Who Owns the Spiritual Condition of Your Neighborhood/City?
JEFF CHRISTOPHERSON
Recently, we asked a penetrating question: Who owns the spiritual condition of your neighborhood?
It’s fascinating to consider the missional potency of a clear answer to this simple question. What if everywhere a follower of Jesus lived there was clear missionary ownership aimed at declaring and demonstrating the gospel in that same place? What if every local church took spiritual ownership of the gospel message getting to every man, women, boy, and girl who lives within the shadow of their own steeple? The impact would be staggering.
Now, let’s add another strategic layer to this line of thinking. What if kingdom citizens worked together in taking responsibility for the spiritual condition of their neighborhoods? This could happen in one of two ways.
First, there are neighborhoods across North America where more than one believer, or one believing family unit, lives. In these places, Christ-followers, regardless of whether or not they attend the same local church, could partner together to engage their neighbors with the gospel. Or, fellow church members from the same local church could partner with one another to reach their respective neighborhoods.
There’s an unending array of options on how to proceed.
A couple could offer to come over and handle the grill and food stations for a neighborhood cookout in order to free a Christian brother or sister to engage their neighbors. A parent could offer to take care of children for a playdate so that a neighbor could spend time caring for a friend going through a particularly difficult season of life. Believers could provide financial resources so that a person in their small group could meet a tangible need or bless a neighbor with whom they’ve been trying to build a relationship.
These options all foster a unique power in evangelism through community because the following factors are in play:
Collaborative Learning
Community evangelism allows us to share best practices for vibrant witness to the truth of Jesus Christ. There’s a certain necessity for R&D as we engage our neighbors and when we are working synergistically with others. When we share stories of successes and failures, we aid the missionary potency of our friends by mutually modeling the way of disciple-making to one another.
Yes, there are numerous blogs and books written on this subject, but it is far better to, in real-time, learn soft skills from co-laboring neighbors who are working the same harvest together. In this, they have the ability to share specific “eureka” moments that can be immediately applied.
Strategic Gifting
When we read Paul’s illustration of the church as a body made up of different parts, we’re often prone to think of these various giftings as singularly deployed within the church’s internal organizational machinery. Certainly, such organizational labor is needed, but we should first think in terms of the church’s external gospel obligation.
What if we turned those gifts outward and partnered with other members of Christ’s body to collaboratively use our various gifts to live as disciple-making missionaries? Those gifted in serving, hospitality, teaching, giving, and evangelistic harvesting could function seamlessly to leverage their shared capacity in order to see people far from Jesus find their hope in him.
Mutual Encouragement
A dark world puts strain on even the most zealous disciple-maker. There are daily discouragements that cause us all to want to throw in the towel and retire to a less spiritually taxing form of ministry. When we are left on our own, we’re frequently disposed to apathy and missional indifference as our spiritual fire slowly dwindles away.
Co-laboring with other kingdom citizens provides a built-in mechanism for encouragement in the inevitable seasons of doubt and discouragement. Much like a healthy marriage, God’s wisdom inherent in the body allows individuals in community to feel motivated and expectant when others are discouraged and defeated.
Then, in turn, these roles flip and those who were once discouraged become vibrant encouragements to others who are in a season of defeat. We’d be unwise to neglect the very relationships that can encourage us to keep going when the unavoidable discouragement comes.
Authentic Care
Just like our own lives, our neighbors regularly experience physical, emotional and spiritual pain. An honest conversation will quickly reveal the despairing pain of breaking and broken families, financial loss, job frustration, marriage dissatisfaction and the scores upon scores of other real and significant pain-points. g While one family living on mission can support a neighbor who’s recently lost a loved one, consider the multiplied spiritual impact that occurs when multiple families rally around the person in crisis. Through prayer and active engagement, we can surround our neighbors with the love of God through the people of God living on mission together.
Multiplied Witness
Our neighbors can easily dismiss the truth claims that they hear through a single voice and categorize it in their minds as peculiar or unnecessary. But something unique happens when those same powerful points are made naturally and repeatedly through various neighbors from various faith families.
Imagine the impact of hearing a personal story of life-change during a dinner one night with a neighbor. Then again at the pool while watching their children play together. And yet again while on an evening dog-walk around the neighborhood.
Each time the hope of Jesus is represented by different personalities using different terminology, but the hearer is supernaturally compelled to appreciate that Jesus has legitimately changed the lives of many of those that they have grown to enjoy and respect. The impact is exponentially multiplied.
Uniting together to disciple a neighborhood might sound unusual in an individualistic and competitive ecclesiastical culture, but it is not at all unfamiliar in the global church that is experiencing an evangelistic surge.
When Jesus’ prayer for his disciple’s unity [1] is locally answered, the natural fruit is gospel belief. And with all these kingdom benefits implicit in Christian community, one wonders why we’d ever prefer the task of disciple-making in isolation when we’ve been gifted with an incredible mission-support system in the people of God who live right around us.
So, make kingdom collaboration primary within your neighborhood. Don’t allow secondary issues of tribe or brand derail the potential power of a united community voice sharing in unison of the wonders of a faithful Savior.
Experience a little bit of heaven on earth.
[1] “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17:20-21Jeff Christopherson is a church planter, pastor, author and Missiologist at the Send Institute—an interdenominational church planting and evangelism think tank.
JEFF CHRISTOPHERSON
Recently, we asked a penetrating question: Who owns the spiritual condition of your neighborhood?
It’s fascinating to consider the missional potency of a clear answer to this simple question. What if everywhere a follower of Jesus lived there was clear missionary ownership aimed at declaring and demonstrating the gospel in that same place? What if every local church took spiritual ownership of the gospel message getting to every man, women, boy, and girl who lives within the shadow of their own steeple? The impact would be staggering.
Now, let’s add another strategic layer to this line of thinking. What if kingdom citizens worked together in taking responsibility for the spiritual condition of their neighborhoods? This could happen in one of two ways.
First, there are neighborhoods across North America where more than one believer, or one believing family unit, lives. In these places, Christ-followers, regardless of whether or not they attend the same local church, could partner together to engage their neighbors with the gospel. Or, fellow church members from the same local church could partner with one another to reach their respective neighborhoods.
There’s an unending array of options on how to proceed.
A couple could offer to come over and handle the grill and food stations for a neighborhood cookout in order to free a Christian brother or sister to engage their neighbors. A parent could offer to take care of children for a playdate so that a neighbor could spend time caring for a friend going through a particularly difficult season of life. Believers could provide financial resources so that a person in their small group could meet a tangible need or bless a neighbor with whom they’ve been trying to build a relationship.
These options all foster a unique power in evangelism through community because the following factors are in play:
Collaborative Learning
Community evangelism allows us to share best practices for vibrant witness to the truth of Jesus Christ. There’s a certain necessity for R&D as we engage our neighbors and when we are working synergistically with others. When we share stories of successes and failures, we aid the missionary potency of our friends by mutually modeling the way of disciple-making to one another.
Yes, there are numerous blogs and books written on this subject, but it is far better to, in real-time, learn soft skills from co-laboring neighbors who are working the same harvest together. In this, they have the ability to share specific “eureka” moments that can be immediately applied.
Strategic Gifting
When we read Paul’s illustration of the church as a body made up of different parts, we’re often prone to think of these various giftings as singularly deployed within the church’s internal organizational machinery. Certainly, such organizational labor is needed, but we should first think in terms of the church’s external gospel obligation.
What if we turned those gifts outward and partnered with other members of Christ’s body to collaboratively use our various gifts to live as disciple-making missionaries? Those gifted in serving, hospitality, teaching, giving, and evangelistic harvesting could function seamlessly to leverage their shared capacity in order to see people far from Jesus find their hope in him.
Mutual Encouragement
A dark world puts strain on even the most zealous disciple-maker. There are daily discouragements that cause us all to want to throw in the towel and retire to a less spiritually taxing form of ministry. When we are left on our own, we’re frequently disposed to apathy and missional indifference as our spiritual fire slowly dwindles away.
Co-laboring with other kingdom citizens provides a built-in mechanism for encouragement in the inevitable seasons of doubt and discouragement. Much like a healthy marriage, God’s wisdom inherent in the body allows individuals in community to feel motivated and expectant when others are discouraged and defeated.
Then, in turn, these roles flip and those who were once discouraged become vibrant encouragements to others who are in a season of defeat. We’d be unwise to neglect the very relationships that can encourage us to keep going when the unavoidable discouragement comes.
Authentic Care
Just like our own lives, our neighbors regularly experience physical, emotional and spiritual pain. An honest conversation will quickly reveal the despairing pain of breaking and broken families, financial loss, job frustration, marriage dissatisfaction and the scores upon scores of other real and significant pain-points. g While one family living on mission can support a neighbor who’s recently lost a loved one, consider the multiplied spiritual impact that occurs when multiple families rally around the person in crisis. Through prayer and active engagement, we can surround our neighbors with the love of God through the people of God living on mission together.
Multiplied Witness
Our neighbors can easily dismiss the truth claims that they hear through a single voice and categorize it in their minds as peculiar or unnecessary. But something unique happens when those same powerful points are made naturally and repeatedly through various neighbors from various faith families.
Imagine the impact of hearing a personal story of life-change during a dinner one night with a neighbor. Then again at the pool while watching their children play together. And yet again while on an evening dog-walk around the neighborhood.
Each time the hope of Jesus is represented by different personalities using different terminology, but the hearer is supernaturally compelled to appreciate that Jesus has legitimately changed the lives of many of those that they have grown to enjoy and respect. The impact is exponentially multiplied.
Uniting together to disciple a neighborhood might sound unusual in an individualistic and competitive ecclesiastical culture, but it is not at all unfamiliar in the global church that is experiencing an evangelistic surge.
When Jesus’ prayer for his disciple’s unity [1] is locally answered, the natural fruit is gospel belief. And with all these kingdom benefits implicit in Christian community, one wonders why we’d ever prefer the task of disciple-making in isolation when we’ve been gifted with an incredible mission-support system in the people of God who live right around us.
So, make kingdom collaboration primary within your neighborhood. Don’t allow secondary issues of tribe or brand derail the potential power of a united community voice sharing in unison of the wonders of a faithful Savior.
Experience a little bit of heaven on earth.
[1] “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17:20-21Jeff Christopherson is a church planter, pastor, author and Missiologist at the Send Institute—an interdenominational church planting and evangelism think tank.
Why Small Things Are Often The Greatest Things BY SCOTT SAULS
In my earliest days as a minister—somewhere around my mid-twenties—an older mentor challenged me to “attempt something so great for God that it is doomed for failure, unless God be in it.”
Embracing his challenge, I began to dream of great things for the future. I envisioned becoming the kind of leader whose ministry would produce scores of new disciples, plant growing and healthy churches, provide community and encouragement for key city leaders, and serve as a resource for kingdom impact beyond my own context. Eventually, if it all worked out, I would also be invited to write books, speak at conferences, and minister from a national platform.
“That,” I would tell myself, “is something so big that only God can accomplish it…because I surely don’t have what it takes to accomplish these things.” Since that time, and by the grace of God, most of these things have occurred in my life and ministry. And yet…
And yet…
While such BHAG or “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals” are not necessarily a bad thing, I’m not sure that the advice once offered to me by an older mentor is the same advice that I would give to younger ministers today. The older I get, and the more attuned I become to Scripture in particular, the more convinced I am becoming that the real action in God’s kingdom is not so much on the big platform or in the halls of power, but rather through quiet, daily, ordinary faithfulness lived out in local communities all over the world.
It is true that God has in various seasons, and for his own purposes, raised up servants to accomplish great things on a grand scale. Almost all of the Ivy League Universities were founded by Christians, for example. Christianity has produced great leaders in science such as Pascal, Copernicus, Newton, Galileo, Meitner, and Collins, to name only a few. The same can be said of the arts and literature, with the likes of Rembrandt, Dorothy Sayers, Dostoevsky, T.S. Eliot, Flannery O’Connor, Makoto Fujimura, Johnny Cash, and Bono being guided in their creativity by their faith in Christ. There is also the world of healthcare, with all those hospitals named after a Saint, and history’s most famous and impactful efforts toward social justice—William Wilberforce for the emancipation of slaves, Hannah More for her generous philanthropy, Dorothy Day for her journalistic activism, George Mueller for his leadership in the care of orphans, and Martin Luther King, Jr. for his sacrificial leadership in the realm of civil rights—all of whose efforts and achievements are a tribute to the power of Christ to heal the world.
Lastly, I would be remiss not to mention my former colleague and mentor, Dr. Timothy Keller, who recently made the Forbes list of the top fifty most influential people in the world. He was the only pastor named on that list.
These remarkable and unique examples notwithstanding, one still wonders if God’s primary strategy for bringing his grace, truth, and power into the world is to do so less through extraordinary and grand means, and more through ordinary and small and everyday means.
Writing to a Corinthian church that valued the extraordinary and grand—they were people who valued things like celebrity, power, wealth, networking, and being among the movers and shakers—the apostle Paul wrote:
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:26-30).
The life of Jesus also challenges our “attempt something so great” approach to life and ministry. By choice and by design, Jesus was born outdoors to two economically strapped teenagers who would soon become refugees. He lacked a formal education, he worked a blue-collar job, he never got married or had children, and he spent some of his adult life homeless. According to Isaiah, his physical appearance was so unimpressive that there was nothing identifiably attractive about him (Isaiah 53:2). Most people misunderstood and rejected him, and he was eventually abandoned by his closest friends. He died as a common criminal on a trash heap, having been regarded as an enemy of both synagogue and state.
As it was with the Apostle Paul, so it was with Jesus—if power was going to be made manifest in him—it would have to be through his weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).
We can also learn from the lives of other, so-called heroes of faith from Scripture. As I was recently reminded by a letter written by a fellow minister to a struggling young man—Moses stuttered, David’s armor didn’t fit, John Mark was rejected by Paul, Hosea’s wife was a prostitute, and Amos’ only training for being a prophet was as a fig tree pruner. Jeremiah experienced depression, Gideon and Thomas doubted, and Jonah ran from God. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all failed miserably by telling lies—Indeed, Scripture is filled with real people who had real failures, real struggles, real inadequacies, and real inabilities.
And God shook the earth with them.
For it is not so much from our strength that God draws, but from his own, invincible might.
Perhaps it is this quality of God’s—his affection for using the weakest vessels to accomplish his greatest work—that compelled Henri Nouwen to adopt the practice of what he called “downward mobility.” Nouwen, a celebrated thought-leader and touring speaker based out of Notre Dame, and then Harvard, and then Yale, was in the prime of his career when he received and invitation from his friend, Jean Vanier, to lay aside his accolades and ascending fame for the purpose of pastoring a small community for the mentally disabled, called L’Arche (The Shelter). Nouwen’s rationale for accepting this role—which many would view as career suicide—was as follows:
Scripture reveals…that real and total freedom is only found through downward mobility…The divine way is indeed the downward way…[Jesus] moved from power to powerlessness, from greatness to smallness, from success to failure, from strength to weakness, from glory to ignominy. The whole life of Jesus of Nazareth…resisted upward mobility.
What many people do not know is that some of Nouwen’s most well-known, most impactful written works would be released into the world not from a grand stage or massive speaking platform, but rather from his more obscure, quiet life among disabled men and women at L’Arche, whom he had come to embrace as family.
I’ve also seen the “power of small” play out in my own community here in Nashville among the people of Christ Presbyterian Church. As anyone in our church would attest, the true celebrities among us—the ones whose lives and presence point the rest of us toward the glory and goodness of God most remarkably—are people who are open with their weaknesses, people with special needs, and people who are in the process of dying.
Two years into my role as senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian, I shared my own story of dealing with anxiety and depression with our congregation. At the end of the service, a man in our congregation approached me and said, “Scott, I want you to know that today is the day that you became my pastor. In the end, it won’t chiefly be your vision or your preaching or writing that will bring hope to people like me. Instead, it will be the story of how God has ministered to you in your struggles.”
I am not the first pastor through whom God has brought strength to others through the telling of his weaknesses. I was merely following the lead of the apostle Paul, who spoke of his grief over his coveting in Romans 7, and then his debilitating thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12. In both instances, God’s power was manifest not only to Paul, but also to millions of other sinners and sufferers through history.
There’s something powerful about confessing our sins and sorrows to one another and then bringing them into the light of God’s healing grace, isn’t there? What was true then is also true today—God’s power is made perfect and is manifest—not chiefly through human strength but through human weakness.
Likewise, one of the greatest privileges I have is being pastor to a church with many children and adults who have special needs. This is a population to which our church has chosen to invest resources and give special attention. I firmly believe that the greatest beneficiaries of this investment are not the people among us who have special needs, but those of us who get to live a slice of our lives in their company.
I think of Katie who has Down Syndrome. She has the biggest smile and gives the longest and strongest hugs. I think of how she insists on a hug from me, her pastor, almost every Sunday. I think of how she lights up when I tell her she is beautiful, and how she sweetly reminds me that I need to tell her she is beautiful on those rare occasions when I forget. I think of how she hands me pictures that she has drawn—pictures that represent her profoundly simple and simply profound interpretations of my sermons.
I also think of William—who also has Down Syndrome and is autistic. William’s parents are stretched fully and are on constant call working together to care for his needs. And yet, they never stop telling us how rich their lives are because of him. If not for William, they would know Jesus less. If not for William, we, too, would know Jesus less. Hand a box of Cheez-Its to William and you might not get it back. If you look away for even a minute he may have disappeared to another room. And he laughs at my jokes and gives me high fives and smiles ear to ear when our eyes make contact. He, like Katie, insists on giving me hugs. William, with full awareness, belongs. Though unable to articulate his thoughts clearly in words, he hands out bulletins at church, serves communion, and dances to hymns and worship songs. As he does all of these things—as he lives honest and true—he brings us all back to the truth. He brings us back to grace. He shows us the King and the kingdom that we would not be able to see clearly without the likes of him. He shows us that we belong, too.
The last demonstration of power I’ll speak of here, which is also perhaps the most remarkable, is people who suffer with hope instead of despair. I can think of so many men, women, and even children in our community who have faced some of the direst circumstances—Lou Gehrig’s disease, dementia, cancer, divorce, betrayal, the loss of loved ones, and more—with tears of sorrow and protest on the one hand, and an anchor of hope on the other.
I think especially of Ben, a beloved school teacher who went to heaven way too early in life because of cancer. In his final days and as his body wasted away from the disease, he recited Scripture and sang songs of worship to God. When asked in his last moments if he wanted anything said on his behalf to his students, he said matter-of-factly, “Tell them that it’s true. Tell them that it’s all true. Tell them that the gospel of Jesus Christ…is true.”
After Ben’s death, and precisely because of it, a revival of faith and of renewed commitments to walk closely with the Lord took place among his friends, his colleagues, and his students. As it was with Samson, so it seemed with Ben as well—that he accomplished as much in his death as he had in his lifetime, by the grace and power of God working through his weakness (Judges 16:23-31).
So, for these and many other reasons—while the greater, more visible and grand-scale achievements in the kingdom deserve their due—perhaps now is as good a time as any to celebrate the way God intends to work through all of us versus only a few of us—through what the Apostle Paul called the glory of weakness, which is a quality that we all share, and which is the place where the true power of God resides most.
Indeed, not many of us were wise or influential or noble or powerful according to human standards when Christ called us. And yet, we are nonetheless poised—not in spite of our weaknesses, but precisely because of them—to shake the earth.
© 2017-2018 www.scottsauls.com
Why Small Things Are Often The Greatest Things BY SCOTT SAULS
In my earliest days as a minister—somewhere around my mid-twenties—an older mentor challenged me to “attempt something so great for God that it is doomed for failure, unless God be in it.”
Embracing his challenge, I began to dream of great things for the future. I envisioned becoming the kind of leader whose ministry would produce scores of new disciples, plant growing and healthy churches, provide community and encouragement for key city leaders, and serve as a resource for kingdom impact beyond my own context. Eventually, if it all worked out, I would also be invited to write books, speak at conferences, and minister from a national platform.
“That,” I would tell myself, “is something so big that only God can accomplish it…because I surely don’t have what it takes to accomplish these things.” Since that time, and by the grace of God, most of these things have occurred in my life and ministry. And yet…
And yet…
While such BHAG or “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals” are not necessarily a bad thing, I’m not sure that the advice once offered to me by an older mentor is the same advice that I would give to younger ministers today. The older I get, and the more attuned I become to Scripture in particular, the more convinced I am becoming that the real action in God’s kingdom is not so much on the big platform or in the halls of power, but rather through quiet, daily, ordinary faithfulness lived out in local communities all over the world.
It is true that God has in various seasons, and for his own purposes, raised up servants to accomplish great things on a grand scale. Almost all of the Ivy League Universities were founded by Christians, for example. Christianity has produced great leaders in science such as Pascal, Copernicus, Newton, Galileo, Meitner, and Collins, to name only a few. The same can be said of the arts and literature, with the likes of Rembrandt, Dorothy Sayers, Dostoevsky, T.S. Eliot, Flannery O’Connor, Makoto Fujimura, Johnny Cash, and Bono being guided in their creativity by their faith in Christ. There is also the world of healthcare, with all those hospitals named after a Saint, and history’s most famous and impactful efforts toward social justice—William Wilberforce for the emancipation of slaves, Hannah More for her generous philanthropy, Dorothy Day for her journalistic activism, George Mueller for his leadership in the care of orphans, and Martin Luther King, Jr. for his sacrificial leadership in the realm of civil rights—all of whose efforts and achievements are a tribute to the power of Christ to heal the world.
Lastly, I would be remiss not to mention my former colleague and mentor, Dr. Timothy Keller, who recently made the Forbes list of the top fifty most influential people in the world. He was the only pastor named on that list.
These remarkable and unique examples notwithstanding, one still wonders if God’s primary strategy for bringing his grace, truth, and power into the world is to do so less through extraordinary and grand means, and more through ordinary and small and everyday means.
Writing to a Corinthian church that valued the extraordinary and grand—they were people who valued things like celebrity, power, wealth, networking, and being among the movers and shakers—the apostle Paul wrote:
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:26-30).
The life of Jesus also challenges our “attempt something so great” approach to life and ministry. By choice and by design, Jesus was born outdoors to two economically strapped teenagers who would soon become refugees. He lacked a formal education, he worked a blue-collar job, he never got married or had children, and he spent some of his adult life homeless. According to Isaiah, his physical appearance was so unimpressive that there was nothing identifiably attractive about him (Isaiah 53:2). Most people misunderstood and rejected him, and he was eventually abandoned by his closest friends. He died as a common criminal on a trash heap, having been regarded as an enemy of both synagogue and state.
As it was with the Apostle Paul, so it was with Jesus—if power was going to be made manifest in him—it would have to be through his weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).
We can also learn from the lives of other, so-called heroes of faith from Scripture. As I was recently reminded by a letter written by a fellow minister to a struggling young man—Moses stuttered, David’s armor didn’t fit, John Mark was rejected by Paul, Hosea’s wife was a prostitute, and Amos’ only training for being a prophet was as a fig tree pruner. Jeremiah experienced depression, Gideon and Thomas doubted, and Jonah ran from God. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all failed miserably by telling lies—Indeed, Scripture is filled with real people who had real failures, real struggles, real inadequacies, and real inabilities.
And God shook the earth with them.
For it is not so much from our strength that God draws, but from his own, invincible might.
Perhaps it is this quality of God’s—his affection for using the weakest vessels to accomplish his greatest work—that compelled Henri Nouwen to adopt the practice of what he called “downward mobility.” Nouwen, a celebrated thought-leader and touring speaker based out of Notre Dame, and then Harvard, and then Yale, was in the prime of his career when he received and invitation from his friend, Jean Vanier, to lay aside his accolades and ascending fame for the purpose of pastoring a small community for the mentally disabled, called L’Arche (The Shelter). Nouwen’s rationale for accepting this role—which many would view as career suicide—was as follows:
Scripture reveals…that real and total freedom is only found through downward mobility…The divine way is indeed the downward way…[Jesus] moved from power to powerlessness, from greatness to smallness, from success to failure, from strength to weakness, from glory to ignominy. The whole life of Jesus of Nazareth…resisted upward mobility.
What many people do not know is that some of Nouwen’s most well-known, most impactful written works would be released into the world not from a grand stage or massive speaking platform, but rather from his more obscure, quiet life among disabled men and women at L’Arche, whom he had come to embrace as family.
I’ve also seen the “power of small” play out in my own community here in Nashville among the people of Christ Presbyterian Church. As anyone in our church would attest, the true celebrities among us—the ones whose lives and presence point the rest of us toward the glory and goodness of God most remarkably—are people who are open with their weaknesses, people with special needs, and people who are in the process of dying.
Two years into my role as senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian, I shared my own story of dealing with anxiety and depression with our congregation. At the end of the service, a man in our congregation approached me and said, “Scott, I want you to know that today is the day that you became my pastor. In the end, it won’t chiefly be your vision or your preaching or writing that will bring hope to people like me. Instead, it will be the story of how God has ministered to you in your struggles.”
I am not the first pastor through whom God has brought strength to others through the telling of his weaknesses. I was merely following the lead of the apostle Paul, who spoke of his grief over his coveting in Romans 7, and then his debilitating thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12. In both instances, God’s power was manifest not only to Paul, but also to millions of other sinners and sufferers through history.
There’s something powerful about confessing our sins and sorrows to one another and then bringing them into the light of God’s healing grace, isn’t there? What was true then is also true today—God’s power is made perfect and is manifest—not chiefly through human strength but through human weakness.
Likewise, one of the greatest privileges I have is being pastor to a church with many children and adults who have special needs. This is a population to which our church has chosen to invest resources and give special attention. I firmly believe that the greatest beneficiaries of this investment are not the people among us who have special needs, but those of us who get to live a slice of our lives in their company.
I think of Katie who has Down Syndrome. She has the biggest smile and gives the longest and strongest hugs. I think of how she insists on a hug from me, her pastor, almost every Sunday. I think of how she lights up when I tell her she is beautiful, and how she sweetly reminds me that I need to tell her she is beautiful on those rare occasions when I forget. I think of how she hands me pictures that she has drawn—pictures that represent her profoundly simple and simply profound interpretations of my sermons.
I also think of William—who also has Down Syndrome and is autistic. William’s parents are stretched fully and are on constant call working together to care for his needs. And yet, they never stop telling us how rich their lives are because of him. If not for William, they would know Jesus less. If not for William, we, too, would know Jesus less. Hand a box of Cheez-Its to William and you might not get it back. If you look away for even a minute he may have disappeared to another room. And he laughs at my jokes and gives me high fives and smiles ear to ear when our eyes make contact. He, like Katie, insists on giving me hugs. William, with full awareness, belongs. Though unable to articulate his thoughts clearly in words, he hands out bulletins at church, serves communion, and dances to hymns and worship songs. As he does all of these things—as he lives honest and true—he brings us all back to the truth. He brings us back to grace. He shows us the King and the kingdom that we would not be able to see clearly without the likes of him. He shows us that we belong, too.
The last demonstration of power I’ll speak of here, which is also perhaps the most remarkable, is people who suffer with hope instead of despair. I can think of so many men, women, and even children in our community who have faced some of the direst circumstances—Lou Gehrig’s disease, dementia, cancer, divorce, betrayal, the loss of loved ones, and more—with tears of sorrow and protest on the one hand, and an anchor of hope on the other.
I think especially of Ben, a beloved school teacher who went to heaven way too early in life because of cancer. In his final days and as his body wasted away from the disease, he recited Scripture and sang songs of worship to God. When asked in his last moments if he wanted anything said on his behalf to his students, he said matter-of-factly, “Tell them that it’s true. Tell them that it’s all true. Tell them that the gospel of Jesus Christ…is true.”
After Ben’s death, and precisely because of it, a revival of faith and of renewed commitments to walk closely with the Lord took place among his friends, his colleagues, and his students. As it was with Samson, so it seemed with Ben as well—that he accomplished as much in his death as he had in his lifetime, by the grace and power of God working through his weakness (Judges 16:23-31).
So, for these and many other reasons—while the greater, more visible and grand-scale achievements in the kingdom deserve their due—perhaps now is as good a time as any to celebrate the way God intends to work through all of us versus only a few of us—through what the Apostle Paul called the glory of weakness, which is a quality that we all share, and which is the place where the true power of God resides most.
Indeed, not many of us were wise or influential or noble or powerful according to human standards when Christ called us. And yet, we are nonetheless poised—not in spite of our weaknesses, but precisely because of them—to shake the earth.
© 2017-2018 www.scottsauls.com
The Five Heart Hopes: How God Speaks the Love Language of Our Souls God speaks into the unique longings deep within each of us.
R. YORK MOORE
I was a newly married man when I first heard the phrase ‘The Five Love Languages.’
The concept put so much into perspective for me, both for myself and for my understanding of how to love my wife. I’m grateful that I encountered Dr. Gary Chapman’s simple little test that has helped me to see why I need ‘words of affirmation’ in order to feel loved. I understand that my words of affirmation to my wife, however, fall flat and that she doesn’t feel love from me in the same way I do.
My wife feels my love when I share ‘acts of service’ with her and my son through ‘quality time’ and my daughters through ‘gifts,’ (of course!). The point is that we all need love—we crave it—but we experience it deep in our souls through different ways. Dr. Chapman has helped the world understand this through a simple and powerful construct—the Five Love Languages!
I believe that there is an associated concept to the Five Love Languages that can be equally powerful when it comes to helping people experience God’s love. God, in fact, is fluent in our love language and is striving to make himself known to us in a way that is radically oriented around our deepest soul longing.
I believe that every single one of us has a love language and that God speaks it to us in a way that we can understand. In many ways, we cry out to God through our love language with what I call our ‘Heart Hope.’
A Heart Hope is a specific type of longing that is associated with our love language. It is the question behind the question, the drive that fuels our lives and, as you probably guessed, there are five of them!
I believe these Five Heart Hopes drive us and our spiritual journey over the course of our lives. As I describe the Five Heart Hopes, try to figure out what your own as you read the description (Hint: knowing your Love Language will be a helpful key. If you haven’t taken the free test, you can do so here).
I Am Seen:
People who experience love through ‘words of affirmation’ are crying out to be seen. They want to know that what they do and who they are isn’t going unnoticed. Being seen is a powerful experience.
Think back to when you were a child learning to do something for the first time—perhaps bravely jumping off a diving board or doing your first cartwheel. The words are palpable, “Daddy, watch me!”
There is something deep within us that longs to be seen, to know that we are not invisible and that someone cares enough to see us. I believe people with the love language ‘words of affirmation’ are crying out to be noticed. As this is my primary love language, I can tell you with all assurance that my Heart Hope is to be noticed, to be loved by being seen and recognized.
I Matter:
People who experience love through ‘acts of service’ are crying out to know that they matter. They want to know that they are having an impact and making a difference, regardless of whether they are ever known for it or seen doing it. This is very unlike people like me who need to be seen.
The Heart Hope ‘I Matter’ drives us to ask over and over questions like “What’s the point?” “What kind of legacy am I leaving?” “Am I having an impact?” There is something deep within us that strives to make a true difference and people with the love language ‘acts of service’ cry out to know that their lives and actions matter.
I Have Worth:
People who experience love through ‘gifts’ are crying out to know that they have worth. Very frequently, they give gifts and long to receive gifts because it is in the giving and receiving where they feel their worth.
Gifts have a way of tangibly symbolizing a person’s value to the gift giver. A thoughtful, well-timed, and sincerely given gift causes our hearts to soar. It is in that moment a person who longs to be loved through gifts will tell you that he or she feels his or her worth. The Heart Hope ‘I have worth’ is so powerful that many will spend all they have to feel this euphoria again and again.
I Am Known:
People who experience love through ‘quality time’ want to know and be known intimately. Unlike ‘words of affirmation’ people who want to be seen and known widely, ‘quality time’ people want to be known deeply.
They are crying out for deep, intimate connection; this is what quality time is all about. Being known is at the core of what it means to be created in the image of God and this Heart Hope burns within us and will never be fully met until we are with God in eternity. For now, however, our Heart Hope can be met through deep meaningful relationships with others and, most importantly, with Jesus.
I Belong:
People who experience love through ‘physical touch’ want to know that they belong. Touch for these kinds of people is the vehicle through which they experience attachment, a sense of inner peace that comes from knowing that they are connected to others around them. The Heart Hope ‘I belong’ is a cry for deep and meaningful acceptance through embrace.
We feel this Heart Hope met when we collapse into our loved one’s arms after a long journey, wake up to the kiss or cradle of a spouse, or are clung to by our children. To be embraced is to know that we belong.
In some ways, all of us have all five of these Heart Hopes, but based on our love language type, we are usually driven by just one of these burning quests. At the very core of each and every commercial, sermon, self-help book, inspirational speech, or 12-step program is an attempt at answering the cry of one or more of these Heart Hopes. They are compelling on their own, but the great news is God speaks our Love Language and answers our Heart Hope.
We could take each of these Heart Hopes and demonstrate how Jesus, in fact, spoke the love language of his disciples as he called them, loved them, and gave his life for them.
Because I am a ‘words of affirmation’ person whose Heart Hope is to be seen, I’m particularly drawn to the calling of Nathanael. In John 1:47-49, Jesus answers Nathanael’s Heart Hope by seeing him and loving him through his words of affirmation:
When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” (NIV, emphasis added)
What is your Heart Hope? What is the Heart Hope of those around you? Knowing a person’s Love Language can help us know their Heart Hope and connect the good news of Jesus to their story in such a way that is powerful and transformative!
R. York Moore is an author and serves as National Evangelist and National Director for Catalytic Partnerships for InterVarsity USA. York is a convener of leaders for evangelism and missions in America, and a founder of the Every Campus initiative.
R. YORK MOORE
I was a newly married man when I first heard the phrase ‘The Five Love Languages.’
The concept put so much into perspective for me, both for myself and for my understanding of how to love my wife. I’m grateful that I encountered Dr. Gary Chapman’s simple little test that has helped me to see why I need ‘words of affirmation’ in order to feel loved. I understand that my words of affirmation to my wife, however, fall flat and that she doesn’t feel love from me in the same way I do.
My wife feels my love when I share ‘acts of service’ with her and my son through ‘quality time’ and my daughters through ‘gifts,’ (of course!). The point is that we all need love—we crave it—but we experience it deep in our souls through different ways. Dr. Chapman has helped the world understand this through a simple and powerful construct—the Five Love Languages!
I believe that there is an associated concept to the Five Love Languages that can be equally powerful when it comes to helping people experience God’s love. God, in fact, is fluent in our love language and is striving to make himself known to us in a way that is radically oriented around our deepest soul longing.
I believe that every single one of us has a love language and that God speaks it to us in a way that we can understand. In many ways, we cry out to God through our love language with what I call our ‘Heart Hope.’
A Heart Hope is a specific type of longing that is associated with our love language. It is the question behind the question, the drive that fuels our lives and, as you probably guessed, there are five of them!
I believe these Five Heart Hopes drive us and our spiritual journey over the course of our lives. As I describe the Five Heart Hopes, try to figure out what your own as you read the description (Hint: knowing your Love Language will be a helpful key. If you haven’t taken the free test, you can do so here).
I Am Seen:
People who experience love through ‘words of affirmation’ are crying out to be seen. They want to know that what they do and who they are isn’t going unnoticed. Being seen is a powerful experience.
Think back to when you were a child learning to do something for the first time—perhaps bravely jumping off a diving board or doing your first cartwheel. The words are palpable, “Daddy, watch me!”
There is something deep within us that longs to be seen, to know that we are not invisible and that someone cares enough to see us. I believe people with the love language ‘words of affirmation’ are crying out to be noticed. As this is my primary love language, I can tell you with all assurance that my Heart Hope is to be noticed, to be loved by being seen and recognized.
I Matter:
People who experience love through ‘acts of service’ are crying out to know that they matter. They want to know that they are having an impact and making a difference, regardless of whether they are ever known for it or seen doing it. This is very unlike people like me who need to be seen.
The Heart Hope ‘I Matter’ drives us to ask over and over questions like “What’s the point?” “What kind of legacy am I leaving?” “Am I having an impact?” There is something deep within us that strives to make a true difference and people with the love language ‘acts of service’ cry out to know that their lives and actions matter.
I Have Worth:
People who experience love through ‘gifts’ are crying out to know that they have worth. Very frequently, they give gifts and long to receive gifts because it is in the giving and receiving where they feel their worth.
Gifts have a way of tangibly symbolizing a person’s value to the gift giver. A thoughtful, well-timed, and sincerely given gift causes our hearts to soar. It is in that moment a person who longs to be loved through gifts will tell you that he or she feels his or her worth. The Heart Hope ‘I have worth’ is so powerful that many will spend all they have to feel this euphoria again and again.
I Am Known:
People who experience love through ‘quality time’ want to know and be known intimately. Unlike ‘words of affirmation’ people who want to be seen and known widely, ‘quality time’ people want to be known deeply.
They are crying out for deep, intimate connection; this is what quality time is all about. Being known is at the core of what it means to be created in the image of God and this Heart Hope burns within us and will never be fully met until we are with God in eternity. For now, however, our Heart Hope can be met through deep meaningful relationships with others and, most importantly, with Jesus.
I Belong:
People who experience love through ‘physical touch’ want to know that they belong. Touch for these kinds of people is the vehicle through which they experience attachment, a sense of inner peace that comes from knowing that they are connected to others around them. The Heart Hope ‘I belong’ is a cry for deep and meaningful acceptance through embrace.
We feel this Heart Hope met when we collapse into our loved one’s arms after a long journey, wake up to the kiss or cradle of a spouse, or are clung to by our children. To be embraced is to know that we belong.
In some ways, all of us have all five of these Heart Hopes, but based on our love language type, we are usually driven by just one of these burning quests. At the very core of each and every commercial, sermon, self-help book, inspirational speech, or 12-step program is an attempt at answering the cry of one or more of these Heart Hopes. They are compelling on their own, but the great news is God speaks our Love Language and answers our Heart Hope.
We could take each of these Heart Hopes and demonstrate how Jesus, in fact, spoke the love language of his disciples as he called them, loved them, and gave his life for them.
Because I am a ‘words of affirmation’ person whose Heart Hope is to be seen, I’m particularly drawn to the calling of Nathanael. In John 1:47-49, Jesus answers Nathanael’s Heart Hope by seeing him and loving him through his words of affirmation:
When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” (NIV, emphasis added)
What is your Heart Hope? What is the Heart Hope of those around you? Knowing a person’s Love Language can help us know their Heart Hope and connect the good news of Jesus to their story in such a way that is powerful and transformative!
R. York Moore is an author and serves as National Evangelist and National Director for Catalytic Partnerships for InterVarsity USA. York is a convener of leaders for evangelism and missions in America, and a founder of the Every Campus initiative.
A Vision of Heaven from Bridgemaker on Vimeo.
Mama Shekinah Trailer from Bridgemaker on Vimeo.
