An Open Letter to our Church

November 28, 2017

Dear Radiant Juneau,

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.” I find myself overwhelmed with humility, great joy and gratitude that Deb and I get to be the church with you all. Whatever it is Radiant Church Juneau has become in the past year, we can agree that it is the work of the Holy Spirit in us that agrees with the promise Jesus made, that “He would build His Church.”

This is the time of year when I find myself more joyfully reflective, and with that more cautiously evaluative. Together with our other elders we reflect on God’s many tangible expressions of grace to us, and we’re asking evaluative questions of ourselves and for our church.

One question: “Are we really communicating, and does everyone in our church together believe who Jesus is and what He’s done?” 2 Corinthians 11:4 says, For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus other than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

Our unity is, and must be around the Good News of Jesus, the Father’s great expression of His love through grace for rebels. The gospel is our unifying factor and rally point. Disunity can come when unmet expectations and/or cultural preferences are given more weight than the truth and grace of the gospel. While we say we are about the gospel, and growing in “gospel fluency” with each other, there might remain some gaps.

The big question on my own heart is this: “Are we making disciples?” And with that, “What is our plan for making disciples?” I wonder if in our now 5 gospel communities we are confident in saying that we are indeed making disciples of each other (?) I hope the old adage, "Failure to plan is planning to fail" will not be true of us.

Making disciples is the Great Commission Jesus left with us (Matthew 28:19-20), the job of the Church. As a “Family of Servant Missionaries learning to be and make Disciples,” we’re strong in our family identity and in our servant identity. We’re doing well in raising up new teachers and leaders. We’re really growing in our capacity to worship God when we’re gathered together. However, we may need to grow in our missionary identity as a church, before we can confidently say we’re making disciples.

Writer and theologian N.T. Wright said,  “Worship and mission are conjoined twins…two components of the angled mirror vocation of God’s people to reflect God to the world (mission) and reflect the people to God (worship.”) As a church, we need to prayerfully consider and broaden our commitment to mission, specifically in our city, and to resourcing the planting of new churches in our region and state. Would it not be earth shaking and life changing if each of us were to commit to gospel saturation in our city, devoted to every man, woman and child having repeated opportunities to hear, see and believe the gospel of Jesus?

This next year, your elders are looking for effective ways and means to help us make disciples. We need a plan. We sense the need to provide resources so Moms and Dads can disciple their children, and so each of us can be discipled and make disciples of our Lord Jesus. It won’t happen unless each of us value disciple making as our primary life’s vocation. My current favorite blues artist, Jonny Lang, sings this: “You’re waiting for the mountain to move…but the mountain is waiting on you.” Look for some of our GC’s to shake things up a bit in a collective effort to be more effective in making disciples...who make disciples.

                                                     

Radiant Church Juneau is a serving church. Many of us serve each week in hauling gear, leading our children’s ministries and leading worship on Sundays. We have certainly grown as generous givers in this past year. But the question may still remain: “Are we communicating a discipleship/church participation that is too easy…at least for the majority of us?

Your elders are, really for the first time, looking at the merits (and potential pitfalls) of introducing church membership. All of us have histories, therefore opinions on church membership. But, if a more formalized membership can be an effective disciple-making tool for us, we need to consider it.

This fall, we’ve learned together from the Apostle Peter’s first letter that our unity in worship, in service, in mission, even in the midst of suffering and persecution is what makes God’s people distinctive. There is the old saying: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”

We’re an exceedingly nice group of people. I like being around us. But, like you, I don’t want to be satisfied with being religious, content to just go through the motions. Please, join me in asking God to give His Holy Spirit absolute if not ruthless freedom to make us into passionate and committed followers of Jesus.

In this next year, wouldn’t it be incredible if Juneauites would look at us and demand an explanation for who we are and how we live? And that would quickly take the conversation to who Jesus is and what He’s done!

Together with you for God’s glory and Jesus’s fame,

Mike (for the elders)

Church Planting and Lessons Learned

I didn't set out to be a church planter, a guy who starts churches from scratch. It just happened. Church planting is a young man's game. And I now only qualify as being young at heart.

And after some years of starting churches I realize my perspective is changing, and I've learned some things along the way.

Our first church plant was indirectly based on a church model that wasn't ultimately sustainable. And, if that model had been sustainable, I wasn't good enough to do the sustaining. I'm an okay preacher, but no one downloads my podcasts. I don't have any podcasts for you to download. I don't write books.

Our little church is now growing. A couple of people (really, just a couple) have asked me in recent days, "What are you doing different?" My answer: "nothing." (I won't be writing any books on church planting success, unless it's entitled" "Just Show Up.")

Now in our second church plant, I realize I've had to learn some things, some vital lessons. And these lessons have caused me to ask questions of myself:

1) Isn't it possible that there can be more than one right way to plant a church? (I'm not sure I necessarily have a corner on the methodology market.)
2) Is it really reasonable to think our church is the first one to "do it right" in our city? (Two problems with this: a) we're not the first, and b) we don't necessarily do it right.)
3) Am I confident that my chosen priorities and methods are what the people in this city need? (No, I'm not always confident.)

...and 4) When does a church plant stop being a church plant? (Maybe when we stop using church plant as an excuse for a lack of maturity.)

We're in a season at Radiant Church Juneau where we are learning what it means to be disciples of Jesus. Strangely, I'm learning along with everyone else. The more I know, the more I know I don't know.

We're learning that having more than one leader is a good thing. (My own capacities now need to intentionally emphasize quality over quantity. It's an age thing.) And here on a Monday morning, I am perhaps more encouraged by the guys stepping up to help lead than I am over anything else going on in our church.

Finally, I am learning that mission drift, losing sight of the role and purpose of the church to become and make disciples, is what moves any church from purposeful vitality to static irrelevance. I fear this more than anything.

It may be that our church will continue to grow. It won't be because of me. The credit for that will go to the One who is the real King. It's His church. Jesus said He would build it. And He's telling me to continue learning my lessons...and not get in the way.

Fog and Free Will

I picked up a work gig for the second half of summer, driving a shuttle van for tourists. These visitors pay for the fulfillment of bucket list items: flying in a helicopter, speeding on an airboat in a fjord, walking on a glacier. It's been fun, meeting people from all over the world. They ask questions about Juneau and Alaska, and I do my best to respond with at least nearly correct answers. On good days (depending on how you look at it) it means long days for me. And east-coasters are good tippers.

But, helicopters do not fly when the pilots cannot see. Rain and wind are not the problems, but fog is the nemesis, the buzzkill, the enemy of all things fun for adventure-seeking tourists, and the vendors who provide those adventures.

This week the fog has been in control; sometimes in the mornings, sometimes all day. All of "us" in the tourism business here in SE Alaska are busy checking weather forecasts and making friends with the NOAA forecasters. (I already have my inside sources.)

When we don't fly, we disappoint tourists. And vendors (including my bosses) go unpaid. Vendors work hard. The profit margin for the vendors is slim; profits may not be actualized until season's end. And someone asked me, "How does free will relate to bad weather?"

Interesting question. Caught me off-guard. Didn't have a thorough or even trite response to offer. But, in the fog-bound time since, I've pondered the question, which I think may be more akin to "Where is God in this bad weather?"

First ponder point: God controls the weather. He invented weather, so it is His to control. He controls it all the time. Mankind gets no vote in the matter.

Next ponder point: Everything God thinks and does is good...and right...and perfect. We humans still want to pretend we control our lives, therefore we want to play judge and jury, even over the God who made us. We want God to play by our rules. It takes faith, serious, trusting faith, to believe that everything God does is good and right and perfect, when our circumstances or unmet desires may not seem to agree.

Final ponder point: God always has a plan. His plan is always a better plan for us than any of us could conceive or contrive. He is a good father in that way; He gives us what we need, instead of just what we think we want. Sometimes children need their father to help them eventually desire better. He wants us to desire relationship with Him.

It. Could.Be. that God wants us to trust him, rather than the weather forecast, rather than the days's count of paying tourists seat-belted into helicopters, rather than the number of work hours and tips I can hope to add to the ledger.

It may be that God rolled the fog in this week so I would have more time to contemplate and appreciate God's greater purposes, that His intentions for me are greater than my own, that my trust in Him would learn to outweigh my interest in more driving hours and tips from east-coasters. I may have some measure of free will, but God controls the fog.

Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done!

My heart is broken today; broken over the hurts represented in our church, and in our city. Recent conversations have included people who are ill, people who are fearful for their unborn children, and with beloved people in our church whose employment forces them to soon relocate from Juneau, from us. It seems the gun crime, murder and suicide rates in our city have dramatically risen. We are politically and ideologically divided. Juneau is a beautiful city; and we are a mess!

We dream of, we hope for something better.

In this, I am increasingly aware of the depth of my own sin. I am not at all the husband, father, friend, church-planter, pastor or leader I want to be. I am, and we are a hopeless people...except for the abundant grace and mercy found in the gospel of Jesus. And the gospel trumps everything in the previous paragraphs. For it is only in the gospel of Jesus that we find our hope.

Together with the Radiant Churches in Anchorage and Fairbanks we here in Juneau have been preaching through the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7.) At the moment we are drilling down into the Lord's Prayer, where Jesus taught His disciples (and a large number of onlookers) "how" to pray, and more importantly, "what" to pray for.

This coming Sunday we focus on that (sometimes mechanically) oft-repeated phrase, "Your Kingdom come; Your will be done." When the preacher of all preachers, Jesus, preached, He proclaimed the "Kingdom of God," calling His listeners to repent and believe. All of Scripture points to Jesus as the hero and solution, the cornerstone of the already present and eventually fully consummated Kingdom of God; here, with us. Everything made new. Everything made right.

God is our Father, our "Abba," our Dad. Everything He says and does is good, and right, and perfect. And He wants everything good, right and perfect for us; for our goodness, our rightness and our perfection. He is a good Dad Who gives good gifts to His children. He treasures us, like a perfect King treasures the subjects of His perfect Kingdom.

"And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised." (Deuteronomy 26:18-19)

But...and there's always a but...praying for (begging for) God to fix our lives and our city, to bring His Kingdom closer, asking that His will be done requires something of us - a willingness to experience a whole-hearted, grand scale, radically revolutionary transformation in us, His children, His Kingdom citizens.

"And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." (Deuteronomy 30:6)

When we ask God to bring His Kingdom closer, when we pray for His will to be done, we are (intentionally or inadvertently) asking our Father in heaven to destroy our own little kingdoms, to break our own agendas, to force us to look upward instead of gazing at the altar of our own mirrors.

So that we, the Church, the Bride of Christ, purchased by the death of the Groom, can call on God as our Father, to seek His glory and the fame of Jesus. In so doing, He calls us His "chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called [us] out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once [we] were not a people, but now [we] are God's people; once [we] had not received mercy, but now [we] have received mercy." (1 Peter 2:9-10)

We are God's display people. We are His children, His Kingdom citizens, trophies of His grace. We pray for God's Kingdom to come, because we want to finally be home, here, with Him.

While I may be broken hearted, I pray for much better, His better
. Praise God for the hope we have in Jesus Christ, the hope for our city and her citizens.

Commencement

The senior class at Thunder Mountain High School asked me to be their commencement speaker this past Sunday. I've since been asked to post what I said to them, primarily for our out-of-town friends. Here you go:

Two Gifts

Thanks for the invitation to speak to you. This is a high honor, one I do not deserve or take for granted. Thank you, also for allowing me to share in your high school years; that too has been a high honor, and one I do not take lightly.

Mr. Storey has given me ten minutes, and I want to honor that. I want to give you something of value. I’m going to go fast, so buckle up, and let’s get to it.

Our culture will try to convince you that you are what you do, what you achieve and accomplish. Many of us reflect our culture, and will spend the rest of our lives trying to convince other people, and therefore ourselves that we are valuable. We will try to put our best foot forward. We will try to hide, deny or rationalize our shortcomings. We will try to create an impression of ourselves, primarily through what we do, achieve and accomplish that will impress other people. Bottom line? We will put the responsibility for our own self-image on the responses we receive from other people. We will spend our days seeking affirmation from other people in our attempt to be satisfied with ourselves. That, my young friends is slavery.

Sadly, to varying degrees, all of us are addicts to affirmation, and we will never get enough. If our drug is affirmation, we will never get enough, and it will never be enough, and it never lasts. So we will be tempted to put up a false front, so we can convey the idea of who we are, instead of who we really are. And since affirmation comes from other people, we will try to manipulate other people in order to manage and control our reputation, and thus our self-image.

What I am saying? We will hand over the responsibility for our lives to other people. You may get married and expect your spouse to make you feel better about yourself. And if and when other people fail us, because they will be too busy with their own self-image management to affirm us enough, we will then get older and blame those same people for not cooperating. If you pin your worth and self-image on what you do, or what you want people to believe you do, you will be subservient to whatever last happened and beholden to people’s responses. This means you will be forced to change your self-image multiple times each day based on your last triumph or failure, and that’s exhausting.

Know what’s weird? We may have already fallen into the trap of believing we are “human doings,” (what we do determines who we are), but we are “human beings.” We do what we believe. What we do always comes out of who we are. False fronts and play acting aside, eventually we do what we believe to be right, even if in the moment our idea of right turns out to be wrong. Our actions do not define us; we define our actions.

My young friends, here are two things in life you cannot control: other people, and circumstances. Sad reality: you may devote the rest of your lives to managing, manipulating and controlling other people and mitigating the consequences of your choices.  But you will fail.

So I want to give you two things, two gifts that you can control; two gifts that can never be taken away from you; two gifts that will release you from the tyranny of having to be a play actor, of being a fake. Here’s gift number one:

Morals are what each of us believes to be the difference between right and wrong. Now we may not all agree what constitutes right and wrong, but we each have morals that define for us right and wrong.

Ethics are the choices and actions each of us undertake to live out our morals. It’s not ever what we say we believe; how we live is the clear evidence of what we believe to be our morals. Are you tracking with me?

Here’s the gift: Integrity. Integrity is the consistency by which each of us live out our ethics. You control that. No one can take that away from you. And here’s what I want for you…to be able to look at yourself everyday in the mirror at the end of the day and know that you are consistent, that you are ethically predictable, that you can be trusted to do what you believe. That what people see is who you truly are.

Even if other people do not applaud you because they do not agree with your morals or ethics, they will not be able to question your integrity, unless you give them reason to.

We need more people who will do what they say they will do, who show up when they are supposed to show up, and can be counted on to give a full and complete effort. Integrity is consistency, irrespective of circumstances or other people. You, alone control this. No one can take your integrity from you. Only you can take integrity away from you.

We are not human doings; we are human beings. What you do will always come out of who you are. You are going into a season of your life when you will be trying to figure out who you really are, and that’s a good thing. But in the process of trying to figure out who you are, look at what you believe, and not to what you do or even want to do.

Your integrity is the observable evidence over time of what you believe. Take this gift I’m trying to give you, and be a person of integrity. I want you to have the freedom of knowing that what other people see is who you really are, especially when no one else is looking.

Gift number two: it’s a word we don’t use often. I had to look it up. Altruism (or selflessness) is the “demonstrated concern for the welfare of other people.” This means stopping, taking and breath and realizing that none of us are the center of the universe.

Sadly, our culture and the media tell us that we are the center of the universe. As the center of our own universe we will seek power, or control, or comfort, or affirmation. The problem with all that? We’re all trying to be the center of the universe. This is why people don’t always get along. This is why people are selfish, self-serving, and are even willing if necessary to push other people out of the way in order to be the center of a tiny universe of their own making.

You will soon learn that many accomplished people, people who have had cool experiences and done cool things and acquired lots of cool stuff and surrounded themselves with cool people are in fact lonely and miserable.

Do you want to be optimistic? Do you want to be content? Do you want to be fulfilled? Take this second gift and learn to be altruistic. Learn to devote your life to the welfare of other people. Enjoy the freedom of taking the focus off of yourself. If you end up in business, in education, in public service, in raising up kids at home, in volunteerism, do it for other people. Make it about them, and not about you.

If you devote your heart and energies to the welfare of other people, you will find yourself more optimistic, content, fulfilled. You will find out that you are capable of great things. You will be a giver, instead of a demander. And you will like it. This too, no one can take away from you. You control this. Be a person who impacts other people. Plan now for the legacy you will leave behind.

Please know this…all of us in the room are proud of you. All of us have been entertained and inspired by observing you and being with you during your high school experience. We have high hopes for you, every one of you, even if you do not necessarily have high hopes for yourself.

But this is what we need from you; our world needs from you:

We need you to be a person of integrity, because our world is short on integrity. Be a person who is devoted to altruism. Our world needs more people who will be concerned for the welfare of other people. Be a person who knows he or she is a human being, not a human doing. Don’t go out and make us proud of what you do; make us proud of who you are, and who you become.

You know I’m a big fan. Thanks for letting me talk to you.

Observation and Experience

Radiant Church Juneau is determined to be a church that offers a gospel response to our Juneau culture. To understand our culture it's vital we know the daily and weekly rhythms of our city. We need to recognize our peculiar cultural seasons (of which there are three: Legislative Season, Tourist Season and Fall.)

In response to our culture we prayerfully determined to gather for corporate worship on Sunday evenings. The Yacht Club provided a serviceable venue at a relatively affordable price. (Meeting at a yacht club sounded cool, too.) We even had dinner together after, like families do. The decision behind our meeting time was driven by mission. We wanted to be accessible and visible to people who might want to see what a family of servant missionaries looks like when they're assembled together. We recognized in our city, and even in us, people are jealous for their weekends. At first blush, Sunday evenings didn't seem to interfere with weekends. Too much.

And while weekend jealousy here in Juneau is real, we learned something else. People in our city are even more jealous for their Sunday evenings. Through observation and experience we have learned that people, including us, look to Sunday evenings as time to get emotionally prepared for the work week, to put the proverbial game face back on. We've learned that Sunday evenings are really tough on families with littles who might have (God forbid) missed nap time. We've learned that business travel for Alaskans often begins Sunday evening. We've learned that Alaskans feel entitled to and thus play hard on the weekends, reserving Sunday evenings for recovery. And boat clean up.

In response, and starting this week we're back to Sunday mornings. Back to 10:00am. Back to Harborview Elementary School. Back to hauling our gear in and out. Back to what we did last year.

Sunday gatherings are not the sum total of who we are or what we do. We are a church made up of gospel communities (GC's) who gather throughout the week. That doesn't change. GC's are our foundational building blocks.

Some may say we cannot make up our minds. Others may suggest we change things too often. We'd like to think we're nimble, creative, flexible. Like a family of servant missionaries.

Find a Coach!

I hope church-planting is not, as some say, at a zenith, going the way of tent meetings, stadium-sized worship events (concerts) and evangelist roadshows. As church-planters present and future we believe with our forerunners that Christians are called to be and make disciples. We also believe that disciples are made in and through the Church. If we do the math, more churches can and must result in more disciples of Jesus.

Planting a new church is a high call, and a brutal profession for the ones doing the planting. Done independently it can and will often result in failure. More often than not we planters bring on that demise ourselves.

Studies (done by smart people) support the idea that we all need coaches. New believers need mature believers to teach and model a Christ-centered life. Church-planters (who don't cease to be disciples, by the way) need coaches and mentors in order to think through their call, their theology, their ecclesiology and their mission as a leader and church. Planters need coaches to help them discover and acknowledge their own sin. I said it; planters need to discover and acknowledge their own sin!

How a planter responds to coaching is often the tip of the proverbial sin iceberg. We want autonomy but not isolation. We crave fraternity, but not accountability. We want to grow and mature in our faith and leadership, but not if that process makes us look inadequate.

Sometimes, and in an effort to protect our own idols we will willingly submit ourselves to the Kellers, Pipers, Chandlers (or insert favorite Christian author/celebrity here: ___________) of the Church world. We like them because they inspire without asking direct questions of us. How much more challenging it is to submit ourselves to someone who might actually know us.

Not that you asked, but here's my counsel to prospective and current church-planters: Get a Coach! Find someone ahead of you in the church-planting spectrum; someone who's walked under the Lordship of Jesus longer than you. Ask him to pour his life into yours. Listen to what he says, and respond to the questions he asks, even if his questions of you are intended to reveal your false idols.

And don't make your coach/mentor singularly responsible for your development. That's too much for anyone to bear, aside from the Holy Spirit. Disciple-making is done in community. Church-planting is done in community. You can have more than one coach. God can speak through different people at different times, and you can learn from Jesus through all of them.

As a church-planter, you'll be doing a lot of coaching in the near future yourself. You'll find yourself giving what you've received. In you and your new church, disciples will be made and God will be glorified...to the extent you were willing to receive.