Living Mission

We were about to pray for our Sunday evening community meal when a man walked in the front door looking a bit rattled.  He looked around the living room where we were all gathered in a semi-circle and said, “My car just got stolen in the alley behind your house.  Did any of you see who it may have been?”  Living a neighborhood formerly known as “Heroine Hill,” unfortunate incidents like this don’t seem that uncommon.

Living a life rooted in the Mission of God forces us into meaningful relationships.

Throughout the Biblical Story, God is constantly pursuing a relationship with His people.  He seeks out their restoration and invites them back to Himself.  He is a missional God; a God on mission to redeem the Creation that was fractured early in its story.

Those that have been restored to relationship with God are then sent on mission to represent God to the world (see Abram in Gen. 12) and invite others into the restoration that God is waiting to offer humanity.  There is an expectation that God’s people are to carry on the act that God has exemplified throughout all of history.  There is a rhythm to God’s mission.  God seeks his people; people are restored to their Creator; people seek other people; people are invited into restoration in their Creator.  Repeat.

God is on mission and he calls all his followers to participate in advancing his mission.

As a people on mission, we are to represent the heart of God to all people, in all places, at all times.  I live and serve among a community of people that take seriously God’s vocational call to live on mission.  Whether in half way homes, refugee populations, after school programs, coffee shops, public schools or community basketball courts, we seek to enter the story of the people of our neighborhood with the Good News of Jesus.  In order to invite people into relationship with God, we must establish sincere relationships with each other.

Last night (the same night that started with the man telling us of his stolen car), we (NieuCommunities) opened up our home and invited the neighborhood to come share in a Christmas celebration with us.  It wasn’t a gathering of strangers.  It was a gathering of friends.  In the same neighborhood that offers so many examples its fractured reality, we were able to experience an evening of Shalom/peaceful wholeness.  The culmination of the relationships we have established in this neighborhood, it was a group that included Iranian doctors, women coming out of their house for a cigarette while they listened to Christmas carols, a formerly homeless family, newspaper reporters, etc…

On the eve of God’s culminating act in His mission of restoring humanity –Jesus’ life, death and resurrection-we were able to experience a glimpse of his Kingdom come.  An affirmation that we have joined God’s divine rhythm of redemption and restoration.  A call towards a life of missional discipleship following closely in the footsteps of our Rabbi, Jesus.