church Posts

When the Church Leaves the Building

29 Mar , 2008 1 Comment

What happens when the church leaves the building?  We’re about to find out.  The truth is the Church spends most of its time outside the building and was never intended to stay in the building.  If you’ve been around First McKinney much lately, you know that we seek to be a church on mission with Jesus in the world.  Jesus has come to transform our hearts so we can transform our world with His love. 

Our focus in April is “Transform Your World” and throughout the month we’ll explore what happens “When the Church Leaves the Building”.   We seek to rediscover the forgotten mission of Jesus and begin to look at the Church and our world in brand new ways.  We seek to be a source of healing wherever we encounter injustice, discord, and neglect.  We believe that Jesus is the Answer and He is the One who brings hope and healing to all people through us.   

On April 27th we will literally “leave the building” and worship the Lord through service in our community.  Instead of going to church, we’re going to be the church.  Our entire church family will be on mission throughout the weekend.  It will be a wild and wonderful display of the radical grace of Jesus.  The entire month will culminate on May 5th with our annual “Transform Your World” offering.  It is going to be an earth-shaking, heaven-descending kind of movement of God’s people.  Watch while stories of redemption emerge as we go find Jesus on the move and join Him in what He’s doing.  (We’ve got a hunch as to where we might find Him- among the least and lost of our community). 

Jump in and hang on!  www.fbcmckinney.com/Default.aspx?p=14526

Upside Down Under Christmas- jeff warren

10 Dec , 2007 No Comments

This year Stacy and I have decided to have an upside down Christmas.  In fact, I want to challenge you to have an upside down Christmas as well.  We’re going to work hard to make this Christmas different in many ways.  As you know, Christmas is celebrated differently around the world.  It is no surprise to any of us that here in America it has become a focus on materialism and getting more stuff we don’t need.  So much so that those of us who truly want to celebrate the Savior’s birth need to be very intentional in doing so.  There’s one place in the world, however, where Christmas looks altogether upside down.   

I love Australia but if you go “down under” (to Australia or New Zealand) you’ll truly experience an “upside down Christmas”.  You see, there it’s summertime.  December through February is the warmest time of the year and Christmas is right in the middle of summer.  Santa is coming to town on a surfboard and Rudolph’s red nose is going to need some sunscreen.  The only white Christmas they’ll see is the white sand on Bondi Beach.  Instead of elves scurrying around, you may need to watch for koalas crawling around in the eucalyptus trees.  It’s cooler in the south and it’s warmer in the north and the currents flow in opposite directions.  Don’t throw another log on the fire unless you’re putting it on the “barbie”.  What a strange Christmas that would be for those of us who live on the “right” side of the world.      

This year let’s devote ourselves to an upside down Christmas.  I want Christmas this year to look altogether different from what our world has made it out to be.  Instead of the rat race of shopping and running from one event to the next, I’m going to slow down and spend more time in conversation with those I love.  Instead of seeing what I might get, I’m going to join a bunch of my favorite people and see what we can give to our community.  We’re going to the Samaritan Inn to sing with the homeless and spread some Christmas love to those who, like baby Jesus, have no place to lay their heads this Christmas.  Instead of racing through the holidays, I’m going to pause and pray and thank God for His Son, my Savior.  Instead of looking through the latest catalog of gifts available, I’m going to look through His Word and discover the gift of His love for me.   Not getting, but giving.  Not me, but others.  Ah yes, I’m having an upside down Christmas. 

It’s always been that way you know- upside down.  The big God became small.  Spirit took on flesh.  Holiness came to a sinful world.  The perfect was clothed in imperfection.  The sinless took on sin.  The eternal stepped into time.  The One who is life died for me.  What an upside down Christmas.  “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” 1 Corinthians 1:27.  An upside down Savior.  That’s the God we worship.  That’s the God of Christmas.  Let’s make this one different.  Let’s have an upside down Christmas. 

Merry Christmas from the Warren family to you and yours. 

We love you. 

A whole lotta prayin’ goin’ on

23 Oct , 2007 No Comments

I love the old negro spirituals.  This sounds like a good one.  But it’s actually the story of what’s been going in our church family.  There’s been a whole lot of praying going on.  FBC McKinney has been so committed to private, “in your room” kind of prayer (Matthew 6:6), that we actually have a prayer room for people to access any time 24/7/365.  This month we’re celebrating 20 years of prayer in our Prayer Room.  Since 1987 we’ve had 9,653 people ask for prayer (by filling out a prayer card), and 18,458 people pray over those cards.  Nearly 10,000 cards prayed over multiple times daily; this adds up to hundreds of thousands of prayers!  That’s amazing!  Our church has been marked by prayer.  In fact, I’ve said it’s the most important ministry of the church- any church! This month we’ve been learning to pray like Jesus.  Here’s why this is SO big.  Think about it: The KEY to your Christian life is not found in what you know about God, not even what you do for God, but in the intimacy that you have with God through Christ, and the character and the qualities that are produced as a result of that one relationship.  That’s the ONE thing He’s called you to.  And as Oswald Chambers has noted, it’s the one thing that will be constantly under attack in your life.  Are you committed to daily, consistent, intentional prayer?  How are you doing?  If you want to be a Kingdom person and allow His will to be done in your life, it will all start with prayer.

Missional Musings

22 Mar , 2007 No Comments

More Missional Musings…  A conversation about what God is up to in the world.

By Jeff Warren-2/2/-07 

There is much talk about being “missional” these days.  Some suggest that the buzz was created by Brian McClaren who used the word in his book, “Generous Orthodoxy” (subtitled, “Why I am a missional, evangelical, etc…).  Surely the word was around before 2004, but regardless of where it originated, it’s a worthy discussion.  What does it mean to be missional- as a church or as an individual?  Even Wikipedia has joined the mix.  It defines “missional” as “As commonly used today, the word describes the way in which Christians do all their activities, rather than identifying any one particular activity.  To be missional is to align one’s life with the redemptive mission of Jesus in the world.   The concept is rooted in the alignment of every believer and every church with Jesus’ mission in the world, just as Jesus knew His mission and aligned Himself with that mission.   A missional church aligns all of the program, function, and activities of the church around the redemptive mission of God in the world.” (Man, that’s pretty good stuff).Contrary to the opinion of many (most?) American church-goers, Jesus did not come to establish an institution, club, or political party.  He said He came (and I quote) “to seek and to save that which is lost” (Matthew 19:10) -really, no more, no less.  I was in a conversation today with a dear friend in ministry who’s in a very large and influential church in North Carolina.  He said his church recently announced (through the elders) that they were not seeking to be a church for post-moderns.  Isn’t that another way of saying we are not a church seeking to reach this culture?  Notice, I said, “this culture”, not “emerging culture”.  Post-modernity is hardly “emerging” as it’s been here for years.  In fact, signs of postmodern thought began to emerge in the 20s and clearly began to be defined following WWII.  Its impact and influence has already permeated my generation.  It seems that only “church people” seem to think that it is “emerging” or “on the way”, in the form of secularism.  Whatever is emerging is post-post-modern.  What many Christians don’t understand is that, first of all, post-modernity is not the enemy (anymore than modernity was to the former generation), it’s simply what it is- the culture we live in, the air we breathe; or at least, where most of us “live and move and have our being”.  Secondly, Jesus did not ask us to choose which generation we might want to reach.   So, what does it really mean to be missional?  Simply put, it’s living on mission with Jesus.  It’s joining Him in what He’s up to in the world.  Jesus came to seek and to save that which is lost.  The person on mission with Jesus is up to the same thing Jesus is.  He or she sees God at work every day and joins Him in what He’s doing.  The missional person sees the world the way God does: primarily as the context within which we engage others in His redemptive plan.  Missional people see others the way God does: every human soul is valuable and every person desiring to live forgiven can actually find that life in Jesus.Of course, all of this starts when we fully embrace the grace of Christ.  Once I realize that He has not only forgiven me but has made me the “righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21), I can live forgiven.  Only then can I really lead others to live forgiven.  This is at the heart of missional living.  Most believers have not appropriated this most critical truth and, as a result, the church- the expression of God and His grace in the world- is not communicating the true Message of Jesus. Oh, we’re sending out a message alright, I’m just not sure it’s His.  This week I heard Rob Bell (via the Nooma film, “Bullhorn”), ask the question: “Why is it that so few have become the voice for so many?”  That question has haunted me since because I think it cuts to the heart of what’s wrong with the evangelization of the West (and the rest of the world for that matter).  The guy with the bullhorn is the only one heard.Unfortunately, as Erwin McManus has noted, “Jesus has been lost in a religion that bears His name”.  We’ve become too “civilized”, too sanitized.  We need to find our way out of civilization and back to the “barbarian way”.  Anyone who wants to live missional must become a barbarian.  This takes much courage among civilized believers because barbarians make civilized people nervous.  In fact, if the truth be known, civilized people don’t like them.  Their very lives challenge the civilized to, at least, get out of their comfort zone and, at most, abandon much of what they thought Christianity was in the first place. As we have become more civilized the church has become more institutionalized.  Joey White (our North Campus Pastor) and I were talking yesterday, and he noted that post moderns want to give their lives to a cause, not an institution.  He’s right, but is that really a “post-modern” thing?  Isn’t that a “missional” thing; a Jesus thing?  I think so.  It resonates with post moderns because it resonates with the human soul.  You and I want to be a part of something bigger in the world, something that matters.  And what Jesus is about in the world matters most.  Once understood, who wouldn’t be drawn to that? Together, we (at FBC McKinney and friends in the missional community) are learning what it means to be on mission with Christ.  One learning is that we need to shift our orientation.  The church does not simply have a “missions ministry” or a “missions pastor” or simply go on “mission trips” (though critical as we’ll discuss later); the church is missions.  The church is on mission.  We don’t just do missions, we are the mission.  The need for the church to recognize that the church is “mission” itself rather than “mission orientated” has been adequately discussed by Bishop Hwa Yung in his book, Mangoes or Bananas?, long before the word “missional” appeared.  His comments on theology and culture are worth reading.My long-time friend, Tim Conder, author and guest columnist for LeadershipJournal.net, asked in his article, “Missional Buzz”, whether there is such a thing as a “missional church”.  To answer his own question, Tim offers some characteristics of a “missional church”:
(1) Missional communities try to align themselves holistically with God’s theme of redemption.
(2) Programming and finances are directed outward.
(3) Missional communities are discontent with spiritual formation as primarily cognitive assent.
(4) Embracing the ethnic and social diversities of local communities is becoming a moral expectation.
(5) Missional communities are not only ardent listeners for the earmarks of God’s redemptive work in our world, these communities are passionate activists when they find the pathways and trajectories of God’s redemptive presence.If these five marks define a missional church, I’m in.  If our church would be defined as “missional” by possessing these characteristics, then let’s seek (‘til our last dying breath!) to be missional.  I think you would agree.  We have, for too long, thought that missions is something the church does as people grow in Christ and reach some kind of spiritually elite status.  It seems to me that challenging and engaging people in missions at the front end of the community is as much a form of evangelism as it is anything.  Think about it, are we seeking to win people to Jesus so they can accept a certain set of truths or join a particular institution?  Again, isn’t it more about joining the movement of Christ and what He’s up to in the world?  Didn’t Jesus say that following Him means that we join Him in His mission?  If a lost person first sees what God is up to in the world (through us) wouldn’t they want to join in?  They might respond, “I’m not sure I believe in God, but I can’t explain you.”  Or, “I don’t know about Jesus but I believe in what you’re doing to help others.”  Didn’t Jesus Himself say, in John 10:38, “If you don’t believe in me, you can at least believe in the things you see me doing?”  People might say, “If Jesus is somehow behind the motivation for people to give themselves away like this, I’m in”, or at least, “I’m now open to checking this out.”  Could it be that mission involvement can serve as the front door, not the side door or the back door (or perhaps a more apt analogy- the window most simply look through but never pass through)?That leads me to another thought: We now live in the most exciting time in church history for the missional believer, for one reason: the airplane.  I know it’s not the most spiritual answer but we can now join other believers around the world in what God is doing.  And we can really join them, not just send money to a few who might.  We realize that God’s work is global and what we’re doing locally (wherever that may be) is simply part of the Big Story of God’s redemptive work in the world.  Long-time pastor in London and emerging church leader, Bryan Dolye, calls involvement in partnership missions a “fast-track” toward spiritual formation and missional living.  It’s true.  How many people do you know who, though well-intentioned, went to Sunday School or some Bible study for years and then went on a ten-day mission trip and were never the same again.  The light finally came on.  What happened?  They were able to see the world as God does and join Him in His mission in it.  They began to see their every daily lives from His perspective.Join me in this “stream of consciousness” dialogue.  I’m just a catalyst in this experiment- a short blog.  I just wanted to start the conversation.  Big or small, join in.