getting all stirred up

I spent the day watching videos.  And I got paid for it!

Now before you get all up in arms thinking that I’m drawing a paycheck off your tithe money by wasting the day buried in the labyrinth that is YouTube, I was actually diving in to some great teaching via the interwebs.

Darrin Patrick is a pastor/author/church planting coach from St. Louis.  He’s also my newest boss, as he’s the chaplain for the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Spikes are part of the Cardinals organization now.  He was the featured speaker on Ed Stetzer‘s The Exchange today, talking about the mission of God, the mission of the church, and the transformation of cities.  Does that sound familiar?  I wanted to learn everything he has to teach.  I was fascinated as DP talked about identifying and understanding the idols of a city, seeing them torn down, and praying through the transformation of the city.

Good grief, does that hit home…

Stetzer referred to the archives of all the interviews he’s done for The Exchange, so I surfed on over.  This is like the treasure trove!  This afternoon I spent about an hour listening to Mike Breen talk about Missional Communities.  I had to go back tonight to re-listen–it’s that good!  He’s talking about the people of God, followers of Jesus actively fulfilling the Great Commission–disciples of Jesus making disciples of Jesus.

I feel like I’ve been drinking from the firehose lately as it relates to the mission of the church, which is the mission of midtown, which is the mission of me, you, and every other person who claims to be a follower of Jesus.

How much is the Spirit of God feeding me with this?  Right after I watched the Darrin Patrick talk I ran across this from Mike Breen: If you make disciples, you will always get the church. But if you try to build the church, you will rarely get disciples.

So it begins with me: Am I living and learning as a disciple of Jesus, growing in my love and obedience?  And am I investing in others, helping them become disciples of Jesus?

What’s amazing to me is that this is the message of Jesus captured for us in the Bible 2000 years ago.  Still relevant, still challenging, still powerful, still life-giving. The mission of the church is to make disciples, to teach people how to follow Jesus. I need to be reminded of that on a regular basis!