Our Yes

Yesterday I posted about Mike Glenn’s fine book The Gospel of Yes, and today I turn to another pastor, Dave Workman, and his book could have been subtitled: Our Yes to God’s Yes. If God says Yes to us in Christ, we say Yes back to God by loving others. So Dave’s book is called The Outward Focused Life: Becoming a Servant in a Serve-Me World. Dave’s book describes Our Yes to others.

Dave says he thinks what just might be The Next Big Thing in the church world:

… churches in America will become known less for their styles,
for their tribes,
for their proselytizing methods,
for their politics,
for their clamoring over Christian “rights,”
for the things they’re against …
and more for the way they serve. Servanthood will be the defining characteristic of people who are followers of Jesus.

Where are you seeing a shift toward servanthood and others in your church, in your community, in your life, in your family?

And I have witnessed this, though I’ve not described it this way, but the whole justice-shaped hole in the evangelical movement’s heart is a reflection that things are changing. Dramatically.

What Dave Workman did was speak on the radio for a long time — two minute shots — and then he edited, gathered into groupings, and put before us a devotional handbook — useful for pastors and for ordinary Christian folks — that will help each of us refine our understanding of the word “missional.”

Here are some collection themes: servant, availability, generosity, attitude, grace, the Ultimate Servant, community of servants, small things, the effects of serving on the servant. If you are trying to influence your church in the direction of missional, this book can serve as a “devotional” for lay folks who can learn about missional and gain a devotional thought for the day.

Until we see “missional” as an other-orientation we will not see what it means at all. When we do, everything changes.