Is Christ Gone From "Christ"mas?

I love spending time with family on Christmas, and we try hard to not go crazy with the gift buying. However, I really wonder why we even call Christmas "Christmas" anymore. The stress, worry, and obsessiveness with stuff clearly says Christ has basically been forgotten. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the "Keep Christ in Christmas" gestures, but the reality is that He's been removed. Our actions speak much louder than the nice statements we put on shirts, signs, and bumper-stickers. Our behavior gives much more perspective on how most people view Christmas than the crafty sermons we may preach and/or listen to within our churches.

According to the Pew Forum, 73% of Americans identify themselves as "Christians." A quick review of the gospels would clearly reveal our nation has greatly misunderstood what it means to be a Christian. Nevertheless, at least in the terms of what America has come to know as Christianity, "Christians" are to blame as much as anyone for the Christ-less-ness of Christmas since we "account" for 73% of the population.

Yes, I know, it ultimately comes down to how we each respond to Christmas and to Christ. Regardless though, many people today (the day after Christmas) will have more stuff in their homes because of "Christ"mas yet they care very little about whether or not they will live surrendered to Jesus Christ as Lord. I'm amazed by how our seemingly "politically correct" culture isn't offended by the fact their money-making machine known as "Christ"mas primarily exists because of the Savior of the World, Jesus Christ, who they've deemed to be politically "in-correct".

I don't have an answer that'll work to resolve this issue, and maybe all I've done is state the obvious. I just know the things that I wrestle with within myself lead me to feel like I'm often swimming upstream even in the midst of the waters known as "church" and "Christianity." However, I guess the result of going against the flow will only make me stronger and more desperate in my pursuit to know Jesus simply and authentically.

So You've Questioned, Rejected, & Become Frustrated with Church...

Me too.

I reached a point about 2 years ago where I found myself driving recklessly down a highway that only had one destination: depression and disillusionment with God. I had been a part of and even lead in every capacity there was in "the church." I had attended traditional, contemporary, and blended churches. I had volunteered, been paid "part-time" and "full-time" and even started a church, yet I found myself more frustrated than ever. It was in these moments that I realized how little of Jesus I really knew, followed, and embraced. My life had been lived in search of the ultimate church high, but not really for Jesus.

Because of these experiences... My heart breaks for people who have been taught (often without them even realizing it) to OVERLY depend on a church or a pastor for their spiritual vitality, and as a result, they find themselves less than fulfilled or disillusioned in their walk with Jesus. The role of any church or church leader should be to lead you toward dependency on Jesus and the Holy Spirit, which naturally means you depend less on the "church" and your pastor... 

I guess the fear in doing this though is that God may begin an actual transformation in your life that would lead you to radically fall in love with Jesus, reach people for Him, and continually step into new adventures with God, which may then take you away from their sermons, buildings, and programs.

I apologize to those I've led in an institutional/religious way. It was all I knew, but not anymore. I was most likely more passionate about "my church" than I was Jesus. I can't change the broken image of Jesus that's been painted in our culture. However, I can say to you that some of those things you've maybe questioned, rejected, or called hypocritical about the church most likely really aren't worth embracing because they aren't leading you to authentically encounter Jesus.

Basically, instead of starting with Jesus and letting Him lead us to being the church, we all too often begin with church and hope to get people to Jesus. The problem is the church isn't goal, and with this approach, many people never encounter a real relationship with Jesus. It's Jesus who has a church, not the church that has a Jesus. If we'll help people authentically encounter Jesus, a biblical expression of the church will then form out of that.

I'd love to hear your story, your frustration, or your concern. Email me at joshoverflowcollective@gmail.com.

Are You Dying?

Jesus’ invitation to “take up our cross” was an opportunity to die. I know... This sounds really exciting. Seriously though, let’s be sure we don’t get this confused with anything else. Here are some things we mistakenly think His invitation was about. It wasn't simply to…

• Have a better life, but life with Jesus is abundant
• Go to Heaven one day/avoid hell even though Heaven will be a great place to spend eternity
• Get what we want, yet Jesus does tell us He will meet our needs
• Become a better or nicer person; however, if we follow Him, our lives should reflect His character, which is better

Taking up our cross was basically a death sentence… It means that we would have to give up what we would otherwise long to have. In other words, the one who receives the glory from our day-to-day decisions, thoughts, and actions would no longer be us; it would become Jesus. Is this what you understood following Jesus/becoming a Christian to be?

If we’re honest, much of what American Christianity has become actually has very little to do with the glorification of Jesus. If you ask the average churchgoer to describe their spiritual journey, there will be more talk about their church, pastor, or denomination than Jesus! Becoming a Christian isn't merely making a commitment to become an actively involved church member. As Christians/as the church, we seek to serve Jesus together. It's Jesus who deserves the glory, not our pastors or churches. Who do you speak about more?

As we go about our lives, let’s not lose sight of this call to die. Only when we give up our selfishness will we ever experience the abundant life we long to have. Keep in mind, this is a process of dying and not a quick fix. However, we’ll discover that as we seek to glorify Jesus through letting go of our needs, wants, and fears, what’s been broken in our lives will be mended in a way that only He can. How can we do this? Take a greater interest in loving and serving others as Jesus would than we do in being served ourselves...

• If we want a stronger marriage, then we must die to our needs and serve our spouse
• If we want to know our kids better, then we must take an interest in what they’re interested in
• If we want to know Jesus more intimately, we must seek to put His commands into practice, specifically the task of being witnesses for Him about the change His brining to our lives.  

You Know You're A Christian Because...

So many people today, particularly in the South, identify themselves as a Christian, but I think when we look at biblical descriptions of a Christ-follower and compare those to the lifestyles of professing Christians it leaves some questions regarding our understanding of being a Christian.

At the same time, people often wrestle with their salvation, so my hope is that this post will give some clarity on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. I hope this will give you confirmation regarding your salvation and encourage you to become more like Jesus or reveal your need for Him.

First, just to clarify the words, "Disciple," "Christ-follower," and "Christian" are all interchangeable terms when viewed in light of Scripture. People often think they can be a Christian, but not a disciple. The bottom line is that you're either following Jesus with Him as your Lord or you aren't.

Here a few indicators of a genuine Christ-follower. There's a lot of content here, so feel free to simply read the main points or read the content underneath as well.

Following Jesus is much more than a religious moment you had at some point in your life: In other words, you may have "prayed the sinners prayer" or even been baptized but not truly be a follower of Jesus (aka saved, a disciple, a Christian). You may be thinking, "How can this be? Doesn't the Bible say to just "Believe in your heart, confess Jesus, call upon His name, and you will be saved?" Actually it doesn't say this... 

What Romans 10:9-13 says is that you must confess Him as LORD and call upon the name of the LORD in order to be saved/become a Christian. In other words, you can have a religious moment where you become more aware of God but never surrender to Jesus as Lord. To admit that Jesus is LORD means you also admit you aren't; therefore, you are submitting to His authority as LORD. I think a lot of people have been told and believe that simply having a religious experience means they're saved, yet it's a surrender of our wills and lives that places us into a relationship with Jesus. However, the relationship with Jesus does have a starting point, so there must be a...

Moment of Repentance, Surrender, and Spiritual birth: In John 3, Jesus told Nicodemus that He must be born again. In Mark 1:15, Jesus says the Kingdom of God (a new way of living) has come near, so repent and believe. Likewise in Acts 2, we read of repentance and belief at the point of salvation. The point here is there must be a time in your life when you've surrendered to Jesus as Lord and allowed Him to point your life in a new direction (repentance, spiritual birth). The way to know if this moment has happened is to consider whether your behavior and the general desires of your life reflects that of a life submitted to His Lordship. From this moment, your life should be a...

Life that is marked with the work of the Holy Spirit: Galatians 5 is an excellent read regarding the day-to-day work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christ-follower. As is John 16:5-15. By the way, the well-known "fruit of the Spirit" list isn't to be viewed as multiple "fruits" which you may have some but not others. It's "fruit" meaning singular, one fruit. In other words, the Spirit WILL develop ALL of these in a follower of Christ as one fruit, not separate, multiple ones. Jesus says in John 15:8 that we prove to be disciples by the fruit we bear, not by whether or not we've had a religious moment.

Do you seek to interact closely with other disciples of Jesus?

To surrender to Jesus is to surrender to a life lived in community with others. Check out Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-35, 1 John 4:20-5:3. Following Jesus is not a private matter, contrary to what many people think. Yes, the journey begins with your personal surrender to Him, but part of surrendering to Him is realizing you need others to help you be who He desires for you to be. Unfortunately, much of what we call "church" and "community" actually isn't, but that's another conversation. Feel free to check out these teaching on biblical community from our "up, IN, out" series.

Is there an eagerness and a willingness to tell others about Jesus through your words and actions?

Followers of Jesus understand that He has saved them for a purpose... make disciples. It's sad how so much of our "church" activity does very little to accomplish and equip people for this mission. Look at these Scriptures. The call to reach others is part of the call to follow Him. Matthew 4:19, Mark 1:17, Matthew 28:19, John 17:18, Acts 1:8 

Do you use Scripture and prayer to guide you in decisions related to finances, how you spend your time, relationships, and how you live your life? 1 John 2:3-6 shows us that Jesus' commands should influence our decision making in all areas of our life so that we will walk as Jesus walked. Obedience is evidence of your salvation.

While there's much more I could get into regarding indicators of a true believer, here's 3 common things I hear/see that may indicate someone has only had religious moments and no real spiritual birth. 

Someone speaks of their "church", denomination, and/or their pastor more than they do Jesus. While this may seem strange to think that it would happen, I way too often hear people talk very, very little about Jesus when I ask them about their spiritual journey. When you've truly met Jesus, you can't help but to speak about Him... speak a lot about Him when asked. While a church, pastor, etc may have played a part in your journey to God, they shouldn't be at the forefront of your spiritual story.

They church shop for the best church programs for their kids all the while ignoring the fact that they as a parent are to be the primary spiritual influence in their kids life. Again, if you've truly met Jesus, wouldn't you want to be the one who is shaping your kids view of Jesus? Why would you rely on people you don't even know (which is the case if you're church shopping) to shape your kids view on Jesus? The church can and should help in this process, but trust me, no matter how "Disney-like," relevant, or cool the programs are, they can't replace the role you play as a parent. 

Their contentment with God is based upon how they feel about a church or church service... Examples: The music was great today, so I feel great. The pastor called me when I missed, so I feel loved and cared for. I got to play in the band today, so I'm important. There's nothing wrong with feeling energized, cared for, or important, but all too often our whole identity of God is wrapped up into our church experience.

Pastors Are Like Cats

Not a big fan of cats, but I've heard this saying my whole life... When the cat's away, the mice will play. There are tons of parallels that can be made from this statement.

• Employees often work harder when the boss is around, but they slack off when the boss leaves. 
• Kids are usually better behaved when their parents are around, but they take some chances when their parents aren't looking. 
• When a teacher leaves the classroom, the students often dare each other to do things they wouldn't normally do. 

While we can all probably admit that we're even guilty of at least one or two of these scenarios, I believe that within the church, there's a very unhealthy parallel that happens as well. I'll say it like this... When the pastor's away, the people go astray.

In other words, we've created a culture where many people misunderstand the role of a pastor. I've seen this culture be so true of churches that if the church knows the pastor isn't going to be there one Sunday, there's an obvious decrease in attendance.

I've spent a lot of time in various church settings throughout my life. Regardless of what denomination or type of church I was a part of, there always seems to be an "elevation" of the pastor in these churches. In some cases, people talk about their pastor more than they do Jesus. The pastor is usually one of the following...

• Iconic: He's been there for a long-time; he's greatly respected, and the people may even "revere" him by calling him reverend.
• Celebrity: The pastor is cool. He's funny and entertaining. He communicates well. He has the "it" factor and everyone just loves to hear him teach.
• Superhero: This is the kind of pastor who works 60+ hours a week trying to tend to all the needs of the church. He genuinely cares for the church he pastors, but he also doesn't see the pastor-centered culture he's created allowed his church to place upon him. If he does see it, he has no idea what to do with it. 
• CEO: This is the pastor who never interacts with his church aside from his sermon. He's typically not personable and remains distant from real relationships.

If I can be honest for a minute, I don't think any of these pastoral types is what the Bible says a pastor should be.

• Is there anything wrong with a pastor being at a church for a long time? No, I think the constant cycling of pastors is why many churches are struggling so much. 
• Is there anything wrong with a pastor being popular and influential? Not necessarily. Even Paul said "Follow me as I follow Christ." 
• What about the pastor who tries to care for his people? A pastor who doesn't care about the people isn't a pastor, but he shouldn't be the only trying to care for everyone. 
• Should a pastor not lead and manage? A pastor does need to lead, but he must spend time with the people he's leading.

Why am I bringing all of this up?... Just to bring to light the fact that in a vast majority of American churches the pastor plays an unhealthy role. It's unhealthy for the church to be that dependent on one pastor, and it's unhealthy for the pastor to be depended on that much. I'd even suggest that God could do more through our churches if pastors were not in the spotlight as much because it would require more people to step up.

I can say what God is doing through Overflow Collective is so freeing from a pastor's perspective. When it comes to our Sunday gatherings, there's three of us who share the teaching responsibilities. This means our church isn't built around a personality-type. It also means that the growth, life, and health of our church is shared equally among several leaders, which actually allows us to be a very diverse and intentional church.

Let me be honest though. Letting go of being "the guy" every Sunday was something I had to die to. I didn't go into church planting to only preach once every 2 or 3 weeks, but I can honestly say it's been one of the best decisions I've ever made. I wouldn't have it any other way. Yes, I had to spend time with guys, and we've had to fine the right people in order for this to happen. It took time to make this shift. But it's funny how God helped this to happen when we decided to shift our focus from being an attractional, Sunday-driven church to a church of missional church communities. This shift has...

• Empowered others. 
• Forced the church to think of "church" differently. 
• Reinforced our vision that church isn't just merely a service on Sunday, but it's the followers of Jesus who do life together around the mission of Jesus.
• Ensured our future growth and multiplication won't come from consumers who merely "like the pastor" 

I know this flies in the face of American church culture, and I'm not saying that a pastor who preaches every Sunday is self-centered and killing his church, but I do want to at least suggest a better alternative. I want to challenge us to think about how our behaviors may suggest that we're too focused and dependent on certain people, which in return, means we aren't learning to be as dependent on Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as we should be.  

Sunday Teaching Recap

Read Genesis 6-8, Joshua 6, Philippians 2

Obedience should be a defining characteristic of the Christian life. Yet sometimes obeying our great God seems way more difficult than it ought to be. Sometimes it is a struggle with divine authority, and sometimes it's a struggle with our own selfish nature. However being a great storyteller with our lives will involve obedience, to both the great and small.

Having a proper perspective about life comes as we adhere to the truth that God is in charge of everything. How is it evident that He's ruler over your:
1) Family & Relationships
2) Work & School
3) Health & Decisions
4) Your Future

Fostering your relationship with God, your daily abiding, will also lead to a life of obedience. The characters in the passages above developed that relationship through communication and response.
1) When is the last time you spoke with the Lord?
2) What is the last truth He spoke into your life?
2) How did you last respond to the invitation of God on your life?

The joy of living a life of obedience comes when we lay our life story over top the life story of Jesus. That is when we will see all the mystery and nuances of our lives, up to this point, begin to make sense.

We truly hope this teaching inspires your journey of deeper abiding and grace-filled obedience to God.

Sept 1 Recap & Audio

Week 2 of our "Storytellers" teaching series was focused on those times when life doesn't make sense.

You can listen to or download the audio by clicking here.

Read 1 Samuel 1:1-18

Life will often take us to a place where we're tempted to become negative and bitter. We arrive in these places because of circumstances, people, decisions, etc. However, when we find ourselves in these potentially "bad" environments, we have to realize it's an opportunity to refocus and examine the reason real reason for our existence.

God's glory is a way better scorecard for success than our dreams and desires!

When our prayers are about aligning with God's will for the advancement of His Kingdom (rather than our own little kingdoms), we'll finally be positioning ourselves to experience a movement of God!

Will you ask God, "How can my...

• Family
• Sickness
• Job
• Church
• Disappoinment
• Children
• _____________

"... be used to advance your Kingdom?"

Aug 25 Recap & Audio

We kicked off our "Storytellers" teaching series with a straightforward discussion on salvation. Here are a few highlights from the message.

You can listen to or download the audio by clicking here.

Aside from Jesus, why do we often view Bible characters as some sort of superheroes that we'll never be?... Perhaps it's because we've actually watered down the gospel to the point that people don't think having this kind of relationship with God is the essence of salvation? James 5:17 reminds us that people in the Bible, like Elijah, were just people with a nature like ours.

Read 2 Corinthians 5:14-20

Reflect on your salvation experience... Did you invite Jesus into your story or surrender your life to be used in His story? There's a major difference between these two scenarios... To miss understand the order of salvation is to miss Jesus altogether.

Salvation comes from God revealing His love toward us as sinners, Him calling us to life with Him, and us giving up control!

• Salvation doesn't come from feeling guilty, although there must be a sense of conviction regarding sin.
• It doesn't come from not wanting to go to Hell, although Heaven is a much better choice.
• It doesn't come from wanting to do better or go to church more, although salvation will lead to you becoming like Christ and desiring to experience authentic, Christian community.

Experiencing life with Christ demands that we shift the way we see people. After all, He has made us His ambassadors. At the same time, we must become comfortable with speaking of Jesus. All too often we simply reference our pastor or church, but let's not forget we are ambassadors, messengers, and witnesses of CHRIST! Our message is to share/overflow what He's doing in our lives!

For a Christian to live a life that is "sent-less" and "story-less" may very well mean that person is actually "Christ-less."

Coach Butch Jones Talk About Church

Okay, so the title is a little misleading. Coach Jones, who I'm absolutely thrilled to have as the head coach at UT, didn't literally say anything about the church. However, one of his quotes made a great parallel to one of the common misunderstandings people have regarding church and following Jesus. When being interviewed by a reporter about what would happen on the team's day off, Coach Jones replied,

"There's no day off. We don't practice, but first of all..."

Coach Jones wants the players and everyone around the football program to understand the importance of doing everything right, even on the days when they don't have an organized practice or game. Helping people develop a perspective that demands great attention to all the details of life is what it'll take to turn the UT football around. Without this perspective, they'll never experience the success they long for on the practice field and in the games.

For those of us who are followers of Jesus, aka the church, we have to start embracing a similar perspective on our relationship with Jesus if we ever want to see a true move of God in our lifetime. There are days we may not gather with the rest of the church, but there's no days off from following Jesus. The Holy Spirit doesn't cease to be actively involved in our lives just because we aren't listening to a sermon or a worship song. I'll even go as far as to say the Sunday service isn't even the main event for us as the church even though we typically act and talk as if it is. The main event is each and every day! It's your rhythms of life and responding to the Holy Spirit as you go to work, school, walk through your neighborhood, go to your kid's ballgames, shop at the grocery store, and eat at your favorite restaurant. There's no day off!

James 2:22 says, "But prove yourselves to be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves."    

This word "delude" actually means to make a mathematical miscalculation. In other words, James is saying  that if we fail to understand the importance of walking in step with God on a regular basis (being doers of the Word), then we've greatly "miscalculated" what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We've convinced ourselves that following Jesus is something that it isn't.

Unfortunately though, the church is typically organized and structured in a way that overemphasizes attendance on Sundays. I believe we've taken Sunday gatherings and made them the end of all our Christian faith when they should simply be a cumulative celebration of all that we've experienced with God throughout the week. Churches often profess to be creating a movement in the Kingdom of God, yet the primary movement that's taking place doesn't extend beyond people attending a service on Sunday. So I ask, "How will we equip the church to advance the Kingdom throughout the rhythms of life and beyond the scope of a worship service?" 

As Overflow Collective, we've put a majority of our focus toward answering this question. We still have a long way to go in regards to applying the answers we're finding. However, we know there's no days off, and we've realized we must start thinking and behaving as the church in such a way that channels our energies and expectations of success to reach into the rhythms of life!

We'll be posting more about how we're doing this as we redo our website and move into the fall, but for now, here's a basic overview of how we're trying to do this... http://overflowcollective.org/#/churches-mccs

Is the Church's Scoreboard Right?

I recently stepped onto the golf course for the first time in 2 years. Very quickly, I realized just how long it had been. Any hope of shooting par was gone after the first hole, so I knew I had to change my scorecard for this particular game of golf or else I was going to get very frustrated. So I decided to keep up with things like: how many fairways I hit off the tee, how many balls I lost/found, and how many times I used 2 putts or less on the green. I adjusted my scorecard to make my experience more enjoyable because the typical golf scorecard wasn't working for me.

With all of this being said, I want to challenge you to think about the scorecard of the church. Think about the tweets or Facebook posts you see regarding church. These statements give an indicator as to what the church keeps score on or deems as success. For example, I generally see post such as these all the time...

"The service was great today. I enjoyed all the songs."

"We had ____ (insert number of people) at our service today. God is good!"

Here's the overarching problem when we keep score/determine success based off these things... We're using a scorecard for the church that doesn't reflect the same scorecard of the Bible. Our typical church scorecard is primarily based on viewing the church as an event or a service, which again doesn't reflect a biblical definition of church. Over the years, I think we've adopted this scorecard because it's very easy to find success using these metrics. As a result, we feel more successful and justified in the perspective of American church culture.

The truth is, God doesn't celebrate how many people attend a service on Sunday or how well the music was performed. I've heard people say, "We count people because people count" and "If numbers don't matter, then why is there a book in the Bible called Numbers." I'm not saying numbers don't matter at all, I'm just saying attendance numbers aren't an accurate measuring point for the health of a church. Having 1,000s or just dozens at your worship service on Sunday doesn't mean a particular church is or isn't advancing the Kingdom.

Church leaders, The only way to know whether or not the Kingdom of God is advancing because of the church you lead is to get to know the people in your church and discover what's happening in and through their lives 7 days a week.

I've also heard people say, "We only want excellence at our worship services." Yes, do whatever you do as best you can, but just realize that if your commitment to excellence takes a priority over intentionally discipling the people you're pushing to be "excellent" in the service, then you're completely missing the core essence of following Jesus and being the church. 

My suggestion... We must return to a scorecard that reflects Kingdom advancement much more than the typical, American church growth models we're all used to seeing. We must fall back in love with Jesus and discover what He cares about most. We must care more about THE church than we do OUR church. Here are some ideas on how you can start keeping score within your church and your own personal life...

How much of my time is spent with people outside the church?

Who am I specifically pouring my life into so they'll learn how to invest their life into others?

Is my workplace environment better because of how I interact with others when I'm there?

Is our community being impacted because of our church's presence and involvement in the community's life and rhythms?

How many people is our church equipping and sending to lead movements of mission in specific contexts that will advance the Kingdom outside of Sunday services?

Do Disciples Exist?

For Overflow Collective, we believe discipleship begins with spiritual conversations, so I love hearing from people about how they're being used by God throughout their rhythms of life. I was recently helping someone unpack a spiritual conversation they had with a co-worker, and I was blown away by what this person shared. Here's a recap of their spiritual conversation...

Co-Worker: I was on the Overflow Collective website reading about disciples, and I have a question. "Are there disciples in every church?"

Person within Overflow Collective: There should be... I mean the church is the people who are disciples of Jesus. Why are you asking?

Co-Worker: Well I'm asking this because I've tried a lot of churches, but I don't ever recall meeting a disciple, so I'm struggling to believe that most people who profess to be Christians actually are disciples of Jesus.

WOW! Here's a little context behind this conversation... This co-worker is asking a lot of questions and wanting to know what it means to really follow Jesus. This questioning is coming from a real place of trying to find God and know Him personally and is just one of many spiritual conversations between these two people.

From my perspective, I was floored by the honesty in this co-worker's response yet deeply concerned because of it as well. Do we (self-professing Christians) know what disciples are? Are our churches made up of disciples or just people who like to attend services and participate in programs? Jesus told us to "make disciples," so we can't afford to misunderstand the essence of being a disciple!

What about you? Do you understand what it means to say that you're a Christian, hence a disciple of Jesus? It's become so cliche to say that you're a Christian in our culture, but have you processed through what this really means?

Check out the 2-minute video clip below from Pastor David Platt, author of "Radical" and "Follow Me," as he quickly explains the tragic cost of not understanding discipleship.

We've discovered that having a clear understanding of a "disciple" and the "church" is paramount to making disciples and being the church. Unfortunately, in our church culture, these two words are often improperly defined. I urge you to wrestle with this and process through what it means to be a disciple. Then, lead others around you to wrestle with the same things. If I can help in any way, please don't hesitate to let me know: joshoverflowcollective@gmail.com

Let's Stop Saying We Want to Reach the World

Churches traditionally have adopted a general vision along the lines of "making disciples of all nations" or "let's reach the world for Christ." While this broad vision of "reaching the world" may sound nice, it ultimately brings no accountability to our churches; it basically leads people to believe that unless they are called to leave their home context as a missionary then they're of very little service to Kingdom. I want to challenge these common vision statements and suggest that we quit saying we want reach the world.... and simply start trying to reach the people in our rhythms of life! 

Let me be clear. I'm not against taking the gospel to other countries (the world). I think we're biblically commanded to do so as I'll mention below. However, I believe what I've just suggested above is one of the  reasons Christianity in America is declining. The truth is we aren't making disciples in our own neighborhoods! Churches will often send money to support a missionary in Africa or they may even send a team of people from the church to do a short-term mission trip, but I want to ask, "What's happening across the street?" Why are we neglecting the responsibility to be the church in our own rhythms of life? Here are 2 possible reasons...

1) We've greatly misunderstood the original meaning of the word "nations" in the great commission. A better translation of the original word would be something like "people groups." Jesus' command wasn't referring to organized, governmental territories as we typically think of nations today. He was basically saying that in every "group of people" we should be making disciples. Therefore, every church needs to be actively making disciples in it's context.

2) We aren't "progressing" toward people groups outside of our context. Take a minute to review Acts 1:8. Do you notice the geographical and cultural progression of this command? Jesus begins with Jerusalem which was the "home" context of the people listening to Him speak. He then progresses from there to Judea and Samaria which reflect stepping through relational and cultural barriers. Then, He moves to the ends of the earth. The reality is that unless we properly understand how to make disciples at home, we'll only take a distorted view of the gospel and disciple-making with us when we go to other places. 

Here's my suggestion... let's get serious about reaching the people in our "nations." This would be the people in our rhythms of life (where we live, work, and play). Let's quit teaching people to think of "making disciples" as a short-term project we get to occasionally experience and start holding them accountable to view everyday as a mission project. As we do that, we'll then be equipped to start stepping into different contexts and partnering with others to effectively make disciples in different "nations."

What's Happening with Overflow Collective?

I'm so pumped about what God is doing within Overflow Collective (OC). If you've been out of the loop, OC is now a network of missional church communities (MCCs). (We define what MCCs are on our website: http://overflowcollective.org/#/churches-mccs) For us, our focus is on expanding the Kingdom much more so than building up our brand, Sunday services, etc, and we're trying to let our behaviors reflect this desire. Here's just a snapshot of what gets us excited...

We've been having more people connect and interact in our MCCs throughout the week than at our Sunday services. We're celebrating this!!!! While we'd welcome everyone to come on Sunday, this fact means we're reaching people who for whatever reason aren't interested in "church as usual." We've made a decision to prioritize biblical community over attendance at a service, and as a result, God's allowing us to connect with people that we wouldn't otherwise be able to reach.

We have two Knoxville based churches that are uniquely different from each other and are experiencing authentic, biblical church community around the mission of Jesus. Even though they share overall vision and DNA, the way they're expressing church life is unique to their culture of people and context. We celebrate the diversity that's happening!

In Kodak, TN, we're helping our first MCC form outside of Knoxville. This community is currently meeting in the restaurant at the Smokies' Stadium, and I can't wait to see how God continues to form this disciple-making community.

As we look into the 2nd half of 2013, we believe we're just getting started. We currently have 8 people involved in intense leadership development because we can see the potential for several more MCCs forming as we move into the fall and spring of 2014.

God's moving, and we're just trying to keep up. If you're a part of Overflow Collective in some capacity, I want to encourage you to continue following Jesus throughout your rhythms of life. He wants to work in and through your life to meet people where they are and move them forward with Him as you overflow your faith! If you're connected to another church but you pray over OC, please continue to pray that God grants us the necessary wisdom to stay in step with Him as we learn on the fly. If you have questions about what we're doing or maybe you're aren't connected to a church and would like to know more about OC, I'd love to have coffee or talk on the phone sometime. Feel free to email me: joshoverflowcollective@gmail.com

Cold Coffee

About this time last year I started the journey of intentionally trying to acquire a taste for coffee. That journey has led me to a point where I now enjoy/long for a cup of coffee or two throughout the day, but it's also taught me a lesson I'm referring to as "Cold Coffee." This concept came from having several cups of coffee brew from time to time that would end up getting cold because I'd get sidetracked or distracted. By the time I finally got to my coffee, it was too cold to drink, and I've discovered that at least for me it doesn't taste the same reheating it in the microwave

In some situations, it was a good choice to let my coffee get cold as I turned my attention toward something else. For example, our almost one year old often tries to destroy things, and He will also occasionally do what little brothers do and start bothering his 3 year old brother. In both of these situations, I've had to go "be the dad" and as a result, end up coming back to my coffee after it's dramatically cooler than I like. While disappointed my coffee was now cold, I think I obviously made the better choice.

However, there are other scenarios in which I've became frustrated by my cold coffee... Like when I get in my A.D.D. mode and completely forget that I have a cup of coffee waiting on me or when I get wrapped up in something not important like reading a blog about UT football. When I finally remember my coffee, it's too late; it's cold!

Ok. To my real point... As we go through life, we have to learn to recognize when we have allowed or should allow our coffee to get cold. However, in these situations, the coffee is merely symbolic to something much more meaningful.

Some of us may have things in our life that need to be ignored so we can pursue something better. For example, your "cold coffee" may be your addiction to Facebook, that if ignored, would free up more time to pray, read Scripture, or have substantial conversation with the people in your life.

Others of us may need to start taking advantage of our coffee while it's hot and stop letting it get cold. An example of this would be responding intentionally and immediately to the Holy Spirit's promptings regarding someone. Have you ever been in the middle of a task and all of sudden someone comes to your mind? This could very well be because God wants you to reach out to this person and be intentional about spending time with them. The key is to respond when prompted. Drink the coffee when it's hot because that's when it's best. All too often we wait, put it off, ignore it, and if/when we finally get around to touching base with that person, nothing comes of it. I have several personal examples of how this has played out both positively and negatively in my own life.

So, this is the concept of cold coffee... now you apply it to your situation!

No More Church On Sundays

In the church planting world I stepped into about 3 years ago, I, like many others, was determined to "change the way people think about church." Unfortunately though, in my initial efforts, I did like many others and only modified the worship service and atmosphere on Sunday mornings. I was honestly doing very little to help people experience an authentic, biblical church community. The shift for me was to finally realize that people must experience church beyond Sunday.

As Overflow Collective, we're defining AND practicing church through a biblical understanding that church is: Followers of Jesuswho experience authentic, transforming community in rhythm with each other as they're pursuing the mission of Jesus. Because of this, God has led us to form multiple churches who then simply view the Sunday gathering just as that... a gathering of the churches.

(If you want to read more about how we're doing all of this, feel free to follow this link and click on "churches" and "gatherings"... http://overflowcollective.org)

By the way, why does our American church culture exist with the idea that "church" happens on Sunday? This idea of church on Sundays via programs and services has become a cultural norm. As a result, we've actually restricted people from experiencing authentic, BIBLICAL church community and possibly even distorted what it means to truly follow Jesus. Take a look at Acts 2:46-47...

⁴⁶ Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with a joyful and humble attitude, ⁴⁷ praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved.

At the same time, we can't ignore all the one anothers mentioned in Scripture. How many American-Christians are regularly experiencing these? Consider what David Platt says in his newest book "Follow Me"...

The Bible portrays the church as a community of Christians who care, love, host, receive, honor, serve, instruct, forgive, motivate, build up, encourage, comfort, pray for, confess sin to, esteem, edify, teach, show kindness to, give to, rejoice with, weep with, hurt with, and restore one another. All of these "one anothers" combined together paint a picture not of people who come to a building filled with customized programs but of people who have decided to lay down their lives to love one another.

If we've communicated church as primarily the service(s) and programs on Sunday (maybe Wednesday too), are we experiencing and practicing all of these on a regular basis? One more quote from the book "Follow Me"...

The New Testament envisions followers of Jesus living alongside one another for the sake of one another. Biblically, a church does not consist of people who simply park in the same parking lot and participate in services and programs alongside one another. Instead, the church is comprised of people who share the life of Christ with each other on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis.

Every follower of Jesus should be living in authentic, accountable, biblical church community. I don't think God excuses the fact that we've taken this clear call to community, which literally bleeds all throughout the New Testament, and turned it into an institutional model where "church" is merely a service or program that's primarily focused around someone's preaching, musical performances, and pre-packaged structure. Much of what we call "church" only fuels our culture of consumerism and is nothing more than our attempt to form a type of Christianity that fits our American preferences. 

As Overflow Collective, we'd love to help you experience a relationship with Jesus in the context of authentic, biblical church community. We're sold out to doing all we can to redefine how people view and experience church. We still have much to learn, but we won't stop learning and adjusting until Jesus takes His church to finally be with Him!

Freak Out Moment With Jesus

Spiders freak me out. Running out of hot water in the shower tends to create an emotional response from me. Seeing a UT sports team lose a game doesn't always go over well. But when it comes to Jesus... I wonder how many of us are like Peter and experience a freak out moment. Maybe what I'm about to say will be your freak out moment with Jesus.

In Mark 8:31-33, Jesus is telling His disciples how He must suffer many things, die, and then rise back to life after three days. Just think about this for a moment. The disciples have been following Jesus on a daily basis. They've seen what He can do. Their lives are consumed by following Jesus. They've even began to experience the power to do some of the things He's been doing. Then, He tells them He must suffer and die.

While we don't know how all of the disciples reacted, we do know how Peter reacted: He freaked out. So much so that Mark says Peter "Took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him." Seriously! Peter is now rebuking Jesus. Peter has actually just went way beyond freak out. He's now correcting the plan and will of God in Jesus' life. Nevertheless, Jesus responds by calling Peter "Satan" and putting him back in his place.

Okay, so we look at Peter and realize he had a freak out moment and overreacted, but let me ask all of us this question... Why did Peter freak out? Maybe in that moment Peter realized that...

• Jesus would no longer be there for him to physically depend on.
• If Jesus had to suffer and die, perhaps he would to
• Everything was about to get very intense and serious

I don't know exactly why Peter freaked out, but immediately after this exchange between Jesus and Peter, Jesus turns to the crowd and says, "If anyone wants to follow Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." I think it's safe to assume Peter knew that in order to truly follow Christ, he'd have to experience to some degree the same thing that Jesus was about to endure.

For us today, I think this freak out moment of realizing that we can't have things our way and still follow Jesus must happen in order for us to experience salvation. Again, I'm just going off what Jesus says. The call to follow Jesus is to surrender to a lifestyle that continually responds to His Lordship; this includes dying to everything we are. Jesus had to die because through His death He was able to bring life for us. The same principal plays out with us... Unless we are willing to truly die to ourselves, we'll never start to live for Him!

This is scary. Surrender is so difficult, yet it's so freeing at the same time. I can understand why Peter had a freak out moment. Any true follower of Jesus must face this same reality check of surrender. What I can't understand is how so many people can profess to follow Jesus but show no evidence of dying to themselves and living under the Lordship of Jesus. Maybe it's because we focus way to much on "avoiding Hell" in our comfortable Christian American culture by simply praying a prayer to "get out of Hell." Regardless of what we've heard taught from the pulpits on Sundays, this conversation between Jesus and Peter reminds us that we can't afford to continue presenting and believing a half-gospel that focuses primarily on life after death instead of dying to self and living surrendered to Christ on a daily basis.

The great debate ends at affection!

There has always been a tension between the thoughts of when, where, and how to share the gospel. Some believers think that in all situations, in all times we should be talking about Christ and sharing the gospel. This thought drives us to programming such as tracts, visitation and evangelistic training that is script driven and word heavy. The other side in it's worry of offending people, believes that it is simply a lifestyle of being kind and courteous that will lead people to an understanding of who Jesus is. It's funny that in the extremes of these two thoughts they both ironically become exactly what they are trying to avoid. In the all talk approach they are trying to be deep and serious yet they come across as shallow and almost laughable because there is no relational or lifestyle foundation to give their claims any credence. How can one talk to a complete stranger with no foundation of respect about the most important and intimate topic they will ever be engaged about.  On the other hand the camp that is all life and no talk try to show love and not offend when all that happens is they watch people without hope walk straight into an eternity apart from Christ, which is the most unloving, offensive thing they can do.   There is not a simple answer to this dilemma and the cop out would be to say it is both ways. That is true but is overly simplistic. The problem is that we let our own personalities and preferences make us lean into one side or the other and once we are there we must defend it biblically and experientially until death. We preach sermons and invent programs that take us down the road of one of these two extremes and then you can't turn back without admitting that you were wrong. This topic came up because of a funeral I am preaching of a gentleman who lived out correctly what the bible presents as the gospel and it's advancement. I was praying for a word that would describe this person and God laid the word "affection" on my heart. After looking it up in my concordance, the passage that I was drawn to was Romans 12:9-21. It is a passage that I have read before but from this day forward I will read it everyday and make it my goal in this life to live it out. The subtitle over it is "Marks of a true Christian" WOW! That alone should make us study this passage deeply. I will end this blog by saying if you can read that passage and it doesn't move you, challenge you, inspire and motivate you then you are not living for Christ. It outlines our attitude toward God, toward other believers and toward lost people. It speaks of the beautiful blend of living the gospel out by caring the way Christ cared and sharing your faith by talking about it. To put it simply, the key to sharing the gospel is to be open about your affection toward God and your affection toward people. Talk without care is worthless and care without talk is worthless. I will not live the rest of my life being worthless! Peace with God and peace with men.

Problems with "Quiet-Times?"

I've personally experienced a lot of struggles over the years when it comes to finding consistency and fulfillment from a daily quiet-time with God. Yes, as a pastor, I'm confessing that quiet-times as I was taught to do them just don't work for me. Often times, I haven't even been motivated to do one either. I've went in spurts of being consistent in the routine of quiet-times throughout my entire journey with Christ, but I've finally reached a place where I'm experiencing an abundantly satisfying walk with God unlike ever before. What changed? I had to realize two things that actually go against much of what I was taught about having quiet-times with God...

#1: I can't put God in a box an expect to truly experience Him.
Here's the problem with quiet-times as we typically teach them: They are often disconnected from a continual, rhythmic interaction with God... The Holy Spirit's movement in our life can't be restricted to a certain "quiet-time/set aside" moment of our day. God is to be experienced and interacted with all day long.

For those of you who are married, think about this... Can you imagine if you told your spouse that each day you'd try to give them 15-minutes (or 30 if you're really good), but as for the remaining 1,400+ minutes throughout the day, you probably won't pay much attention to them. I don't know about you, but I'd be building my own dog house in the backyard. (I'd have to build it because we don't have a dog).

God wants your entire life, not just your quiet-time. This is what Paul's referring to in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 when he says, "Pray without ceasing." Our conversation and communion with God should be happening all the time. At work, in the car, playing with our kids, etc. While our times of solitude are important and essential, the stereotypical "quiet-time" can be very misleading and disappointing if we think this is our good deed or act of obedience for God.

#2: My "quiet-times" were self-centered.
I'm a selfish person. I don't know about you, but it's just my nature even with spiritual things. I'd open God's Word thinking "What can I take from this?" I'd pray my prayers according to how I felt. Lately though, God's been showing me that these times of solitude have to be all about Him and what He wants to say. I've had to learn to be still and know that He is God. Instead of having a preset agenda, I'm learning to listen to the Holy Spirit.

What does this look like? Well, typically throughout my day I'm living with the expectation that God wants to speak to me. After all, He is my Father. He is not the author of confusion. He wants me to know Him and His desires, so I'm eagerly anticipating Him speaking to me. When He does, I'm trying to listen and process. I want to learn and allow Him to adjust my behavior to be more in line with who He is and what He desires.

In response to this, my "quiet-time" is then a time of solitude where I can further process through what He's already been speaking to me about. Sometimes this leads to praise, comfort, and joy, but other times it leads me to repentance. I noticed when I'm setting the agenda for my quiet-time (or some pre-planned devotion is doing it for me) I tend to do very little repenting.

These two realizations have brought and continue to bring an abundance to my walk with God that I've never experienced before. I hope you'll take a few minutes to wrestle with what I'm saying because God wants you to experience Him in a non-structure, natural, intimate, way! Don't miss out any longer!

Has God Been Rejecting Our Sunday Worship?

People often leave the Sunday service and say something like, "Worship was good today!" but what do we mean by this? Typically, this means we thought the music was good or that something spoke to us or that we enjoyed it, but do you notice the recurring theme here? Each of the statements are reflections of our opinions. It's as if we are the judge of worship. Shouldn't we be asking, "God, were you pleased with our worship today?"

A couple Sundays ago, I challenged our gathering to wrestle with the concept of biblical worship. I asked the question, "Could God be rejecting our so called worship every Sunday just as He often rejected the sacrifices of the Israelites in the Old Testament?"

In the OT, the people had the routine of sacrifices down pretty good. However, what they continued to miss,  just as we still do today, is that God ultimately isn't after our acts of obedience and religious routines; He wants our lives. He wants our hearts. Because of this, He often rejected their sacrifices, asked them to stop giving them, and even asked the priests to close the doors to the temples. Check out these passages... Isaiah 1:13-19, Malachi 1:10-11

Fast forward to the New Testament. Read what Jesus says in John 4:19-24 and what Paul says in Romans 12:1. What about the reference to our bodies being the temple/place of worship in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20? What do these passages mean? Essentially, they reveal to us that if we aren't worshiping God throughout the rhythms of our daily lives, our worship on Sunday means nothing because it's not even biblical worship.

Now, let's think about this from the positive perspective. What if we truly began to worship God throughout our week? What if His presence in our lives was a daily experience? Can you imagine then what our Sunday gatherings would be like? Instead of waiting until Sunday to "worship," we would be gathering together to collectively continue the worship we've been experiencing all week.

Evaluate your worship by His standards, and let's stop assuming we're doing what God wants simply because this is what our American church culture has trained us to do!

An Open House for a Church?

I heard about a billboard that was asking people to come visit an Open House for a church. Let me be quick to say I'm not against this church. I'm honestly not even for sure which church this is. I hope they see disciples made through their ministry, but I do want to draw attention to something... the perspective on church that is communicated through this billboard essentially sums up why the Christian faith in America is declining more and more... We biblically don't understand what it means to follow Jesus according to His words and what we learn in the New Testament.

How did we get so far away from what Jesus said in Matthew 4:19?... “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”

In this verse, I truly believe Jesus invites us to know the basis of Christianity. It's with these words that He literally launched a movement that would reach half the Roman  Empire in about 250-300 years. How and/or why did we go from Jesus' call to worship Him, live for Him, and teach others to do the same all the way to merely attend our church "building" (or even attend our Open House) and consume the ministries and facilities we have to offer?

God's made it clear to me that no one person can change this American perspective on church. However, I can change my perspective. I can also challenge the people in my sphere of influence to embrace a more biblical model of following Jesus and being the church. Therefore, I'm not going to merely complain about the status quo of Christianity. I will do something about it. My family will seek to join with other families to intentionally be the church and embrace the call to follow Jesus through the words of Jesus Himself. I will bring my kids up to understand that "church" is who we are. It's not a building that we tour or go to for a service.

At the same time, I know there's a cost here. It means I'll never be a megachurch pastor and that many in the "church world" will look at my efforts as failures, but I'm okay with that. Most people viewed Jesus as a failure because He wouldn't embrace the religious culture of His day. I'm not out to be a rebel, but I will strive to be who Jesus wants me to be even if it goes against the grain of American church culture.

So what about you? How are you following Him? I'm not asking do you go to church. Are you open to the Holy Spirit leading you in your everyday life or are you simply looking for the newest, coolest, most attractive church to attend? How are you teaching your kids to think of "church" and following Jesus?

The more things change.....

The more things change the more they stay the same. The old saying is as true today as it has ever been. Especially when it comes to culture, spirituality and our problem as humans. The tension even in the garden of Eden was not really as simple as good versus evil, light versus dark, or even God versus Satan. It was the beginning of a worship war that is fought in the spiritual realm with human minds as the battleground, human hearts as the targets, human will as the ammunition, and human souls as the objective. You see Adam and Eve lived in perfection. Perfect environment with an unpolluted earth, perfect companionship with each other, and most importantly perfect fellowship with their Creator. Satan who is actually a fallen angelic worship leader, planted in their minds the thought that their object of worship was not worthy. He fertilized their hearts with a longing for "more" than God had already provided. And finally he watered them with the thought that God's word could not be trusted. Satan knew that the first shot fired was him being kicked out of heaven and that his next move in the battle would be to show up in the garden and plant his own seed that would lead to what he felt was the knockout blow in the war of worship. What he was growing has been and will always be at the core of humanity's issue. Once he planted, fertilized, and watered Adam and Eve, the fruit of "selfish ambition" was grown. At the core of original sin and at the core of every sin from that point forward is selfishness. The world has changed a lot since the creation account but one thing is the same. Our self centeredness is what separates us from God. The only reason that Satan's counterpunch was not the knockout blow to humanity is the everlasting love and unlimited grace God displayed through the redemptive work of Jesus. Jesus is the antidote to the disease of selfishness. We have somewhat mislabeled sin in the sense that we are often referring to the acts of disobedience as "sin" when in reality that is the fruit of sin. At the core of Sin with a capital "S" is selfishness. This explains why so many people make professions of faith but lose heart when they still struggle with disobedience. We tend to look for outward change without considering whether a new heart has been formed through the new birth. This is why it is important to understand that at the core of salvation is a death to self and not an intellectual belief in religious structure. It is a giving up not a "try harder" attitude. It is a surrender of will, not a prayer of hope. It is a dying to live, not a living better to earn God's love. It is why Jesus calls it being born again, it is why Paul says I have died but yet I live, it is why James says do nothing out of selfish ambition, and why James also says to "humbly" accept the word planted in you. So you see, the more things change the more they stay the same. The war is still waging and it is "self"versus "death to self". It is won or lost by seed planting. The seed of self produces sin which produces death. The seed of Christ produces righteousness which produces life. Go fight the war and plant Jesus!

Perspective: Our nearsighted problem

Perspective: our nearsighted problem

Our God is a God that is in a constant activity of restoring and creating. The problem is our minds are so weak compared to the spiritual reality of what is going on that we rarely see the big picture. Our insecurities and preconceived thoughts of how things should be make us latch on to certain phrases or circumstances. Once we latch on it is hard for us to hear, see, feel or be aware of anything else that is said or done. I see this in my own life, in the life of churches and even in bible passages. In Mark chapter 8 we see this played out in verses 31 through 34. It begins with Jesus presenting "plainly" to His disciples the most important crossroads of human history. He explains a process that will change our path to redemption forever. His rejection, the cross, and the resurrection will tear the veil between us and God as Jesus would become the high priest once and for all. But instead of rejoicing Peter immediately rebukes Jesus and wants to stop the process. What was Peter's issue? Jesus describes Peter's nearsighted problem in verse 33. Jesus says the reason Peter doesn't see the big picture is because of a wrong perspective. He describes it as having his mind set on the things of man and not the things of God. Jesus never struggled with nearsightedness because He was always focused on the "will" of God. Jesus even taught us to pray with the attitude of God's will being done on earth as it is being done in heaven. Jesus calls Peter "Satan" in this passage because that is where our nearsighted problem originated from. Even in the garden of Eden Satan was getting mankind to focus on what was directly in front of him and ignore the bigger picture of a kingdom mindset. As long as we focus on our selves we will never experience true health or growth. As long as churches focus on themselves they will never experience true health or growth. That's just the way Satan like us and the church; nearsighted, insecure, fear filled, believe it when we see it, earthly grounded, worldly minded, self absorbed, self centered, self preserving, weak humans. The problem is this sort of nearsightedness leads to blindness. Then we become blind guides leading blind people which puts us both in a pit of despair. Once we lose vision we lose life! Let's celebrate daily the big picture of God's love and His plan for us and the rest of mankind. Never taking our eyes off the treasure that is set before us in the author and perfecter of our faith, JESUS!

What Does Mater and Church Have in Common?

by Josh Duncan 

I'd like to suggest that within the church (American church generally speaking) we've been doing things backward for quite a while. I believe the church is actually like Mater from Cars... we'd just prefer to drive backward instead of forward. Truthfully, again like Mater, we're better at driving backward than forward. What am I talking about?...

When Jesus left us with the task of carrying on His mission, He made two statements (along with dozens others) that are important for us to understand. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus said, "He (Jesus) would build His church." Then, in Matthew 28:19, He told us to, "Make disciples." The problem is that in our efforts to seize the mission of Jesus, we've been trying to accomplish the mission backward. We attempt to build or maintain the church and then make disciples. By the "church" I mean the focus we place on buildings, services, programming, and the organizational structures and routines of church.

Honestly, this is what most established and even new churches do in America. Most of my church planting training actually trained me to start a church backward! The intentions are often good... we want to seize the mission of Jesus. However, even new churches if they aren't careful, will end up functioning backward. I've learned that if you start out focusing on church (as described above), you'll rarely, if ever, get around to making disciples, but if you focus on making disciples, Jesus will naturally build His church.

The fix, while it isn't easy, is both significant and necessary if we're going to truly join God in His mission. We must stop thinking and behaving backward. Does your pattern of thinking and behaving focus more on "church" or making disciples? What about your church? If you're a pastor or church planter, will you do this Jesus' way? Seriously. Every disciple, pastor, and church needs to deal with this question. Will you stop trying to accomplish the mission backward?

Recovering Churchoholic

by Josh Duncan

I'm a recovering churchoholic... By this, I mean I was actively involved in the activities that took place at the church building. I was consistently there Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and any other time something was going on. I was an avid churchgoer and even worked hard to get others to go to church with me.

Before I say anything else, let me say that I'm so thankful for my past experiences. Without them, God wouldn't be moving in my life the way He is now. Nevertheless, I must be brutally honest about how God is now moving in my life...

Here's the ugly part of my church-going days and the truth I'm willing to say that most avid church-goers won't... I was a much better church-goer than I was a biblical disciple of Jesus. Honestly, being an avid church-goer was much easier than what I'm currently experiencing... easier, but not better. Let me explain.

Jesus never told me or you to go to church. He never told us to sell out to the church, be actively involved in all the services, bible studies, and activities of the church. You may ask, "Doesn't the Bible say we shouldn't forsake the assembling of ourselves together?" Yes. It does: Hebrews 10:24-25. However, the church as we've come to know it (generally speaking) is not what we're told to not forsake.

If you really want to look at this verse, it tells us what should be happening in these meetings... People encouraging one another to follow Jesus... We see this all throughout the book of Acts... People interacting with people through teaching, prayer, meeting needs, etc.

Where in Scripture do we see church described as an impersonal, mostly non-relational setting, where a few "expert professionals" spend a majority of their efforts preparing, organizing, and leading services so that the other 80-90% of people can merely consume what's being provided? I can say this because I was one of those people pushing the church agenda. I didn't realize my own selfish motives and insecurities until God exposed how many of my decisions were rooted in things other than making disciples.

Now, sermons, music, ministries, programs and some of the things we've come accustomed to aren't necessarily wrong. To some degree they can be important and helpful, but that isn't what the Bible defines as church. Our denominations and life-experiences may teach us that this is church, but Jesus doesn't. He actually says things like... Matthew 7:21-23 and Matthew 9:13. In these verses Jesus is basically saying, "I realize you did your church activities, but I never knew you personally as my disciple.

The real issue at hand is that most southern "Christians" identify more with their church than they do with Jesus. This is a major problem. Do you know what it means to follow Jesus? Can you describe what a surrendered life to Jesus looks like in terms other than being actively involved in the services and activities your church provides? Do you know how to talk to someone about Jesus without having to invite them to your church?

Why am I saying all of this? Because I reached a point where God was saying all of this to me. He was convicting me about my adherence to the church and my lack of surrender to His Spirit in my life on a daily basis. I was more focused on getting people to church than I was leading them to Jesus.

As I wrap this up, I'm assuming you are thinking one of a few things...

-This makes so much sense... If this is you, what are you going to do about it? Don't just agree with what I've said. Get on your knees before God, repent, and ask Him to move you in the directed HE wants. That's what I did, and I'm growing from it and leading my family much better! Additionally, consider connecting with Overflow Collective as we're processing through this together.

-I'm heavily involved with my church, and I follow Jesus... Good! I am too. Let's just make sure that we don't elevate our church involvement over following Jesus daily. Let's make sure we're sharing our faith with people who don't yet know Jesus and not merely hanging out as a Christian social club.

-This is ridiculous... If this is you, please just ensure your opinions are not based on your preferences or what you've come to know through your church, pastor, or denomination. Instead, ensure you're opinions are supported with a Kingdom/Gospel overview of Scripture centered on Jesus as Lord.