Part 4 - What in the world is church? - Everyday Missionary

The idea of a church that gathers and scatters sounds ideal, but how do we actually get there? What we do while we are gathered matters. The world's culture is too strong for us to not take this seriously, so there are intentional practices we do during our time gathered as a community in fellowship bands and house fellowships.

1. We encounter Jesus.

This sounds annoyingly simple, but I'm convinced that it is often a missing piece of the church's gathering because we are not actually looking for it. What if we went to each small group, dinner with friends, time in prayer, actually expecting Jesus to be there? To expect him to have a word to say to us, peace to give, healing for us? And as we meet with Jesus, this is where our heart grows in mission. We can't be missional without knowing the love of God. Time and time again in the Bible, when Jesus heals, he first transforms the heart; he speaks our name, he sees us as we are and loves us anyway. When we have truly encountered the love of Christ, we know his goodness in the depths of our soul, we are compelled to share it. If we want to be missional people, it first comes from a place of knowing Jesus. When we meet in our bands and house fellowships, we encounter Jesus through each other. We point one another to what he is saying, we encourage one another, we listen and pray together. We need one another!

2. We listen and obey.

Sometimes the idea of being missional in the world sounds intimidating and big. Like we have to go out into the world and think of ways to be "salt and light", or have the right gospel speech. But good news! The Holy Spirit is already in every corner of the world, working and moving. All we have to do is listen to what he is already saying, and do what he asks us to do. This means we get to go out into each day with purpose! When I go to the grocery store, or talk to a client, or fix someone's sink, God is there and inviting me into what he is doing. We are equipped for being sent in our gatherings by our time around the dinner table. We share where we have seen God in our week, and practice looking for him in the every day. We pray for each other and practice listening to God speak, we learn how to have spiritual conversation with other people and how to exercise the spiritual gifts we have been given in a safe and loving community.

In Inspire we use the term, "everyday missionary", as someone who abides in Jesus and lives missionally in the world. We can't do one without the other, and it is abiding that compels us to be missional. Doesn't this make us view the world so differently, and give us so much hope and purpose in the day to day? No longer is my decision about where my kids go to school just about the best school districts, no longer is my coffee shop just a coffee shop, or my job as a nurse something different than what I do at church on Sunday. Jesus is in it all - and he is asking us to join him.