After having lived and pastored in six major cities in three countries around the world, I’m often asked the question, “Which is your favorite?”
When I was younger, I’d reminisce about the mountains in Vancouver, the frozen river canal in Ottawa, the International Jazz Festival in Montreal, or the skyscrapers in Seoul. However, after packing and moving for the thousandth time—or so it feels—I finally feel like I have an adequate answer to that question.
It depends. That’s it—it depends.
It depends on whether or not I approached the city with the posture to give or take. It depends on whether or not I came with the desire to bless or an attitude of entitlement. Did I go to harvest or to plant? Did the city exist for my benefit, or did I exist for its benefit?
—— Enter the giveaway at the bottom of this article for a chance to win one of four copies of Todd Korpi’s book, The Life-Giving Spirit: The Victory of Christ in Missional Perspective. ——
Every week, Christians in your city are wrestling with a similar tension.
Should I go to church or to the lake? Should I participate in a small group or watch the game on TV. Should I open up the Bible app or Facebook?
Every week, when people enter the doors of your church, they are either coming with the posture to give or take. They are either coming to serve or be served. They are coming to bless the Lord or be blessed by the Lord. They are coming to give worship or take information and inspiration from the sermon. It’s a subtle difference, but your posture changes everything.
This reminds me of this one particular phrase that Todd repeats in his book, The Life-Giving Spirit: The Victory of Christ in Missional Perspective, “If every breath we inhale is from God, then every breath we exhale should be for God.”
Oh how one-sided we are at times!
We take, take, and take, thinking that if we don’t fend for ourselves, no one will. When in reality, if we approached life with the posture of giving and a heart of generosity, not only would others leave filled and satisfied, but so would we. After all, didn’t Jesus Himself say that He came to serve and not be served, and to give His life as a ransom for many (Matt 20:28)?
A few years ago, when my eldest daughter, Victoria, was a toddler, I remember this one time that we were driving together to gymnastics class.
We were listening to this one song where the chorus went like this, “It’s your breath, in our lungs, so we pour out our praise, we pour out our praise.”[1] As we were belting out the lyrics to this song, my voice began to eclipse hers as she slowly stopped singing. After singing by myself for another minute or so, I asked her why she had stopped the karaoke duo.
She responded with, “Daddy, can I ask you a question?”
I replied, “Of course.”
She then proceeded to take a deep breath in and then exhale it out. She repeated this a few times and then said, “That’s it, right? Isn’t that what the song is about?”
Not knowing quite what she was doing, I asked her to clarify, “What do you mean?”
“Well, if I breathe in and out, isn’t that singing praises to God? Because he put the breath in our lungs?”
Wow. I was floored.
I wish I could take credit for teaching her this, but I can’t. She got it. She understood that “if every breath we inhale is from God, then every breath we exhale should be for God.”
What would it look like for you to create a culture in your church where you are not only modeling this, but teaching your church how to live this out?
Where everyone understands that God is not only their creator, but their active sustainer? Where everyone learns how to live every breath and moment of their lives for God?
This is what I like to call “normalizing mission.”
In my book, No Silver Bullets: 5 Small Shifts that will Transform your Ministry, I write about this,
Every plumber, poet, and police officer in your church has the same vocation—to go and make disciples. This is our missionary mandate as the church! We are all sent and on mission with God wherever we are and in whatever we do for a living (John 20:21). And this precisely is our primary vocation. It’s our secondary vocation—the thing that we do to get food on the table—that differs for everyone.[2]
What would it look like for you to develop disciples in your church who have a missionary mindset?
Where everyone understands that “mission is not just something that the church does; it is something that is done by the Spirit, who is himself the witness, who changes both the world and the church, who always goes before the church in its missionary journey.”[3] Where everyone understands that “if every breath we inhale is from God, then every breath we exhale should be for God?”
Get ready to be encouraged, challenged, and equipped by Todd to be a life-giving Christian wherever you live, wherever you go, and in everything that you do.
This is the Foreword that I wrote for Todd Korpi’s book, The Life-Giving Spirit: The Victory of Christ in Missional Perspective.
Next Steps:
- Enter the giveaway to win one of four copies of The Life-Giving Spirit: The Victory of Christ in Missional Perspective.
- Follow Todd Korpi on Twitter.
- Read more from ToddKorpi.com
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[1] “Great Are You, Lord.” (2012) Jason Ingram, Leslie Jordan and David Leonard. Integrity’s Alleluia! Music | Integrity’s Praise! Music | Open Hands Music | Sony/ATV Timber Publishing.
[2] Daniel Im, No Silver Bullets: 5 Small Shifts that will Transform your Ministry (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2017).
[3] Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 56.