Missional Formation w/ Cara Garrity

06/20/24 • 23 min

GC Podcast | Grace Communion International Resources

Missional Formation w/ Cara Garrity

Cara: Welcome to GCPodcast, a podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience. Today, we will be exploring some elements of missional formation. So, go on ahead and settle in. Maybe ground yourself with your feet on the floor, take a couple of deep breaths and invite the Holy Spirit to make this a time of transformation for us.

Let me start us off with a word of prayer.

Loving God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we thank you for your presence with us. We thank you that you are a God that wants to be known. We thank you that you are a God that invites us into your ministry and mission of making yourself known. We ask you, God, that you would make us tender to be molded and shaped by you, that you would give us willing hearts to be made more into your likeness, to be made more into who you have always meant us to be, God.

We thank you that you are so faithful to guide us, to transform us, to make us new, and to draw us into your very life. We ask your blessing over this time as we reflect and meditate and invite you into our contemplation of what it means to be formed missionally. We ask you, Holy Spirit, to do your work within us; surprise us, do more than we could ever imagine.

We thank you that you are so faithful for your work to be complete. We pray this in your wonderful and your glorious name. Amen.

So first, I want to take a minute to just explore a little bit what it even means to live missionally. That might be a buzzword we are used to hearing if we have been around in the church community for any amount of time.

Let us dig a little bit deeper into what does that look like? What can it look like? Where do we even get that from? What might that mean for us?

I want to look in the Gospel of Matthew. After Jesus’s resurrection, we read in the Gospel of Matthew that he came to his disciples.

In Matthew 28:16-20, we read this.

¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Amen.

This is what has come to be known as the Great Commission, where we as disciples are sent by Jesus on his disciple making mission.

In this English translation, the phrase “therefore go” in the ancient language has a little bit more of this sense of an ongoing action. As we make disciples, there is a sense of we’re living sent. It is a way of being more than just a series of isolated actions.

We are being called to be the sent people of a sending God. Remember, even Jesus himself was the Son of God sent to us, the word of God made flesh to dwell among us. We are called to be the sent people of a sending God.

In his book, Surprise the World, The Five Habits of Highly Missional People, Michael Frost suggests five habits that might open us to the missional formation by the Spirit. I want to read an excerpt for you right here where he talks about these missional habits and how we might think of these habits in participating in Jesus’s mission. He writes this.

Sometimes called missional rhythms or missional practices, missional habits are those habits we foster in our lives that in turn shape our missional outlook. by missional I mean all that we do and say that alerts others to the reign of God.

South African missiologist David Walsh wrote, “Mission is more than and different from recruitment to our brand of religion; it is the alerting of people to the universal reign of God through Christ.” In other words, mission derives from the reign of God. In that respect, the ideas of our mission and God’s kingdom are irrevocably linked. Mission is both the announcement and the demonstration of the reign of God through Christ.

Let me say that again. Mission is both the announcement and the demonstration of the reign of God through Christ.

These five habits that he suggests may open us up to the formation of a missional way of living. Summed up in an acronym, “bells,” B-E-L-L-S.

Now the B stands for bless. What that means is to bless others. There are a lot of diverse ways to bless others. A word of affirmation, an act of kindness fulfilling a need, being a tangible blessing to another person, to a neighbor. And particularly with this habit, we are called, challenged to think beyond the confines beyond the walls of our church community only.

The E stan...

Missional Formation w/ Cara Garrity

Let me start us off with a word of prayer.

We thank you that you are so faithful for your work to be complete. We pray this in your wonderful and your glorious name. Amen.

Let us dig a little bit deeper into what does that look like? What can it look like? Where do we even get that from? What might that mean for us?

I want to look in the Gospel of Matthew. After Jesus’s resurrection, we read in the Gospel of Matthew that he came to his disciples.

In Matthew 28:16-20, we read this.

Amen.

This is what has come to be known as the Great Commission, where we as disciples are sent by Jesus on his disciple making mission.

Let me say that again. Mission is both the announcement and the demonstration of the reign of God through Christ.

These five habits that he suggests may open us up to the formation of a missional way of living. Summed up in an acronym, “bells,” B-E-L-L-S.

The E stan...

Previous Episode

Lectio Divina w/ Cara Garrity

Lectio Divina w/ Cara Garrity

What is the practice of Lectio Divina? The term Lectio Divina means divine reading, and it is a practice that originates back to the early church. One way to think about it is a practice of praying through the scriptures. It is a guided way of engaging the scriptures in an immersive, transformational way.

There are four steps or four movements that we move through in the Lectio Divina. The first is reading, second is meditation, third is prayer, and fourth is contemplation. For each of these steps of the Lectio Divina practice, we read the chosen passage of scripture and engage in it through each of these four: reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation.

This practice of Lectio Divina can be practiced either alone, personally, or together, as a group.

In preparation, I want to invite you to open yourself to the following, as we prepare to engage this practice of Lectio Divina:

First, that Jesus, the living Word, speaks to us through his written word.

Second, I invite you to open yourself to the fact that God is a self-revealing God that wants to be known by us. He will reveal himself to us through soaking in the scriptures.

That we are invited into transformation in our relationship with God.

That God is present with us as we read his written word.

If you are doing this practice together with the group, some guidelines to help you: between each movement of the Lectio Divina, you can pause to give each member of the group a moment to share. Although, that’s not required for each person to share; it is optional.

Approach this group sharing with the posture that God speaks to us through others, in relationships with one another. As you create this space for sharing in a group Lectio Divina, it is not a space for discussion, but a space for listening. You will just want to create space for people to share, not really for response and discussion after each movement.

The last piece of the Lectio Divina that I want to mention before we guide through this practice and go through it together is that you typically want to use a shorter passage or section of scripture [with a group].

Today we are going to use a passage that comes with the RCL for this month of June, and we are going to be reading from Mark. Mark 5:21-43.

Now using the Lectio Divina along with the seasons of the worship calendar the RCL is a fun way to follow the seasons of the worship calendar. But that is not the only way to practice Lectio Divina. That is just what we are going to be doing today.

Before we get started, I want to say a prayer over us. I want to invite you to get comfortable in a quiet space. Sit, get grounded, put your feet on the floor, turn off distractions. Take a minute to quiet your mind. Even pause this podcast for 30 seconds, two minutes, just quiet yourself.

Let us pray this prayer together, titled “Help Me Listen” from Gorillas of Grace, Prayers for the Battle, written by Todd Loder.

O Holy One,
I hear and say so many words,
yet yours is the Word I need.
Speak now,
and help me listen;
and if what I hear is silence,
let it quiet me,
let it disturb me,
let it touch my need,
let it break my pride,
let it shrink my certainties,
let it enlarge my wonder.

Amen.

So, I invite you now. To participate with me in the practice of Lectio Divina using Mark 5:21-43. We are going to go through each step of the Lectio Divina together.

[05:58] So again, I invite you to quiet yourself. Sit in a comfortable position. You can close your eyes if that is what is comfortable to you. We are going to start with the first step, which is the reading. You can just listen along to my reading. You can follow along if that is what is most comfortable to you.

The question I want you to think about as you listen or read along is what word or phrases jump out at you? What images in this passage speak to you? Let us read.

²¹When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. ²²Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. ²³He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” ²⁴So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. ²⁵And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. <...

Next Episode

Sharing God’s Story in and Through Your Life w/ Jeff Broadnax

Sharing God’s Story in and Through Your Life

Cara Garrity: Welcome to GC Podcast, a podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience. In this episode, we welcome Jeff Broadnax, who will be leading us in sharing our testimonies and what God is up to in our everyday lives. We invite you to co-create your own experiences of spiritual formation through personal and communal practices.

We believe that through such personal and communal practices, we open ourselves and surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit in and through us. May the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst grow us up into the healthiest participants in the ministry of Christ that we can be, to the glory of the Father. Amen.

Jeff: Good morning. I’m Jeff Broadnax, regional director with GCI here in the Eastern region. I’ve served as a pastor for 34 years. And the last few, I’ve been serving as a regional director where I serve pastors. And I help pastors, not only lead their congregations, but help their congregations do the kind of thing that I want to talk about today.

And that is to learn to see and share God’s story through their own life story. I’m honored to be here today and share this with you, and I hope you’ll take the journey with me because this one is a personal one. It’s one that will allow each of us to stop and to reflect and to pay attention to not only what God is doing, but what God has already done.

Because very often when we look at what God has already done in our world and in our lives, it gives us clarity as to what he is doing and frankly what he will do. So, let’s begin with prayer. And then I want to walk you through just a couple of passages of scripture as we move into this clarifying discussion for reflection, for implementation, and for a passionate living sent, of sharing God’s story through our lives.

God, you are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we are grateful that we can come and know that you know us, but not just that you know us, but that you specifically made us. You specifically designed the two cells that would come together to make us. That is not just unique, it is powerful.

And what you want from us is that we will see you and that we will see that we don’t have to be anybody else in the world. We just have to be who you’ve created us to be, to come to discover why you made us, why you use us, why you allow us to reflect you very specifically and uniquely in the world.

And so today, as we reflect, it is our desire to be able to see from you what you are doing in our lives. I pray, Lord, that you will bless the words that are spoken to actually be a clear path to a deeper understanding and a deeper discovery or removing of the cover of what you’ve been doing in our lives and what you will continue to do.

And so, we thank you. And in Jesus’ name, do we pray. Amen.

In the book of Acts 1, it was that moment where Jesus was standing before the disciples, and he was about to ascend. And the disciples asked him if it was now the time to restore Israel. And Jesus went on to tell them in Acts 1:7, that’s not what I want you to worry about; I don’t want you to focus on those things. The time and the seasons are not given for you to know.

But he does say in verse 8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

And at that point, he was taken up.

And I want to focus on the statement that he made that you will be my witnesses. We know from our 21st century court of law that a witness is somebody who goes and they make an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth with the help of God. And if you can, if we can filter that back through what Jesus was saying, cause that’s really what he was saying.

He was saying, you’re going to be a person who will be in Jerusalem and Judea and all of Samaria and the ends of the earth. You’re going to go where you’re safe, where you’re comfortable, where you’re slightly uncomfortable and where sometimes you might be scared to death. And you’re going to tell what you’ve seen, heard and experienced about me.

The Greek word for witness there is martyr. And so, when we think of martyrs, we often think of people who’ve given their lives, in death, for something, but really what that word is meaning in Greek — it may come to that. But what he’s saying is that a witness, or someone who operates in that “martyr,” is somebody who will tell the whole story, tell the whole truth, tell the life story.

And sometimes even telling that hard truth may cost them everything, but they stand on that truth. They stand on that story. And so, what Jesus is saying is he wanted the disciples to be ones who would tell ...