As a Gen-Xer that journeyed through both high school and college in the 1990s, I resonate greatly with Morpheus’ comments. Without realizing it at the time, in high school, two close friends invited me into discipling relationships. Almost over night, I transitioned from attending (language intended…I still remember sitting in the balcony with my homeboy…half paying attention) a 4,000-member mega-church from 30 miles away to a high level of participation in a church of 225 within my town.
This hometown church welcomed me into their community. In particular, 2-3 families loved, served, modeled, and mentored me closely as I shared life (meals, trips, family celebrations, and more) with them and their own teenage children.
As I left home for college, and married my high school sweetheart, again I was invited and discipled into the way of Jesus. A close friend from high school, initiated opportunities for my wife and me to serve families living in pockets of economic poverty in our college town. For the first time, I found myself glaring drug addiction, domestic abuse, prostitution, and cycles of poverty square in the face. What I saw left me shaken and clinging to faith.
After college, my wife and I moved to the suburbs to serve in a quaint, friendly church. Most of the folks were in the thick of a time wandering in “Worship Forms Forest” wondering if singing during Communion, raising hands, preaching in segments, closing our eyes while singing, or other expressions related to the Sunday morning worship service were permissible. In addition, the church recognized the changes underway in the city, and timidly considered how we might be affected by and participants in such changes.
As we jumped into this community of friends, nice people all of them, we (Heidi and I) began longing for the raw, evangelistic, and adventurous experiences and relationships from college. We loved the people of this church, but couldn’t shake the stirring…the feeling we had, perhaps our entire life, “there is something wrong with the world…” In his song, Consuming Fire, Tim Hughes described our feelings, “There must be more than this. Oh Breath of God, come breathe within. There must be more than this. Spirit of God, we wait for you.”
As a result, in February 2004, we set out into unchartered territory (at least for us) with a burning question deep in our hearts: “What if we engaged our local people, neighborhoods, and cultures like missionaries?” Without any exposure to things post-Christendom, post-Christian, demographics, or Pew Research/George Barna, still, this question occupied the front seat of our minds. Having not heard (yet) of Leslie Newbigin, David Bosch, Darrel Guder, Craig Van Gelder, Mike Frost, or Alan Hirsch, we trekked downward (a metaphor I’ll unpack in a future post) along a steep path into a deep valley, and we had no idea just how far below sea level the path would take us.
In some strange twisty-turny, topsy-turvy way, this brings me to Right Here, Right Now: Everyday Mission for Everyday People by Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford. By the grace of God and sacrificial friends gracious enough to share the journey, Heidi and I have come a long way in the past 7 years. We trudged deep, spent transformative time in the valley, and have recently begun the overwhelming but necessary climb up the other side, and books like Right Here, Right Now are helping and encouraging us and our communitas of friends to continue the climb (sorry to get all Miley Cyrus all the sudden!), with a hip-out-of-socket limp, but still climbing nonetheless.
Consequently, I think I’m writing a review(s) of this book. However, as you may have already gathered, I don’t think it’s going to read like a “regular book review.” If you have any interest in reading my posts, I’m going to assume you’re already familiar with Alan and Lance. You already know how to connect with them, and if you haven’t ordered Right Here, Right Now yet, it’s on your to-do list or you’ll borrow it from someone.
Therefore, I’m not going to plow through the book in a typical fashion of summarization. Instead, thorugh a series of blog posts, I’m going to interact with the book from my walk with the Lord, discipling relationships, communitas experiences with my peeps: Christ Journey, and our prayerful responses to God’s partnership invitations to be about his Kingdom work in and around Burleson, TX and our specific neighborhoods, schools, playgrounds, and eateries.
If Right Here, Right Now is really about Everyday Mission for Everyday People, then let’s wrestle with the book as a people seeking God together, swapping stories together, and going into all the world…together. If missional is just a word, then the risk of failure is very real. But, if missional describes a way of life…a life that glorifies God as, together, we grow in looking like Jesus in and through the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of the world…that’s spicy, or maybe better construed: salty; and therefore, worth sharing.
Saddle up (I’m in Texas. What can I say?), and let’s go.
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