On one of Paul’s missionary journeys we was heading into the province of Asia, fully intending to preach the gospel there and plant churches as he had done in other places—a fine goal. But an odd thing happened at the border of Mysia: “They tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas” (Acts 16:7-8) That night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia, standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us” (v. 9). “After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (v. 10).
Why look for the pain? The point of pain is where the power of the gospel is at its strongest. Only when we find the pain (and it IS there) can we move toward healing.
Four steps to uncovering the pain:
- Listen. Prayerfully listen to what people are saying. What are their concerns? What are their repeated prayer requests? Ask questions that allow people the opportunity to open up about what’s going on their lives.
- Relate. Build bridges with individuals in the church. Develop and deepen personal relationships. It’s surprising how often people in church leadership don’t do this.
No matter how incarnational and organic your ministry is, if you have a public worship service of any kind, you do have a front door as well as a side door. And if you have one, you do have to pay some attention to the “attractional” issues. If people are wandering in, are they able to figure out how to get connected? Is there a clear path—an assimiliation track of some kind? If the people wandering in are of the previously-churched variety, do you have some method of acclimating them to your philosophy? Some friends of mine call it “running them through detox,” but it’s still a system.
Missional has become a popular word used more and more frequently. Once considered an antonym of attractional, missional has begun to be used by churches that are still primarily attractional—geared toward reaching people through inviting them to experience the worship service as a step toward spiritual transformation.
Now I don’t think that’s a bad thing. If you remember, I planted a seeker-sensitive attractional church myself many years back. Over the course of 11 years, 2/3 of the people we reached were previously unchurched. We were fairly effective at being missional in the sense of being about the great commission.
The following “5 ways” are from Comunidad Mosáico, but could be applied to any ministry working with the urban poor. For more information on Comunidad Mosáico, check out Tuesday’s blog entry.
TELL: Expose your friends, neighbors, classmates, coworkers, relatives, and more about the issue of urban poverty. Let people know you are passionate about the issue and tell them about the work of Comunidad Mosáico. Chat it up on Twitter and Facebook or write about us on your blog. Represent us!
Check out this five-minute youtube video to see what’s going on with strategically placed ministries all over the globe working in settings of urban poverty. I profiled one of these ministries, Comunidad Mosáico in Mexico City, in yesterday’s blog entry. My friend Jean-Luc (pictured at right) speaks in the video about the places where incarnational living, holistic ministry, and community transformation intersect in amazing ways.
