I once heard ‘bless’ interpreted as the tangible touch of God, and it has been burned into my vernacular ever since. I just love the thought that we can feel God’s love for us through the blessings that pour into our lives every day, coupled with the fact that we could be a part of blessing others to feel that tangible touch of God. Beautiful cycle, right?

Several years ago, I first heard several folks in the Kingdom movement realm talk about acronyms they use for small groups to develop missional habits. Missional being that all we do and say alerts others to the reign of God. Michael Frost talks about ‘BELLS’ as Bless, Eat, Listen, Learn and Sent as a rhythm for small groups to adopt in order to have opportunities to tell Kingdom stories, as well as to hold each other accountable to living well within their Kingdom life. Frost says, ‘It is a really handy tool for mobilizing Christians up, in and out into mission. That is, up into deeper connection with the Triune God; in to a stronger sense of community with other believers; and out into the neighborhood. The fact is we all recognize the need to live generous, hospitable, Spirit-led, Christlike lives as missionaries to our own neighborhoods. We want to live our faith out in the open for all to see.’

Bless is rather straight forward in blessing three people throughout the week, at least one of whom is not a member of your church. And while most people think of a blessing as something monetary, it definitely does not have to always have something to do with money. It could, but more likely is the blessing of spending time with someone, doing something for them, telling them they are doing a good job or giving a hug when someone needs it.

What group of folks hates eating together, right? I’ve seen so many frustrations and tensions dissipate within a single meal sat across a table from others. Eat is intentionally sitting down to a meal with three people throughout your week, with at least one of them not being a member of your church. So many times I’ve heard folks say, “I really like the stuff you talk about and want to live more missionally, but I cannot add another thing to my full schedule. It’s impossible!” Eating with others adds nothing into the schedule, because you already eat three times a day, right? Which means all you are doing is choosing who will be across the table from you in one of those moments throughout the week.

Listen. I honestly think this one is so incredibly important, because when we choose not to listen to each other we are choosing not to learn from each other or respect the other person as a viable contributor to community. It is the same with the Holy Spirit, when we choose not to listen to the Holy Spirit we are telling God that we don’t think the Holy Spirit is a viable part of the Trinity in a world where it truly is the most active piece of God we have with us. The missional habit of Listen is choosing to give one period of your week to listening for the Spirit’s voice. That looks different for everyone, but once you choose to intentionally listen, you will be amazed at the things you hear and how you respond. As a Spirit-led person, the entire Kingdom becomes increasingly real to you.

Learn is a commitment to learning the characteristics, stories and things Jesus said to help us grasp a hold of our life with him. When you learn about Jesus, you tend to take on those traits as well…give or take an asshole decision every now and then…it’s no fluke that my small group that has been pouring into missional theology for three years refers to themselves as ‘recovering assholes.’ When learning more and more about the character of Jesus, we tend to also have a spotlight put on our sin and humanness as well. We are all in the process of being transformed, but without the commitment t learn more about the heart of God through Jesus, we have no example to spark that transformation.

Sent embodies action. Frost says that the habit of sent is committing to journal throughout the week all the ways you have alerted others to the universal reign of God through Christ, and it has a lot of different outlets. Know how to answer where you see God reigning through Christ. Is it in the beauty of God’s creation? Whether it is nature, music or art? Is it in how we treat others? Is it in how passionate you are about injustice in this world? What makes your soul sing in this world? What makes you most angry? When you look at the emotions you have surrounding a situation, at their core, does it go back to how God has uniquely created you to build toward his Kingdom on earth? What forward motion are you participating in to see God’s Kingdom come into its’ full power and restoration? Living sent is about alerting AND demonstrating the universal reign of God through Christ. It’s both together, not one or the other. When you commit to journaling when you see aspects of this habit in your life, you will more increasingly see how God has placed you to live sent.

When I saw these habits several years ago for the first time, I sensed that my community wasn’t quite ready to tackle all habits at once. So we moved forward in other ways, then last month when I sense this was the right time, each person was excited and had a certain aspect of giddiness at the accountability to live out what we’ve been talking and learning about for so long. I’m anticipating a TON of stories to be told over the next couple of months, and I cannot wait to see how God continues to move in us.