To advance the Gospel of Jesus and his kingdom into the nations through spiritual generations of labourers living and discipling among the lost
Lifenet non-traditional approach
Boundary of belief
By Glen Morris
If you are anything like me, every now and then you have fragile moments. These are moments when you see your weaknesses so very clearly that no amount of considering your positive points can hide your disappointment with yourself. The internal voice whispers, “You should be doing better than this,” followed closely by, “But you’re not”. The voice carries on: “There you go again. Will you ever get this right? You’re a failure.” And there’s nowhere to hide.
It’s moments like these that test your faith. I’m not talking about having faith in the existence of God; that’s easy. The majority of people in the world believe this. The really difficult is to believe in the existence of a God who thinks you are significant. To believe in a God who knows you and enjoys being with you. To believe in a God who thinks the world is a better place for having you in it. To believe in a God who has seen you at your worst and yet still takes great delight in you and loves you with an unstoppable love.
This is the stuff that pushes me to the boundary of belief. It’s hard to accept as true because this isn’t the way our world works. In our world if you perform you’re okay, but if you fail you’re stuffed. You’re no longer of any value; you’re just taking up space and resources. You become irrelevant and insignificant.
But the story told by our world is a lie. Jesus’ living and dying and living again is a demonstration of how God loves you and me with an endless and reckless generosity. If you’ve ever failed, if you’ve ever fallen, if you’ve ever felt alone and insig-nificant, this is a message for you. Inside the boundary of belief is a safe place of slow death. Stepping outside the boundary is a risk, but for the courageous you’ll find a love beyond belief. And that’s good news.
(Glen Morris is the National Coordinator of LifeNet)
LifeNet: to the non-churched
(text of an article from ‘People to People’ the in-house magazine of the New Zealand Navigators.)
At its heart, LifeNet is a new mission initiative in New Zealand. It is very much in step with several new, Navigator initiatives emerging in post-Christian Europe and in non-Christian Asia. These new initiatives are focused on people who are particularly resistant to the gospel, especially when it is connected with historical, Western expressions of Christianity.
Leaders of these new initiatives and New Zealand LifeNet leaders are passionate about the spread of the gospel.
They take their cue from passages like 1 Corinthians 9:19-23: “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” Just as Jesus was sent out from the Father and entered our world to save us, and just as Paul left behind his Jewish religion and culture to carry the gospel into the Gentile world, LifeNet people choose to live among people whose backgrounds and social patterns are decidedly non-Christian. They pray the Holy Spirit will use them to set the gospel flowing freely among this “non-churched” network of friends and contacts.
What does this look like in the community? The brief stories below are real situations, though some details have been changed for the sake of confidentiality.
Four men regularly play golf together. They decide to meet once a month to talk honestly about their lives. Someone says he has found the Bible helpful, and suggests they read it together. They are mix of Christians and non-Christians, but that doesn't matter. It is not an issue. Strangely, those who do not think of themselves Christians are beginning to talk as if they were!
A group of young mothers meet each Tuesday to talk and pray. Again, the group is a mix of believers and non-believers. One of the non-believers doesn’t yet have the freedom to pray but enjoys the group very much. Explaining to a friend how she participates, she says, “When they pray, I just wish.”
A teenager feels God calling him to reach out to disadvantaged youth in his neighborhood. He applies for a youth worker’s course and starts coaching a touch-rugby team in his local area. Last year he started a lunchtime group to help high school students live for Jesus at school.
Two businessmen, working from home, meet to plan an occasional lunchtime meeting for other men working from home in their neighborhood. They want to serve other people operating small businesses from home, in isolation.
A group of young professionals agree to meet regularly in a café-bar to talk about life and faith. During the evening, friends come and go; some are believers, some are not.
While all this may sound unremarkable, it represents a way of thinking and living that strongly places Christians, the gospel and the Bible in Kiwi culture, and, one by one, people are coming to Christ. Many of the Christians involved in LifeNet do not attend a “normal” church. Church for them is a network of followers of Jesus living among people who do not know Jesus Christ. They meet in small groups to pray and study the Bible.
Navigator staff that serve the LifeNetwork encourage, equip and resource these people. They help make connections between the various LifeNet expressions in the form of weekends away, family events, and occasional city and national events. But such events do not dominate. The emphasis is on having time and energy to relate to friends and contacts on their “turf” in ways that build bridges for the gospel.
Those in the LifeNet movement have a clear vision. They want to see a whole new generation of people who find it difficult to connect with existing expressions of Church, become committed followers of Jesus. They want to see these new Christians have a powerful influence on others, carrying the gospel into networks of friends, relatives and contacts throughout New Zealand and beyond.