A participant raised a great question at our recent workshop on the innovation process for new minsitry ideas. Before I share the question with you, let me give some background.
This is an active partnership, where the Trinity empowers and blesses us, guides and challenges us, goes before us, and encourages us. It is us listening and following Jesus’ voice (John 10:4-5), us going with him into all the world (Matthew 28:19), and him promising to remain by our side to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).
Who is telling the story of any innovation? God, and God partnering with us.
Who is the one character we are focused on? That person who is currently far from Jesus.
Our demonstration task during the workshop was to run a missional cafe. We were figuring out our why, why we would run a cafe, and to help we used the framework of a story to describe the parts of running a cafe.
The framework goes like this: A story is (a cafe is) a series of events, focused on one character, who has choices and struggles and is influenced by people around them, leading to a moment of meaningful decision that will redefine their world and self.
So the question was, “Isn’t God the one character in any missional story?”
I have wrestled with this question. On the one hand, I want to say yes. Everything we do is motivated by God and without him we wouldn’t be running a missional cafe. On the other hand, the answer needs to be no. The one character is someone we are leading toward a moment of decision and hopefully faith.
One of the ways I have reconciled how to work through this is to introduce a new question at the start of the framework: Who is “telling” the story? Who is leading the cafe and inspiring the cafe?
This question, I believe, has two answers. The first is God. It is God’s story. He is the author of not only our cafe but the entire cosmos and everything in it. The second answer is God and us, with us being followers of Jesus. We partner with God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit to “tell” the story of the cafe. God and us decide the series of events around selling coffee, focused on the person who buys coffee, offering them choices around engaging with coffee and faith, leading to a moment of decision about faith, that will ultimately redefine their world and self.
This is an active partnership, where the Trinity empowers and blesses us, guides and challenges us, goes before us, and encourages us. It is us listening and following Jesus’ voice (John 10:4-5), us going with him into all the world (Matthew 28:19), and him promising to remain by our side to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).
Who is telling the story of any innovation? God, and God partnering with us.
Who is the one character we are focused on? That person who is currently far from Jesus.
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