Paradigms

The following was originally published in the April edition of our uzine, "The Encourager." The complete edition can be found on our website at http://news.uchurch.tv/Encourager/April%202008%20for%20web.pdf

Some nights I lie down for bed and try to figure out whether or not I was faithful that day. I review the events of my day in my mind’s eye. I let the images roll one after another. Sometimes I smile, sometimes I cringe, and sometimes I just fall asleep! Most days have flashes of pride, frustration, and weakness – though they typically pass before they cause me to really regret the day.

If I am very honest, it is not the days with small outbursts of sin that I really regret. I tend to lament the days that pass where I neither look more like Jesus nor does the world look more toward Jesus. It happens more frequently than I care to admit. I think back across the course of my day and realize that I was little more than very busy. I ran from sunup to sundown. There was a blur of meetings, quick conversations in the hallways, and perhaps some small project or writing assignment at my desk.

At the end of the day, I am a tired guy who looks no more like Jesus than when I woke up. I can’t imagine that Jesus was ever “hurried.”

Even as I force myself to undergo critical self examination, so also should the church. We should be examining our corporate life together. At the end of every day, month, year, we should ask whether as a body we look more like Jesus and if the world looks more toward Jesus because of our activity. I have no doubt the church will have been a busy place – a hive of activity. The critical question is whether we are living up to our missional calling from Jesus Christ.

Vision is the best remedy to busy days that bear little eternal fruit. A vision is a picture of the future as God desires it to be. A vision allows us to fix our eyes on Christ and journey down a path that develops our personal holiness and advances his Kingdom. All of our activity and action can be measured by a vision.

The process of visioning is not so different from self examination at the end of a day. To catch a glimpse of God’s vision for our church, we need only project our mind’s eye into the future and let the scenes of our life together roll. Rather than reflecting on what has happened in the past, we allow God to show us what the coming day could be and should be.

At University, we seek to measure our activity – not by the sheer number of programs and activities, but whether at the end of each day we look more like Jesus and the world looks more toward Jesus. To put it simply, we are called to make disciples for Jesus Christ.

We are created that we might take people who are alienated from God and introduce them to Jesus (Meeting). Then we are to share the teachings of Christ with these new disciples (Message). Once they have the news of Jesus, we can help these true disciples claim their calling and be deployed in ministry for Christ (Mission). At the end of this disciple-making journey we should discover a trained discipler who can engage others in this life changing adventure.
Church, I call on us all to be ruthlessly honest about ourselves and our ministries. Let us reflect on the days we have had even as we vision for the days to come. Let us labor everyday at the ministries of meeting, message, and mission. At the end of our day – when our Lord returns, I pray we will find that we will all look like him and the whole world will be looking toward him.