Missional Community - Steve Swain - 6th September 2009

Doing things is church – regardless of whether you have an official meeting.

A missional community is us as Jesus’s apprentices. We journey together. Its a finite expression of the infinite trinity. Jesus was a genius – we don’t want to follow anyone who’s not smart, not in the know. Jesus was not about other worldly weird stuff, but about coping with the everyday.

Ephesians 5:18-6:18. We try to carve this into our world, but that world was so different to ours. Instead of church having something to say, we are now just a reflection of our world.

Back then, it was radical for husbands to love their wives. Marriages were arranged to produce children, husbands were 30+ and wives were 18. So it talks about changing relationships in the context of what the house was. In light of that, what is radical about our lives and our Christianity? How do we turn from being a reflection of our world, into something that is entirely different?

The crucial matter to Paul was not changing culture or context, it was changing the relationships between all the household entities – husbands, wives, children and slaves.

All roles were open to abuse and there was no recourse when that happened. No law, no family to return to. The idea that men and women could exist in an equal relationship was science fiction. The way we shared a meal today would be radical to them – everyone eating together.

Again, how do we radicalise our lives and our Christianity?

Missional community is an everyday thing, not a meeting. Its how you are the church everyday, no matter where you are or what you’re doing – work, home socialising, on the road, whatever. If Jesus is forming me, how would be behave – him within me.

How do you take the missional church into the everyday? How do we behave, live, make the gospel radical - “living my life for my wife and children.” We can’t do it like the New Testament, because its been done. So how does it work?

Ephesians goes on with the full armour of Gol. The full armour is in the context of these relationships, or spiritual stuff. What good is spiritual stuff if it doesn’t help you live your life with those that count most?

The gospel is not about taking people to church to get them saved. The bible says make disciples – in the New Testament, these disciples often came from non-believers asking questions. Why aren’t non-believers asking us questions? Why don’t we really love one another? Loving someone does not mean being a doormat, sometimes it is about being brutally honest in a loving way.

There’s a search on for love, we can live our loves in a way that reflects the genius of Jesus, in how we treat one another, how we drive, how we play sport…….

We look so much like the culture around us, so there is no need for questions. We need to get radical, with God’s help, to share, care, talk and love one another. If we live our lives according to God’s genius, it gives God room to raise the questions in non-believers’ minds.

We are not perfect, but that’s not an excuse.

We want God to use us, to radicalise our lives, so that people will want to ask the questions. We want to reflect something of the genius of God, in relationships, so that questions are raised. The questions may be internal to the individual, where God can answer, or out loud to use, so that we can help them start on their journey of discovery.

How can we take something of the genius of Jesus and work it into all of our relationships?