the drum|rob fairbanks

Back Teaching

You may have noticed that the last two blogs were by guests. I teach a course at Whitworth University entitled, "The Missional Church," actually for about 5 years now. Throughout January this site will be a landing place for the thoughts of my students to share their idea about:

• The Church
• Mission
• Culture
• And probably a variety of other thoughtful yet, angsty ideas.

I hope you enjoy reading their fresh and undoubtedly provocative thoughts.

Peace,

Rob

Joyfully Removed

    The Western church is no longer center stage in modern culture, and as we are shunted aside it seems reasonable to think that becoming more like the world will entice more people into our buildings. Then I come upon Jesus’ words, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Hold up, what?! Blessed are who? It might be a small stretch to equate marginalization and persecution, but I am beginning to think that being pushed out of mainstream culture could be the best thing that has happened to the body of Christ today.

    In his book The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch points to the church in two different times and geographic areas, the early Christian body and the underground church in China. Both of these groups of believers became vibrant and large communities during harsh and unrelenting periods of persecution. Hirsch sees that “Persecution drove both the early Christian movement and the Chinese church to discover their truest nature as an apostolic people” and it “acted as a means to keep these movements true to their faith and reliant on God.”

    But how did these communities turn persecution to power to promote the Kingdom of God? James calls out from the Word, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Think about that for a minute. This isn’t telling us to tolerate trouble or to “grin and bear it”, but instead be joyful in it—have a deep, indescribable emotion welling up in us whenever we face trials because of faith in the Lord Jesus. What if, instead of pushing back as we are pushed aside or fearing persecution for our faith, the Western church opened ourselves to the possibility of being collectively JOYFUL? How much more would we be able to point the way to the Kingdom of God if our joy in all situations shone through? Something attracted millions of converts in the early and Chinese churches. Maybe this joy in persecution promised to us by our living Savior can be the way we truly live into our calling as a missional and sent church. Maybe this strange joy from hardship can revitalize us and help us be the instrument and foretaste of the Kingdom we were meant to be for the world.

Kate

3 Missional Reasons to be Kind to Others

Darrin and Julie

Another insightful post by guest blogger, Julie Jones. Julie is a collegue of mine at Christian Associates. She and her husband, Darrin have ministered in Orange County, CA, France and Morroco and currently live in the Bay area.  They both are remarkable people.

“God says: my plan is to change you from the inside out, to change your motives – why you do what you do – and to change your impact on people so that how you relate to others will make them thirsty for Me and draw them to dependence on Me.”

Larry Crabb, God’s Love Letters to You

You just never know. You never know who is watching. Recently we went out to dinner with some friends to a fun restaurant that was new to all of us. Our waitress came out to get drink orders and, honestly, she scared me a little. She was a bit rough around the edges but we had good interaction with her and got chatting about her tattoos. Later that week we were in a neighboring city lunching at a deli and were having good conversation with our waiter when we saw our waitress from the previous restaurant! My husband immediately got up to say hello and she was friendly and had remembered us. Our waiter then came over and said he had noticed us talking to the waitress and that she was his daughter! He said how she is new to the wait staff there and that her boss was pleased she was bringing in business! She then came over and chatted for a bit. Our waiter then returned and noticed the Lacrosse jersey our son was wearing from his Christian school. We got talking sports and continued the meal. As we left the deli both father and daughter warmly said goodbye.

As I reflected upon the whole set of events several things struck me:

• First - Kindness always pays. Being friendly to our waitress opened a door, which had blessings in store for all of us.
• Secondly, going out of your way to be friendly opens doors. Had my husband not sought her out we might have missed the whole thing! 
• Thirdly, our Christian witness is witnessed by those around us. How we live our lives matters. How we treat wait staff matters. How we treat each other in public places matters. God wants our very being to make others hungry for Him in a parched world. 

“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16