I landed in time for the face-off for the men’s Olympic Gold Medal Hockey Game. Being in the States during the game had its downsides, but it was fun to gloat. That evening, I went to Mosaic (Erwin McManus’s community) and they lamented their USA team’s loss. No sympathy here.

After 9 days without checking e-mail, my inbox was full of stories of God at work across Canada; Vancouver churches using the Olympics to reach their neighbourhoods, Alberta churches wanting to become more missional, Manitoba Christians gearing up for hosting the 2011 National Church Planting Congress, and those in Ontario, excited about developing a Canadian tour on urban community development.

There were questions also. How do we find ways to work together? How do we measure faithfulness? How do we train leaders for missional engagement? But the biggest question, hit me while attending Mosaic. How do we gather in a way to produce missionaries and not consumers? To be clear, I enjoyed myself. Everything was top notch. The crowd was expectant, the band fantastic, the dancers spectacular and the ethos was magnetic. I love listening to Erwin, and his wife Kim was even better. It’s not hard to see why Mosaic is so popular.

But one question plagued me. Can we gather for worship in the same way and hope to produce missionaries instead of consumers?

I used to attend Willow Creek Community Church. Their heart for non-Christians is huge. But the “seeker-targeted” services smelled of performance and eventually their “Reveal” material admitted they had not produced the disciples they had wanted to. At Mosaic, I felt like I’d been to a show. I wondered if the end result would be any different. I walked in, was greeted, sat down and didn’t need to do anything else. Do we produce consumers by the way we gather to worship… no matter how well we do it?

Leviticus 1 is about burnt offerings. God knew that as His people entered the promised-land they would be seduced by the worship of the foreign God’s. God gave clear instructions how to worship so that others would be drawn to Him. He was precise. Thorough. Inclusive, demanding and expectant. But above all, He was missional for He wanted His people to be a blessing to all nations.

The biggest lesson is that worship was about what they brought, and not just about what they received or consumed. It cost them a lot. What would our gatherings look like if we oriented them around bringing and giving, and not around performance and receiving?

In my church, we did not take an offering, thinking it would make for a safe place for unbelievers. When I went to a friend’s church and saw people come down the aisle to place their offering in a basket, I caught a glimpse into what it was to teach people that we come to give. This has led to constantly asking the question…

“What are we doing that is inadvertently producing consumers, instead of producing missionaries?”

Ruthlessly work to sort out the answers to this most important question.

Cam planted a church in the inner city of Burnaby, BC. After seeing its neighbourhood transformed, Southside Community Church has grown to four congregations in four neighbourhoods. Out of this, Cam has developed the Forge Canada Missional Training Network which helps churches and leaders across the country to become missional and see neighbourhood transformation in their neighbourhoods, and multiply into new neighbourhoods. Cam has also serves as the National Director of Church Planting Canada.

Cam has the privilege of speaking internationally at conferences and schools. He has also consulted with a number of churches and denominations, and served on committees for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. His great passion remains for Christ working in a local community of followers of Jesus to see neighbourhood transformation.

Cam has been married to for 21 years. He and his wife have four children and live in Surrey, BC.

As our church seeks to become more missional I’m sometimes confronted with questions like, “But what are we doing about discipleship?” or, “How are we growing mature believers?” I think the assumption in people’s minds who ask questions like these is that missional living is output-oriented (investing yourself in others’ development) while discipleship initiatives are input-oriented (focusing on and developing yourself). And the further assumption is that events, groups or programs are the most effective tools for helping us grow spiritually.

But as someone responsible for our congregations’ spiritual development, I can’t help but challenge those assumptions when I look at Jesus’ first disciples. Here’s what I mean…

In the Gospel of Luke there is no doubt that Jesus gathered His twelve followers and taught them regularly and beyond regular “teaching environments.” He spent deliberate time with them, constantly unpacking and applying what He had taught them about the Kingdom of God. Based on this example, if I were to set up events, groups or programs that could develop people spiritually, I’d assume that exposing people to Jesus’ teaching directly and allowing them to essentially join His small group on a full-time basis would be the ultimate spiritual growth engine!

But in Luke chapter 8 (after Jesus calms the storm) His disciples ask each other, “Who is this man, that the wind and waves obey Him?” Do you find that question as odd as I do? People exposed to the teaching of the ultimate discipler, Jesus Himself, were still at a who-is-this-man level of faith.

What’s even more surprising is how drastically that changes just one chapter later. In Luke chapter 9 Jesus asks His disciples who do they say He is and Peter immediately replies, “You are the Christ sent from God.” At this point His disciples seem clear and confident in their knowledge of Jesus.

So to me, the question is: what changed? What happened of such significance between the middle of chapter 8 and the middle of chapter 9 where Jesus’ disciples grew so much in their understanding of Him? Take a look at what it says in Luke 9:1-2 “When Jesus had called the Twelve together, He gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and He sent them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.”

Do you see what happened? After months of teaching and relationally-based ministry with His disciples, Jesus sent them out to experience His mission – to live missionally. And through living missionally – not through teaching environments or relational exposure – His disciples grew in ways they never had before. To Jesus’ original followers, it was the output-oriented missional living experience that provided them with the greatest input into their understanding of Him!

So what do you think? Have missional experiences been significant discipleship opportunities in your life? And do you lead your church that way – is your encouragement to missional living separate from your discipleship initiatives, or a fundamental component of them?

I’d love to get some banter going and hear your stories: how have you reconciled the conflict that sometimes exists in churches between input-oriented discipleship environments and output-oriented missional initiatives? How do they fit together in your mind and how do they work together in the ministry of your church?

Talk to me!

Jeff serves as the point leader for the management team at Southridge Community Church, St. Catharines, ON. He works closely with the board of elders, providing the link between their governance and the day-to-day development of the church’s ministry. His primary responsibilities are the supervision and support of the management team, as well as providing messages in weekend services. Jeff is married and has two boys.

http://www.southridgechurch.ca/