron accent if you listen closely.

There aren’t many people you stay in touch with for nearly 40 years, but we are still friends and have shared the road as Christian leaders on some very similar tracks in the small Perth scene for many years now too. I have a deep respect for Steve and his ability to integrate theology and culture and speak of it in a way that makes sense.

Steve has been blogging fairly seriously and prolifically over the last couple of years and is kicking off a series of his own looking at his missional journey 10 years on. He’s had a few ‘real deal’ adventures, including a stint in the UK with Crowded House network and planting his own gig in the hills (The Local), before his latest venture with Providence in Midland, so it will be really good to hear his learning from it all as he approaches the big 50…

Here’s part 1.

One of the challenges of inspiring people towards a missional lifestyle and a missional church is that many either find it too hard to translate ideas into action, or they are too busy to cultivate new practices. (Another less flattering option is that we are too self focused to see other people.)

At the core of a missional identity is the idea of being sent – of our identity being tied up with God’s sending impulse. It starts here, but then it needs fleshing out.

I like the story of Jesus with Zacchaeus in Luke 19 as a picture of how we can live with a missionary focus. And in that story we can derive some simple core practices that could form the basis for a missional lifestyle.

I’ll be speaking on this on Sunday, but for now here’s a summary of 7 things I see:

1. Jesus meets Zacchaeus in the street – in the flow of his everyday life. The story doesn’t take place in the synagogue but in the town, followed by Z’s home. If we see mission as what happens when people come to church then we miss the idea of being sent and we will also wait a really long time for anything to happen.

Practice – engagement – intentionally spend time immersed in the community as opposed to spending much of our free time with church people.

2. Jesus is aware of Z – he is tuned in enough to the spirit to notice him in a tree checking him out. Its easy to not see people – to view them as ‘extras’ in our own story and therefore somewhat invisible or irelevant. Frederick Beuchner says ‘the first step in loving people is to see them’.

Practice – awareness – stop on occasions thru the day and look around. Ask God if there is anyone he wants you to pay attention to. Look back at the end of the day and see where God was at work.

3. Jesus has time for him – he makes himself available to have lunch with Z. He sees the interruption / distraction as part of God’s work in the world and rolls with it. The key is that he is not so flat out that he is unable to create space.

Practice – availability – assess your life pace and whether it allows for interruptions and spontaneous connections. Each evening reflect on the day that has been and see where you accepted invitations to be with people or where you missed the cue. Choose to eliminate some things from your life to live at a more welcoming pace.

4. Jesus is himself – in that he is authentic and at ease in himself – not needing to impress Z or ‘win him over’. In a recent comment Scott pointed me to some research done by Lynne Taylor who was trying to understand what is happening in the lives of people who become Christians. Her conclusion was that authenticity was the key element in people finding faith – both a desire for an authentic life and an experience of authentic faith

Practice – authenticity – reflect on the way you conduct yourself around those who don’t have faith. To what extent are you ‘yourself’ and to what extent are you acting a role?

5. Jesus accepts Z as he is – he knows who he is, the way he is perceived in society but he is happy to be with him and eat lunch with him.

Practice – acceptance – spend time with people who make you uncomfortable or who clearly do not share your values. Bring someone into your life on a regular basis who challenges your prejudices.

6. Jesus is vulnerable and willing to put himself at risk – he isn’t controlled by the societal norms that prohibit him from spending time with people like Z. He knows there will be criticism but he is willing to take the heat.

Practice – vulnerability – don’t be afraid to spend time with people or go to places that may evoke criticism from other Christians.

7. Jesus was purposeful in his relationship – he finishes the time by declaring “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Jesus knew what he was doing and wasn’t shy about it. You don’t need to be offensive or brash to be purposeful. Jesus seems to get it right.

Practice – look at who God has brought into your life, pray for them, and seek every opportunity to love, bless, serve and speak of Jesus with them.

I’m hoping that as we put a practical edge to it we may be able to move people into a more natural missional lifestyle. And I imagine that will happen as those practices become automated and embedded in our everyday life.

There’s no rocket science here – just a willingness to listen to God and be a bit uncomfortable from time to time.

It was a day for energetic conversations and this morning I met with Jennifer, as I do a few times a year for spiritual direction and mentoring.

We began discussing mission and some of what I have written here over the last few posts, then she asked a question that has been bubbling away in me for the rest of the day.

I don’t remember the exact framing, but essentially it was ‘It seems there are people becoming Christians around the place, but who are these people and what is bringing them to a point of conversion? And then…  what is the nature of that conversion – what do they understand themselves to be ‘converting’ to?’

I’d love to find some answers to those questions and I imagine it would form a really interesting and valuable piece of research – more specifically what is happening among those 25 and older in terms of conversion.

Its a somewhat vexed question as defining conversion and reflecting on evangelistic methodologies could be complicated. We seem to have anecdotal evidence for people coming to faith in large numbers in some areas, while others would say its ‘hard ground’ and as tough a time as we have known evangelistically.

But I’d be interested to know if there is any hard data available on this issue as it may be valuable to the wider church. Otherwise I might have to start that masters… haha…

It was 2006 and we were in full swing with Forge and some experimental church communities, working hard to poke and prod the missional imagination of the church and see if we could ignite some new thinking and practice around the core issue of mission. We had moved beyond simply being antagonists to being a voice worthy of a hearing, albeit a feisty voice. To be fair I’m not sure a tame voice would actually have been heard in an environment dominated by church growth thinking and where the biggest players still had the most credible voices. Now here we are 10 years later and what was once provocative is now mainstream – what was once disturbing is now acceptable.

This blog was born several years earlier when I realised my own identity was formed primarily by the missionary calling. Stepping into the Forge tribe in its early days was like coming home to a long lost family and those were great years as we mused, experimented and reflected on what a church shaped by mission would look like in Australia. A tough reality was that while the missional theory sounded good, the practice still came hard. Both churches and individuals were difficult to change.

Things are the way they are for a reason… (the path of least resistance) and significant change felt like a constant uphill battle.

In 2009 I finished up in any offical capacity with Forge and returned to a local church to lead and implement the things we had been speaking of. As we kicked off at QBC it was with the hope of growing a community of people committed to appropriate contextual expressions of mission and committed to being a church flexible enough to adapt to the environment. It was all the ‘Forge stuff’ that I hoped to get traction with among a local community.

A couple of years of plain hard slog followed while the church imploded and any outward energy got shunted to the backburner in deference to survival techniques. And then when we came out of that ‘ice age’ we were tired and weary, just needing to recoup and catch our breath. The dreams and ideals of the Forge era seemed like a distant memory and while I sometimes spoke about mission it was from a head that knew rather than a heart that was inspired. Raw information rarely moves people into action,with anywhere near the energy that comes from inspired information.

For a few years I felt myself simply rolling with the regular church agenda of doing Sunday church, running the usual programs and hoping that as we focused on simple discipleship people would find their way to a knowledge and experience of God and his church that they were happy to share. Interestingly the ‘results’ have been no more or less inspiring than when we were pushing hard into the missional ideas.

In the last 5 years some people have become Christians, some Christians have ditched discipleship, some folks have moved ahead in faith and some have dropped the ball or stagnated. It sounds like any church anywhere…

So a couple of months back we decided to focus again on the theme of mission and to lift the energy around our missionary practices as a church community. And the questions it raised for me were:

• 10 years on what do I believe and see as core to mission in a local church community?
• What would I see as essential for people to grasp and what am I prepared to let slide?’
• What and who would I encourage people to read?
• Who are we and what are our specific challenges in mission?
• And what would I reasonably hope for as tangible outcomes?

I have more books on the subject of mission than anyone could ever need. I have files and files of stuff that I have produced as well that I can draw on, but the question of what is needed for these people at this time is what I am pondering.

My church would be all but unaware of the missional conversation of the early 2000’s and most wouldn’t care. By and large they’d like to see people come to faith. They’d like the church to grow thru new converts and they’d like to know that what we are doing as a church is making a difference.

That probably sounds like almost any church anywhere – you’d hope… But if I were to consider who we are then we’d need to see:

• A large immigrant contingent with approx 50% of the church having lived in Australia for less than 7 years and most of them either South African or British.
• The larger South African group come from a highly Christian culture which is quite conservative and many are still adapting to the secular mission field that is Australia.
• Busy people often working long hours and many playing ‘financial catch up’.
• Suburban people often commuting and having the ‘dormitory’ experience of their local community
• People open to fresh ideas and experimentation – our church has repeatedly shown itself to be willing to ‘try things’.
• White middle aged and middle class – by and large this describes us so all of the aspirational baggage of middle class living needs to be processed as we consider mission and discipleship.

What I want to do in this series of posts is articulate how I would go about equipping this local church for mission in this local context. I imagine that if you are a church leader then what you may do with your people in your context might be quite different so this is not a ‘how to’ by any means. No doubt there will be common concepts and transferable ideas, but I’m really more allowing you into the machinations of my mind as I try to come to grips with the thought processes and practices that I hope will equip and inspire people to be effective both individually and corporately.

I’m not sure how many posts there will be or how often they will be added, but I imagine they will flow as the ideas flow…