LOOKING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD

Several years ago I was having the rockin'est year in business that I had ever had. Our publishing company was growing exponentially, and I had the financial freedom to finally bless my family with a few long-desired upgrades in life. I had quite a bit of time and the flexibility to travel internationally, doing some pretty amazing work in Africa and Asia by helping deliver the gospel and much-needed relief to those suffering religious persecution or pinned down under the weight of war.

It was a good time in my life in pretty much every way—all great.

That's when God stepped in and messed everything up.

At forty years of age, and with everything going perfectly (according to my sovereign plans), I heard God speak very clearly to me, telling me that I was to become a pastor. "A what, Lord?" It's not that God spoke to me audibly that day, but it was pretty close. The clarity with which I heard his voice, and the subsequent confirmations that happened almost daily, only clarified his call on my life.

"But I'm not a pastor!" I said to him. I had never been to Bible college or seminary. I had zero professional training. I had no desire to wear a suit, slick back my hair, and steer a pulpit every Sunday for the rest of my life. Besides, what church would hire me? Despite my objections, in faith I dutifully responded, "Yes, Father, I'll be a pastor ... if that's your will for my life. But you'll have to work out all of the business stuff I'm committed to, and oh yeah—show me where I'm supposed to pastor too."

Through a series of crazy moves that felt like miracles, within ninety days I was completely removed from my responsibilities within our company, was receiving a pretty fat severance check every month, and was now free as a bird to be a pastor. There was only one problem—I wasn't one yet. No one had called me anywhere or had yet offered me a position at a church. My wife, Tina, and I had been involved at a very large church in the Chicago suburbs for over nine years, and we were both super-involved in the local and international ministries of the church, but there were no job offers there, no one asking me to help the team "pastor up."

I know this, because I asked them.

Their laughter and the polite way they said, "No thanks, Caesar, you're probably not a good fit on our staff ... (pat, pat on the back)," left me with very few options. And it also left me wondering if I had just screwed up my family's life and driven us off a cliff.

Not sure what else to do, I set to work remodeling my basement and found that I had plenty of time to talk to my heavenly Dad about what all he was thinking. Ninety days later (again) to the date, I received a call. It was the executive pastor of our church, and he wanted to know if I was free to come in and have a talk with our senior pastor: "Jim wants to talk to you about that job that's opening up for a communications director ... it's a new pastoral position we're creating."

Boom! That's my opening ... Come on, Lord!

And it happened. I was hired on full-time, at my own local church, as the pastor overseeing all communications. I worked with a large staff and volunteer team. Soon I added the title of "Missions Pastor" to my job description and even got to preach on the big stage once in a while.

Real pastorin' stuff.

For the next three years I learned a lot about local ministry as I pastored in this church context. I will be forever grateful to God and the staff I worked with during those years. My life, character, and theology were shaped in profound ways during that time, and yet I still wondered, was this the call I had heard from God? Was I living a transformed and eternally purposed life?

After a few years, I began to chafe a bit, wondering if Jesus had died on the cross so that a few chosen people in a church service could "do" the ministry while pretty much everyone else just sat there, passively and silently watching. Was this what God had in mind? Was this the hope we had for growth and maturity as a follower of Jesus? Was the highest goal for most of my friends to become an usher in the church building ... to someday ush with the best of them?

Around this time, I was doing some traveling overseas, and I read and re-read the book of Acts. A very different picture of the church emerged, one that was strikingly similar to what I was seeing and experiencing as I traveled outside the United States. The way that Jesus taught and lived with his disciples, and how they in turn lived, looked a whole lot more like what I was seeing in Africa and India than it did in my own life and church back home.

I wondered what it would be like to live in real community with others, not just saying hello to them once a week and shaking hands. I wondered what it would look like to intentionally disciple each other to greater faith in Jesus, living together as God's missionary family, here in my own neighborhood.

There was one huge problem in all of this.

I had zero not-yet-believing friends. In fact, I hardly even knew my neighbors. I was too darn busy pulling off all the programs that went on throughout the week (after week after week) at the church building.

RECORD SCRATCH ... FULL STOP

Wait a minute, that doesn't make sense! If I and a handful of other pastors and leaders in the church are supposed to be role models for the rest of our people, showing them how to live and make disciples as Jesus did, shouldn't pastors have loads of not-yet-believing friends? Shouldn't we be rock-star disciple makers, living the same way Jesus and his disciples did?

What I learned was that the way the disciples of Jesus lived was not only in stark contrast to his own culture, but was upside down compared to everything else at that time, both Jewish and pagan. A pattern of teaching and living began to emerge that was profound, yet much simpler than I had seen or experienced in my own life. There was an "all in" nature to life in the kingdom of God, but the process for getting in and living out this life was somehow ... uncomplicated, less pressured and mustered up, less programmed. Jesus would hang out with and teach his disciples through short, simple stories called parables, life lessons that opened up their hearts and minds to a new way of living. A new way of being.

I wanted that. Everybody wants that. Or so I thought.

MISSIONAL, HERE I COME

I began to hear people using a term that described the life of Jesus and his disciples—the way those first believers lived, as well as those who live like missionaries today. The word was "missional." Missional carries with it the idea that our lives should be radically oriented around the mission of...