Mission Alive

This Mission Alive Update describes . . .

• Mission New Orleans,
• Discovery and Strategy Labs,
• developing patterns for church planting,
• and “Out of Africa.”

Mission New Orleans

• crime -- but by holiness.
• racism -- but by Christian unity.
• debauchery -- but by righteousness.
• poverty -- but by the fullness of life.

1. New Orleans East
2. Westwego
3. Uptown/Tulane
4. Hammond and Southeastern Louisiana University
5. the urban poor
6. the Asian community
7. the Hispanic community

Enveloping our meeting was the vision of Ezekiel: Pure water was flowing out of the temple of God making salt water fresh, thus bringing life to the land (47:1-12)!!

Tod Vogt, preaching minister of the Tammany Oaks church in the New Orleans area and Mission Alive’s in-coming Director of Church Planting Equipping, facilitated the meetings. If your congregation would like to join this effort and attend our third meeting, email Tod at tod@missionalive.org.

Discovery and Strategy Labs

Eight church-planting families entered Mission Alive through two Discovery (assessment) Labs on January 25-27 and February 15-17. The Discovery Lab enables Mission Alive as a ministry organization and the prospective church planting families to understand their (1) gifts and ministries in church planting and (2) personal and family readiness for church planting. Seven families participated in the Church Planting Strategy Lab on May 7-11. The final product from this lab is a working plan to plant a Christ-formed church. We praise God for the quality of those being called to plant Christ-formed churches in this generation.

These contemporary church planters are like Abram - called to go to a far country but struggling with doubts along the way. Many are also growing to become, like Abraham, “fathers of the faithful.” In Mission Alive we are witnessing how God calls and sends his people . . . and spiritually forms them along the journey.

Developing Practices of Spiritual Formation

I have found that many church leaders assume that the first step in church planting is purchasing a piece of property and constructing a church building. A church defined as “a place where things happen” (Guder 1998, 79) necessitates property and place. A second assumption is that church is a public “service” organized by a staff for the giving of information or for celebration. Church becomes, to some degree, a spectator engagement. These ideas are so culturally embedded in the term “church” that we commonly say, “Let’s go to church,” inferring place, or ask “When does church begin?” inferring a meeting. When American pragmatism is added to this mix, church planting becomes “getting the largest number of people to a service in the shortest period of time.”

Since the ancient practices of spiritual formation have been largely lost in contemporary culture, our community of church planters are continually working together, with God’s creative imagination, to envision practices of spiritual formation. Two of these which will be discussed in more length in our next Mission Alive Update are Renewal Retreats and Formations Groups.

Spiritual formation can never be contrived or understood as yet another strategy for church growth. It must be nurtured within a community of faith as God cleanses our hearts, heals our spirits, and purifies our sins. That is why missional church planting happens in the trenches, within the confessional communities of formation groups and house churches, rather than simply in the large worship gatherings of our growing churches.

Out of Africa

During March and April Becky and Gailyn visited Kenya but at different times. We had vastly different experiences in this country which we love, where we served as church planting missionaries from 1973 to 1986.

Becky participated in a retreat for missionary women from throughout Africa called “Come before Winter” (http://www.comebeforewinter.org/). Sixty missionary women from throughout Africa gathered at a beautiful resort on the Indian Ocean. Becky was one of sixteen worship, prayer, and equipping leaders from the United States seeking to renew, equip, honor, and unite some of God’s missionary women in Africa for His service. Becky, as a prayer minister, served many while there and was also served by them.

Gailyn visited the Kipsigis area of Kenya, where we as a family lived for 13 of our 14 years in Africa. It was a very hard but exhilarating trip. Churches are continuing to grow and mature. The children of leaders and many new converts have grown to become the leaders of the church in this new generation. The number of churches has grown from 100 when we left in 1986 to over 300 today. Satan, however, is sifting the fellowship as he did Job and Peter in ancient times. Sectarian influences, on one hand, seek to superimpose certain rules defined in the United States upon the Kipsigis church. On the other hand, a highly-educated African leader using money from the United States has developed his own registration and seeks to induce people to join him through promises of financial help from abroad and positions of influence within his hierarchy. He has declared himself as the “Bishop for Life” of this newly registered church and attempts to grow through dividing Churches of Christ through Kenya, especially in Kipsigis, where churches are large and Christians are numerous. I praise God for the wisdom of Kipsigis elders and evangelists who understand these cultural currents, fathom Satan’s deceiving schemes, and speak a message from God encouraging people to faithfulness. A test of this period is how Christian leaders navigate these sectarian and materialistic/hierarchical currents and discern the meanings and ministries of authentic Christian faith.

We ask for your prayers for . . .

• the spiritual renewal of New Orleans.
• church planters in the process of learn.
• new partnering churches.
• wisdom in developing patterns of spiritual formation.
• God’s people among the Kipsigis of Kenya