{"id":28,"date":"2021-04-23T06:29:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T06:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/?p=28"},"modified":"2021-04-23T06:31:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T06:31:39","slug":"joining-god-in-his-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/?p=28","title":{"rendered":"Joining God in his Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In reading through the Summer 2021 issue of the Australian Oikos<\/em> magazine, I came across an excellent article by Alan Hirsch, a well known author, coach, advisor, consultant and mentor in the field of (and I\u2019m struggling here!) of home churches, house churches, evangelism, and no doubt a lot more. He is the author of a number of books, including \u2018The Forgotten Ways\u2019. The article is in twelve parts, but what really struck me was part seven, which was for me an eye-opening and revolutionary insight into personal evangelism. With Alan\u2019s permission, I have reproduced part seven below. 

I understand (from someone in our small group) that C.S. Lewis said the same sorts of things in \u2018Mere Christianity\u2019 a long time ago. I read \u2018Mere Christianity\u2019 as a very young Christian in the early sixties, but have no memory of it at all, other than that it was incredibly helpful at the time.

Here\u2019s Alan\u2019s article.

It is false to say that only Christians can experience God.

One of the most basic assumption of the incarnational missionary is to assume God is already involved in every person\u2019s life and is calling them to himself through his Son. Our mindset should not be the prevelant one of taking God with us wherever we go. Instead our minset should be that we join God in His mission.

This means that the missionary God has been active a long time in a person\u2019s life. Our primary job is to try to see where and how God has been working to and partner with him in bring people to redemption in Jesus.

Understanding that all humans are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:27) and in the deepest possible way made for God, we can assume every human is motivated by spirituality and search for meaning. Even idolatry indicates people are searching for something beyond themselves. It is deformed spirituality to be sure, but it is spirituality nonetheless \u2014 and you can work with that. Recognise that behind many of the things not-yet-Christian people do lies a search for something else.  C.S. Lewis once noted that all our vices are virtues gone wrong. If we take this as a clue, we can develop new missionary eyes to see what God is up to in people\u2019s lives. 

Let\u2019s take a deeper look at this: Consider Las Vegas, the consummate sinner\u2019s town. And it is that \u2014 a deeply broken place where people get really messed up. But can we put aside our moral misgivings and choose to look at the gambling dens with more missional eyes. We might ask, what is the person who is sitting at the slot machine really searching for? Perhaps it is the search for redemption but in the wrong place. It is the belief that to win the jackpot means to be be changed and transformed into a new life. This search might also be driven by a now-pathalogical need to take risks because life has lost its sense of real adventure. 

We can literally work our way through any type of event or activity in the following way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GAMBLING
What is really being sought? <\/strong> 
\u2022 Redemption by luck or money
\u2022 Finding meaning in doing things
\u2022 Need for risk
How the Gospel addresses this issue<\/strong>\\
\u2022 Hope
\u2022 Overcoming unhappiness
\u2022 Call to risk living adventurously and risk loving as a disciple<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SPORTS EVENTS
What is really being sought?<\/strong>
\u2022 A cause to belong to
\u2022 A real cause that aims at changing the world
\u2022 Transcendent experience
How the Gospel addresses this issue<\/strong>
\u2022 Real transcendent experience
\u2022 Community with team or fans
\u2022 Authentic community<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PUBS
What is really being sought?<\/strong>
\u2022 Community
\u2022 Real but loving community
\u2022 Partner
How the Gospel addresses this issue<\/strong>
\u2022 Highs without drugs
\u2022 Overcoming loneliness
\u2022 Non-exploitative relationships
\u2022 Fun or chilled time
\u2022 Lasting joy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DRUG TAKING
What is really being sought?<\/strong>
\u2022 Ecstatic experiences
\u2022 Encountering God
\u2022 Escaping from live
How the Gospel addresses this issue<\/strong>
\u2022 Meaning and purpose
\u2022 Overcoming guilt and pain
\u2022 Forgiveness and healing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MOVIES
What is really being sought?<\/strong>
\u2022 Hearing the stories and myths
\u2022 Connection with the story that that shape life, makes sense of our stories
\u2022 Suspension of disbelief
How the Gospel addresses this issue<\/strong>
\u2022 Reality, not fantasy
\u2022 Entertainment Escape
\u2022 Feeling again (laughing, crying etc.)
\u2022 Passion leading to compassion

We can trust that because of the way God has designed us, in the end human beings are always searching (albeit in false and idolatrous ways) for real meaning, authentic relationships, to love, and to be loved in return.

One more dimension of this that must be mentioned is that all people have religious experiences. It is false to say only Christians can experience God. Anyone looking at a sunset can experience an in-breaking of God-awareness. In The Color Purple, Celia recalls a time as a child walking with her mother past a field of violets when she felt that God was making a pass at her in the flowers. God is constantly \u2018making a pass\u2019 at us in everyday experience \u2014 we simply need to become much more aware of Him. People call these experience theophanies<\/em> (God encounters), and our task at God\u2019s sent people is to bring a meaningful interpretation to these experiences and point people to Jesus as the centre of the God-experience. 

Another way to look at this role of seeing \u2018the virtue in the vice\u2019 is to conceive of ourselves in terms of one of our deepest identities as disciples \u2014 namely, the priesthood of all believers. In his book \u2018Untamed\u2019 Alan Hirsch and his wife Deb suggest that unlocking this is one of the most potent things we can do to allow God to work through all of His people. A priest is essentially someone who mediates the knowledge of God. Our priestly role, therefore, is to introduce people to Jesus and Jesus to people. After that as far as we can, our role is to make sure it is a right understanding of Jesus we are mediating, and then step our of the way \u2014 let Jesus o his thing with people. He knows exactly how to deal with them. 

Let\u2019s ask the Spirit to open our eyes to show us where He is at work all around us, and how He wants us to join Him in His mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In reading through the Summer 2021 issue of the Australian Oikos magazine, I came across an excellent article by Alan Hirsch, a well known author, coach, advisor, consultant and mentor in the field of (and I\u2019m struggling here!) of home churches, house churches, evangelism, and no doubt a lot more. He is the author of a number of books, including \u2018The Forgotten Ways\u2019. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Joining God in his Mission”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[57,56,62,6,55,58,64,60,59,63,65],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","tag-alan-hirsch","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-drug-taking","tag-evangelism","tag-experience-god","tag-gambling","tag-personal-evangelism","tag-pubs","tag-sports","tag-the-mission-of-god","tag-witnessing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kainosprint.com.au\/ahblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}