I know a guy who knows Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  I met a guy who is a good friend of Rob Bell, one of my favourite Christian speakers.

Network theorists reckon that we are, at the most, only 6 steps away from every other person on the planet.

Now if I were to influence the guy who I know  knows Obama and he in turn were to influence Obama…?

God has given us so much potential for positive change.  When you stop, and look at the world from this perspective, you might just start to see that our lives are not as insignificant or meaningless as they sometimes feel.

Maybe Jesus had something like this in mind when he said;

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Sunday I posted a bit about one of our activities as a “missional” community (I use that term cause I don’t really know how else to describe us - maybe “mission project” or “community development project” is better) - our fortnightly “social Sunday” BBQ.

The BBQ has become a bit of a point of contention within the group.  I covered it briefly in the previous post and don’t really want to go into too much further detail on this side of things, as it is something we are trying to work through as a community.  However, now that we are starting to discuss it, one of the biggest failings of the BBQ has come to the fore.  That is I haven’t done a very good job of explaining how the BBQ relates to mission.

And so, in order to clarify this for our guys as well as for anyone else who may be interested, I want to outline the things that can make a BBQ mission.

I think it’s important to firstly define “mission” as we understand it.

Mission stems from God’s redemptive plan for this world and it’s inhabitants.  It is God’s mission to “save” his creation.  The biblical concept of God’s mission (in Latin, the missio Dei) is based on the premise that God first sent his son, the Christ and that the Christ extended his role in the missio Dei to his followers.  You can get an idea of this from reading John 17 (a pastoral prayer prayed by Jesus just prior to his arrest and crucifixion) and John 20:21 (“As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you“) and from the “great commission” found in Matthew 28:18-20 (Jesus explicitly tells his followers that they are to “go”).

So for Alternate[Or] Community - a community where mission (or being missional) is our number one purpose - this is how we understand mission.

So what makes a BBQ mission?

BBQs in and of them self are not necessarily mission activities.  That’s not to say that socialising can’t be approached “missionaly”.  I believe it can, as can all aspects of life.  However in our case, there are a couple of things that make this BBQ, in particular, missional.

The BBQ has a specific purpose.  While on the surface, we really are just socialising, underneath there’s a lot more going on.  Since we first started as a community our goal has been to extend the New Testament concept of “kingdom” (as an environment where followers of Jesus and those who are not yet followers of Jesus can coexist) to the marginalised in our community.

This was done through the purposeful creation of safe spaces.  Places where people who are used to being judged, who are not part of healthy communities, who are marginalised to the fringe of society for any number of reasons, can come and feel acceptance and can belong.  This idea came about after studying the “kingdom” parables in Matthew 13.  In particular the parable of the mustard seed (the kingdom is like a grain of mustard … when it’s grown it’s larger than all the garden plants … and becomes a place the birds of the air can nest and shelter in).

We understood this passage to be describing the kingdom as an environment (the tree is the environment) and the birds of the air as those who are not of the kingdom benefiting from it.  The tree didn’t “produce” the birds, but it does provide a safe place for them to nest and raise their families.

While this parable doesn’t say too much about our role - the role of the disciples - it does say plenty about about the kingdom (but that is its purpose!).

The BBQ then becomes an expression of the kingdom as a safe environment.  Somewhere people who don’t have many safe places or any experience with healthy community (functional families, unconditional love, care without strings) can come and experience some of these things.

Our role, as the “sent ones” is to be present.  To take an interest (even in the mundane aspects of life) and to commit to relationship over the long term.  For everyone that comes, regardless of background, while they want to be a part of this aspect of our community (and even if they choose not to continue to be involved) the door will always be open and they will have friends and a place of relative refuge.

The benefits found for those who participate are probably best explained in terms of social science.  The community (or group) experience has therapeutic benefits.  Particularly given the background of many of those involved, e.g. in substance abuse, sexual abuse, crime, homelessness etc. It provides social and emotional support in an alternative way of living to that found in their community of origin.  In other words we try and role model (as followers of Jesus) an alternative way of living and of relating, of showing respect, treating with dignity, caring for and being willing to serve those who come.

Through this trust grows, relationships develop and before long involvement (where there was no prior engagement) extends beyond the BBQ into other areas of life.  Opportunities to serve, support and advocate exist.  To grow and strengthen and continue the process of engaging people in a way of life that is ever growing closer to the way God intended them to live.

We don’t hide our faith - everyone who comes knows that we are followers of Jesus, as relationships develop opportunities present to share more of this aspect of our lives in a verbal way however we are clear that there is no pressure to conform or to get involved in the other aspects of our community.  However the opportunity to get further involved is always there and, along the way, some do take this up.  Most, however,  just keep coming back.

While there is a part of me - that part that was infected with a much more propositional approach to the “sharing” of faith and mission/evanglism/outreach activities - that at times struggles with the lack of apparent spiritual progress in the group there are a couple of things that help me get back on track.

Firstly, I truly believe salvation comes through Christ as a work of the Father.  It is not my job to “save” anyone.  If we, as a community, can present in a corporate way the imperfect lives of disciples of the perfect One, surrendering our weaknesses to God, allowing his agape to flow through us and being open and genuine about who we are, we are doing all we need to.  The rest is God’s work.

Secondly, ensuring we are able to provide opportunties for those who are drawn to Jesus and begin expressing an interest in learning more to enter into other aspects of our community - the times when we, as disciples, come together to worship and to discuss the Scriptures and to pray.  This has been an interesting experiment and at times, a struggle, as we have experimented with new ways of doing this for post-literate/illiterate people.

Alternate[Or] Community is a community starting from scratch.  I read somewhere the comment that “mission doesn’t start with the church, rather the church starts with mission“.  I think that sums up fairly nicely what we are trying to do.

Our city (of around 60,000 people) has more than 36 churches.  It doesn’t need another church (even another house church).  What it doesn’t have is anything remotely like our Social Sunday BBQ or the other smaller scale things we’re involved in, where the “unchurched” out number the “churched” in a healthy expression of community, where people who have no other contact with followers of Christ or his kingdom, come into regular contact with a different way of life and living and are willing to keep coming back. But not just to keep coming back, even enthusiastically inviting their friends and in so doing expanding the network and the possibilities for the MRI of the body to be enacted in our city.

Because of who it is that is organising and holding these BBQs (followers of Jesus) and because of the purpose behind them, at the end of the day they are explicitly “missional”.  They are a way in which we, as followers of Jesus, can corporately live out our faith and our calling - being the salt and light and ambasadores for the kingdom among the marginalised of our city.