The Shape of Mission - Naturally Missional

I'm excitable So I don't think it's just me I think you're excited to be here

too It's good Not only is spring here And how about yesterday,

Because that was awesome There's a lot of exciting things happening So I get

excited when exciting things are happening Oh, you guys are going to keep talking

I'm just going to keep talking We'll see who wins I think I can talk longer

I mean, I know I can Oh, wait, you know what?

I'm going to do us all a favor and set my timer again Because this is one of

those ones that could go long So we're not going to do that There we go.

Okay so spring is here man it's exciting

and what a beautiful time what a beautiful season to live

in the state of washington we are so so excited

about what's coming the best time of the year but also you mean like an exciting

time for us as a church last week we talked about you know a big big announcement

it's not like super super surprising because we've all been knowing we've been

kind of in this process to slowly move.

And we are at present under contract to sell this building to another church, which is great.

We talked about last week how we have found a potential new building right in downtown Snoqualmie.

So it is an 11-minute drive from here, I think. So it's 11 minutes. It's very close.

But we are so continuing on in the process of purchasing that building.

And we won't do that until after this building closes. It's all contingent.

I'm not going to explain to you all the real estate stuff because it's really kind of boring.

But we are right now like in a 30-day feasibility study that ends April 25th.

So, okay, this is some pictures of the building.

If you know downtown Snoqualmie, you're familiar with this building,

but it is right in the heart of downtown Snoqualmie.

It's 11,000 square feet, top and bottom, 5,500 square feet top and bottom,

which is, you know, additional space and, you know, very obviously centrally located.

But what I want to make clear and just make sure that we're all aware of is

that this isn't 100% done deal.

We are in this feasibility study and we have, what is that?

15 or 20 days left or so? 19 days?

I don't even know what day it is. Yeah, it's the 60th. That's my problem in

life. I never know what time or day it is.

So we're in this time where before this period of time, we could just walk away

and just decide, no, this isn't for us. And there's no penalty.

We don't lose anything if we walk away during this period of time.

But our intention is to take this time really seriously and to answer lots of

questions and to ask you all to pray.

So pray, pray, pray, please pray. Like, don't pray after it's time.

Be praying now. Be praying urgently now. because we need to really hear from

the Lord because this is obviously a big decision.

There's a ton of also questions that we're asking. So, you know,

I kind of had given you some prayer requests last time and I want to give you

some updates and to remind you of those things.

So we had two big things happen this past week.

We had a meeting with the town of Snoqualmie and I say, it was great. And it really was great.

Like I have worked with towns to build churches in the past.

It's no one's favorite thing. But this meeting was really, really good.

I think everyone who was in attendance, Drew was there, our realtor was there.

Like we all walked away thinking that was like better than what we thought the

best case scenario could be in terms of like clear communication,

clear expectations from them and them being really, really flexible,

which is again, not how planning and zoning commissions generally are.

It's not their reputation, you know, really being clear and communicative with

us. So we were really happy about that.

And then we have inspections ongoing. We've done like the major building inspection.

We did some HVAC electrical.

We're doing a sewer inspection. We're doing all the inspections,

right? Some of those are still going to happen in this upcoming week.

But so far, we've had, I think, two or three of those. Yeah, three.

And, you know, there's a few things, but nothing major. So, you know,

we are, again, bringing this before the Lord, asking Him to confirm these things.

But there's a few other things I'm just asking you to continue to pray about.

We're praying about how we should proceed with like a design.

This doesn't really need a huge remodel. It's actually like a really usable space.

So it wouldn't be a lot. So that's kind of like makes you think,

okay, we don't want to over...

I want to pay somebody to do like almost no work, right? We want to have the

right partner. So we want to pray for some tenant discussions.

And there are some, the upstairs is a little bit rented.

And so that will involve just kind of working with those people over the course

of time. If we are to proceed, you know, financial provision,

I will talk about this not on a Sunday, but in a future meeting that you're welcome to come to.

This is going to take a little bit of financial work, but honestly,

it will end up saving us money year over year in terms of our operating budget,

which is really surprising and interesting.

And we can talk about that going forward. But still, you know,

we need to, there's nothing, no way forward that doesn't involve risk.

And there's a little bit of financial risk. I think it's pretty responsible.

But pray for that. And we're just, this is the most important of all.

Like we are just asking the Holy Spirit to speak to us the way he does.

Through people that as you all pray and as you guys all talk about it and as

we discern collectively what the Lord wants, that we would be confirmed that

this is maybe not the most comfortable thing for everyone,

but that we feel like the Lord is going with us because that's what matters.

That's what matters, that we be following after what the Lord is calling us to.

So please, would you continue to pray?

Would you be diligent in prayer, even if it's maybe not your habit?

Would you wrestle with this as if it was consequential to you?

Don't be like resigned. We've talked about this before. Don't be resigned and

just say, oh, well, people are just going to make decisions and I don't get a say.

Your say is you're going to the Lord. And if the Lord tells you something,

you've got to share that with us.

I've heard some people like express, oh, well, this person feels anxious.

And I'm like, well, this is the first time hearing about it.

I'd love to talk to you about that. You know, like it's not,

this is like, we've got to, we've got to communicate with each other.

You've got to communicate with the Lord. We've got to communicate with each

other. I'm trying to do that.

I'm probably not doing it as well as I could.

Mea culpa, mea culpa for the Catholics.

So anyways look at we

want to go where the lord has us going but we also want to see the lord move

in us collectively and so that involves all of us praying praying with a sense

of ownership like okay it matters that i pray so i want to invite you into that so all that said.

I wanted to just we're just leaning into this question

of mission right we've started a short series

last week and I think we'll wrap it up today very short

called the shape of mission and what I want you to understand and I feel like

I've said it but I really want to to just cement this in your mind today that

this whole context for this discussion this whole idea that we're that we're

wanting to move buildings it's about mission it is not about an upgrade of our facilities,

It's not about just more visibility from a marketing standpoint.

It's motivated by mission.

You know, I think we get those benefits. I think we do get a little bit more

space and like a pretty great facility if this is what God has for us.

We do get great visibility and to be connected into a town and into a place

in a way that we aren't necessarily out here.

We get all those things, but that's not the primary motive. This is a missional

move. And we talked about this last week. We talked about mission.

And I made, I think, a very bold claim that mission is just super essential.

That mission, that is partnering with God to get the gospel out,

to reach a broken world, a world that needs desperately to hear of the hope

that is in Jesus Christ, that that actually has to be at the center of the church.

Like it has to be a driving priority for the church.

A church that forgets about its mission, I believe, will lose its vitality over time, right?

And I'm not saying we've lost our vitality. I'm saying that I think God is calling

us to something where if we want to be going with him and we want to see him

continuing to work among us and continuing to build us up, we have to be prioritizing mission.

But maybe, and I am certain, and this is not an indictment against somebody

who feels like that, but maybe you feel a little bit of resentment about that idea.

You know, whenever change comes along, you have to kind of develop a little

sense of urgency because without urgency, no one will change.

But of course, having been on the other side of change, like,

I mean, I'm in this point, I'm kind of in the driver's seat a little bit.

I would say that I think that Jesus is in the driver's seat,

right? But I have to get up here and talk about these things.

And I've been on the other side of this, those kind of like relationships where

it feels like other people are creating urgency around a problem.

And I'm like, I don't know if I see the problem the same way.

And I'm not sure if I see the urgency. And I'm not sure if I see the need to make all of this change.

I get that. I understand that.

You might be feeling a little bit resentful about this whole thing.

Even if you can concede, and I think everybody here, because I think you guys

read the Bible, and I think we talk about mission a lot.

I think you could all concede, oh sure, it's true. Mission is important.

But maybe you're unsteady because you're worried that like centering mission

and purpose will actually end up devaluing the nature of the church itself and

will actually end up kind of like changing the church in a way that just like

feels like more driven and feels like actually kind of worldly.

And can't we just be okay with what we have?

So I'm just saying that I understand that.

I mean, have you ever been in a job, no hands, have you ever been in a job or

been in a relationship where your value is tied up in your performance.

And everyone says, oh, yeah, yeah, we've all been there.

And then when you stopped performing, you stopped doing something,

even for a minute, you were suddenly treated like a failure.

Like nobody feels like that. And so I understand that I run a risk by saying,

okay, we have this missional priority.

Like it's going to force us to make some difficult, maybe uncomfortable decisions

that you can maybe say, well, aren't we fine right now?

And what is wrong with the now? because it's like we're trading something away,

in order to get to this place.

And maybe that feels icky.

Technical term, icky.

And I just want to say, I get it.

Maybe you hear about all this missional talk and you think, isn't the church

just loved by God? Not for what it can do, but for itself.

Doesn't Jesus look at the church and say, it's my bride.

Maybe you feel like a missional move will involve trading something that is

already good and beautiful and that you've come to love.

Our little community, right, which is full of lovely people,

and we're in this beautiful setting, doesn't it feel like you're risking something

and taking some risk that you don't feel comfortable with?

And don't you risk losing special

things about the church right now if you make mission the priority?

I'm just trying to give words to some thoughts that I know some people are feeling.

And I just want to acknowledge that you're feeling that way and I want to say

that I totally understand having been in that position myself in other times,

and I will say the worry that there could be something,

that we could lose something is not illegitimate. I'm not trying to say there's no risk.

I'm not trying to say that. What I am telling you is that it is possible for

a church to get so fixated on mission that it loses sight of its nature,

its calling, what's truly beautiful about the church.

I have seen that in churches. I have been to churches like that.

But I don't believe that that is inevitable. I don't believe that when we really

prioritize mission and understand, yeah, this is really essential to who we

are, that you have to lose yourself as a church. I don't believe that's inevitable.

I've given this message the title Naturally Missional.

Naturally Missional. Because I really believe that the church that is most missional

is going to be most missional when it learns to live into its natural giftedness.

And what I am suggesting is that this is a step towards mission,

yes, but I think it will actually, in a surprising way,

enable us to actually just like center in on the most essential and natural

things about this particular church and about the calling that the church has

in our culture in this time to be missional.

That I think actually going and centering ourselves right in the middle of a

community will actually help us to not have to resort to other methods of mission,

which I think end up, honestly, yeah,

you end up trading out the most essential things when you pursue those.

I'm being a little bit critical. I'll be a little bit more critical.

I'll warn you as I go along.

I'm not talking about like, I'm not like looking at other churches right now.

I've just been doing this a long time, like in church leadership for a long time.

And I'm not saying you need to trust me, but I have seen this go really wrong.

And so I get it. But I've also seen churches on the other side say,

we're not going to change anything.

And we're going to not risk things for the sake of mission. And that doesn't

go well either. I've seen both of those things.

Like any living thing, the church is a body.

I mean, that is very biblical language for a gathering of believers. We are a body.

We are, and I believe that we are most complete when we manage to join up our

natural gifting, our natural abilities with our purpose.

And that's what I'm saying. We need to have all both those things together.

See, Paul talks about this body language of the church as a body in Romans 12,

a passage I'm sure you've read before if you've read through the Bible.

I mean, Romans is like one of those essential books that everybody reads.

He says this. He says, now, as we have many parts in one body,

all the parts don't have the same function.

The same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

According to the grace given us, we have different gifts. If prophecy,

use it according to the proportion of one's faith. If service, use it in service.

If teaching, and teach in it. If exhorting, in exhortation.

If giving with generosity, leading with diligence, showing mercy with cheerfulness.

Indirectly, I think what Paul is saying here is that he's making a really obvious

point, and one that I think is important for me to just hit really quick.

If you have been equipped for a purpose, if you have a natural gifting and ability,

a natural calling, then use it for your mission.

Like, I mean, understand that Paul is saying by his by his the argument he's

making, he's saying it's possible to have certain gifts, giving generosity,

leadership, mercy, teaching, prophecy.

Oh, I put up the wrong translation there, didn't I? Totally read a different

one than what I put up there. That's confusing.

What he's saying is that it's possible to have these gifts and to not do anything with them.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have to say, if you have this gift, use it.

If you have this calling and this ability, if you have a body that has been

equipped with these things, then use those things.

It's entirely possible for us not to do that.

The church, though, I believe is naturally missional, and it's best on mission

when it takes all the callings, all the collective giftings,

all the things that we're called to, and we start to use those things for the sake of the mission.

In our small groups, we've been going through John Mark Comer's curriculum about

Scripture, the practice of engaging with praying through, memorizing,

studying Scripture, and it's been really good.

But on Tuesday night, we just had our last meeting for our group,

and this little quote popped up. So if you were in groups, you might recognize it.

The undirected mind tends toward chaos.

That's been like ringing around in my head, and I think it's super true.

It's true of people that our minds, like our natural selves,

without some direction, without some focus, without taking on some clarifying

purpose, like we tend towards chaos, and I think it's true of the church.

An undirected church, one who forgets its mission and forgets to hold that as

a super highly important sort of value, tends towards chaos.

I thought of this image, and I thought it was good, so thank you,

Jesus. Been to the circus? Anyone been to the circus?

Been a while. It's been a while since I've been to the circus too.

But you know what a circus tent is, right?

And like, you know, the thing about a tent is like you have this big,

giant, expansive canvas, right?

And it's super great. I mean, you can seat hundreds of people and quite a few

elephants underneath a circus tent. It's amazing, right?

But a canvas alone does not make a tent.

I believe that purpose, like mission, is like the tentpole of nature. It's true in people.

It's true in the church. When we understand and lean into our purpose,

we become complete and useful for what we're called to.

A canvas sitting out, spread around, laying out in the sun, nobody can get under it.

It doesn't give shade to anybody. It doesn't provide any useful purpose.

But when the tentpole comes in, suddenly that simple thing, that one clarifying

thing that gets lifted above all else, it lifts the whole thing and gives it

shape and makes it useful. It gives it great value.

Because that there's a tentpole, something that's central, holding everything

else up, doesn't devalue the rest of the tent. It actually makes the tent useful.

It gives it purpose.

It lets it welcome people in.

I believe that is the same thing. We have giftedness. We have calling.

We're gathered together. We have a loving community here. It's beautiful.

We love you people. I love you people. It is wonderful to call I-90 home.

I am not in any way thinking that, oh, we got some problems we need to fix. It's merely this.

We're supported by this central idea that we're sent out on mission.

And the tent is not just for us, like the tent is meant to gather many in.

And so, yeah, I mean, we have to hold these things in tension,

and it's difficult sometimes.

And one thing that I just want to make super clear, I made this argument,

because I did make an argument in the 12-page paper that I wrote for you that

I'm sure all of you read with great, I don't know, interest, I don't know.

Maybe not. But here's the argument I tried to make.

I actually believe that a move is the best way for us to preserve our unique character.

Not to just like become a better church because we want to be a better church,

but actually to steady the tentpole of mission and to lift it high so that we

can do what we're called to do in a natural way,

in the unique way that this group of people,

this gathering of God's people is called to do.

And I know some of you are afraid that we will lose ourselves and lose the special

things about this church.

And I just want to acknowledge that, but I am so deeply convicted that this

move will actually allow us

to continue to center those things and to continue to value those things,

the things that make this church

special and let those things grow up into like what God has for them.

Because this move will help us be naturally missional. So I want to explain what I mean by that.

My favorite missiologist, and

we talked about missiology last week because we're talking about mission.

Missiology is the theology of mission.

It's like how do we think biblically and in a full sense about what God calls

people to as a church in our culture, in our moment, right?

Because we read the Bible and it's a super relevant, ever alive,

God always uses it to speak to us.

But of course, it presents a cultural situation that is 2,000 years ago.

And so we have to do this work of thinking, okay, 2,000 years,

how do we continue to lean into the same purpose, the same calling,

the same mission that God had back then?

And how do we continue to do that now? Because our culture is just different.

And so missiology helps us think through the questions of how do we apply the

mission in our current circumstances.

And we leaned on some missiology last week and we looked at something by Alan Hirsch.

And I want to actually just lean a little bit into another missiologist named

Leslie Newbegin. He's my favorite, one of my favorites.

And he had this obsession with this question. And it's really the most interesting

question that I can think of.

How can we, how can the church have a missionary encounter with Western culture?

This was his animating question. In all of his books, he asked this question,

usually right at the top.

He's asking this question, how can we have a missionary encounter with Western culture?

Because Newbigin's story was interesting. He is British, and just before World

War II, he moved to India as a missionary.

So early 1940s England, he goes, he spends like 30 years in India.

He does really great work there. He's a fascinating missionary,

but he comes back at the end of his career.

The Lord calls him home after 30 years in India, and it's the 1970s.

And he's like...

The country I left is not the country that I am now in because of the massive

cultural change that happened.

He's like, we had, when I left before World War II, like this really shaped

and acknowledged sense that our culture was a Christian culture.

He says, but now I've come back and the Beatles, you know, and all this,

and the, you know, the sexual revolution and all these things that are happening in England, right?

And so he's just like, he's like asking this question.

Well, like what happened and how is it that the church, which is at the heart

of British society, like the Anglican church has just become so sidelined.

How is it that we have churches on every corner and no influence anymore?

How is it that the values of secularism and consumerism have so enamored our

culture to the point where we don't even recognize the values that have so deeply shaped us.

And his argument is, and I think it's really true for us in an American context,

is that, man, we are a culture that's been deeply shaped by the gospel,

but our secularism has made us totally forget about this.

All the values of secularism, of autonomy and human rights, those are Christian

ideas. They did not exist before Jesus Christ.

The idea that everybody should have a minimal set of rights is a very Western

and a very Christian idea.

But what he's noticing is that we've tried to take the kingdom,

we've tried to take the values of Christianity, but we've tried to get rid of Jesus and the church.

And it's hard to reach a culture like that because you want to go up to people

and say, you should love one another.

That's what Jesus taught. And they say, oh yeah, we believe that too.

We just don't need Jesus.

Well, how do you encounter a culture like that?

How do you move past the walls that people have put up because they essentially

have inoculated themselves against the gospel and arranged culture in such a

way that they intentionally can ignore the witness of the church?

So Nubian is asking this question, how do we have a missionary encounter with the church.

And he argues this, and I just love this answer. And this is what I think,

like, hey, if we want to be on mission, this is it.

How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come

to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented

by a man hanging on a cross?

And I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic,

that is interpretation, the only interpretive way of explaining the gospel,

is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.

He goes on, he says, I am, of course, not denying the importance of the many

activities which we seek to challenge public life with the gospel,

evangelistic campaigns, distribution of Bibles,

and Christian literature, conferences, even books, and I added,

or YouTubes and podcasts. He didn't have those things, right?

But this is what we do now. But I am saying that these are all secondary and

that they have power to accomplish their purposes only as they are rooted in

and lead back to a believing community.

Jesus did not write a book. He formed a community.

You know, the question is, how has the church persisted over millennia?

And it's been that there have been people who are just living according to this

belief and confidence in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That Jesus Christ, the man who came, God in the flesh, died for all people 2,000

years ago, that he remains the most relevant and important and world-altering

and life-altering and eternity-altering fact,

that his death, his resurrection remains the center point of all history,

all human experience, all knowledge, all wisdom, that it's all focused on and centered around Jesus.

And the gospel has gone forward because there have been communities of men and

women who just have like said, I will trade all the crazy things that the world

dangles in front of me and I will live like to the point where they think I'm an idiot,

because I just look at Jesus and I think he is the answer.

He's the answer that I've been longing for. He's the one who saved me.

And so I'm going to build my whole life around it.

And like, whatever, whatever people think of it, that's fine.

See, I believe that this move is a way for us to get mission and preserve our

community because what it does is it takes a beautiful group of people who I

love, and I know you guys love the Lord,

and I know you're trying to live for the Lord as disciples,

and what it does is it just puts us in a place where we can interface with people

in a way that we can't really right now as a collective.

It puts the community just in a visible place.

And I know that's uncomfortable, but I think that is so much better than all

the other methods that we could try to employ because I think this is the one

that's true to the gospel.

I think this is one that's true to the book of Acts. Like when Paul went into

Ephesus or Corinth or whatever place he was going to, he didn't set up,

find the biggest building on the outskirts of town with the most camel parking.

And then he's like, I'm going to be the best teacher. And so people are going

to come out of their towns and they're going to come to us because we're going

to be the biggest thing in town.

I'm being a little critical. I'm being a little judgy, right?

He said, we're just going to go. What would we do? Paul would come into a town.

He'd find somebody who would let him move into their house and host a gathering

of people right among people, right where people are at.

And by doing that, by simply showing up in someone's house, by preaching the

gospel among people and like tapping into the social networks of the towns where he lived,

the gospel went out through the whole kingdom, which is very different,

I think, than the way we tend to conceive of mission.

When I've talked about mission with people, including pastors,

they're always like, well, what's the program? What's the vehicle for mission.

And I always want to be like, I think it's just the church.

I think it's just like a beautiful community, like rooted in,

in, in believing what Jesus has.

Um, in 2025, when we talk about being a missional church, we tend to think about

putting on the most killer Sunday service ever where everybody's walking out and they're hyped.

I saw, I saw, I'm really trying to say this without judgment.

I just like, like, honestly, it's not, it's not that I like,

I don't really care what other people do, but I just know that some things really

bore me and some things really turned me off.

I was like on Twitter. I will always call it Twitter.

And there was a pastor who's like, I mean, like really successful.

And I'm sure he's like seeing a lot of people come to Jesus, like God bless him.

But he said, every Sunday should feel like the last day at camp.

And I'm like, I would hate that. Like, I mean, just like the hype.

Like, did you guys go to Christian summer camp?

Every summer. I went every summer and every summer, every summer for three years

in a row, I would come home and I'd throw all my CDs in the trash.

And every summer I'd buy them again, throw them back in the trash.

And then Napster came along game over.

I'll get them right there. I'll steal them.

And we all thought this was okay. Remember that when we all thought,

well, just steal things. It'll be fine.

Oh, it's just not really stealing. Well, you were paying for it before.

How is it not stealing now? Oh, well, you know, So anyways, life is really funny.

Look at guys. I mean, like I get it. Like we can, we can, we,

I want our services to be great. I want our best, everyone to come in here and

feel like, oh man, the Lord was present.

Like it was good, but my gosh, I don't want to live like that.

Like, I'm not sure if maturity looks like being hyped up all the time.

I kind of don't think it does.

And a lot of our methods come down to that. You know what?

Like I want us to have a great kids ministry, right? But a lot of times it's

like, okay, we're just going to put in the biggest facilities and draw in all

the families and they're going to come and it's going to be great.

And like, yeah, that's good.

But it can easily become about those things really quickly and not about the

simple realities of the church being like a gathering of people who believe

and live by the word of God.

Think about all the stuff that draws people into church and,

And I think, honestly, that the playbook in the United States right now is let's

get people out of their communities and into a separate kind of one,

as opposed to let's put people in their communities.

Like, let's embed the church deeply into a place and have it be committed to

a place where they can interface with unbelievers.

And so I'm just suggesting that by putting ourselves in a visible place,

rooting into a community very deeply, into this downtown Snoqualmie area,

it actually helps us to be on mission.

While centering the most essential parts of our life.

That we're just a church that lives after, believes in the gospel,

and tries to follow Jesus.

There's a lot of ways to reach the church. Okay, so just to wrap things up and

bring a little more clarity, and let me check my time.

I've got much less time than I expected. Par for the course.

Okay, so to put some flesh on these bunts. Like, what are the things?

What are these things that the believing and living by community looks like?

New Begin at least gives us six, and I'm not going to talk about all six because

a six-point message, I've got six minutes. That's not happening.

I'm going to talk about three of them, right? And I'll just,

like, leave the other ones up to you. So he has this list of six characteristics

of a missional community.

And he says, like, if the church, to the extent the church is doing these things,

which are really just an outflow of them believing and living by the gospel, like, this is enough.

To have a missionary encounter with a secular culture.

And I mean, there are things that I feel like we'd be like, oh yeah,

we get it. And I'm just going to read them all.

And then we'll go through three of them in particular. That's all we'll have time for.

It's going to be a community of praise.

It's going to be a community of truth. It will be a community that does not

live for itself, but is deeply involved in the concerns of its neighborhood.

It will be a community where men and women are prepared for and sustained in

the exercise of the priesthood of the world. That is to just be people who are

ministering the gospel to people.

And it will be a community of mutual responsibility.

And I added, also known as love. And it will be a community of hope.

Guys, if you want to know what I think our church should look like and should

be focused on, it's honestly like leaning into these things.

I think if we lean into these things, like the missional stuff will just take care of itself.

Like if we are living out the gospel in these ways, like people are going to notice.

So I just wanted to talk about three of them. The first one is it'll be a community of praise.

I mean, gosh, praise is so central. I mean, the whole life of Israel in the

Old Testament, the whole life of the people of God is built around his praise.

Their whole calendar is built around the times when we would gather together

to focus on him and to sing his praise and remind ourselves of all his mighty

acts and the things that he's done and his faithfulness through generations.

I think of Psalm 22, 3.

It says, you are wholly enthroned on the praises of Israel.

NKJV translates that as that God inhabits the praises of his people.

Sadly, it's not actually what the language says, but that's so cool,

isn't it? That God is enthroned on the praises.

That as Israel gathers together, as God's people gather together, God is among them.

Or I think of like Luke 19, 37 through 40.

We're coming into Palm Sunday next week. So this is a good Palm Sunday text.

It says, As Jesus came down from the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the

disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen.

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.

And some of the Pharisees from the crowd told him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

And he answered, I tell you, if they were to keep silence, the stones would cry out.

When Jesus comes, when he shows up in the world,

his people respond with praise to the point where Jesus like recognizes that,

man, if God's people don't look at what I've done, if they don't look at the

gospel, if they don't look at their coming king and their Messiah and receive them with praise,

oh man, God's going to take care of it by any means necessary because of course

they need to be people of praise.

Newbigin says this. I think it's astounding how true it is. I never thought

about this. He says this.

Praise is an activity which is almost totally absent from modern society.

The Christian congregation, by contrast, is a place where people find their

true freedom, their true dignity, their true equality in reference,

that should say reference, to one who is worthy of all the praise that we can offer.

The Christian congregation meets as a community that acknowledges that it lives

by the amazing grace of a boundless kindness.

Not how great our building is, not all this other stuff, but just like,

man, a community that just says, the only reason any of us are here is because

we've seen and known the boundless kindness of God demonstrated for us on a cross.

And here's the thing, knowing that and being people who talk about that,

two separate movements.

Just like having the gift of prophecy and using the gift of prophecy,

using it according to its purpose, according to the reason that this thing was

given to you is different.

We've been given so much grace and so much kindness.

To what end? Well, I mean, to honestly, to salvation, to the completion of our

souls, to our calling and purpose, but also that feeds right into the mission of God,

to be naturally people who just look at the world and say, everybody else feels

like this is a rat race. And sometimes I do.

And everybody else feels like the world is broken and it's going to pot.

But I know it's actually going to his glory.

I know that God is intervening in the world. I know that he is kind and gracious

to broken and hurting people.

And so God's people are people who recognize that, who've seen that in the gospel,

and then are people who are sharing that. And that's coming out of their lips.

We're praising God. Not in a forcibly kind of way, but like,

it's just a natural outflow of being a people who believe in and live by the gospel.

You ever met somebody who's just always joyful and naturally so?

We've all met the person who always acts like they're joyful, right?

But you meet some people, usually they're just mature Christian saints who are

just like full of joy and they just radiate it.

And amazingly, those people are also people who are bringing others to Jesus.

Because of the joy that's coming out of them, it's infectious, it's contagious.

You know, guys, we're maybe going to be in this community in downtown Snoqualmie,

and I think we can be a community of praise there.

And I think that will be a huge witness just to come into that place and to

be people who praise, who look to what is beautiful and celebrate it.

I want to keep going because I'm running out of time.

Skipping to number four. It will be a community where men and women are prepared

for and sustained in the exercise of the priesthood in the world.

Look, I mean, the thing that I talk about a lot is just being everyday disciples.

Oh, okay. That was very loud.

I have still Five minutes That was my pre-alarm Yeah It's always five more minutes

No, no, no, I think I can do it in five We only got one page left So we're on our way,

I talk about everyday discipleship You know, and it's like It's not just that

I like Want you to be good little boys and girls And oh, Jesus says you gotta

be a disciple So that'll be good But honestly, we are participants

We are called to be priesthood a royal generation, a priesthood that's proclaiming

the praises of God in the world.

And sometimes that takes like some discipline. It takes this connection with God.

It takes a willingness to go out and bless other people and to be a light in

your life and in your community and to live according to your calling.

And it's super essential. Newbigin points out one little, I think,

really, really awesome aspect of this.

He says, it is, I think, very significant that in the consistent usage of the

New Testament of the word ekklesia, which is the word in ancient Greek for the church, ekklesia,

it is qualified in one of two ways, the church of God or of Christ.

And it is the church of a place. So he says, every time the New Testament uses

the word church, it's the church of God or Christ.

So relationship to God and relationship to a place, the church in Ephesus, the church in Corinth.

He says, a Christian congregation is defined by this twofold relationship.

It's God's embassy in a specific place.

Either of these vital relationships may be neglected. The congregation may be

so identified with the place that it ceases to be the vehicle of God's judgment

and mercy for that place and becomes simply the focus of the self-image of the people of that place.

What New Begin is challenging us to do, and I think it's beautiful, it's right on.

I think it's the same thing that John was challenging the church for when he

closed out the book 1 John.

When he said 1 John 5, 21, he says, "'Little children, keep yourselves from idols.'".

Like, you know what? Like, we want to be a church that's going to a place and

bringing the gospel into that place. He says, but how do you do that?

Actually, you don't take on all the idolatry of that place.

You come as a vehicle of God's mercy, his care, his love for those people who

are blind and who don't see how much he loves them.

Also, for his judgment. So he's saying, you like, like the church can be in

a place and call out what's wrong with it. You can call it the apathy and the

brokenness and the sin of a place Not in a rude way, but in a way to say Would

you just get healing for this thing?

But you know what, like this rootedness and presence in a place Like it's just

absolutely essential It's the context for the gospel to go out But who can do

those things except people who are not themselves Taking on all this idolatry,

So if we go to downtown Snoqualmie,

Some of y'all are Snoqualmieites, right?

So you guys, what's the idolatry of Snoqualmie?

Work? Career? Money?

And so yeah, am I saying quit your job? No, I'm saying we can be believing people.

We can be believing people who are living in this community,

who are like this community, but who are not buying into the false hopes.

So we can be people who care about things of the Lord over money.

And just doing that in a way that people can see, Like, that's a missional prerogative.

We can, I'm going to meddle. We can look at this beautiful world with all its

mountain biking trails and hiking trails and the lakes and rivers.

We can do that and we can enjoy them without worshiping them and making our

lives revolve all around them.

Right? We can do those things, but we can be in a place as the representative

of the gospel, and we cannot let our identity be rooted into the things that other people worship.

We can just say, no, like, yeah, we love all these things. We love the things

that our community has that are great and beautiful and wonderful,

but we can always point past those things to the greater goodness and beauty of the Lord.

And then finally, we'll be a community of mutual responsibility, also known as love.

I mean, Jesus said it in John 13, 35, by this, they will know that you are my

disciples. If you love one another.

Back then, what was going to be the distinctiveness of people who follow after

Jesus, Jesus says, it's going to be that you would love one another because

people don't love each other.

People tolerate each other at best.

People like each other, but it's like a pretty limited set of people.

But to love each other is, man, it's otherworldly. It's a gift from God.

And love is expressed not with our feelings, not with the vibes,

but in this sense of mutual responsibility for one another.

Newbigin says this, he says, and this is the last Newbigin quote, I promise,

the deepest root of the contemporary malaise of Western culture is an individualism,

which denies the fundamental reality of our human nature as given by God,

namely, that we grow into our true humanity only in relationships to faithfulness

and responsibility toward one another.

The local congregation is called to be, and by the grace of God often is,

such a community of mutual responsibility.

Worship team's gonna come up here, but I just wanna lean into this thing.

It is a unique calling of Christians to love one another.

And I know, this is, again, we live in this secular culture that says,

oh, of course, we all wanna love one another.

That means we'll let each other do whatever terrible thing that's actually not

good for them, and we won't say anything, and that's love.

But actually, Christian understanding of love is, no, actually,

you care about someone enough to lift them up when they're broken.

You care about someone enough to take their burdens upon your own self.

You care about someone enough to actually say, hey, I think there's so much

better for you. There could be something so much better for you in your life.

That's actually an expression of love. Not in a judging way,

not in a condemning kind of way, but in just like, hey, God is so good.

Can't you wake up and see that? And won't you know his goodness?

Because he's willing to pour it out upon you.

That kind of mutual responsibility that looks at a world that's increasingly

just becoming individualistic, putting up bubbles,

saying, oh, I don't need other people in my life, and simultaneously growing

more anxious, more depressed, more suicidal every single year,

we look at that culture and we just say, no, we're just not going to be okay with this.

We're not going to let people just continue to just like get unhinged and get disconnected.

Instead, we're going to be people of mutual responsibility. We're going to be

people who see hurting and broken people and just say, oh, I think I'm supposed to help you.

And I'm going to inconvenience myself to do so. Because that's what love does.

And I love this point.

To the extent that we do this, like, man, we just become people of fullness.

Love is this contradictory thing because sometimes in love, I was talking to

somebody recently this week, and they pointed out that love actually is really painful sometimes.

Because love is just like, it's this attitude which looks at the good of another

and says, whatever that person needs, I'm going to give to them, even if it costs me.

And at some point you realize, oh, it hurts. It costs me something to love people.

But I think the fullness of the Christian life, the Christian life that's given

over to love says, yeah, it does.

It costs me something. It costs me my time. It costs me attention.

It costs me my affection.

It costs me like bearing one another's burdens, taking on their emotional pain

and their difficulty. Yeah, that hurts sometimes.

And like, but mature Christianity says, I'm not gonna actually have to manage that burden myself.

Because if you try to love people in your own strength, you'll go this deep.

But Christian maturity says, I don't have to love people with my own strength.

I actually can rest on the supply of the Holy Spirit.

I can rest on the supply of the Lord. Like I can learn to love and give myself

away joyfully so that the point that it feels like it hurts is,

but I can rely on God who's going to strengthen me and sustain me for these things.

Guys, I think there's nothing more powerful for us to do missionally than to

honestly lean into the things that I know this community already loves.

I think we demonstrate all six of these things to a strong degree.

We are a community that loves one another. We're a community that wants to give

ourselves and sacrifice for one another.

So what I'm just saying is that let's continue to do these things.

These are the things I think that actually make this community special.

These are things that the Lord has been doing among us. And by centering ourselves

in a community, I think honestly it gives us room to just be both on mission,

but also to focus in on demonstrating these things more and more.

That's all I'm going to say about it.

So look, if you have questions, if you have concerns, please,

would you come and talk to me? I'd love to talk to you.

I'm not trying to, I'm not, I hope at this point.

I hope at this point we have enough trust that we can talk about things.

So if you have questions, if you have issues, if you have concerns,

like talk about them. Don't think I know because I don't. I have a lot of ADHD.

I don't notice things. I don't know things.

I have all kinds of problems and issues. But I'm really just like persuaded

that this is something, a step that we are being led to. And here's the thing.

It doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't necessarily, I don't want to say

this in a rude way, it doesn't matter what you think. The question is,

what is God leading us to?

I do think he's leading us to good things here.

We have some time to pray about this. Would you pray? Would you pray?

Would you? I just plead with you. Would you pray?

Would you have the conversations? Would you ask the questions that you need to ask?

And a big part of that is coming up this Tuesday.

This Tuesday, April 8th, we're going to be meeting at the building.

Because I realized, well, you haven't been there. You don't know what this place

is. How can this be the right place?

It'd be a great time for you to take a tour.

Seven o'clock at the building, 3180 Railroad Avenue. The address was on the beginning.

It's coming out in the email and everything like that. So come at seven o'clock.

We're gonna gather in this space. We'll take some time to pray.

We'll take some time to gather. It's kind of like a drop-in.

You don't have to be there right at seven. You can be there right at seven if

you'd like. I don't expect it to take you an hour to walk through.

But try to be there. Like try to be there and then to be prayerful as we go

along here, as we seek the Lord together.

And if you can't, because I know actually some people are out of town and stuff

like that, I will give you a private tour.

Please not as plan A, because I'd rather not have 40 private tours in the next two weeks.

But I will, I will. Like if that's something that you can't make it on Tuesday

night, you absolutely can't make it. I will give you a tour.

I will make sure you can get in there so that you can see what we're praying

about and so that you can pray along with us.

All right. So Lord, thank you. Thank you for this congregation, God.

We seek your face right now. And Lord, even right now, as we're going to go

into a time of worship, God, we remind ourselves that you're a God who speaks

and who leads his people.

Lord, would you speak to us right now? Would you build us up?

Would you encourage us, Lord?

Would you provide all the clarity that we need, Lord?

Would you help us to answer our questions and to come out and to love one another

well and to care for one another, Lord?

And if we need to, to seek you in anything, Lord. We need you to just speak to us, God.

So, Lord, we just, I want us to take a moment right now and just sit in quiet.

The music can keep going, but just to sit in quiet and just say,

Lord, we welcome you in this place.

Music.

In us that's anxious, Lord,

whatever's untrusting, whatever hurt that we have, whatever fear that we have,

Lord, we just lay them at your feet, Lord.

Lord, and sometimes our fears are good. They're a proper warning.

And sometimes our fears are not good. They're not worth bearing.

So Lord, would you help us sift through our hearts right now and get our eyes.

Music.

Focused upon you, Jesus.

Teach us to be people who live by your gospel, who live according to your freedom

and live by the power of your spirit, Jesus.

So Lord, as we praise you right now, would you inhabit the praises of your people, Lord?

This is just a welcome mat for you to do whatever you want, including telling us to turn around.

We're doing the wrong thing, God. Whatever you want, we want to hear from you, Jesus.

So come, speak to us now, we pray. Let's worship. Let's worship.