Bold, Vulnerable and Relevant

“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’” (John 4:13-14)

As a church community in Healdsburg, we are processing together some concepts related to “missions” brought to us by various speakers over the next few weeks. This week I will kick start a community conversation with a few musings on Matt Walker’s exhortation to be bold, vulnerable and relevant. His text of John 4:1-26 highlighted how Jesus modeled these attributes.I’ve been in missions most of my life. For the first seven years of my life I lived in a mud hut in the middle of Honduras while my parents were doing Bible translation for the Tol people. For the next eight years, I mostly lived in Guatemala City while Mom and Dad worked to help administer all the Bible translation work that was being in done throughout all of Central America. When I finally got to college and met the man of my dreams (Bob Lipps), I was excited that he was a business major and hoped to make millions of dollars!  (Read: No more missionary life for me!)While we both loved Jesus and were very involved in our church, neither one of us was hoping to become a “missionary”. But, three years into marriage, God miraculously called us to serve him in Wycliffe Bible Translators. It was a unique calling to use the professional gifts God had given us to serve the Bible translation movement, which we did for over 20 years. This is one way to be on mission with God and what most people think of when they use the word “mission.” Today, living in Healdsburg, we are no longer “missionaries” (in the classical sense of the word), but we are very much still on mission with God!What does it mean to be on mission with God? One way to think of it is to be attentive to where God is working and join him there (Henry Blackaby). John Piper famously suggests, “Missions exist because worship doesn’t.” In other words, being on mission with God is, ultimately, to bring more people into a posture of worship towards God. Here is how Jesus frames it… after his resurrection, he directed his disciples “Go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:18-20). In order to make disciples for Jesus, they would need to have a sign or symbol of his authority to carry with them. Jesus told them the authority would come in the form of the Holy Spirit and, with this power they would carry the story of Jesus as witnesses “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8).Matt’s exhortation to boldness reminds me of the action of the word “Go” together with the idea of the power of the Holy Spirit. In the early stages of the church, the message of the resurrection, new life and the kingdom was taken to others. It was not a message that stayed in Jerusalem, inviting people to make pilgrimage to learn about it. The message was propelled out of the safe gatherings of people to places it had never gone before. Just like Jesus’ example of going to places and people that were NOT the most socially, religiously and politically “in” (i.e. the Samaritan woman), the message of good news was carried boldly and radically to new, potentially unsafe and outcast, people. What does “Go” mean to Grace Community? What does being bold look like in Healdsburg/Windsor/Cloverdale? Where would Jesus determine to go (like Samaria) that others would normally avoid? As disciples of Jesus, following his command to “Go”, where should we go?Matt helped us see Jesus, in his humanity, as truly vulnerable…sitting by the well, hungry and thirsty. It was his very real, physical need that opened up a conversation with the woman. This is instructional for me. Jesus had THE answer to all of her life questions, but he didn’t lead with that information. He humbled himself to receive from her first. As Christians, we often lead with the truth in ways that are actually off-putting and condemning. How can I (we) authentically and vulnerably enter into relationships with those outside my spiritual community? What posture of humility must I have in order to receive before I download all the truth that I know?As I ponder the idea of relevancy, I’m grateful that Matt did not start with “being relevant”. I struggle with churches that have so highly prioritized “being relevant” they have forgotten how to speak the truth. That being said, I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Interestingly, the idea of relevance comes back around to the idea of “going”. The relevance of the message is visible in two important ways. It’s relevant as we love God first and love our neighbor as ourselves. Relevancy is established with others first as we love our neighbors as ourselves. (Side note: It was also an outsider, a Samaritan, that Jesus held up as an example of a good neighbor in the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10) Those who are searching for Jesus will find him in us as we love our neighbors. Although we must do all things with excellence, relevance is not about having music, preaching or activities that compete with the world.   Jesus was relevant to the Samaritan woman because he knew her, knew her context, knew the history…he loved her.   How can we, as a community, be relevant in our community? Where are the neighbors that we know and love?Well, those are some thoughts about the first week of focus on mission… Join in the dialogue with other thoughts, comments and questions. Let’s listen to each other and to God. Where is God leading our little band of disciples to make disciples and be unique witnesses to his grace in Jerusalem, Judea/Samaria, and the ends of the earth?