With Christmas behind us and New Years just around the corner, everyone is going to be figuring out what they are going to do for their New Year’s resolution. Goals will be set. Exercise equipment will be purchased. Books will be read. The plans will be made, the goals will be set, and a few months into the new year failure will creep in. So how do you make a new years resolution that you’ll actually keep?
Why do we fail? Are new years resolutions cursed? Is there any way to be successful? Some would say no, but I think there is. I think the problem is with the type of resolution and not with the ideas of resolutions itself. A few years back I had the opportunity to listen to Jeff Vanderstelt of Soma Communities in Washington share his thoughts on churches having values. I think his ideas help answer this issue perfectly.
He stated that the problem with values is that they fall short. Values can be narrow minded and ultimately don’t help us accomplish what we want. Values are generally based just upon actions. At the heart of values is the idea that we need to DO something. But we need to call people to BE something. When we help people find a new identity, their actions will automatically follow.
In this same mindset, I think we need to give up goals and action plans and exchange them for new identities (these identities should always be subservient to our identity in Jesus). Let me give you an example. Here is a typical New Years resolution:
I will run a 5k.
It seems simple enough. There are even apps that will help you accomplish this goal. But many of us will fail and those that accomplish it will only have to set another goal. But what if we changed this from an action to an identity?
I will become a runner.
The difference in my mind is world’s apart. With the first, you might run a 5k, but then what do you do? With the second, you will run many 5k’s. You’ll change your diet. You’ll find fellow runners. You’ll buy they right equipment. You will change your lifestyle. Why? Because you are a runner and that is what runners do.
When you simply set a goal, you’re done when you accomplish it. When you decide to become something (change your identity), you change everything about you for the rest of your life.
This perspective of a missional church starkly contrasts the typical church today that sees itself as a church that has missions. In these churches, missions are always done by a specially called person who is a missionary. Missions is always done in a foreign country. Missions is a program or ministry that is run by a committee in the church. The church goes on mission trips, has a missions fund, and has a missions bulletin board in the foyer with a map of the world with colored pushpins in it. Missions is completely separate from the church and exist out of the church. The church has missions.
Whereas a missional church understands the opposite—the mission of God has a church. This perspective changes everything. This means that the mission field is where the church is. We are all missionaries. There is no missions program. Instead, every program and ministry is a missional program. The church doesn’t run missions—the mission runs the church. The church doesn’t have a mission. The mission has a church. This is what it means to be a missional church. Being missional isn’t the next catchy fad, but instead it is being caught up in the mission of God.
The word missional’s meaning is rooted deeply within the understanding of the church’s purpose. This purpose displays itself in three different ways. The church is a missionary sent on mission as a sign and instrument of the Missio Dei. The first area in which we are called to be missional is as a missionary in our own culture. The general idea of a missionary is a person in a foreign country in a completely non-Christian culture. But in reality, today all Christians live in non-Christian cultures. Tim Keller gives insight into this reality by focusing on the missionary Lesslie Newbigin:
The British missionary Lesslie Newbigin went to India around 1950. There he was involved with a church living ‘in mission’ in a very non-Christian culture. When he returned to England some 30 years later, he discovered that now the Western church too existed in a non-Christian society, but it had not adapted to its new situation. Though public institutions and popular culture of Europe and North America no longer ‘Christianized’ people, the church still ran its ministries assuming that a stream of ‘Christianized,’ traditional/moral people would simply show up in services. Some churches certainly did ‘evangelism’ as one ministry among many. But the church in the West had not become completely ‘missional’—adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in worship, discipleship, community, and service—so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it. It had not developed a ‘missiology of western culture’ the way it had done so for other nonbelieving cultures.
Even if you are in a “Christianized” culture, the reality is that we still need to view ourselves as missionaries. Every culture needs some amount of contextualization of the gospel. This means that you have to be missionary to do the contextualization needed to present the gospel.
What is the difference between a church that has missions and a missional church? This seems to be the question that everyone is asking lately, and it has been one that I’ve been developing a personal answer to for a while.
There always seems to be a new buzzword in Christian circles every few years. The words enter our vocabulary quickly and leave just as fast. People reword mission and purpose statements around them, and some even restructure their entire church around them. “Seeker-sensitive,” “purpose-driven,” “organic,” and “emerging” are just a few, but the newest to be added to the list is the word “missional.” It is the new buzzword of our day. There are missional churches, missional small groups, missional preaching, missional books, missional degrees, and even missional missiology.
But what does “missional” mean exactly? Most people use it without even stopping to determine what it means. Worst yet, some simply make it mean what they want it to mean to give themselves license to do idiotic and irrelevant acts. This is a sad thing, because the word missional has a deep and beautiful meaning for our churches today.
What would it have been like to be one of the first recipients of a letter from the apostle Paul? To be a member of the small growing movement of Jesus followers? To receive some of the first teachings about Jesus and his church? Receiving from the apostles letters of encouragement as you struggled in your early faith? Would you know that what you were holding in your hands would later make up our modern-day Bible? Many of the churches that Paul wrote to were struggling and fighting with false teachers and false doctrine that was creeping into the body. The apostle would write to these churches to encourage and correct them in order to help them grow in Christ. This is the case with his letter to the Colossians.
The book of Colossians was written sometime around 62 A.D. by the Apostle Paul while he was imprisoned in Rome.[1][2] It is interesting that Paul wrote a letter to the church in Colossae. Colossae was a small, rural town in the valley of the Lycus that was hidden in the shadow of the greater cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis.[3] Furthermore, there is no record that he ever visited Colossae. He even states that they had never seen him “face to face” (Col. 2:1).[4] To top it off, “[h]e was not the founder of their church. That honor fell to Epaphras, who was a native of the area and had labored for its evangelization.”[5]
So why would Paul have taken the opportunity to write to the church in Colossae? It is clear from the letter that Epaphras traveled to Rome to visit with Paul, to seek his wisdom, and to encourage him with the growth of the church in the area. There is common understanding among scholars that there was a growing heresy in the church at Colossae. Therefore, it is thought that Paul wrote Colossians as a letter of encouragement to the church. Where exactly the heresy came from or what it was, no one really knows. According to N.T. Wright,
Scholars have long held that Colossians was written to combat a particular danger within the young church. False teachers were inculcating spurious doctrines and practices, demoting Christ from his position of unique pre-eminence, and encouraging various dubious mystical and ascetic religious practices. But there is no agreement on the identity of these teachers or the nature of their teaching.[6]
In general, Paul’s defense and doctrine in Colossians went against both common Judaic and Pagan distortions about the person and work of Jesus. Therefore, Paul’s writing in Colossians focuses heavily on Jesus. This focus gives Colossians a very heavy Christology (the study of the person and works of Jesus Christ).
Donald Guthrie makes this point very vividly in his book New Testament Introduction when he says the following:
The epistle contains a high Christology. Christ is pre-eminent over all other creatures and over creation itself. In fact, all things were not only created by him but for him. He is seen at the centre of the universe, sovereign over all principalities and powers, over all agencies, that is to say, which might challenge his authority. Not only so, he is the image of God and possessor of the fullness of God, and these statements could not fail to exalt him to an equality with God. He is further described as the Head of the church, which is conceived of as his body. The Christological passage (Col. 1:15-19) in which all these ideas are expressed is followed immediately by a statement regarding Christ’s redemptive work (1:20 ff.) and this work is supported by the further statement in 2:14 that in the cross Christ triumphed over all his enemies. Clearly Paul’s purpose is to demonstrate the immeasurable superiority of Christ, as contrasted with the inadequate presentation of him being advocated by the Colossian false teachers.[7]
The book of Colossians was written, by a man who served Jesus, to a church that wanted to follow Jesus so that they might know who Jesus truly is. This epistle, in the simplest and clearest way, is all about Jesus. So being a church in the first century that had never met or heard from Paul in person, what would they have learned from the Apostle Paul’s letter about the person and work of Jesus? In the coming weeks we will answer just that question on this blog. As you read the correspondence from Paul to the Colossians, you see they were receiving a clear, concise, complete, and authoritative teaching on several themes that would help form their (and our) understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
[2] David Lipscomb, A Commentary on the New Testament Epistles: Ephesians Philippians, and Colossians (Nashville, Tennessee: Gospel Advocate Company, 1939), 245.
As you saw from my post on Monday, I am in the begining stages of planting a church in Uptown Albuquerque, NM. Over the past few years I have made some good friends who are also planning on planting churches in Albuquerque and across the U.S. I thought I would take the next few days to introduce you to these guys so you can pray for them and follow them as they are on their own respective journeys.
Brook Sarver
Like someothers, Brook and I met through the interwebs a little over a year ago through a certain Christian beer blog (I starting see a trend with church planters and beer). Although I’ve never met Brook in person, I consider him a good friend. Brook loves Jesus, has an amazing wife, and has some mad photography skillz.
Brook also has a huge heart for the people of Thailand. After going on a several month mission trip a few years ago, they have had a passion to go back. So they’re doing just that. A few weeks from now, Brook and Sara are moving across the world to spend 10 years preaching the gospel of Jesus.
To learn more about Brook and his journey, you can follow him on twitter or read his blog.
As you saw from my post on Monday, I am in the begining stages of planting a church in Uptown Albuquerque, NM. Over the past few years I have made some good friends who are also planning on planting churches in Albuquerque and across the U.S. I thought I would take the next few days to introduce you to these guys so you can pray for them and follow them as they are on their own respective journeys.
Brad Ruggles
Brad Ruggles and I met through the interwebs a little over a year ago through a certain Christian beer blog. Although I’ve never met Brad in person, I consider him a good friend. He is one of the top three creative people I know (yeah I number them…I have a points system and everything), has a wonderful wife, and some adorable daughters.
Brad left his job, started doing freelance design, moved 120 miles (through a 2300 mile journey) from Fort Wayne to Carmel, IN, set roots, and is in the beginning stages of planting a church. He has an amazingly compassionate heart. I can’t wait to see how God uses him in Carmel.
If you would like to learn more about Brad and his church plant you can:
As you saw from my post on Monday, I am in the begining stages of planting a church in Uptown Albuquerque, NM. Over the past few years I have made some good friends who are also planning on planting churches in Albuquerque and across the U.S. I thought I would take the next few days to introduce you to these guys so you can pray for them and follow them as they are on their own respective journeys.
Carlos Griego
I met Los a couple of years ago when we were going through Ed Stetzer’s book “Planting Missional Churches” at City on a Hill. He is the director of the college ministry, The Well, for Desert Springs Church here in Albuquerque and is the chaplain for the Lobo basketball team. He is an amazing husband, fantastic father, big reader, and a true UFC fan.
For as long as I’ve known him, Los has had a huge heart for the UNM campus area and Downtown Albuquerque. His heart is to one day plant a church that will reach the lost of Downtown Albuquerque for the glory of God.
If you are interested in learning more about Los and his ministry, you can meet him at the Well every Tuesday night at 8:07 pm at Desert Springs Church. You can also read his blog or follow him on twitter.
As you saw from my post on Monday, I am in the begining stages of planting a church in Uptown Albuquerque, NM. Over the past few years I have made some good friends who are also planning on planting churches in Albuquerque and across the U.S. I thought I would take the next few days to introduce you to these guys so you can pray for them and follow them as they are on their own respective journeys.
Clayton Bell
Clayton Bell and I met through the interwebs a little over a year ago through a certain Christian beer blog. Although I’ve never met Clayton in person, I consider him a good friend. Through reading his blog and a few online chats, I know that he is a wonder husband and loving father.
About four years ago, Clayton felt the call to plant a church. Like me, about a year ago he felt that God was calling him off the bench to start his church plant. This last Sunday, He left his job at Every Nation, Tallahassee, where he served as Family Pastor for the past year and is moving to the Tampa/Trinity area of Florida to start Trinity New Life Church.
If you live in in the Florida area and want to join Clayton on God’s mission to reach the lost of Tampa, you can email him at info@trinitynewlife.com for more information.
Please be in prayer for Clayton, his wife, and daughter as they follow God on this wonderful journey.
I’m going to come out and say this…I have a man crush on Moses. Of all the men in the Bible, I have always found myself drawn to Moses. I truly think this is a God thing. Because of all the men in the Bible, I relate to Moses the most.
We’re both miracle babies (my mom wasn’t suppose to physically be able to have children). We’re both overly ambitious (although I haven’t killed anybody…yet). We’re not the “bestest” of speakers. God has used trials, tribulations, and time to prepare us for our callings. Most importantly, I feel like God has given me the same clarification on my calling that He gave Moses.
In Exodus 3, God tells Moses that He is going to use him to deliver His people out of Egypt. Moses’ response is the same as any person who has a great calling put before them, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” Moses is scared, perplexed, shaken and lacking confidence. How could a screwed up man like him complete such a large task after he had failed so many years before? He has been hiding in the desert for 40 years, and he is looking to God for a sign to give him confidence in his calling.
God’s response is classic. He doesn’t give him some pep talk about how awesome Moses is and how God has been preparing him 40 years for this very moment. Instead God tells him, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
This one verse has been the summation of my entire calling. October 27 of this last year marked the 10 year anniversary of God calling me to vocational ministry. I have known since then that God is calling me to serve Him as my full-time job. And as I have sought Him for clarification of the years, His sign has always been the same. It’s not a pillar of smoke or fire, or a damp towel on my front porch, or a star in the east. Instead God has quietly told me He will be with me, and I’ll know I’ve fulfilled my calling when I look back and see that I’ve fulfilled my calling.
For this reason, I have never really looked forward to try and figure out what God wants me to do. Instead I’ve looked backwards to see what Jesus has done in my life to determine where He wants me to go next.
By looking at the last 10 years of my life, I can see that Jesus has been moving me towards pinnacle moment in my life. In college, I went on a mission trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for two-and-a-half months. My main point of contact there was the head of the Purpose Driven Church Planting movement in Rio. Him and others spoke into my life saying they saw in me great potential to plant churches in my future. I filed the information deep in the recesses of my brain and went on with my life.
I came back to Eastern New Mexico University, started a interdenominational Bible study with my best friend, married the most beautiful woman in the world, graduated, and got a job as a youth minister in a small town in the panhandle of Texas. It was during my time as a youth minister that God stirred the memories of Brazil in my head and moved in my heart.
I don’t remember the day or the time, but I remember the intense emotions and distinct clarity. I knew that God wanted me to plant a church. So I did what any young ambitious newly married kid does only a year-and-a-half out of college, I turned in my two week notice and made plans to move to Portland, OR (motivated by the book Blue Like Jazz).
When reality snapped to, we figured out that we had no jobs, no place to live, and no friends in Portland. Therefore we did what every young ambitious church planter does, we packed up all our stuff and temporarily moved into my mother-in-law’s house in Albuquerque, NM. It was going to be our half-way point on the way to Portland
We tried our best to find a way to get to Portland, but God kept shutting the doors. And the longer that we stayed in Albuquerque, the more Jesus opened my eyes to the beauty of this city and broke my heart with the sin of its people. In the quiet of our hearts, God showed us that He had other men for Portland, but He wanted us to stay here in Albuquerque.
As Shannon and I began to settle into Albuquerque, getting jobs and a home of our own, we started looking for a church that we call home while we prepared to plant. We scoured hundreds of church websites and visited numerous in person. We began to get so discouraged by what we found. And as time went on, we began to see why God wanted us to plant a church in Albuquerque.
But like a diamond in the rough, we came across a small church that was meeting in a run down theater on Central Ave, City on a Hill (now Mars Hill Church Albuquerque). The church was a place of love, grace, and mercy as you would see the rich rub elbows with homeless and the messed up mingle with the self-righteous. The pastor, Dave Bruskas, had planted the church only a few years earlier and had a heart to help young men plant churches in Albuquerque. He had a deep love for the city and an even deeper love for Jesus. His passion was infectious (and still is to this day).
It was during this time that a few things happened. First, I felt like God told me to wait. I had some growing up to do, and like the disciples, I needed to go up to my room and wait for the Holy Spirit to come. Second, I learned about Acts 29, Mars Hill, and Mark Driscoll. Through them I learned what it means to be a church planter and more importantly a husband and father. Third, I got a job with UPS doing sales. By working for UPS, I have traveled all over Albuquerque (and half the state of NM). I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of this city.
But one area has always stood out to me as I make my daily visits to customers. Uptown has to be one of the more unique areas of Albuquerque. If Nob Hill is the cultural hub of Albuquerque, I would say that Uptown is the socio-economic center. You have the wealthy and affluent who come to work in the high rises and play at Q Mall, but there are also the gang-bangers who come from the War Zone to roam the Coronado Mall. You won’t find another place in Albquerque where more diverse group of people live, work, and play. It has captured my heart (but more on this later).
The last thing that happened was I listened to a podcast that would change my thoughts on church planting for the rest of my life. Up until this point I had planned on flying solo. I was going to gather a small group of people and start our own church named after a weird latin term or vague Harry Potter incantation. But God had other plans. As I listened to Doug Swagerty from Harbor Church in San Diego talk about why and how they do multi-site churches, God made it clear to me that this was His plan for me.
The organization, efficiency, and team-work that went into planting a campus as opposed to a new church spoke to the core of who God made me as a person. It was then that I had determined that God didn’t want me to plant a church, but to plant another campus for City on a Hill in the Uptown area. He wanted me to carry the vision and mission to another part of our beautiful city.
This brings us to this moment in time. For the past three years, I feel like have been metaphorically sitting on the bench waiting for God to call me into the game. Like Moses wandered in the dessert shepherding sheep for 40 years, God has been having me wander in the dessert waiting for His timing. But as City on a Hill has made the transition to becoming Mars Hill Church Albuquerque, I feel like God has been calling my number. The Holy Spirit has began to move fresh my heart, and I hear God saying, “Qualls…get in the game.” I feel like God is calling me to be on mission with Jesus in Albuquerque as He reaches our city to impact a region to influence the world.
Working along side Dave Bruskas, we are looking to start a Mars Hill Church campus in the Albuquerque Uptown area. Through Mars Hill’s campus model we hope to reach hundreds of thousands of people through preaching the gospel, planting Acts 29 Churches, and hosting Resurgence and Acts 29 events.
In preparation for this, I will be going to Re:Train starting on August 16th of this year. Re:Train is a one year training center that trains “missional leaders to live for Jesus and lead their churches to effectively reach their cultures with the gospel by staying culturally accessible and biblically faithful.” I see God using this training as a final step to prepare me for the mission put before me.
Looking back on the past ten years of my life, I can see how Jesus has been leading to this moment. Each trial and tribulation has been there to bring me to this point in time. He has led me here, and now He is telling me once again, “I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” I don’t know exactly what the next few years entail. But I know this, years from know there will be a Mars Hill Church in Uptown Albuquerque, and we will worship and serve our Lord Jesus on that mountain.
Here’s the deal though, I know I can’t do this alone. And I know that I’m not the only person that God has called to do this. I need all the help I can get. More importantly, I need your help. I completely believe in the sovereignty of God. So if you have gotten through the 1841 words of this post to this point, I believe that God has a part for you in this. I ultimately don’t know what that is for you (that’s between you and God), but I have a few suggestions.
1. Pray
I have seen God move in amazing ways through prayer. I know that God chooses to work through the prayers of His people. Therefore, I desperately ask for your prayers as I move forward with this endeavor. Pray for me as I go through Re:Train. Pray for God to bring laborers. Pray for my family. Pray for provision (finances, locations, volunteers, ect.). Pray for a pouring out of the Holy Spirit in Albuquerque.
2. Join
Join in on the mission in Albuquerque. As we get closer towards starting this, I will be getting out more information. For now this would simply mean joining the Mars Hill Church campus in Albuquerque. Join a community group and start serving. If you are interested in joining, email me, and we can start a conversation.
3. Give
Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life, and money answers everything. – Ecclesiastes 10:19
Unfortunately, it is going to take money to do this. Fortunately, I know that God will provide. He will use His people (you) to provide for the tasks that are ahead. The biggest financial burden at the moment is Re:Train. I need to raise $2,000 in the next five weeks. This will pay for my first month of training, travel, lodging, and a basic laptop. Please pray if God would have you support this task financially. If you feel moved by God, you can use the ChipIn Widget below or email me and I will send you my mailing address.
I am excited to see what God is going to do in the next few years. I look forward to sharing with you what God is doing as we go through this journey together.
, Rev Upd Su. (InterVarsity Press, 1990), 564.
(Baker Academic, 1998), 318.
(IVP Academic, 2008), 23.
