Are you a pastor or mission leader in your church? Are you curious about just how your church is doing in missions – in local and global missions? Are you wondering if your mission and vision and alleged values match up with your passion and behaviors? Do your missional systems get you to your desired outcome?

For the past ten years, MissionLeader has used an assessment tool for coaching church leaders, specifically related to mission health. A friend at efurther.com has just put the assessment tool online at http://www.missionleaderinsight.com/

The survey allows you and/or a coach to compile a church’s:

• Missional Passions and Strengths,
• Missional Equipping and Multiplying,
• Missional Engaging both Locally and Globally,
• Missional Cooperating and Partnering,
• Praying for Missions,
• Missional Leadership and Decision Making Processes and
• Budgeting for and Investing in Missions.

When I use the survey, I have multiple church leaders complete the survey. I compile the data and use the results in my coaching process. The survey is easy to complete. It can be completed quickly in a cursory fashion or it can be done very thoroughly, especially when the financial data is entered by those involved in the budget process. You can begin the survey, save it and come back later to complete it.

Why gather the information in the first place? My goal is to establish a benchmark. I want churches to see where they actually are today so they can make healthy goals and plans for the future.

What do the surveys usually reveal? That churches invest far less than they think, especially in the least reached. Churches continue the basic pattern of going where it’s easiest to go in missions, giving to pet causes, responding to random needs that come up, listening to influential or available cause or relational “lobbyists” within the church to the exclusion of biblical strategy. Churches generally don’t have any framework that gives them permission to say, “No.” Why say “no?” So you can strategically say, “Yes to the most strategic.”

What can churches do after taking a look in the mirror through a survey such as this one?  Get Honest, Get Biblical, and Get Focused.

When churches look in the mirror regarding their actual missional passions and actions, pastoral and missional leaders have an opportunity to lead their church toward biblical and strategic missional discipleship.

The Premise: Obedience to God’s Word leads to local church-based biblical objectives, which bolster right practices that over time contribute to lasting values, which ultimately enable God-sized dreams to be fulfilled.

Step one of change is the evaluation process. I have yet to find a church that is at ground zero when it comes to missions. The church may be brand new, but there are notions about missions, assumptions about missions and biblical foundations that are either correct, errant, or seriously lacking.  In many cases, church leaders over-estimate their missional activity. Church leaders generally admit, we are not doing enough missions, but we tend to give ourselves too much credit for our missional effectiveness.  We also give ourselves too much credit for mere activity as opposed to strategic activity.

Evaluation involves the visional leadership and staff of a church walking with her core leaders through a process of viewing, admitting, and addressing the current realities and benchmarks of their churches “State of the Mission.” Evaluation involves answering the question: What do we say we are doing in missions, and are we doing what we allege we are doing in missions?   Why or why not? The process involves a clear look at finances, leadership, equipping, geographic involvement, systems, and the decision-making processes in missions.   The goal of evaluation is to reframe missional values, systems and practices.

Reframing involves clarifying biblical principles and priorities for Jerusalem, Judea & Samaria and Ends of the Earth Ministry.

Assistance in the process of evaluating and reframing is what this tool offers, but the best assistance comes through a missional coach. A number of organizations and individuals are experienced at coaching.

Key church leaders must invest time delving into God’s Word and comparing biblical principles with their unique church history and character. In addition, the church’s decision-making process needs to be evaluated.

So try out the tool, see if it might be helpful to you and your church. http://www.missionleaderinsight.com/

Here’s the latest from the YouVersion team. This free mobile Bible has far surpassed anyone’s expectations.  Take a look at their update.

YouVersion Update

It’s official. You’re part of a revolution. Millions of people (9.1 million to be exact) are discovering that the Bible can and should be a part of their everyday life. It’s no small thing that people today can have free, simple, whenever-wherever access to God’s Word using an app for their mobile device. It’s taken centuries of sacrificial translation efforts, immeasurable investments from Bible Societies and publishers, and, more recently, leaps in technology and innovation to make it possible. And YOU are also a huge reason that so many have the Bible App in their hands today. Tens of thousands of you are sharing verses on Twitter and Facebook, telling your friends and co-workers, inviting the person sitting next to you at church to download it, posting it on your blogs, and doing so many other creative things to help more people experience what you already know – it works, it’s awesome, and it really is free. Thank you for making all of this possible!

The YouVersion team is expanding rapidly, and hundreds of volunteers are stepping up to help make it even easier for you to engage with and share the Bible with millions of others. Many new features and tools are coming soon, but we wanted to briefly celebrate and highlight a few things that can help you and others:

:: Record Growth in August ::
In just one month, almost 900,000 new mobile users downloaded a YouVersion Bible app and engaged with Scripture. And September is shaping up to be even bigger!

:: Create Your Own “Free Bible” Page ::
We launched a new tool that makes it simple for anyone to give away “free Bibles” just by sharing a link. We’ve seen great adoption of this tool by churches, bloggers, and other ministry organizations over the past several weeks. To create your own page, just visit http://youversion.com/free-bible.

:: A New App for Android Phones ::
The YouVersion Android app got a face-lift, some new paint, and a lot of new wiring recently. Some of the biggest upgrades were a new dashboard that makes it easy to reach different areas of the app quickly, a sleek redesign of the Bible reader, new reading plan features including a calendar view, and the ability to sync your bookmarks with your YouVersion.com account.  Download the new Android app now by visiting http://youversion.com/download from your Android phone.

Some of you non-Android phone users may be asking, “What about me? When can I have some of those new features on my phone?” The answer: very soon! New upgrades are coming to all of our mobile phone apps in the next couple of months.

:: Still Time to Start & Finish a Reading Plan in 2010 ::
Finally, we want to strongly encourage you to stay connected to God’s Word. Many of you have subscribed to a reading plan and are consistently reading The Bible. Others of you may have started, but got behind or distracted with the busyness of life. It’s never too late to start or re-engage. In fact, you still have time to read part or all of The Bible before the end of 2010.  You can sign up for the Bible in 90 Days, New Thru 30, or The Gospels from the Bible App or at http://www.youversion.com/reading-plans/all.  What a great way to finish this year!

The next few months hold unlimited potential and we can’t wait to see how God works through you and YouVersion to help millions more engage with Scripture!

:: Connect with YouVersion:
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/youversion
Become a fan on Facebook: http://facebook.com/youversion

Get help with YouVersion: http://support.youversion.com

Missionary Films
“Li Yang”
Missionaries working in China’s underground church – 6 feature films
deidox.com

“The Last Letter”
Missionaries working in Burma, Nairobi and Memphis – six short films
thelastletter.org

“Hearing Everett”
A missionary family educates deaf children in Mexico
hearingeverett.com

“The Prosperity Gospel”
A look at the “prosperity Gospel” at work in Ghana
vimeo.com/7196941

“Kavi”
One boy’s escape from bonded labor in an Indian brick kiln
kavithemovie.com

“As We Forgive”
An examination of the possibility of forgiveness in postgenocide Rwanda
asweforgivemovie.com

ST. LOUIS — Three hundred evangelical Christian college students sat in a dark, packed downtown hotel ballroom Monday, the projected glow of a movie the only source of light.

At least that’s the way it looked to an observer. The students in the room would have argued that the real sources of light were the movies’ subjects: missionaries bringing the Gospel to what they believe to be the darkest corners of the world for Christians — China, Burma, India, Africa.

In watching examples of such films, these missionaries-to-be were participating in an artistic renaissance of sorts within the Christian community. The potential of narrative filmmaking as an evangelical tool has grown rapidly in recent years, as the technical tools used to make movies have become cheaper and available to more, and younger, people.

“Film is ingrained into our culture, and Christians are using it more and more for God’s kingdom’s purposes,” said Drew Mason, a 19-year-old sophomore film major from San Diego State University who attended the film screening.

That screening was part of last week’s “Urbana ’09” conference, the largest gathering of mission agencies in the world. Its purpose is to connect more than 16,000 young, idealistic, energetic students with the 280 mission organizations and seminaries that staffed booths for the five-day event at the America’s Center.

Urbana is organized by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA every three years to take advantage of the typical four-year college cycle. The conference moved to St. Louis in 2006 after nearly 60 years on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

But this was the first year that Urbana organizers decided to tap into the younger generation’s interest in film in a big way.

“At Urbana ’03, there wasn’t a peep about film or filmmaking, and in ’06 there were two discussions that brought in about 50 people,” said Nathan Clarke, 34, a documentary filmmaker with Fourth Line Films who organized this year’s Urbana Film Festival and Forum.

This year, organizers devoted three formal sessions to the subject, screening six films. The festival drew more than 1,000 students to the sessions, and also to smaller workshops, round tables, lectures and one-on-one meetings in which students could get critiques on their film pitches.

“Today there’s a community of Christian filmmakers out there who have access to the technical tools, but many of whom need to learn how to tell a story,” Clarke said.

Probably the most popular evangelical film ever made, known as the “JESUS” film, was produced 30 years ago by Bill Bright, co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ International. The two-hour movie features the familiar story of Jesus’ life as told in the Gospel of Luke, and according to its website, has been translated into 1,000 languages and has been seen by 6 billion people.

But younger filmmakers are turning away from using their craft as an element of the conversion process itself. Instead, they are taking the skills they’ve learned in film schools and using both documentary and fictional narrative techniques to change the direction in which their movies find an audience.

Rather than making a movie that shows the story of Jesus to a Third World nonbeliever, as the makers of the “JESUS” film did, today’s Christian filmmaker might target an American audience and dramatize the dangers for those leading the underground church in China, or examining the role of the prosperity Gospel in Ghana.

Christian movie director T.C. Johnstone, 36, screened part of his movie “Hearing Everett” at the Urbana film forum last week, and explained to the audience afterward that the movie’s genesis was as a promotional video for Rancho Sordo Mudo, a home and school for deaf children in Mexico.

But what began as a simple fundraising tool eventually became a feature-length telling of the story-behind-the-story — part documentary, part narrative history — of how an American missionary family left the comforts of home and began teaching deaf children in the Mexican desert.

Churches are the intended venue for free “Hearing Everett” screenings (it’s also available for individuals to buy online) after which members may take up a collection for Rancho Sordo Mudo.

But for Johnstone and, increasingly, other Christian filmmakers, the screening itself isn’t the end of the movie experience. “Hearing Everett” ends with an “action step” directed at the viewer. Pastors who choose to can request a “tool kit” that includes a “small group study guide” that Johnstone hopes will lead others toward church service projects.

Other Christian filmmakers have become activists for social justice issues that both make good sources of drama, and mesh with the tenets of their faith. They are unsatisfied just telling a story of injustice and letting an audience decided how to act. For many, their faith propels them to set up nonprofit organizations.

“There’s a level of responsibility,” said Clarke. “If I’m just putting a movie out there, am I really answering the call?”

Like Johnstone, Gregg Helvey did not rest after the final edit of his 19-minute film, “Kavi,” that was screened at the Urbana film forum. The film is a fictional narrative about a boy who is forced to work as a slave in an Indian brick kiln.

Helvey, 30, made “Kavi” as his thesis film at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. In an interview, he said he is exploring partnerships with anti-slavery organizations to ensure the message of “Kavi” lives after the theater lights come up.

Last month, “Kavi” was short-listed by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for an Oscar in the “live-action short films” category. From that list, three to five films will be nominated for the Oscar.

Helvey’s goal, he said, was “to do something more than tell a story, but to raise awareness, leave the world a better place and play a small part in giving voice to the voiceless.” In partnering with anti-slavery organizations, “Kavi” “can lead to action by channeling audience members to the anti-slavery organizations that are actually fighting this,” Helvey said.

Urbana students also learned of an emerging group of Hollywood production companies such as Walden Media, which made the “Chronicles of Narnia” series, that specialize in family and often Christian movies.

Kurt Tuffendsam, 30, a Christian producer who has worked on mainstream Hollywood fare such as “The Job” and “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans,” told the students in one session that production companies like MPower Pictures have successfully figured out “how to represent Christ to the mainstream.”

MPower Chief Executive Steve McVeety produced the Mel Gibson blockbuster “The Passion of the Christ.” MPower’s “As We Forgive,” a documentary about reconciliation between victims and perpetrators in postgenocide Rwanda, was screened at the Urbana film forum.

John Shepherd, president of MPower and producer of last year’s controversial “The Stoning of Saroya M.,” said a new generation of Christians is embracing the arts in a way their parents never did.

“If the body of Christ doesn’t get involved in film as a mission field, it’s missing a phenomenal opportunity to have their message heard by the world,” Shepherd said. “And this young generation gets it. The church had abandoned the arts, but young people are taking it back.”

At one of Urbana’s film forum sessions, director T.C. Johnstone spoke directly to his young audience about their potential as both Christians and filmmakers.

“What has God placed in your hands to work through you?” he asked them, then answered his own question: “It’s a camera.”

This post is a continuation of Acts 1:8 Now, a Bible study for missional living.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in ?    Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”    Acts 1:8

Lesson One: First Things First
Jesus’ words found in Acts 1:8 constitute one of the most profound utterances of our Savior. These final words of Jesus shaped the DNA of the first church like few other statements.  If we think the words were important 2000 years ago, those same words should be no less powerful today.

Unfortunately, the status quo teaching and preaching regarding Acts 1:8 reflects an exegesis that neglects truth for the sake of convenient hyperbole.

Second only to Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8 is one of the most widely used “mission sermon” texts.

When you read this passage, what are the first words that jump off the page at you? __________  ____________ ______________  _____________ ______________

Describe below the first thought that comes to mind when you hear the following three Acts 1:8 expressions. (There are no wrong answers.)

Jerusalem –

Ends of the Earth –

As a rule, we describe these three or four locations in terms of proximity to me.

Jerusalem –  My hometown or closest family and friends (near me).

Judea & Samaria – Beyond my hometown (outside my home town).
Ends of the Earth – Far away from my hometown (outside of my nation).

There’s a basic factual-geographic issue that turns this analogy on its head.

Jesus, who spoke these words, would never have considered Jerusalem his hometown. Witnessing in your hometown is the right thing to do, however, that was not Jesus’ point in Acts 1:8.

Looking through the same old lens
Since we are trying to look at this passage through a new lens, we need to remind ourselves of the previous manner in which we have viewed this scripture.

The following are three common ways in which we have approached Acts 1:8.

Stay in Jerusalem unless God specifically tells you to go.  Acts 1:8 is more about verse 4 than about verse 8. The point is to wait.  Simply wait and do nothing else until God tells you what to do. Only those with an extraordinary call have a responsibility for ministry beyond my friends, family and my hometown.

Prioritize my hometown – God cares more about my hometown than the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8 means we are to first complete the work in my hometown; second we are to consider working beyond my hometown but within my nation. Finally at some later point in time we are to hire professional missionaries, send them and pray for them as they go internationally.

Number one (above) focuses upon staying and waiting. The focus of number two (above) is on the sequence and priority for geographical distribution of the gospel – first witness to my city, then witness to my state and my nation, and when you have reached your city and your state and your nation, only then consider getting involved in witnessing internationally.  Both of the above interpretations focus on geography – the location of service.

God commands His followers to go as His witnesses near, far, and farther. Acts 1:8 commands all of God’s people to mission work in the following three locations:

in my hometown,

within my nation,

and throughout the world.

Each of these understandings in isolation falls short of the primary teaching of Acts 1:8.

What then is the main point of Acts 1:8?
Is it primarily about the geographic location of Christian missions activity?

Is Acts 1:8 a command or is the verb tense a foretelling of what God will do through His people? Since Jerusalem was NOT Jesus’ home town, why do we assume that Jesus’ reference to Jerusalem is a command for us to be a witness in “my home town?” These are just a few of the questions that must be asked. Examine this passage from a First Century perspective –THEN- in order to understand how it relates to us NOW.

More about Acts 1:8: Then and Now  on the next post…

Today marks the first of several posts which essentially make available to you portions of the Missional Discipleship Guide written by Mark Morris called Acts 1:8 Now. The intent is to provide fresh eyes and application for a local church, a small group, or an individual establishing a personal World Christian plan for missional living. The entire study will be available later for download on this site.

Acts 1:8 Now

Preface: Acts 1:8 Now

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8

There are at least six reasons that Christendom needs to take a fresh look at what has become a status quo, self-serving utilization of this familiar mission passage. Theologians and preachers work diligently to rightly divide the Word of Truth. Interestingly, we have a bad habit of taking this familiar passage and simply riding the wave of rhetoric, accepting a less than thorough examination of its meaning. Without praying over, studying, and exploring these well-used passages, missionaries, preachers, and writers alike have merely co-opted their predecessors’ conclusions. If the same level of scrutiny, prayer, and study were applied to Acts 1:8 as we apply to other less familiar passages, then Acts 1:8 Now would be unnecessary. Six reasons follow.

Acts 1:8 is commonly interpreted with an incorrect verb tense. (Was Jesus commanding His disciples to go and be His witness or was he prophetically stating an eternal reality? Is Jesus saying “GO!” or is He stating, “You will go.” What’s so important about the verb tense?)

Acts 1:8 is most often used to articulate a mission strategy of proximity which ignores historical and factual data. (Jesus’ home town was not Jerusalem, yet we apply this passage by advocating a strategy based on Jerusalem as my “hometown” mission field. We extrapolate from this passage that Jesus is commanding us to witness to “my Jerusalem” or my hometown and my family and friends. If that was Jesus’ message, why didn’t he say, “you will be my witness in Nazareth?”)

Acts 1:4 has been used to mandate a strategy of inaction. (Just wait. If God doesn’t call you to go, then you are only responsible for ministry in your hometown.)

The places of Acts 1:8 –Jerusalem, Judea & Samaria, and the ends of the earth– have been used almost exclusively to advocate a strategy of proximity without any thought to the more significant theological underpinnings. (What is the theological significance of the places of Acts 1:8? What is the theological significance of Jerusalem as a center of Truth and a hub of the dissemination of spiritual Truth? How does a theological view of Jerusalem affect the way we apply Acts 1:8 in contemporary missions?)

Contemporary Christians tend to view biblical place-references (Judea & Samaria) from a Western view of geo-political entities, i.e. nations. However, the biblical worldview is much more influenced by people-group thinking than by geography. (Dividing up mission organizations and mission strategies into local and global, near, far, and farther is organizationally helpful. Perhaps we should not focus as much on the places, rather on the peoples of Acts 1:8: their worldview, their ideology, and the status of their spiritual health.)

Theologically sound exegesis has been ignored for the sake of convenient rhetoric. We mean well, but familiarity with this passage has bred a casual approach to Acts 1:8. We are so ready to jump to Acts 1:8b that we pay no attention to Acts 1:8a. (How does the application change if we view the places mentioned in Acts 1:8 not as my places of mission activity, but as God’s arena of mission action?)

May God open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts and may He kindle fresh insights into local and global ministry. It is time to evaluate church missions activity, organizational missions priorities, and personal missions values through a new lens.

(More from Acts 1:8 Now in the next post)
© mission leader, inc.

www.missionleader.com

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated are taken from the Holy Bible, NIV.

Over the last few years, Pastors and Staff and other mission leaders have repeatedly asked me, “How do you build a local church mission strategy?”  Over the years I’ve refused to give plug and play pat answers, believing that every local church must go through a healthy biblical process of developing their unique local church strategy.

So, if you want to know what that process is, you can download it from the resource page.

Here it is – for what its worth.

It grows out of 14 years of field missionary experience and 10 years of experience working within local churches, including Saddleback, as well as church planting and serving in the mega church and house church world.  Quite a contrast of experiences.  Currently I am associate pastor in a multi-cultural church in Memphis as well as working in mission mobilization with the IMB.

Nevertheless, all of those experiences have shaped the attached tool which articulates what I’ve found to be a healthy biblical process for discovering your unique local church strategy and systems.

I pray that its a helpful resource for you.

Mission Leader Coaching Guide