Category: Church

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Metaphors and the Church by Dave Guiles

DaveGuiles-Headshot
Dave Guiles

Encompass World Partners director, Dave Guiles, has been doing some intriguing study and work on “Conceptual Metaphors” and how they play a significant part in developing concepts and behavior.

Dave’s research shows that real change takes place when we are successfully introduced to new metaphors. This is true because:

1) Metaphors organize the way we think,
2) Metaphors enable us to gain new insights,
3) Metaphors create identity, and,
4) Metaphors serve as a guide to future actions.

To help illustrate this important truth, Dave explored how the self-concept of the early church was formed through the introduction of three important conceptual metaphors:

THE CHURCH IS THE FAMILY OF GOD
THE CHURCH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST
THE CHURCH IS THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

“The success of the early Apostles in establishing churches in the diverse cultural soils of their world was directly related to their ability to lead new congregations into a clear understanding and acceptance of these metaphors. Because of their importance in revealing the true nature of the church, these can be referred to as ‘essence metaphors.”

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The Story of His Glory by Steve Hawthorne

“The Bible is basically a story about God. When we turn to the Bible as a self-help book, we end up bored or frustrated with what seems to be a rambling collection of stories. What if the Bible is more about God than it is about us? How thrilling to discover that every element of scripture—the reports of events, the verses of distilled wisdom, the lyrical prophecies—converge in one central saga of one worthy Person.

“We’re used to the idea that the Bible is a true story. It’s so true that the story is still unfolding to this minute. We are used to hearing that the Bible is a love story. But we tend to see only one side of the love: how God loves people. If the main point of the Bible is that God is to be loved with heart, soul, mind and strength, perhaps it would be wise to read the entire story from God’s point of view. When we look at it all from God’s viewpoint, the grand love story finally makes sense: God is not just loving people. He is transforming them to become people who can fully love Him. God is drawing people as worshipers to offer freely to Him their love-inspired glory.

“God can be loved only when He is known. That’s why the story of the Bible is the story of God revealing Himself in order to draw to Himself obedient worship, or glory, from the nations. With God’s passionate love at the core, the Bible is truly the story of His glory.

“To trace the story of God as the Bible presents it, we need a grasp of three related ideas which define the story at every juncture… READ ON

 

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A Footwasher to the Footwashers online @ChristianityToday

A Footwasher to the Footwashers | Christianity Today

The first shall be last, and the last, first.

by Ken Barnes 

The mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, respectfully approached Jesus. She had a small request for Jesus. “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom” (Matt. 20:21). It sounds like a typical Jewish mother’s request (“My boys are good boys!”). She wasn’t asking much, only that one could be the assistant Savior and the other the associate Lord. Jesus must have thought that he had heard it all now.

Jesus replied in a straightforward fashion, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink?” James and John chime in, “We can” (v. 22). Their response proves they are pretty clueless.

The other ten disciples get wind that mama has been politicking for the “Sons of Thunder.” The disciples start to make some noise of their own. “When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers”—probably because they also wanted those positions (v. 24). Pride and vanity have a tendency to bring to the surface more pride and vanity. So we see the picture—all the disciples jockeying for position, working one-upmanship. They were a pretty ratty bunch.

The First Shall Be Last and the Last Shall Be First

Talk about a teachable moment. Jesus, the master teacher, was not going to miss this opportunity. But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave” (v. 25-27, NLT).

What a paradigm change! I wish I had been there to see the look on their faces. He had just described to them an upside-down leadership style. If you want to be a leader, become a servant; do what others are not willing to do. If you want to be first among the leaders, become a slave (a bond servant), not embraced with a legalistic obligation, but born of a free choice motivated by love. In this commitment there was no free agency; it was a lifetime of voluntary indentured service.

Remember, the Pharisees, the religious leadership of the day, modeled a different kind of leadership. They loved the best place in the synagogue. They loved to be noticed in the market place and for others to recognize them and say, “Hello, Rabbi.” The disciples must have been tempted to think that when their movement succeeds, it would be nice to occupy the best seats and to be noticed by the people. But after this little discourse by Jesus, they might have been thinking, Maybe I should rethink this leadership thing.

Finally, Jesus reveals to them the hinge that would support this radical service. That hinge would be the willingness to give up their lives. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (v. 28). At the core of all authentic service is a relinquishment. No, for most of us it will not be our physical lives, but in true service there is always the aspect of giving up what we want in order to do what he wants. How did this teaching go over with his disciples? Let’s fast-forward to the end of Jesus’ ministry on earth to answer this question.

The Secret Weapon

The scene is the last Passover meal that Jesus would share with the men he had picked to carry on his work here on earth. He knows their hearts and understands that they have a long way to go to apply his truth to their lives. He needed an object lesson that would demonstrate the leadership principles previously outlined. His disciples had been with him three and a half years. They had watched him raise people from the dead. He had touched people’s mouths and the mute spoke. Ears were opened and the deaf began to hear. They were amazed as the seas obeyed him. Yet, it hadn’t brought the change in their lives the Lord had sought. He needed a secret weapon that would not only change them, but also be a tool to reach the world. This was the last interaction with his disciples to etch upon their minds the image by which he was to be remembered. What would it be?

“Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end. It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him” (John 13:1-5).

Jesus takes a common towel and washes the disciples’ feet. That night he must have shaken Hell. Demons must have shuddered when they pondered what would happen if this mindset replaced the mentality of the world—this system of the world that is under the “control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), which says you are important according to position, possessions, or posture in life. Jesus blew a hole right in the center of this mentality by the most valuable taking the role of the least valuable.

A Footwasher to the Footwashers

I worked with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) for 17 years, 8 of those in Kona, Hawaii, where Loren and Darlene Cunningham, co-founders of YWAM, lived. On several occasions I heard Darlene say that God had called her to be a “footwasher to the footwashers.” When Loren needed to be away to take care of the vast responsibilities God had given him, Darlene was home taking care of the children, always with a positive attitude. I watched her spend untold hours counseling and encouraging those of us who were called to minister. We needed encouragement. Being logistical workers and not directly reaching the lost, we sometimes viewed ourselves as second-class missionaries. Darlene encouraged us by speaking worth and value into our lives both in relation to who we were and what we did. Through her life and example, she helped us esteem the high position of service to which God had called us. Like Jesus, she was willing to humble herself to lift others up.

I think we might be a bit surprised when God gives out rewards for our earthly deeds (Matt. 16:27). We might find high on his list of tasks, child-rearing responsibilities, washing socks, or championing others even though it placed us out of the glow of the limelight. I would not be the least bit surprised if on that day we have some shocked people when they finally realize that in serving God, it is not the height of the task or even its breadth that impresses God. It is the depth of our love for Christ—the motivation for our service—which catches the eye of our Father.

Read the original article here Copyright © 2013
Ken Barnes is the author of The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places (YWAM Publishing).

 

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Exploratory Meeting about English Learning as a Ministry Opportunity @LosAltosGrace

For several months, Phil Helfer, myself and several others have been dialoguing on the possibility of using English Learning/ESL as a cross-cultural ministry opportunity for Los Altos Grace Brethren Church and more broadly for Long Beach as well.  We had an exploratory meeting on March 25 with some folks from Los Altos Grace, Seal Beach Grace, Cecil O’Dell and Kathy from CSULB!

I’ve placed some resources from our time together here:

Notes I took from our gathering (Open/Download/Print PDF)

Worksheet created by the beloved Jay Bell that was distributed. (Online Here PDF) [via Encompass World Partners]

Audio Recording of most of our meeting together captured by Cecil O’Dell (Thanks Cecil!)

http://mikejentes.com/audio/ESL-ExploratoryMeeting.mp3  

(55 minutes 22 seconds  26MB [Right click the link and Select “Download as” to save])

 

Next Meeting – April 24th @ 7pm at Los Altos Grace

If you are interested in getting involved, drop me an email mjentes@LAGBC.org

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Seed of the Gospel and Indigenous Christianity

“The Gospel is like a seed and you have to sow it. When you sow the seed of the Gospel in Palestine, a plant that can be called Palestinian Christianity grows. When you sow it in Rome, a plant of Roman Christianity grows. You sow the Gospel in Great Britain and you get British Christianity. The seed of the Gospel is later brought to America, and a plant grows of American Christianity. Now, when missionaries came to our lands they brought not only the seed of the gospel, but their own plant of Christianity, flower not included! So, what we have to do is to break the flower pot, take out the seed of the gospel, sow it in our own cultural soil, and let our own version of Christianity grow.”
-D. T. Niles ( from Sri Lanka)

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What the church should be about…

“I simply argue that the cross should be raised at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town’s garbage heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek … at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died. And that is what He died for. And that is what He died about. That is where church-men ought to be and what church-men ought to be about.”

George Macleod, founder of the Iona Community in Scotland

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Be Fruitful & Multiply – An Important Scripture from the Inception of the Brethren Movement

I’ve been doing some research over the last few weeks on groups of 5-12 in the history of the Grace Brethren. The clear beginning of our movement happened when 8 men and women gathered together to be baptized as adults demonstrating their personal belief in Jesus as Savior and Lord.

“This is [Alexander] Mack Jr.’s description of the baptism, based on papers of his father and others, and reports of eyewitnesses:

Brethren Initial Baptism

After they were thus prepared, the said eight went out to the water called the Eder in the solitude of the morning. The brother upon whom the lot had fallen first baptized that brother [Mack] who wished to be baptized by the church of Christ. When the latter was baptized, he baptized him who had first baptized, and the other three brethren and three sisters. Thus all eight were baptized in an early morning hour. After they had all emerged from the water, and had dressed themselves again, they were all immediately clothed inwardly with great joyfulness. This significant word was then impressed upon them through grace: “Be fruitful and multiply!’*

The joy of doing what God wanted coursed through their veins! And the Scripture the Holy Spirit blew into the hearts of these founders of the Grace Brethren Movement – Be Fruitful and Multiply!

May we continue “through grace” to keep up the significant work of “Be fruitful and multiply!”

 

*Brethren Beginnings: The Origin of the Church of the Brethren in Early Eighteenth-Century Europe by Donald F. Durnbaugh (Brethren Encyclopedia: 1992) pg. 23 {ISBN 0936693231}

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Walk In Love

“As you have heard from the beginning, His command is that you walk in love.” – 2 John v.6

Jesus lived His life walking in love. He actually had to learn to walk—as all toddlers do.  He loved his parents and his mentors in the temple.  He walked into religious places and loved them. He loved the outcasts by enjoying dinners and drinks with them. He loved the children and brought them into the middle of His circle. He even walked on water.

He healed the chronically ill, the blind and loved Lazarus enough to raise him back to life. He loved those “Gentile dogs”—the non-Jews who He welcomed into His Kingdom. He stooped onto the ground with a basin of water, towel wrapped around his waist, and washed His disciples’ feet showing them the full extent of His love. He walked up a hill after a beating, with a crown of thorns and a cross. He escorted the man hanging next to Him on the cross—a mocker and thief—into paradise. He died, was buried and walked out of the tomb indicating His loving victory over sin and death. He walked through the walls into a locked room to be with His beloved disciples after His resurrection.

Jesus walked on this planet in love and as He departed, he lovingly shared with his disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to all creation.”

Jesus’ love moved Him on mission to our world–from a baby through the ascension.  As we walk in His love, it will move us to mission as well. Won’t you consider how you can “Walk in Love”?!?!

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:16

 

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UNREACHED People Groups and our rationalization…

Almost every time I speak about unreached people groups, I hear a comment like, “We’ve got plenty of unreached people right here where we live, without worrying about groups halfway across the world.” And that’s true. There are more individuals living within already “reached” people groups, than there are in all the unreached people groups of the world. However, there is one major difference. Most people in the West have great access to the message of Christ through media, local churches, and believers. For 300 million people in the unengaged, unreached people groups of the world, there is no way, outside of divine revelation, to hear the message of Christ. There is no church, no missionary, and not one verse of Scripture translated into their language. How much longer will we wait until we go to these groups, and put them on our priority list for funding and manpower?

pauleshlemanBy Paul Eshelman // Director of Finishing The Task)

Read the rest of Paul’s article  in Mission Frontiers

 

Hear Paul tell the story of when God grabbed his heart for the unreached 

 

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Build Your Kingdom Here

BuildYourKingdomHere

My friend and co-laborer for Jesus shared this little ditty in his recent newsletter that was worth sharing:

 

Build Your Kingdom Here

Join me in this prayer for our nation from the lyrics of Rend Collective Experiment:

 

“Build Your Kingdom here

Let the darkness fear

Show Your mighty hand

Heal our streets and land

Set Your Church on fire

Win this nation back

Change the atmosphere

Build Your Kingdom here

We pray”

~Rend Collective Experiment~

 

Don’t give up on America. She is beautiful. The Church in her borders loves her. Let us rise up and proclaim blessings over our land regardless of economy, politics, and the sin that pervades our culture. We are culture changers because Jesus Christ dwells in us!

 

Joy,

Joseph Cartwright

Awakening Church Ministries

Original Email Posted Online Here

I wasn’t familar with Rend Collective Experiment, but I actually found their video for the song quoted above…

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New Year and New Opportunity to Engage Churches in Greater Ministry to the Nations!

Encompass

I have had the privilege over the last couple of months to dialogue with Dave Guiles, Executive Director of Encompass World Partners about how I could help advance the cause of Christ in mobilizing disciples, leaders and churches toward more meaningful engagement with cross-cultural ministries. It has been inspiring for me to hear and see how God is working in this way already.

Encompass World PartnersJust before Christmas, we solidified a plan to partner together for the mobilization of disciples, leaders and churches in our Grace Brethren family and beyond. This part-time role will be as the “Coordinator of Mobilization Initiatives” with Encompass World Partners.

The newly emerging architecture for this effort will be in two areas: 1) Coalitions and 2 ) Coaching/consulting.

1) The Coalitions will be groups of 5-6 churches, some from the USA and some from the foreign field, who will covenant together to have a laser-like focus on a mission opportunity or initiative. Encompass will serve these coalitions in coordination and in cross-cultural expertise.

For example, there is already a Coalition of Churches to the Philippines:

2) The Coaching/Consulting piece will be to recruit, orient and market a team of gifted individuals whose skill sets add value to local churches in cross-cultural ministries.

I’m so excited to be joining the Encompass Team and to see God use this architecture to multiply the transformational impact of Jesus to the nations of our world. My role is 3 year assignment with much to accomplish!  All the Encompass staff must raise prayer and financial support.

For my assignment, I need to raise $15,000 per year for my ministry budget and salary. Encompass is contributing above and beyond that to my ministry budget and salary.

The sooner I get fully supported, the sooner I can get to work serving churches! I need to get there in actual gifts or pledges for 2013.  If you want to sneak in a gift before the end of 2012, that is welcome too!

You can give online with a credit card:

http://www.encompassworldpartners.org/give/give-to-a-missionary

( My name isn’t on the list yet, so enter it as “Mike Jentes” in the box that looks like this: EnterNameEncompassGift

)

 

 

You can send a check:
Please make checks payable to “Encompass World Partners” with “Mike Jentes Support” on the memo line, and mail to the secure lockbox at
Encompass World Partners
Box 80065
City of Industry, CA 91716-8065

Or contact me directly with your pledge for the year to come!

 

I’ve already got $1500 in gifts and pledges before even publishing this post! So I’m 10% there!

___________

UPDATE ON JANUARY 8: Thanks to a variety of folks responding, I’m at 49% with gifts and pledges at this point!

 

 

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Proud of our Church Family

LAGBCLogo300x300pxJust thinking about the actual activities of this weekend, I’m really proud to be part of this church family.  Here’s 3 things that prompt this short post puffed with pride:

  1. AngelTree: a great initiative to gift presents to children whose parent is in prison.  We get to participate in the name of Jesus and in the name of their parent!  This year we blessed more than a dozen children!
  2. College / Young Adult class: Our Sunday morning meeting in the upper room was lead by Matt Vidovich.  He challenged us to put feet to our faith. He brought a gift card and “put it on the altar” for us to take and deliver to someone who we could bless by it. We got up and left the classroom to hit the streets.  We drove and prayed and asked God to show us someone to bless. With in minutes Jesus led us to a gas station and drew our attention to a man with significant challenges– in a wheelchair and very unkempt.  We jumped out of the car and introduced ourselves and gave him the gift card and prayed for Bruce.
  3. Choir – His Love is Reaching: the title of our choir’s performance for this Christmas season is “His Love is Reaching.” That is a perfect description of these prior 2 points!

I’m proud of our @LosAltosGrace Church family!!!

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Looking back at a Defintion of Church from Jim Montgomery

whatischurch

Missionary strategist Jim Montgomery challenged us to plant 7 million more churches over a decade ago. In his passionate work, he had to take some time to define what he meant by church. These words ring true for many now, but in their first delivery they were revolutionary!

“CHURCH”
An understanding of how DAWN  [the ministry acronym for Discipling A Whole Nation ] defines “church” is fundamental to any challenge to plant 5 to 7 million more churches. If by “church” is meant a solidly built edifice with plenty of parking space, a full-time, seminary trained pastoral staff and a fully-orbed program of ministries for every age group and every interest, the goal will be a bit out of range.

I’m impressed with how a group of Christians faced this most fundamental question in China:

Concerning [this] question, many older Christians said that they could not predict the future form of Chinese churches. So they turned to the Bible for an answer. They found in the Bible that the house-church form was a legitimate church.Paul mentions a house church in I Cor. 16:19: “Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church in their house” (NIV); also in Col. 4:15 “give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church at her house.”

Later, we found a book by Wang Ming-dao [perhaps the most highly respected believer in China who languished in jail for more than 20 years] on the institution of the church. He held that where there were Christians, there was a church. We were happy about this. We assumed that, although our group consisted of only a few people, we actually were a church, and our head was Jesus.

“Where there are Christians, there is a church,” is a profound definition, coming as it does from a Church growing rapidly and laboring under the most difficult of circumstances.whatischurch

The DAWN idea is to see Jesus Christ become incarnate in every small group of mankind. How many believers does it take to incarnate our risen Lord? Jesus said that “. . . where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt. 18:20).

The goal set in 1966 and reported by Ed Dayton that I mentioned previously suggests we ought to work toward “ten witnessing Christians in every town of more than 500 people.”

Two or three committed believers could possibly impact 50 or 100 others. Ten witnessing Christians in time could perhaps reach out effectively to 500. To call such groups of two or three or of ten a “church” might be stretching it a bit. In our thinking, by minimum definition there is a church when at least a small group of believers led by an elder meets on a regular basis for worship, instruction, the basic New Testament sacraments and for witness and service. Where they meet, whether or not they pay their pastor and like questions are not of particular concern for our definition.

Denominations, however, tend to have a few more requirements. Most would include a minimum number of active adult believers that might range anywhere from five – as is the case of the rapidly growing Southern Baptists in Southern India – to 50. Some distinguish between “chapels” or “meeting places” and “churches” with the type of meeting place being a determining factor. Some draw the line based on whether or not the pastor is ordained and others have various combinations of these.

DAWN does not try to bring uniformity or impose any definition on the Church of a country. However, so as not to end up comparing oranges with apples, we suggest for statistical purposes the inclusion of all congregations of whatever definition. This would not include evangelistic Bible study groups or home groups that meet for fellowship as an additional activity to church attendance.

But it is some such definition of “church” as this that we have in mind when we suggest 7 million more are needed in the world.

 

This excerpt is taken directly from DAWN 2000: 7 Million Churches to Go by Jim Montgomery

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Skunk Works are Needed

Skunk Works

In 1943, at the height of World War II, the engineers coming from the same schools being taught by the same professors were not producing the technological breakthroughs that were needed. To get faster and better results, Lockheed decided to try something different. The company selected its most creative engineers and put them all in a tent set up at the end of a runway next to a plastics factory in Burbank, California. The engineers were told to think together outside the box on a specific project.

The members of this group began to push boundaries and try new things. Without all the red tape of the standard business bureaucracy, they were able to get things done much faster, usually ahead of schedule, and often with nothing more than a verbal agreement and a handshake.

Skunk WorksThey became known as “skunk works” because of the smell of the plastic factory wafting into the tent. The name came from the Li’l Abner comic strip, and it stuck. Today skunk works has become a technical term in research and development and in the diffusion of innovation. It is widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, often tasked with working on advanced or secret projects…. Read the rest here

Excerpted from “Church Transfusion: Changing Your Church Organically From the Inside Out” by Neil Cole and Phil Helfer (Jossey-Bass, © 2012)