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<\/p>\nMission is risky business. It means taking chances and being susceptible to failure. But God seems the biggest risk-taker of all!<\/p>\n
Mission requires vulnerability.\u00a0 It involves a measure of dependence upon those not always dependable.\u00a0 Convincing others \u2013 through our lives, our relationships, and our ideas \u2013 means risking rejection.\u00a0 Mission requires humility.<\/p>\n
More and more Christians are coming to believe that God is on a mission.\u00a0 God is not resting alone, content, and disengaged.\u00a0 God has not predestined all things with a blueprint set in stone long, long ago. <\/p>\n
A missional God \u2013 missio dei, <\/em>if you think the Latin words sound cool \u2013 is a God who becomes vulnerable, dependent, and risks rejection.\u00a0 A missional God, to steal words C. S. Lewis used in his description of Aslan, is \u201con the move.\u201d<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n Perhaps the scriptural passage that best expresses this is the hymn in Paul\u2019s letter to the Philippians.\u00a0 This so-called \u201ckenosis<\/em>\u201d passage \u2013 Greek words can be just as cool as Latin \u2013 expresses the kind of humility present in effective mission.<\/p>\n Biblical scholars translate kenosis <\/em>in many ways, but they most often render it \u201cself-giving\u201d or \u201cself-emptying.\u201d\u00a0 Paul suggests that Christ, whose nature is divine, took the form of a servant.\u00a0 This servanthood included being, as I like to say, \u201chumbled to death\u201d on the cross.<\/p>\n Humility is risky.\u00a0 And yet God took the ultimate risk in the self-giving love of Jesus.<\/p>\n In our everyday language, \u201crisk\u201d is often preceded by \u201cfoolish.\u201d\u00a0 Unfortunately, this combination of words \u2013 \u201cfoolish risk\u201d \u2013 occurs so frequently that we may assume risk-taking and wisdom are antithetical.<\/p>\n If God is supremely wise, the kenosis <\/em>passage suggests risk and wisdom can be joined.\u00a0 Instead of \u201cfoolish risk,\u201d God\u2019s risks are judiciously chosen for the possibility of promoting abundant life.\u00a0 But they\u2019re still risks.<\/p>\n I\u2019m reminded of another C. S. Lewis line. \u00a0What a Narnia character says of Aslan, we might also say of God: \u201cHe\u2019s not safe.\u00a0 But he is<\/em> good.\u201d<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n In a God-created world of free creatures, there are few sure bets.\u00a0 This God-intended-freedom-formula allows for the possibility of beauty and ugliness, happiness and pain, love and sin.<\/p>\n God apparently thinks the risk of creating and empowering free creatures is worth the chance those creatures would by inappropriate actions generate ugliness, pain, and sin.\u00a0 Apparently, God\u2019s desire for beauty, happiness, and love motivates a divine gamble.<\/p>\n People take risks all the time.\u00a0 Economists tell us that we live in economically risky days.\u00a0 No kidding!\u00a0 Buying, selling, investing \u2013 it\u2019s a crap shoot right now.\u00a0 A college buddy of mine now works as a white-water rafting guide.\u00a0 Next to bull-riding, it\u2019s as risky a livelihood as I know.<\/p>\n But I\u2019ve come to think that the riskiest business is the love business.\u00a0 Love takes chances. All bets are off.<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n I mentioned earlier that risk also involves a degree of dependence.\u00a0 Love involves dependency too.\u00a0 Both rely upon responses from others.<\/p>\n To say that love and risk entail depending on others is to imply the potentially unsettling notion that God is dependent.\u00a0 I say \u201cunsettling,\u201d because we\u2019ve sometimes been led to believe that God doesn\u2019t really need us.\u00a0 God is wholly independent and gets along just fine without us, thank you very much.\u00a0 Many have considered God fully self-sufficient, self-contained, or, to use Aristotle\u2019s word, \u201cunmoved.\u201d<\/p>\n While it makes sense to think God is self-sufficient in some ways \u2013 e.g., God doesn\u2019t depend on us for God to exist \u2013 the lessons of love suggest that God also depends on us in other ways.\u00a0 After all, it\u2019s odd to think that a totally independent person can have genuinely loving relationships.\u00a0 Love takes (at least) two (baby).<\/p>\n I sometimes tell my wife how much I need her.\u00a0 I tell her I depend on her.\u00a0 When I say these things, I don\u2019t mean I would stop existing or fail to be human should she die.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean that I would evaporate in a puff of smoke were she to stop loving me.\u00a0 Rather, I\u2019m acknowledging that my love includes my depending on her to do her part to establish and maintain a full and satisfying relationship.\u00a0 The logic of love requires this kind of dependence.<\/p>\n Besides, what\u2019s so bad about depending on others?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it the rugged individualist \u2013 detached, alone, and aloof \u2013 whom we worry is emotionally and socially stunted?\u00a0 Do we really want to imitate the recluse?<\/p>\n More and more Christians are realizing that risking some dependence on others is not only a risk worth taking but essential for what it means to live a healthy life.\u00a0 Community matters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nA missional God is \u201con the move.\u201d<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nGod\u2019s risks are judiciously chosen for the possibility of promoting abundant life.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nGod Creates Free Creatures<\/h3>\n
<\/div>\n\nGod\u2019s desire for beauty, happiness, and love motivates a divine gamble.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nGod is Partly Dependent<\/h3>\n
<\/div>\n\nThe logic of love requires a certain kind of dependence.<\/a><\/div>\n