Beyond Sunday: Living Out Faith Through Community and Service

Have you ever wondered what it truly means to live out your faith beyond Sunday gatherings? Join us as we break down the missional incarnational impulse, inspired by Alan Hirsch’s book, "The Forgotten Ways." We discuss how aligning our lives with God’s will can transform our communities and everyday interactions. Discover how we, as Christians, are called to actively participate in God’s mission to redeem and restore the world through the gospel, following Jesus' example of being sent to share the good news.

Get ready to hear some compelling personal stories, including my experiences working with Nehemiah, a nonprofit in Madison. We'll share valuable lessons learned from black leadership, and discuss the transition from traditional church events to a lifestyle of continuous service and involvement. Listen as we explore how fostering genuine connections in our neighborhoods can have a profound impact, encouraging us all to embody the life, love, and grace of Jesus in our everyday actions and interactions. This episode challenges us to rethink our approach to community and service, aiming for real change and meaningful engagement.

Chapters

• 0:00 Rediscovering Our Forgotten Ways
• 12:21 Living an Incarnational Impulse
• 25:47 Moving From Events to Lifestyle

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, welcome to Madison Church Online. I'm Stephen Feathley, pastor, glad that you guys are joining us. We've been in a series called Rediscovering Our Forgotten Ways, based on a book with a very similar title by Alan Hirsch called the Forgotten Ways, in which Hirsch, who is a missiologist, traces six factors that have been the lifeblood of Christian movements since the first century and, as recently, has been discovered in places like China with their underground church. He calls this the apostolic genius, or MDNA. Essentially, what is your missional DNA? And DNA has the key to life, and so, he says, in all of these movements, the key to life are these six factors. And these six factors, which are also our values at Madison Church, are as following Jesus is Lord.

Speaker 1: 0:51

At Madison Church, we value, we believe, we practice that Jesus is Lord. It's not just something we declare that we believe, but rather it's a commitment to submitting every part of our lives, our minds, our bodies and our spirits to Jesus's lordship. Then there's disciple making. If Jesus is lord over every part of our life mind, body and spirit then we need to embody his teachings. He teaches us how we should act, how we should react, how we should respond, and so that's about being a disciple and making other disciples. There's community, followers of Jesus, christian movements. We need community, a supportive community around us to sustain our mission and, furthermore, every member, every participant in the church community plays a valuable and vital role. There's things like APES, which we're going to talk about in a few weeks, functions and giftings within the church. There's organic systems which allow us to grow and be flexible and pivot, which was like a really big deal in 2020 when a pandemic hit the world and every other week was we're pivoting, we're pivoting, we're pivoting. That was the company line. And finally, the sixth one is the missional incarnational impulse, which is about spreading the gospel and living it out in very tangible ways, and that is what we are going to talk about today, and I know when I say missional incarnational impulse, you have no idea what I mean. I mean and that's fair, that's a lot of churchy words and that's what I want to spend today talking about is the missional incarnational impulse, and my goal, my goal today, is that when we get to the end, you'll be able to explain what missional incarnational impulse is. So I'm not the only one at Madison Church who knows what it is and also why it's really critical to what we want to accomplish as a church community in Madison.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Let's start with the word missional. Missional, biblically speaking, is participating in God's mission to redeem and restore the world through the gospel. So that's what that first word means missional participating in God's mission. There's a job to be done, there is a mission to accomplish, there's something to do and we are all a part of getting it done. It involves living out your faith by actively engaging with and serving the world. It's about what's happening beyond these walls in here on Sunday morning.

Speaker 1: 3:27

Being missional is about our lives outside of the one hour that we get to spend together on Sunday. Jesus tells his disciples for I have come down from heaven to do the will of God. Who sent me? Jesus says I've come down, I am here on earth, I am living this life right now, not necessarily because I wanted to, not necessarily because it was my will, but because it was that of the will of my father. We're getting into some Trinity language which is very confusing and that's not the point of my talk, but that's kind of what's going on here, very confusing and that's not the point of my talk, but that's kind of what's going on here. So he says I'm here and I've been sent on purpose, with a job to do. And so for you and I today, like Jesus, living missionally means that we align our own lives up with God's will, not our own. We are on this earth not to accomplish my will, but God's will. If Jesus, the sinless son of God, who is God, wasn't here to do his own will but that of his father, god's, and what does that say about us? That we are also to do his will? As believers, you and I are sent by God to carry out his mission in the world. If you don't believe me, jesus explicitly says this in John 20, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. It's almost like Jesus had this idea that someday there's going to be a church in Madison, wisconsin, or in other places, and they were going to read that other passage about. You know, god has sent me not to do my will. And it was almost like Jesus knew you know Christians are going to say well, that was Jesus, that's not me, and Jesus is like I'm just going to beat you to the punch a couple thousand years. No, it is you too. As I have been sent, you are sent. And if we just merge these two verses together, you get this statement. Jesus says I've come down from heaven to do the will of God, who sent me, not to do my own will, and as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. It's pretty clear. Jesus says I'm sent, you're sent, we're all sent, we're in this together. We are not sent to do our will, but God's will, and so a central aspect of being missional is sharing the good news of Jesus. That's central. We don't just have this news inside of us that, oh, it changed my life and it's great, and then I'm not going to share that with anyone.

Speaker 1: 5:50

As Jesus was sent, jesus went around and he proclaimed who he was unapologetically. He invited people in his life. He had best friends Peter, james, john. He had 12 disciples. It was kind of like his circle of friends. He had followers about 120 of them at the time of his death. But what we see is that he invited people in, but he also challenged them. It wasn't just be my buddy, but it was. This is who I am. I've come to seek and save.

Speaker 1: 6:17

But being missional also means embodying God's love by loving other people the way that he does, because sometimes I think that we just think that if I just go around and I stand on my soapbox or I post a lot about, this is what I believe, and you're wrong and I'm right. And here's the new hot topic of the day that we're going to fight about, and this is the Christian stance. We are missing a major aspect of being missional, which is to show God's love to the world, and not what we think God's love is necessarily like or what they deserve. But Jesus tells us explicitly love others as I have loved you, so as we've experienced God's love, we're supposed to extend that to other people, not just like here's what I think you're worth, here's how I think you should be loved, but like, wow, think about how deeply God loves you, and to extend that to other people. That means we're going to have to advocate for justice, we're going to have to show mercy to the marginalized and oppressed. Those are things that are crucial to living a missional life, and a missional life is characterized by personal transformation.

Speaker 1: 7:28

We talked about disciple making last week and submitting every part of our lives to Jesus. This is the result of that. When we agree okay, I'm going to submit to Jesus and I'm going to follow in his ways. The fruit of that is living missionally. It's about what's going on beyond these walls and the most explicit example in my own life. I think I was trying to think of an example to share with you. I realized last week I didn't really share any stories. I don't think I shared any stories the week before and maybe it's starting to sound too much like a classroom. But so I wanted to share a story, the most explicit example.

Speaker 1: 8:00

I was trying to think how have I been missional in my own life? And it like dawned on me this morning. I started a church. Like, oh yeah, that's right, we started a church. That was a very missional thing to do and I remember it was born. We started Madison Church for a lot of reasons, but one of the things was how angry and angsty, honestly, I felt about the big C, capital C Christian churches all over the United States. It seemed like all of these churches were more interested, more passionate about defending their traditions or for developing finer points of theology that doesn't make a difference to anyone on this planet except them. And I remember thinking like just how many people my age at the time, you know, 20, 15 years ago remember thinking like why do I have to check my culture at the door? Why do I have to change to come to church?

Speaker 1: 8:56

Jesus had no problem meeting people where they were at Right. He met them where they're at. He loved them enough to not leave them there, though he wasn't like hi oh man, that sucks, see you later. He didn't do that. He said come follow me, I will show you a better way. So why then couldn't Christian community a bunch of individuals who claim to follow Jesus mimic that just like he did? Why couldn't we meet people where they were at, say hey look, I know you don't got it all together and that does. That is that sucks? For a lot of reasons, in some cases very serious things going on. But come follow me as I follow Jesus. Some of the vernacular from last week right.

Speaker 1: 9:34

And so we started a church because my roommate was playing a pirated Pokemon game. This is a true story. He was playing a Pokemon game, he stole on his computer and he was tired of me every day coming home and just complaining and complaining and being angry. He says go start a church, be the solution. You know, one of those really inspiring things. Except that it really was. I was like, yeah, I actually should do that.

Speaker 1: 9:54

And so being missional in this sense and you've all now been a part of that it was about saying, look, the walls that we currently have, generally speaking, for the most part, are not missional. Even the churches that claim to be missional, they do this thing. It's called seeker sensitive. They're like we'll tailor our church services so that seekers will be comfortable, but that's not missional. Jesus didn't plant a little tent and say come find me here. Jesus went out into the world and he found people where they were and said follow me. And so, as a church community, our thing is to go beyond the walls to find people where they were at and where they're at and go and journey with them, and so that's missional. I hope that some of that stuck.

Speaker 1: 10:42

The next big word was incarnational, and being incarnational means embodying the presence, the love and the mission of Jesus Christ by reflecting on his life and his teachings and engaging with the community. Being incarnational means embodying it, so we don't just say that we follow Jesus and we believe in Jesus, but we start to look like Jesus in our everyday lives, bringing his presence and love to wherever we find ourselves. Today, john writes those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did. He is not just our Savior, but he is our example, and so the incarnational approach to living this way is transformative. We embody Jesus's forgiveness, his grace and his love, and it goes back to this idea. We don't just talk about it and we don't just post about it, but we live it out in our everyday lives. So our neighbors experience it, so our coworkers experience it, so the people that we're in close proximity with experience it. We embrace an incarnate love by showing sacrificial and unconditional love and by being present and engaged in the lives of others within our community. This is what Jesus did. God is not asking you to do something he himself did not already do. He's not saying, hey, be like me, but remember that Jesus became like us first to show us how it should be done.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Reading John, chapter 1, from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, the message he writes, the word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like father, like son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish. And the reason I really love this paraphrase is it really encapsulates the idea of what I'm trying to communicate, which is that incarnate ministry, becoming like Jesus and embodying that. It's about moving into the neighborhood. So often when we think of missionaries, we think of those who are going to Budapest or Ukraine or some other country somewhere far away. Or we send the students to Niagara Falls and they're doing missions work, but remember far away. Or we send the students to Niagara Falls and they're doing missions work, but remember it's right here, right now. It's our neighborhood, where you find yourself.

Speaker 1: 13:16

Jesus was present and close to other humans. Are you? Do your neighbors know you? Do they know your name? Do they know what you're like? Are they willing to help you out in a pinch? Or have you spent most of your time trying to avoid any sort of interaction with your neighbors? You put the head down, you come in and out really stealthy, you just wave. That's a missional opportunity, that's an incarnational opportunity.

Speaker 1: 13:38

Jesus wasn't just a prophet, but he was God, and he was God in the flesh and he had time for his friends, for his followers. He was available, he was present, and so being incarnational means that we also have to be present. We have to be able to give people our full attention, we have to be available and accessible. Let's not forget that Jesus felt things deeply. Who in your life do you feel things deeply for? Maybe if you're in a romantic relationship, you feel things deeply for them. If you have kids, you feel things deeply for them. But who beyond your immediate family, who beyond church and your church community do you feel deeply for? If something bad happens to your neighbor, does your heart break for them like Jesus's heart breaks for them? If something bad happens to your coworker, do you jump in and try to serve them like Jesus did, or is it just the thoughts and prayers and a pat on the back and hope things get better? This is what it means to be incarnational. It is deeply, deeply challenging.

Speaker 1: 14:45

Part of my attempt of being incarnational as a white church leader in Madison has been to work with Nehemiah, the nonprofit organization in town, to go to these groups, where I was invited in 2020 and 2021 to sit under black leadership with other white leaders in Madison who were leaning in, and the idea of submitting ourselves to black leadership wasn't to talk in as much as it was to listen. We don't have all the answers. We need to stop acting like we have all of the answers and we need to listen to what is going on, and this was an incredible life-changing opportunity for me to sit here and to listen and then I would throw out ideas Well, what about this? This is kind of what I think and to be able to hear feedback from these leaders in live time for me Every day. I left that meeting.

Speaker 1: 15:33

I had like an intellectual hangover for the next day and a half because I was so deeply challenged because how they saw the world and experienced the world was so different than how I did, and not in a negative way, but just truly in a different way. My journey for understanding and growth went far beyond protests and marches and social media posts, although I participated in some of that, but it was really an opportunity to build relationships and to lean in to those around me. It was a safe place to ask those questions and confront thoughts I had that I did not know needed to be confronted. There was a climax moment in which I thought this was really great. I'm starting to make strides in my own personal life and it was, I think, at the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021, when a lot of the rioting was happening in downtown Madison, where a prominent black leader in Madison had sent me a text message and said hey, we're all going out tonight to try to de-escalate. A lot of these people who are rioting are actually young adults, like students. They're in high school, they're in junior high. We're going to go down and try to de-escalate it. Do you want to go with us? And I said yes, of course, like with us. And I said yes, of course, drop my evening plans, I will be there. And so we're after dark and I'll be honest with you.

Speaker 1: 16:49

We started to walk up to a group and it was a large group. It was like 100, probably 100 or 200 people downtown. They were walking the entire street. I'm sure you guys can remember seeing those scenes on the news and I remember, as a white guy who's only ever seen this on TV, I was terrified. I mean what I would say like jokingly. It was like walking into a scene of the Purge movies. If you've ever seen those. That's how I felt. I felt like oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 17:15

And then it was all of these other black leaders. They were like nope, we just walked right up and we started talking to them and what I came to find out is like they're just kids and students. And they're just kids and students and they're real sad and pissed off about what's going on in society. And we went there and we just sat and we listened and eventually we're all like sitting in the road I think it was East Johnson Street, I mean, it was a big road downtown we just we had the whole thing blocked and we're just sitting and we're listening to them all, and then eventually at the end they all just like, all right, let's, yeah, we'll go home now. And it was amazing and we ended up doing that all night and I remember thinking like, okay, here was my experience, right as a white guy, when I saw groups like this it was only on the media, social media, tv and thinking, oh my gosh, I'm going to die. My experience couldn't have been further from the truth and I needed that kind of confrontation.

Speaker 1: 18:03

This is incarnational ministry. It's putting yourself in places that Jesus would have gone and you better believe Jesus would have gone to these places. He was an inclusive God. And so as a church Madison Church we have to be committed to incarnational living. We still partner with Nehemiah. We give them not just financial support, but we try to support the different events that they have going on. There's an event every week on Thursdays. Because I said we planned this together, actually me and the other guy who originally led this group. I got together and I said we need to open this up for more people. I feel like I found the fountain of youth, so to speak, and this is great. We got to draw a map and show other people. And so every Thursday at noon which I know it's a difficult time for many of you with jobs, but for one hour we get together under black leadership and we read the Bible and we meditate and it's a safe place for us to get our thoughts out there and to receive feedback, and it's so good, especially if you are white. This is really, really good for us. So that is incarnational ministry, not just a theory, but how it lives out in practice in my own life. So you have missional, we are sent. We have incarnational, we are sent to be like Jesus into the places Jesus would go.

Speaker 1: 19:18

What is an impulse? Well, that's probably the one you knew the most. An impulse is a sudden, strong, unreflective urge or desire to act. It's biological or physiological and psychological. It's a response to something going on around us. So impulse is when you walk by the stovetop and you almost put your hand on it, but your body, your feelings can feel it's hot and your brain tells you immediately to stop. You might've just been walking by, you're going to go do something else important, but all of a sudden, now not burning your hand became most important. That is an impulse. The feeling of being hungry or thirsty is an impulse.

Speaker 1: 19:54

Many of us don't like confrontation, right, because of the impulse we have. Your impulse when it comes to confrontation is likely flight, run away. Some of you. You're a fighter and you're like all right, we're going to have a confrontation, let's do this right now. Others of you freeze. That's an impulse, you don't have to think about it. Oh, confrontation, what do I want to do this time? Fight, flight or freeze, your body just reacts. It's an impulse, it just happens. Stuff like sexual arousal is just an impulse. You don't tell yourself to be turned on, it just happens. Sneezing, blinking your reflexes. These are all impulses.

Speaker 1: 20:28

And so when we are talking about a missional and incarnational impulse, we're talking about being like Jesus, outside of these four walls, impulsively, second nature, it just happens. You might be going to the store to get groceries and it's going to be real quick when all of a sudden you see an opportunity that causes a reflex-like reaction to be like Jesus and you see something that just gets you knocked off your feet. And so if we're going for a definition of missional incarnational impulse, I would say it signifies a sudden and strong urge to participate in God's mission to redeem and restore the world through the gospel. It involves embodying the presence, love and mission of Jesus Christ in every aspect of our lives. Now, what I've been doing throughout this whole series is saying I think we do this well, and then there are other times where I say I think we could improve in this. And at Madison Church, I really do think that the missional incarnational impulse is something that we could be better at. There's only one more value that we'll talk about in a couple weeks that I think we don't do well at all, but this would be the next one that I just don't think we do super well at all collectively. I think that this is an area, an opportunity for us as a church, as a community and as individuals, to grow in.

Speaker 1: 21:51

I think of people like Brianna, who is upstairs right now working with our kids, our elementary kids, and they're doing the lessons up there and I think you know Brianna wouldn't be here unless somebody was living missionally and incarnationally. Brianna was invited by the produce manager of a grocery store she worked at. He was just listening to her and he had one of those reflex reactions. He heard Brianna talking and he said, hey, why don't you come to my small group? He didn't even invite her here, he didn't trust me yet he invited her. He's like hey, I got a small group, you can come to that first and we'll see how this other thing goes. And she started coming and we baptized Brianna. She's been a valuable and important and a critical aspect of our community.

Speaker 1: 22:29

I think of Ginger and Jeff Jeff who was up here playing guitar. They're here because Tamara invited them to a Sunday morning gathering. The Doherty's trusted me a little bit more than Matt did. I hold that against Matt, but they invited them and, if I remember right, this starts off as living in close proximity to each other, neighbors going on playdates with kids who are about the same age, and then from that it birthed out. That is an incarnational reaction we're just hanging out, we're just having fun with our family, you hear something and then, all of a sudden, let me invite you into our church community.

Speaker 1: 22:59

Now I want to point out, for some of you, you're starting to say, well, this sounds a lot like evangelism. This is not about evangelism. There is a time and a place which we're going to talk about in a couple weeks for evangelism. I really believe that I know 90% of you disagree with me. We're going to talk about that too. I'm fully aware I'm in the minority in terms of believing, but there is a time and a place for evangelism. But when we're talking about missional and incarnational impulse, we're not talking about them, we're talking about us. I'm talking about you being missional and I'm talking about you being incarnational. The fruit of that will be people like Jeff and Ginger and Brianna and more names that we could add to that list. When it becomes an impulse, when it becomes an impulse, when it becomes an impulse, that will happen. But I don't wanna focus on the fruit of what we are trying to produce. I wanna focus on the behaviors and the disciplines of becoming both missional and incarnational.

Speaker 1: 23:57

Our job is to befriend those around us and to love them as Jesus loves us, even if they never come to faith. I need some of you to hear that, even if they never come to faith, befriend them and love on them like Jesus. Why? Because Jesus loved them so much, he died for them, even though he knew plenty of people would reject them. He didn't die for some of you, only the ones who would choose him. He died for everyone. And let me go a step further in saying not only that, but Jesus befriended the person who wouldn't just reject him but who would betray him. Right, he did. He walked with Judas for years and knew that night hey, go do what you're going to go do. He knew he still invited him to dinner. Go do what you got to do. You're full now Go do it. Jesus did that. And so if Jesus can befriend and die for people who wouldn't just reject him but betray him, you and I can certainly befriend and love on people who we didn't die for. We can certainly do that for him.

Speaker 1: 25:08

So, as we contemplate some things here, what do we need to do? What do we need to change, to be more missional, to be more incarnational? And I want to suggest that it's actually some shifts we might need to make in our mentality. I don't know if it's necessarily a practice, something I can go tell you to go do this week because it's an impulse. So let's talk about up here where the impulses come from right. For some of you, the shift you need to make is from attendance to engagement. We need to move simply from showing up and attending events to engaging with the community around us. I'm so glad you're here and if you're watching or listening online, I'd love to invite you to be here sometime.

Speaker 1: 25:47

But we have to go beyond Sunday morning. We have to even go beyond the small group. You have to go beyond organized events. What is organically happening around you on your neighborhood. I know a couple at Madison Church I didn't ask them permission so I'm not going to say their names but I know a couple who's gone out of their way to meet everyone on their street and have dinner with them and to build a relationship. Now, what might happen to that I don't know and I don't think they know. But that's a great example of going from just showing up on Sunday and engaging those around them.

Speaker 1: 26:20

We have to go from programs to people. The goal isn't necessarily to get them to church on Sunday morning or to get them to your small group. The goal is really to get them to encounter the life, the love and forgiveness and grace of Jesus. I think that comes out of that as community and Christian community. But the goal isn't programs, and so we have to stop thinking how can I get them here and how can I get to them.

Speaker 1: 26:46

Go beyond programs to people, from events to lifestyle. We need to shift from one-time events to a lifestyle of mission and incarnation. And what I mean is we do we almost monthly these big kind of service? We call them give back events. We went to Dace a couple months ago and what we did at Dace the shelter for the women and children getting out of domestic abuse situations we went and we did some like beautification work. We were pulling a lot of weeds, we were raking and mulching and doing all sorts of things. We fixed their path for them from one building to another building.

Speaker 1: 27:21

And we do that. We do backpacks, we do a Thanksgiving dinner, we do a Christmas gift drive and all of these things are really good and they're important, but the idea is that they're not done in a day, one-off congratulations, you were missional this month. The idea is that we're showing you here's how you do this. We're doing this together as a community. Here's how you serve.

Speaker 1: 27:44

Now you can go and work for days by yourself. You don't need to wait for Madison Church. You can go. They need volunteers. You can go and participate with Nehemiah or perhaps none of those. There's a local neighborhood center by you.

Speaker 1: 27:56

You want to go, participate or cause that you're passionate about, and perhaps it's not through an organization, perhaps it's just you saying, hey, I've done this and now I'm going to take it home to my neighborhood and I'm going to be missional and incarnational there.

Speaker 1: 28:10

So we need to move from events to a lifestyle. And so, as I wrap up and close it now, as we go into communion, what I want to ask you to do is really to reflect, and we'll leave the shifts up on the screen if that's possible. But which of these shifts do you think would make the biggest impact in your life? Not necessarily what's the easiest, what's the quickest to get done today, but which of these do you feel like God is telling you hey, you really like to hang out here and I've got so much better for you here. If Jesus is the Lord of our life it's not just a declaration but it's a commitment then we follow in his ways, we become disciples who make disciples. At which point, as we become disciples, we live missionally and incarnationally. And if we're going to live missionally and incarnationally, we need community, which is what we'll talk about next Sunday.