Missional Formation w/ Cara Garrity

Cara: Welcome to GCPodcast, a podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience. Today, we will be exploring some elements of missional formation. So, go on ahead and settle in. Maybe ground yourself with your feet on the floor, take a couple of deep breaths and invite the Holy Spirit to make this a time of transformation for us.

Let me start us off with a word of prayer.

Loving God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we thank you for your presence with us. We thank you that you are a God that wants to be known. We thank you that you are a God that invites us into your ministry and mission of making yourself known. We ask you, God, that you would make us tender to be molded and shaped by you, that you would give us willing hearts to be made more into your likeness, to be made more into who you have always meant us to be, God.

We thank you that you are so faithful to guide us, to transform us, to make us new, and to draw us into your very life. We ask your blessing over this time as we reflect and meditate and invite you into our contemplation of what it means to be formed missionally. We ask you, Holy Spirit, to do your work within us; surprise us, do more than we could ever imagine.

We thank you that you are so faithful for your work to be complete. We pray this in your wonderful and your glorious name. Amen.

So first, I want to take a minute to just explore a little bit what it even means to live missionally. That might be a buzzword we are used to hearing if we have been around in the church community for any amount of time.

Let us dig a little bit deeper into what does that look like? What can it look like? Where do we even get that from? What might that mean for us?

I want to look in the Gospel of Matthew. After Jesus’s resurrection, we read in the Gospel of Matthew that he came to his disciples.

In Matthew 28:16-20, we read this.

¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Amen.

This is what has come to be known as the Great Commission, where we as disciples are sent by Jesus on his disciple making mission.

In this English translation, the phrase “therefore go” in the ancient language has a little bit more of this sense of an ongoing action. As we make disciples, there is a sense of we’re living sent. It is a way of being more than just a series of isolated actions.

We are being called to be the sent people of a sending God. Remember, even Jesus himself was the Son of God sent to us, the word of God made flesh to dwell among us. We are called to be the sent people of a sending God.

In his book, Surprise the World, The Five Habits of Highly Missional People, Michael Frost suggests five habits that might open us to the missional formation by the Spirit. I want to read an excerpt for you right here where he talks about these missional habits and how we might think of these habits in participating in Jesus’s mission. He writes this.

Sometimes called missional rhythms or missional practices, missional habits are those habits we foster in our lives that in turn shape our missional outlook. by missional I mean all that we do and say that alerts others to the reign of God.

South African missiologist David Walsh wrote, “Mission is more than and different from recruitment to our brand of religion; it is the alerting of people to the universal reign of God through Christ.” In other words, mission derives from the reign of God. In that respect, the ideas of our mission and God’s kingdom are irrevocably linked. Mission is both the announcement and the demonstration of the reign of God through Christ.

Let me say that again. Mission is both the announcement and the demonstration of the reign of God through Christ.

These five habits that he suggests may open us up to the formation of a missional way of living. Summed up in an acronym, “bells,” B-E-L-L-S.

Now the B stands for bless. What that means is to bless others. There are a lot of diverse ways to bless others. A word of affirmation, an act of kindness fulfilling a need, being a tangible blessing to another person, to a neighbor. And particularly with this habit, we are called, challenged to think beyond the confines beyond the walls of our church community only.

The E stands for eat. That speaks to hospitality, to the spending of quality time with another, to coming around the table and breaking bread, getting to know one another, and sharing in that company. And again, with this we are surrendering to being formed a missionary. So, while it’s wonderful to break bread with those in our church community, we are in these missional habits also challenged to think about and to embody the habit of eating with those outside of the walls of our church community.

Our first L is listen, and this is exhortation, an encouragement to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit, to find those consistent times where you sit in stillness, where you sit in meditation and reflection, where you sit with the word of God, maybe in nature, where you take a prayer walk.

Whatever that looks like for you, season to season, each week to each week. But how are we sitting? How are we being still? How are we pausing, stepping aside from the day-to-day rhythms to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit? What is God doing? What is he saying to us? What is he showing us? What is he doing in our very midst, within us and through us?

He is an active God. Let us listen for his voice.

The second L is learning Christ. Now this is a deep embodied, holistic learning of Christ. This goes beyond knowing some facts or fancy theological terms. But this is talking about the whole-person discipleship, being formed into Christ likeness, learning Christ as in knowing him with your entire being and growing more and more deeply into his life and his person, being drawn into him, being formed into his likeness as a disciple. Learning Christ, not just with our minds, but with our minds, our hearts, our souls, our bodies. Learning Christ to be like him.

The S is sent. This S for sent is meant to be an encouragement to consistently reflect and even tangibly journal the ways that we have been living sent, the ways that that week we have alerted our community, our neighbors, our friends, our family, to the reign of God through Jesus.

How did I live sent today? How did I live sent this week, this month? What did that look like?

And the idea of this phrase, formational habit, is that as we reflect on that, we begin to identify more and more what that looks like, what it looks like for us. And to be shaped into people who proclaim and demonstrate the gospel, the reign of Jesus Christ as second nature.

We see that as we are formed and as we surrender to being formed in mission through various habits, this BELLS framework is a helpful one that we may consider — less, eat, listen, learn, and sent.

A second guide that I want to propose to us today is a simple phrase that we will think about is where. Where are we sent? Where do we practice these habits? Where do we live missionally? Where we live, where we work, and where we play.

Remember Matthew 28:19-20.

¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Amen.

We are living sent, and it is an ongoing action, and so we are living sent in our everyday lives. And what do we do in our everyday lives? We live, we work, we play. Where are our typical rhythms? Where do we spend our time? Who do we spend our time with?

Where do we spend our time that we do not even necessarily pay particular attention to that if we did start paying particular attention to, we would start to listen and hear the Spirit’s voice and see what God is doing? And so how do we begin to see God at work everywhere we go? And how do we proclaim and demonstrate the kingdom of an extraordinary king in ordinary moments, wherever we live, wherever we work, and wherever we play?

[00:13:29] Now I want us to dive into a couple of reflective exercises. As we explore and continue together to surrender ourselves to missional formation to say, yes, Jesus, you have sent us, continue to form me as a sent person. Continue to give me and make me feet that are willing to go.

The first thing I want us to do is meditate on the passage, John 20:19-22. This passage we find in the Gospel of John, again after Jesus’ resurrection, when he comes to the disciples, and he sends them. Meditate on this passage with me.

¹⁹ On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

As you reflect on this passage, I want you to pause this podcast, as much time as you want, to reflect, to meditate on these questions, but imagine yourself seeing, touching the hands inside of Jesus just as these disciples did. What comes up for you?

Read this passage or hear this passage again and receive the breath of Jesus, the Holy Spirit. Notice. What is your response? And hear Jesus saying the words, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” to you. How does that feel?

So once more.

¹⁹ On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Now I want to invite you into reflecting through these two frameworks that we were introduced to today. Explore what they could look like in your own life to begin practicing them and experiencing what it might mean in your life, for your formation.

[00:17:11] Let us return to this concept of where we live, work, and play as the places where we are sent — our ordinary everyday spaces and places, rhythms, our ordinary and everyday lives.

Where are the places that you live and work and play? How can you nurture meaningful relationships in these places? How have you nurtured meaningful relationships in these places? And then if you do not live in your church neighborhood, how might you be able to create an intentional space of live or work or play in that neighborhood?

[00:17:56] And then bells, B-E-L-L-S, bless, eat, listen, learn, sent. Which of these is most natural for you? Which is most challenging? What would it look like to consistently practice one of these over the next month? How do you want to respond to God’s invitation to form missional rhythms in your everyday life?

[00:18:27] And finally, I have three more questions of reflection for us. And again, please pause this podcast, take as much time as you need to reflect, to pray, to journal, to doodle, as you consider these questions and surrender yourself to the work of the Spirit and transformation and formation into Christ’s loving mission for all his people.

What joys and fears come to mind when I think about living a sent life? What joys and fears come to mind when I think about living a sent life? What do I have to gain as Jesus forms me in his likeness and mission? What might I have to surrender? Who has God made me to be? What gifts, passions, quirks, stories, scars, triumphs are He revealing in me? How might the Spirit use who I am personally to form me in mission?

I want to wrap up today with a prayer of blessing over all of us. This prayer is written by Ted Loder and is from his book of prayers, Gorillas of Grace, Prayers for the Battle. This prayer is titled, “Teach Me Your Ways.”

Teach me Your ways, Lord,
that I may come down from my heights
and be open to the same Spirit
who moved over the face of the waters in the first day of creation
and moves also over the chaos of this time
to fashion a day like this,
a world like ours,
a life like mine,
a kingdom acting as leaven in the bread of earth.

And make me aware of the miracles of life,
of warm and cold,
of starkness and order,
of screaming wind and impenetrable silences,
and of the unfathomable mystery of amazing grace
in which I am kept.

Teach me Your ways, Lord,
that I may praise You
for all the surprising, ingenious ways You bless me,
and for all the wondrous gifts You give me,
along with all the pain and joy I sustain.

Teach me Your ways, Lord,
that I may accept my own talent openly,
nurture it hopefully,
develop it faithfully,
and give it freely.

Teach me Your ways, Lord,
that I may love Your kindness
and practice it toward the hungry of the world,
the poor and sick, and oppressed,
that I may learn the healing humility that comes from You.

Teach me Your ways, Lord,
so that my heart is flooded with Your mercy—
emptying it of what makes it firmly opposed to Your ways,
so that it beats more in rhythm with You
and pounds greatly for Your kingdom. Amen.
Lord Jesus, teach us your ways that we may live as your sent people.

Thank you for listening to this episode of GCPodcast. We hope you found this time valuable. We would love to hear from you. Email us at info@gci.org with your suggestions or feedback. And remember, healthy churches start with healthy leaders. So, invest in yourself and in your leaders.