In case you didn’t know, I’m planting again.
That’s right. The church planting ninja strikes again.
This one is different though. Of course, I’m different post-covid. Aren’t you?
Anyone who tells me they were unaffected is lying. Andrea jokes that I was probably the most unaffected person by the lockdowns simply because I’d holed myself away writing a textbook. But still, I was affected like everyone else.
And because people were affected, mission was affected.
The mission of God in a pre-Covid world felt different. I was gung-ho to mobilize mere church goers into missionaries by radical means, like a Mama-bird pushing them out of the next. I wrote about the “theology of risk” subversively placed into the New Testament. So much so, that when I heard people talk about soul-care, I judged it as somewhat selfish in its orientation.
Yet in a post-Covid world, I’ve begun to see that soul-care is not juxtaposed against mission, but that the mission is soul-care.
It feels wrong in the current cultural moment to demand more bricks with less straw.
People are tired. They are spent. They are still recovering. They’re still helpless and harassed, like sheep without a shepherd. Much like they were in Jesus’s day.
Perhaps that’s why our new plant is called “The Abbey,” a term which invokes the idea of safety and security. An abbey was a place where the church provided for what was lacking in the community, and often provided community itself.
I’m afraid that pre-Covid Peyton might judge post-Covid Peyton a little harshly.
In fact, my new baseline question for missional engagement is to ask people like I used to in Wales, “What do you like to do?”
Recently, we asked our strike team what they liked to do. We concluded that we all like to throw parties. We like to host. We are hospitable.
Therefore, our mission involves rotating parties at each of our houses.
For that reason, this year, rather than traveling to family for the Fourth of July, we’ve decided to hang back on our street and celebrate with our neighbors. This is our time to party. It’s a time for us to simply open up our house and yard, and enter into the traditions, new and old, on our street. It’s time for us to simply be with our neighbors and talk.
It’s the TIME component of the discipleship circles that Jesus engaged on his discipology process.
This is how we reach our Jerusalem. It’s how Jesus reached his after all. John, the writer of the gospel points out that every time Jesus visits Jerusalem, it’s to celebrate a party or observe a feast. Jesus entered the rhythms of his own community to reach the unreached.
And so…so shall the Joneses.
Oh…and by the way, you’ve probably gathered by now…I’m writing another textbook. Who says you need a lockdown to write a textbook?
This topic was first raised as part of NewBreed’s Scattering Disciples course. To join in, click here.
Peyton Jones is a serial church planter, author, speaker, outreach consultant, and founder of NewBreed Training. Born in Washington, D.C. but raised in Huntington Beach, CA (Surf City), he married the girl he fell in love with at 17. He is the adoptive father of two awesome young ladies, Liberty and Eden.
The post Mission: Doing What People Like to Do appeared first on Newbreed Training.