Image: Lingamish preaching on Sunday (actually a scene from Rayman Raving Rabbids)

I’ve never posted one of my sermons or speeches online for the simple reason that what in a live venue sounds like cutting-edge, knock-your-socks-off rhetorical artistry comes off in print like the incoherent ravings of an adult with ADHD.

But I will give you a couple of photos from last night’s gig at The Shift. The Shift is the brain-storm of my buddy Brad Duncan who used to tour with Rebecca St. James and was the axe man for Fusebox before he returned to Albany, Oregon to start this cool “church for people who hate church” with candles and multimedia and people that have more metal on their face than I have coins in my pocket.

I knew Brad in the days before his heavy metal hairdo had shifted from his head to his chin. Today he and his gang of grungy groupies are hanging out with the homeless, invading bars and basically trying to do the Jesus thing in a way few churches dare. I loved being with these people. I loved seeing the creativity and the “unchurch” ethic that creates an environment of acceptance for people who are hurting, isolated or dealing with addictions.

Brad and I have been scheming about ways for The Shift to partner with Mozambicans in getting the Bible out of the translation offices and into the villages. They’re going to dump some money on a cool project to record all the Scripture translated in eight Mozambican languages and then get it on to radio and mp3 players and spread all over the country. But more than dumping money, Brad and I were appealing to the people of The Shift to grab ahold of the need in Mozambique and make it their own. This is one of the reasons that I think that this present moment is one of the most exciting eras in church missions. I outlined four shifts that I’m seeing in the mission field:

1. The colonial era: “We need to send missionaries to the mission field”
   • We in the developed world are “the saved” and those poor people in the third world are “the lost” and we have to go preach the gospel and convert the heathen.
2. The heathen next door: “Our neighborhood is our mission field”
   • In the late-20th century there was a recognition that America and other so-called "evangelized” nations were becoming increasingly pagan and that we needed to reach out to our neighbors and society.
3. Globalization: “The world is our neighborhood”
   • The rise of global media brought an awareness of some of the staggering injustices around the world and an outpouring of sentiment and donations to try to “help those poor people.”
4. Glocalization: “The global church will work together to heal a hurting world”
   • We are realizing that “missions” is not a donor-beggar paradigm but about cross-border faith-based partnerships in which West and South join together sharing their unique gifts.

One of the unique gifts that I believe the church south of the equator possesses is a spiritual vitality that is almost totally extinguished in Europe and North America. And in my view that is why the Western church desperately needs to join hands with them. Not because we possess all the tools and teaching and financial resources, but because we are spiritually famished and our encounter with them can bring life and spirituality back to our churches.

I illustrated this by the example of the young churches in the first century reaching out to the church in Jerusalem during a time of famine. This event recorded in Acts 16 and mentioned by Paul in 2 Corinthians 8 and Philippians 4 shows the offspring of the “mother church” in Jerusalem reciprocating and reaching out with generosity in a time of need despite their own poverty. I sincerely believe that on a spiritual level that is exactly what we need to have happen for the sake of our American and European churches. But who knows? With the mounting economic crisis in the developed world, it isn’t unthinkable that we could become recipients of the developing world’s largesse.

Now that I’m done lecturing, let me show you one last photo of “The Shift” that happened last night. They’re going to be displaying my African shirt on their wall as a reminder of our partnership and I promised to take Brad’s shirt to Africa and find a Mozambican to give it to.

Since I started off with Rayman and the Raving Rabbids, why don’t we finish off with a little Funky Town to get your Monday started: