You know you are a mission geek when…

Yah, I’m not going to finish that sentence, mostly, because we all know it to be true already.

I had a mission geek moment last night, and was reminded by how God started adjusting my ‘mission’ definition to a ‘Kingdom’ mindset.

I picked up a book titled, “Surprised by Hope” by N.T. Wright who is Bishop of Durham…yet another Brit teaching Americans theology. And I don’t mean that snarky…there are just so many foreigners that are speaking into a lot of different areas. Quite honestly, his books make my brain hurt, but in a good way. “Surprised by Hope” busted open my view of God’s Kingdom in a way that I’d never imagined.

It all fed into the reason I chose to break down my language about ‘missions’ last Lenten season, and go back to scripture to relearn God’s sending language.

Language is incredibly important. God has been shedding a lot of light lately on how often we are having a conversation with someone about something, yet the way we each define that something is completely different. My friends are noticing lately that I’ve started inserting, ‘Ok, I mean this when I say…’ or ‘What do you mean when you say…’

I think it is because I’ve begun to realize we very rarely speak the same language. And it is even truer when you start talking ‘mission’ language. How many people do you know who balk when they hear the word ‘calling’ or ‘missionary’? These words are not scary when you break them down to the simplest form of God has created you with the specific DNA to love others with compassion for him. It is a calling, and it makes you a missionary in whatever contect God already has you living.

More often than not fights, arguments and miscommunications come from not working from the same definitions of what we are talking about. If we would just be patient enough to stop, listen to how someone else sees something and clarify meaning…so many arguments would dissolved before relationships were lost.

Language is why I appreciate N.T. Wright so much. He speaks Bible, granted using big words, but he is consistently, continually and constantly pointing back to scripture, which is where we should all be getting our language from…when was the last time really you believed what Jesus said, to the point of actually living it? Because there is where the Biblical language comes alive…