Just this week I met in Dallas with community teams that are a part of our Missional Renaissance Leadership Community. It was terrific as usual. The MRLC helps teams of church and community leaders accelerate their missional engagement.
One of our church and community teams is from Nassau Bay, the Houston area, led by Greg Finke, lead pastor of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church there. This area took a direct hit from Ike back in August. I haven't seen Greg since then, although we had communicated. He made two observations that I think are fabulous.
One, he said, they discovered that neighbor is a verb. Ponder that.
Second, he said that the evacuation of their building and shut down of the community and church for several weeks led them to the discovery that the pastors were pastoring programs, not people. "So," he said, "we made a decision to go out and hang out with people and see what happens." The result is a renewed focus on what ministry is about.
Along with the other members of the MRLC, Gloria Dei is figuring out what it means to move from a program-driven agenda to a people-development agenda. This is the heart of what it means to go missional.
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