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Former Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino in a recent commencement address to graduates of the University of Pittsburgh said, “If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”

How many of us find ourselves on a course that leads to oblivion? How many of us find ourselves in a status quo that is stifling and spirit depleting? Is the story of our lives one of mediocrity and lost potential, or one of adventure and opportunity?

What is the difference between a person who lives a life of God’s dreams and one who continues to grapple around in the dark? A key element is one’s capacity to own failure as central to one’s ethos of success. Yes, I said that failure is central to success. By failure, I am not talking about moral failures or ethical lapses. I am talking about failing to achieve an end or goal. If you do not have room in your theology for failure, you may find deep rooted disenchantment with God and with your community of faith.

Many of us carry the false belief that we cannot fail if God is with us. This is a half-truth. The Scriptures are clear that our future is secure in Jesus Christ, but this does not mean than our moment by moment walk will unfold without any setbacks or troubles. Moreover, too many Church leaders are stifled in their creativity and willingness to take risks for the sake of advancing the Gospel because of a fear of failure. The fear of failure leads to a life of mediocrity. Jesus did not call his disciples to a life without risk or to a mediocre existence. In Jesus’ own words, he called his disciples to a life of selfless mission: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and continually follow me” (Matt 16:24). In essence Jesus is saying this: Die up front and follow me into the world on mission. Jesus will lead us to places where only dead men and women can go. If our capacity to live lives of faithful obedience to Jesus’ radical call is dependent on immediate tangible/visible success, we will be disappointed at the first sign of challenge, opposition, setback, or failure.

Rosalyn Carter has written, “If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, you don’t branch out, you don’t try—you don’t take the risk.” As missional leaders seeking to reach the 21st century world with the Gospel, we must embrace risk and the possibility of failure if we are to live as the unleashed people whom God created us to be. Think of the setbacks of Joseph (Gen 37-50), Moses, Peter (rebuked by Jesus, sank in the water, denied Jesus 3x, rebuked by Paul, etc), or Paul (read 2 Cor 6:3-10 and 11:16-29). Moreover consider our Lord Jesus himself - the setback of rejection by the people, arrest, and even death on the Cross preceded his Resurrection and Exaltation as LORD (Phil 2:9-11).

If God has called you to advance the kingdom, you will experience setbacks, even failures. Are you ready?

Reflections:
What is your definition of success in ministry?

What part does failure play in your understanding of success?

How would our communities of faith be different if we created an ethos of risk and failure instead of safety and predictability?

How would your life be different if you quit playing it safe and predictable in your “faith”?

Am I willing to learn to move through setbacks, mistakes, opposition, and failure in order to become the person that God desperately needs to serve as an ambassador to the world?

© 2008 Brian D. Russell

I recently subscribed to the International Bulletin of Missionary Research. I received today a copy of Missiometric 2008 - summary of the current state of World population, evangelization, and Christianity. Its aim to raise awareness of World Christianity. It is vital for Christ followers in the West to not lose sight of the broader mission of God in our day.

It contains a table of 50 facts about trends and issues concerning empirical global Christianity. Here is a taste:

Very Good Situations
96.5% of all people have access to Scripture in 6,600 languages (flipside: 286 million people in 7000 languages with no access)

Fastest expansion in China with 16,500 new converts (including births) everyday

Good Situations
From only 3 million in 1600, evangelical Christians now number 255 million worldwide (70% non-white)

Most responsive groups to Gospel (per hour expanded): Jinyu Chinese, Pathan, Bihari, Maithili

Fortuitous Situations
Mainland China’s Christians have thousands of trained workers poised to begin evangelizing the world

3 most cost effective countries over 1 million in population for Gospel outreach: Sierre Leone, Congo-Zaire, Ethiopia

Unfortunate Situations
3 least cost effective countries over 1 million in population for Gospel outreach: Belgium, Austria, Switzerland

Most Christian bodies insist on full accountability to the last cent in finance but ignore or even decry statistics about workers and ministries.

Bad Situations
40% of the church’s global foreign mission resources are being deployed to just 10 overstaturated populations with strong citizen run home ministries

Christians spend more on the annual audits of their churches and agencies ($970 million) than on all their workers in the non-Christian world.

4 Least Responsive people groups to the Gospel (per hour of ministry): Levantine Arab, French, Czech, and Russian

Very Bad Situations
86% of all Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims do not personally know a Christian

210 million copies of the Bible are wasted each year (through lose, destruction, or disintegration) due to incompetence, hostility, and bad planning

91% of all Christian outreach/evangelism does not target non-Christians but targets other Christians, many in wealthy Western countries and cities

Additional information is available through the World Christian Database.

Here are links to two excellent resources on missional church and missional hermeneutics:

My colleague Howard Snyder at Asbury Seminary presented the excellent paper “Missional Church and Missional Living” for the faculty of Tyndale University and Seminary (HT: Brad Brisco

Michael Goheen read this paper: Notes Toward a Framework for a Missional Hermeneutic at a seminar on Missional Hermeneutics at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in November 2006.

Stephen at Neurotribe has posted notes from a course on prayer and personality from Tabor Melbourne (Australia). This particular post deals with the relationship between Myers-Briggs personality types and prayer. It is fascinating and helpful.

My oldest daughter stood up on her short board on her very first wave. By our second trip to the beach, she was already showing off her new prowess on the waves. She had no training. She simply jumped on the board, didn’t worry potential problems, and caught waves.

On the other hand, it has been a bit of a struggle for me. I finally managed to stand up briefly after 30 or so attempts. Ironically, I had watched about an hour’s worth of surfing videos on YouTube and read James MacLaren’s book Learn to Surf. I have thought about learning to surf for the last decade. My daughter never waited””she took immediate advantage of her opportunity. I sought training before I experienced the waves. My daughter jumped in the surf and asked questions later.

What does this have to do with advancing God’s mission through the Christ following movement? Let transition with another question:

How much training in the faith does a new follower of Jesus need before being deployed in mission?

This is a trick question. I would suggest that no training is needed. None. One’s initial conversion moment credentials the individual for God’s mission. There is not an intermediate step that involves training. I think that modern communities of faith have erred by adopting this formula:

Conversion - Training - Ministry

Why is this an error? Most of our training (often misnamed “discipleship”) is removed from missional engagement with the world. By the time the training is over, the disciple has lost his/her non-Christian affinity groups and become immersed in “church culture.” In other words, too much of our “training” actually is a hinMinistry typically involves working the local church rather than missional outreach in the world. Is it possible to realign? Of course it is. If an old guy like me can learn to surf, Christ followers can learn to live missional lives, but it is a struggle as we have to unlearn bad habits.

Here is a more biblical formula:

Conversion → Mission → Training → Mission

New disciples need to be encouraged to share with others immediately their experience with God. This inculcates from the beginning of their new life the reality that they are ambassadors. Conversion is a conversion to God’s mission. Of course, training is needed, but training is done in response to mission and as an asset to mission. It amounts to on the job training.

This is not a diatribe against education (formal or informal). But it is a plea for unleashing God’s people into the world on mission immediately. The longer that we wait the more difficulty the disciple will experience in reentering the world with the Gospel in a relevant and sticky fashion. This does not mean that the disciple will require no training. Of course, training can increase effectiveness. Paul Achtemeier, one of my NT professors during my doctoral studies at Union-PSCE, used to ask this question to those who complained about the rigorous demands of his courses: “Since when is ignorance an asset to ministry?” The opposite question is also helpful: “When is knowledge a detriment to ministry?” Knowledge/learning is detrimental when it becomes the end in itself. As my friend Alex McManus likes to say, “The Gospel comes to us on the way to someone else.” When training fuels mission, it is an asset; when it doesn’t it is a detriment.

What do you think? If you disagree, how would you answer the question: How much training is required/needed before participating in God’s mission?

© 2008 Brian D. Russell

When we recently purchased surfboards, one of the questions that Roger, our sales person, asked us was this: “Are you going to surf “goofy foot” or “regular foot”?

I replied, “I don’t know. What is the difference?”

“Oh yeah,” Roger caught himself, “I forgot that you are kooks.”

“Why do you think that we are “kooks”? my daughter protested.

Roger smiled. “Welcome to the world of surfing.”

Surfing has its own distinctive vocabulary. In fact, James Maclaren”™s helpful book Learn to Surf includes a glossary of surfer jargon. Kook was not a random insult. A kook is simply the not so flattering term for a beginning surfer. Its one that I’ll have to own after my first futile hours of trying to learn merely to stand up on my longboard. “Goofy foot” means that you surf with your right foot forward on the board; “regular foot” refers to surfing with your left foot forward.

This brief conversation has lessons for the 21st century Christ following movement as we work to fulfill Jesus- Commission of “Making Disciples” (Matt 28:18-20).

Insights for Mission:
1) Language can either include or exclude.
2) Every group uses specialized vocabulary.
3) A “go to” mission demands a willingness to learn the “others” language whereas a “come to” mission places the onus of learning language on the outsider.
4) Learning a new vocabulary and/or language involves listening carefully, work, and a sense of humor.
5) A posture of teachability is essential for moving into new social contexts. The onus is on the missional leader to learn the new language.

Key Questions:
1) How much “insider” language does my community of faith deploy?
2) How difficult is it for the “outsider” to learn our distinctive language?
3) Does our insider talk function as a shibboleth? If so, are there alternative terms that would help to contextualize the Gospel message better for the people whom we are working to reach?
4) Do I love people enough to practice an incarnational approach to missional engagement?

© 2008 Brian D. Russell
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