Here are the final details on the 2012 @LiveSent Conversation. Hope to converse with & learn with you there next week!

Ok gang. We got the location details nailed down for our yearly, conversational, non-conference, learning get-together next week!!!

Speaking of learning – we are grateful to be on the campus of a learning environment that this year was named the # 1 community college in America. Valencia College administration has generously offered us a classroom on their west campus. Details below for exactly where, a link with a campus map, and where to park.

We will begin next Thursday, November  15th, at 9:00am with a time of prayer together before we encourage one another around three questions for the day:

1. what would I have done differently?
2. how do we move from idea toward implementation? 
3. why is it so hard to cultivate for togetherness around mission with our church family and in our community, and what might we need to do differently, even have the courage to let go of?

We will bring some coffee and snacks in, but we will go just down the road for a quick lunch break. We will return after lunch and resume learning together.

Please come with some leaders from the city where you live and the church family of which you are a part. And please come with some stories to share of how you are living sent and equipping followers of Jesus to live sent in their daily rhythms.

We will conclude at 5:00pm. Hanging out at supper for some evening connection and conversation about giving ourselves away together in our respective cities is encouraged.

REMEMBER – this is free If you wanna pitch in a dollar or two to help with coffee and snacks, that’s cool but no pressure.

Love y’all a bunch. Look forward to seeing you next week.
-jason

WHERE @ on the VALENCIA WEST CAMPUS:

• building 4, Room 202
• CLICK HERE for the west campus address and a campus map that shows bldg. 4 with adjacent parking lots
• please use parking Lots D or E

Text us or tweet at us or comment below with any questions.

the 2012 LIVE SENT conversation

November 15th, 2012 | 9am to 5pm with hang time after | Orlando, FL | No cost except your own travel and lodging and food.

three questions:

• what would I have done differently?
• how do we move from idea toward implementation?
• why isn’t it easier to cultivate for togetherness around mission in our community?

WHO IS IN??? Does that date work for you?

Reply back to me to let me know whether you can make it or not. And invite some leaders in your community to come along.

Much love _ jason

In Central Florida and interested in learning more about starting churches? Feb 18th, check this out…

Discovering Church Planting Seminar Global Collaboration Center Room #131 Saturday, February 18th, 2012 9:00am-1:00pm If you missed the Discovering Church Planting seminar, then this is your second chance!  Hal Haller is hosting and leading this incredible day again.  You won’t want to miss out.  Call our office to RSVP if you would like to come. Discovering Church Planting is a one day event that helps prospective church planters understand and clarify their gifting, calling, and interest in church planting.  They will learn from field-tested church planters as they share their insights and lessons from church planting.  This seminar is also geared for churches who are interested in sponsoring a new church or denominational/network staff who are interested in learning more about church planting.  Some topics are: Best Fit:  My calling and Wiring Living Sent: God’s Mission of Making Disciples Practical Tips:  Nuts and Bolts of Starting a New Church Coaching 101: What Every Church Planter Needs Next Steps:  Where do I go from here? RSVP  to Hal.haller@vision360.org or call (407) 243-2800 www.Vision360.org

If “everybody plays” matters to u, then check out this five minute video from @JeffVanderstelt regarding what he would suggest “missional” really is.

The LIVE SENT Conversation is over for 2011. It was a special conversation together focused around the theme that “everybody plays” – every follower of Jesus should be thinking and living like a missionary along with other followers making disciples who make disciples. Here are a few of the quotables from the Twitter feed hashtag #LiveSent:

We must lose our “me first” attitude if everyone is going to play.

Lord,please help us to walk with lost people. More, please help us to allow lost people to walk with us.

We’ve got to lose the clergy / laity divide in order to live sent.

Leaders who lead from a place of insecurity are some of the scariest people on the planet.

Focus on the few to win the many.

The fact that there are so many books on being missional and transformation is evidence that we don’t get The Gospel.

Obedience is more important than Knowledge!

Some of the greatest “evangelists” can be lost people.

Disciple people to conversion, don’t convert people then disciple them!

What adjustments might our local church expressions need to make in order for every follower of Jesus to actually make disciples?

Change happens when dissatisfaction meets a future alternative, is given a first step, & is guided by courageous leadership.

4th counter-intuitive > Start with creation before you start with Christ.

Worship is a lot sweeter when you are living on mission.

In order to form our “vision/mission statements,” may we simply read the Gospels & take note of when “Kingdom come” is described.

Kingdom of Heaven: People who realize they’ve lost something of great value then find it and celebrate with their neighbors.

Strategic elements are those that will cause the mission to fail if they are taken away.

Be careful when you are “discipling” that you don’t share your traditions & culture over the actual ways of Jesus.

Most of us, if not all of us, are educated [about God] beyond our level of commitment.

“Organic” unfortunately to many has come to imply “rebellion against Structure.” A plant has structure, though.

Strategy emerges from obedience to God’s Word, not from reading books.

Prayer movement precedes discipleship movement.

When my family & I take a walk around the neighborhood, may we see it as an occasion to pray for our neighbors specifically.

Hope you can join us next year. Make sure to connect with a CityGroup near you for deeper togetherness around the mission of Jesus or start one in your city if there’s not one. Let us know how we can help.

 

Meanwhile – wanted to share the following video resource with you…

Jeff Vanderstelt and his family are being the church together with SOMA Communities to Tacoma, WA. In this five minute video, he suggests what it actually means for a local church expression to be living out the mission of God together. Trust me, it’s worth your time to watch and then share with the local church expression with whom you walk.

Are you living sent together with a group of people who are family together on mission making disciples of Jesus who make disciples of Jesus?

the 4th post of “a question to ponder” in prep for the #LiveSent Conversation @LiveSent2011

[ please go back and read the previous three posts for parts one, two, and three ]

The third death I would suggest that may need to precede the resurrection power coming on display in our lives and our eyes seeing the glory of our Lord is this -THE DEATH OF “GOOD ENOUGH.”

There are three common mis-conceptions in American church culture that I would suggest are tombs, if you will, holding the stinch of “I am good enough” and “I am better than you” thinking.

The first is the lie of “self-esteem.” It is a lie that American culture has taught us through our educational norms. It is a fundamental element of the “American Dream.” But it is antithetical to the Gospel. I have nothing of myself worth esteeming. If I focus my eyes on the measuring stick of “who I am,” then I will never become more than who I am and can make myself to be. If I, however, focus my eyes on the measuring stick of “Whose I am,” then I can be made to be all that I was intended to be by the One who makes me who I am in Him. I am His. My worth comes from no other source. My identity must only be tied to Him. Not my performance, but His performance. Not my accomplishment, but His.

Self-esteem is a tomb from which God-esteem must be raised, or else the stinch of “good enough” will remain.

The second misconception is that thinking that declares that people are not ready to go and make disciples and are not ready to see His glory until they cross a “readiness line.” It is this make-believe place we have conjured up that fits man-made religiosity but does not fit at all in Christ-Centered relationship. Jesus called the disciples and sent them and then coached them as He did life with them. Jesus healed the demoniac and then sent him back home to his family to tell them the story of the new life He’d been given. Jesus made the woman at the well secure in His love rather than insecure in her co-dependence on her alleged lovers and then sent her back into town to tell the story of the One who told her who she really was. Being a “disciple” is not defined by what I have learned, but rather by being a learner. Living FOR God is not His intent. Living WITH Him is. Being good for Him is not good enough. Going with Him, however, I get to live on mission as I learn and live His ways. He makes me ready more and more, day after day.

The “readiness line” mentality is a tomb from which relationally learning must be raised, or else the stinch of “good enough” will remain.

The third misconception that needs to be surrendered is that misconception that one person is a “strong Christian” while another is not. Being a “strong Christian” is antithetical to the Gospel. It pretends that grace does the saving but I myself do the growing. It proclaims that someone is better at this Jesus stuff than someone else. And Paul debunks this thinking when He declares in so many of His letters that the cross has placed us on level ground with no “better than you” distinction.

The thinking that someone is better at following Jesus or more spiritual than someone else is a tomb from which “saved AND sanctified by grace alone” must be raised, or else the stinch of “good enough” will remain.

“Good enough” is not good enough. Justifying by comparison is declared as not what God desires by Jesus Himself (Luke 18). Jesus not only did not wait for us to say we were sorry for our sins to come and die for our sins, He also did not wait for us to better ourselves. And He did not ask us to follow Him so that we could impress Him along the way. The Gospel makes it very clear. God came near in Christ loving us while we were still sinners, and the good news is that He wants to display His glory and resurrection in our lives as we walk near with the One who came near to us, as we love the One who loved us first.

Could it be the case that our own quest to be good is what is misdirecting us down a path where we will not see His glory? Could it be that you are not in the game of making disciples because you don’t think you are good enough to do so?

Do you believe that so loved the world that He gave His only Son?

Then keep believing it. And believe in His goodness. And believe you are now in Christ and even on your worst day, as John Lynch has said, you are still YOU IN CHRIST. He is making You who He wants you to be. He has declared you worth dying for. He is inviting you on mission WITH Him.

Go. Get in the game. 

“Everybody plays.”

Watch the 2011 LIVE SENT Conversation (September 9th and 10th) on “UStream” by CLICKING HERE. Participate in the “twitter conversation” byCLICKING HERE.

the 3rd post in “a question to ponder” in prep for the 2011 #LiveSent Conversation…

[ please go back and read the previous two posts for parts one and two ]

Diving right in – the next “death” that I would suggest precedes the Lord showing His glory and His resurrection power is the death of “philosophy only.”

James challenges us to not just be hearers of the Word but doers also. I would suggest that we in the American church, myself included, also ought to not just be talkers of the Word, either. We speak in theoretical and philosophical terms well. Missional. Gospel. Kingdom. Worship. Disciples. But are we actually doing it?

Talk must die and be raised into walk. Let me give a few examples.

We talk a good game about how “everybody plays” and how we must equip people to make disciples. But I fear that little is ACTUALLY done to equip for disciple-making. What are you actually doing to equip followers of Jesus to make disciples? More than just a class in a classroom? Our King did more than that. He got in the thick of the rhythms of the everyday and showed people how the rhythms of the Kingdom of Heaven became “on earth as it is in heaven.” Are you doing that? With people? Who are actually learning and living the ways of Jesus with lost people? If not, talking that game needs to die and be raised to actually do what Jesus intended.

We talk a good game about not wanting to have such a clergy-centered focus. Yet, we don’t actually live this way. The protestant church in America is more clergy-centered than ever, and we wonder why there is not a disciple-making movement in the west. If you are “clergy” (I prefer the word “equipper personally), what kind of energy are you putting into resourcing followers of Jesus to be making disciples among their family, their neighbors, their marketplace, and their world? Or are you just trying to motivate them to plug into your ideas and vision for the church? If you are “laity” (I prefer the word “saint” or “follower” or “one who now carries the keys to the Kingdom and is fully empowered to do all that God desires to be done by His people on this earth), are you just living FOR God or living WITH Him? Are you trying to attain to personal spiritual goodness or living on mission to share the goodness of God with others? May we die to clergy-centered focus and live as the priests and kings and sent ones that His death and resurrection have transformed us to become. This will require something very specific – a growing security in the “clergy” to let go of control of what isn’t their church in the first place AND a growing security in the “laity” to live as though they are a valuable part of the mission of God in the daily.

We talk a good game about wanting to really see those who are lost to find new life in Christ. But are we actually engaging the lost of our communities, coming near to them in love and friendship the way God Himself came near to us as Emmanuel, in hopes that they would see “family” lived out and desire to believe and be called one of the “children of God” along with us? Do you have lost friends who consider you more than just that “church friend?”

We talk a good game about “church” not being about Sunday morning only, and yet how much of our energy and attention and criticism and “choosing of a church” is centered upon the Sunday morning experience?

We talk a good game about our willingness to die for the sake of the glory and the mission of Jesus, but how many of us will go home tonight with little to no thought of the lostness of our cities?

We talk a good game about living sent lives wherever God would lead, unless that meant leaving the south or leaving our comforts or leaving our high-paying jobs.

We need to repent. I need to repent.

Lord, wreck me to quit talking and to be walking with You.

Last installment tomorrow and then some thoughts and insights from the 2011 LIVE SENT Conversation…

the 2nd post of “a question to ponder” in prep for the #LiveSent Conversation. @LiveSent2011

In yesterday’s post, I suggested that death is a precursor to resurrection, which is an obvious statement. But the implications are important for our daily.

We pray prayers like “Lord, show us Your glory,” but are we ready for what may come as a result?

When we desperately desire to see the glory of God, when we then pray for His glory to be on display and His work to come alive in our lives and in our cities, then we must be aware that there will be death and/or darkness always before there will be the glorious, miraculous, resurrection-power demonstrated.

New life comes where there was no life before. That is the Gospel on display. That is the presence of the glory of God. 

I suggested yesterday that I was not and likely we all are not ready for the “death” that would precede the resurrection on display when God shows His glory here in this death-plagued world. One of those “deaths” that we are not ready for is the death of “me first.” 

In order for His resurrection power to come on display in my life and in my city, I need to confess the deadly selfishness I am infected with, and I need to surrender the me-first mentality with which I live.

This is especially true in the context of the church alive as Jesus intended. If everyone is to be making disciples, if there will actually be an environment in which “everybody plays,” then the me-first mindset must go. I cannot as an equipper, for instance, actually equip and send His church if I am consumed with ME being seen as worthy and ME being given credit and ME being regarded as a good leader and MY dream being put into motion by everyone plugging into MY system for the success of MY vision.

Love is living (after dying to self) for the sake of what others are becoming rather than for the sake of what I am becoming. 

His glory will come among us when His Spirit picks up our surrendered egos and reshapes them to be our secure selves. Secure only because of Whose we are, not who we are. Not ME. Him. And my neighbor. And the nations.

Lord, please show us Your glory in our lives and in our city. Please help us to die to self.

Will you surrender ME?. The death of “ME” provides Jesus a tomb from which to raise His intended “us” as His church, as His people. His glory on display among a people who love as He loved, selflessly and sacrificially, the interests of others above our own.

Tune in tomorrow for another suggested “death” that we may be afraid of and that may be hindering His glory to be on display in our lives and in our cities…