Bubba Mission

When Bubba Watson won the Masters golf tournament, he made Bubbaugusta history.  Commentators gushed about how an ordinary guy, a person who never took a golf lesson, a professional who didn’t have a cadre of coaches around him, proved that an ordinary man can win a major.  His improvised hook shot off the pine needles was lauded as Bubba creativity.  What carefully trained, meticulously coached, PGA groomed, institutionally produced golfer could even think of such a shot, let alone pull it off?

It’s a new era of ordinary winners.  Or, maybe it’s an era of remembering that golf is meant to be played by ordinary people.

Might the same be true of mission?

We’ve come through a generation and a half of carefully trained, meticulously coached, church-system groomed, institutionally produced ecclesiastical professionals.  What’s happened to the church?  The culture is losing faith in it.  The professionals are falling to the wayside in scandals--ala Tiger Woods.  The institutional prototype is turning people off.  People are leaving the church.

But there are some Bubba’s out there.  Ordinary women and men, people both young and old, are getting creative with the Gospel.  They’re meeting people where they live.  They’re personifying Jesus in their communities.  They’re inviting people into making Christ’s difference.  They’re looking outward and giving the genuine love and care of Jesus to people around them.  They’re meeting in homes, apartments, and coffee shops.  They’re sacrificing, starting non-profits, and traveling both near and far because they believe Jesus is the most important person for everyone to know.

And people are coming to faith in Him.  Around the world, the actions of ordinary people--of Bubba’s--are making Christianity the fastest growing faith movement on the planet.

Could your life use some Bubba mission?  Could your church?

Go for it, Bubba!

C & E No More

My daughter commented on Easter that it looked like even the Christmas and Easter attenders weren’t showing up for worship.  I looked around and agreed.

Times have changed.  I asked a young acquaintance of mine what she was doing for Easter.  Church was not in the plan.  Their families don’t attend church.  It isn’t a part of their lives.

The same is true of a good number of people in our culture, both young and old.  The church habit is slipping away.

The big question this presents believers with is: How will people hear about the hope we have in the risen Savior, Jesus?

If Christmas and Easter attenders are dwindling, if overall church attendance is declining, if the attractional, institutional church is losing its appeal, how will the Gospel invade the lives of the hopeless?

This is the question each believer and every church must wrestle with.  My thoughts?  Here they are:

1. The risen Christ isn’t boring or routine.  Christians need to be reminded about this in creative and compelling ways.

2. If the risen Christ is the source of true hope, Christians need to be ready to offer this hope in caring and appropriate ways within everyday relationships and encounters.  The church must exert new energy for the formation of every believer as a disciple in the trenches.

3. If the institutional church is no longer the center of the culture’s spiritual quest, the church must deploy to venues that allow believers to speak into the god conversation of the culture.  This will require great patience, strategic thinking, courageous action, and some radical retooling of budgets.

4. The church must trust that God really desires all to be saved.  As the paradigm of outreach shifts, Christians need to remember that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Lord’s Church.  Times and methods may change, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever!