A few years ago, when I was the lead pastor of a church I had planted, I found myself in the middle of a minor conflict with some of the people who had planted the church with me. They were expressing concern and questions about the direction the church was moving.
[Read more…] about Why All Good Leadership Starts With Listening
Lots of people are talking nowadays about going from “doing ministry” to “life on mission.” And it’s an important and necessary shift we need to make if we’re going to really learn again what it means to follow Jesus.
But the transition to missional living is easier talked about than practiced.
This showed up in my life when I realized that living on mission is more than being nice or being a good neighbor. Living on mission involves learning to proclaim the good news of Jesus in a way that’s contextually appropriate, authentic, and winsome.
But this just freaked me out. I’m not a natural evangelist. Actually, the thought of evangelism terrifies me. My palms get sweaty, my heart races, I’m looking for the exit and thinking of excuses to give for why I need to leave now.
I’ll jump at the chance to tell you about a great movie I just saw, or my favorite coffee shop, or that amazing restaurant we ate at in Charleston (it was McCradys).
But when it comes to evangelism, it doesn’t come naturally for me.
And it’s easy to see why. Most of what I’ve seen and experienced in terms of what evangelism looks like has been either:
These are just two ditches on the opposite sides of the road, and neither one really works. I just haven’t had an imagination for how to engage in a way that looks like Jesus.
One of the main problems about both options above is that they both start with something we can do. This is actually one of the main obstacles we run into when trying to start living on mission: we start by thinking, “What can I do?”
But what if God is already at work in our neighborhood? Living a life on mission would need to start with seeing where God is at work, and joining him there.
As our friend David Fitch says, “If we truly believe God is at work in the world, we must take the time to pay attention, listen, and discern what God is doing in the lives of those around us.”
I realized that starting some kind of evangelistic program would be skipping this first step of discerning what God was already up to.
How can I engage in a practice that would help me pay attention to what God is doing? I wondered.
One day, I was sharing this struggle with a friend, and she said, “Deb, you’re not good at evangelism, but you are good at listening to God in prayer. Why not use that gift to take a first step into evangelism?”
That sounded like a great idea, but how? I asked. That’s when she suggested the surprisingly simple first step that I’ve been practicing regularly since then:
Prayer walking.
But initially I had no idea what this was. I had images of walking through our neighborhood like a wandering nomad with a cardboard sign and a megaphone, shouting about conspiracy theories and how the end is near.
But thankfully I got some help and training others who were prayer walking their neighborhoods regularly. It was simple and fun! It wasn’t weird or off-putting for anyone.
Basically I’d just take a walk in my neighborhood and intentionally pay attention to what God was doing and saying, and I’d try to cooperate with him when I noticed something.
“Walk around and listen to God? That I can do!” I said.
Sounds simple, but it took some practice. Eventually we got the hang of it and began training our missional communities in a simple framework for prayer walking.
So prayer walking simply a way of paying attention to what God is doing. Jesus said he only did what he saw his Father doing (John 5:19). As we prayer walk our neighborhoods, we imitate Jesus by asking to see what our Father is doing.
Just walk and pray! But more specifically:
Basically, ask God to show you what he is doing, and see what you notice.
Through this practice we are joining God in his missional work in the world!
Give it a try by yourself, or better yet, invite some friends to join you. Do this with your small group or missional community.
(Download our FREE Prayer Walking Framework for printable prayer walking instructions!)
If you’re like me and feel a bit “evangelistically-challenged”, prayer walking can be a first step in learning learning to live on mission.
I’ve begun to see with new eyes and feel God’s heart for my neighborhood. I’ve met neighbors that I probably would not have met because I was out walking while they were picking up their mail or washing their car. I’ve heard stories as I’ve asked questions and been curious about the people.
Prayer walking is one of the ways I’ve gotten unstuck when it comes to living on mission. I actually look forward to it, too!
Have you ever tried prayer walking? How did it go? Leave a comment below to tell us about your experiences prayer walking, and anything you’ve found helpful.
I love this story. Maybe you’ve heard it:
A young woman was preparing a ham dinner. After she cut off the end of the ham, she placed it in a pan for baking.
Her friend asked her, “Why did you cut off the end of the ham?”
She replied, “I really don’t know but my mother always did, so I thought you were supposed to.”
Later when talking to her mother she asked her why she cut off the end of the ham before baking it, and her mother replied, “I really don’t know, but that’s the way my mom always did it.”
A few weeks later while visiting her grandmother, the young woman asked, “Grandma, why is it that you cut off the end of a ham before you bake it?”
Her grandmother replied, “Well dear, otherwise it would never fit into my baking pan.”
[Read more…] about Is Your Church Structure Killing Your Mission?
Numerous studies confirm that the American church is in decline.
Alan Roxburgh, in his book Joining God, Remaking the Church, Changing the World, shares the following statistic:
[Read more…] about Can We Still Do Evangelism in Post-Christendom?
Reading, both widely and deeply, is a vital discipline for any leader. But reading is especially important for the Christian leader, because our way of leadership (following Jesus) isn’t just pragmatic. It’s a inherently theological pursuit that demands we reflect deeply on our relationships regularly.
We asked our team to give us a few favorite books from 2018, and we’ve got a list below, in no particular order. (Note: these aren’t necessarily books that were released this year, just books we happened to read this year.)
I came to know the love of Jesus for the first time at a church plant.
I then had the privilege of being a part of one of the most impactful church-planting churches in the Midwest for over ten years, having a hand in the start-up of various campuses and plants. [Read more…] about How (Not) to Lose Your Soul as a Church Planter: 3 Shifts
