Reformission On My Mind

Okay I know that it seems like I should have already posted another blog about my experiences here (okay, a first blog about my experiences here), but that’s just not what is on my mind right now. So, I promise I will do that soon (definitely sticking to a completely relative term there on purpose), but for now you can read about what’s on my mind or check back later for more details on basketball, the weather and such :).
One of the things I have been doing while in Perth so far is reading “The Radical Reformission” by Mark Driscoll. I know that mentioning that name can evoke very different emotions for different people so I will say this- I cannot completely endorse the man. I don’t feel that I have read enough of his stuff, heard enough of his sermons, or known exactly what has stirred all the controversy, to make a final judgment on the dude. Am I supposed to be making a judgment on him anyway? As I have read this book, I will be honest, I have cringed a few times at the way he has chosen to describe a few things- perhaps in an effort to seem real to all people, perhaps in efforts for humor, I’m not sure exactly. But I also know that more often when reading this book I have been pierced to the core- humbled, convicted, motivated, inspired, and even overwhelmed at the sort of love that God has given to me, to all of us. I think that his experiences and perspectives are completely worth reading and mulling over.

One particular passage that literally brought tears to my eyes and brought that sick twisting into my stomach was reading through his explanation of the story of Jonah. Driscoll points out that Jonah was unwilling to love people who God loved and that Jonah cared more about a plant and his own comfort than he did about a group of people who were going to be destroyed. He talked about how it is the Jewish custom to read the book of Jonah on the Day of Atonement. Apparently, at the end of the reading, the Jews reply, “We are Jonah.” That alone stopped me for a few seconds as the statement and the mental picture mentally and emotionally knocked the wind out of me. I imagine a group of devout Jews, God's chosen people, making such an admission and it humbles me severely. Driscoll remarks, “This truth is essential for rightly relating to Jonah. We are Jonah when, because we do not like them, we run from God’s call on our lives to bring the gospel to lost people, who he loves.”

This really made me think. Our God is so stunningly complex. His standard of holiness is unobtainable, the very word holy carrying the meaning of perfection, unblemished, completely set apart from sin. He has held this standard over all of us. Yet at the same time, when we have failed to reach that standard, even in the most gruesome, despicable, unbelievable ways, He has not failed to love and pursue us. Why then, why, do I fail to love and pursue the people who I think are failing to meet His standard? Why do I fail to love and pursue the people who are failing to meet my standard?

Driscoll goes on to point out the severe difference between worldliness and culture. He explains how we have often written people off as worldly because they operate in a different culture than we do- and culture is not bound simply by what continent you live on. There are sub cultures upon sub cultures that we completely disregard. The inner city kid has grown up in a completely different culture than the one from suburbia- and even those are pretty general terms. Do we try to understand the experiences, thoughts, expressions, etc that have shaped people or do we write them off because they do not fit into our version of Christian living?

Another thing that I have greatly appreciated about Driscoll is his emphasis that understanding a person’s culture, and trying to be relevant is never ever an excuse to sacrifice biblical truth. It is never a compromise on what is clearly laid out in scripture- it is rather a call to actually be discerning over what the Bible really says and to examine our own prejudices, our own compromises, and to be completely firm and solid and unashamed of the absolutes that we are given. It is not that the standard of holiness no longer matters, it is that the failure to reach the standard should never cause us to write people off but to engage them in a way that they will understand so that they can see the standard and love and trust the only One who can meet it for them- just as He had to meet it for us.

The book is thought provoking- what is the nature of church? What is my responsibility to my neighbors? What does it mean to be missional in my life right now? How do I avoid compromise and at the same time cast away any legalism I have built up?

How would Jesus really respond to the people around me?

Will I allow my discomfort, my laziness, my annoyances, my fears to guide me? How can I walk by the Spirit instead?

I want to be comfortable. That is honest. But I want to see God’s hand more. I am praying that He will push me and help me to love and pursue like He does. And honestly, that is a scary prayer because more often I am the Elijah who sat on a hill and cried out of fear rather than the one who called down fire from heaven, more like Jonah crying over a plant than Jesus sitting and chatting with the town prostitute.

So all that to say, I highly recommend the book. I would love to hear your (yeah you) thoughts on it, good and bad. And I’d love to hear how others are living as missionaries right where they are. God's heart is for the world, but we must see that the world is not an abstract people group thousands of miles away from me; the world is the guy at work, the family next door, maybe even that person in the other room.