I doubt this will come as a surprise to you, but occasionally I sin. Not very often, of course, just once in a while. One of my more recent outbursts of this unfortunate side of myself happened this weekend. Our four biological sons received coupons for free kids’ meals at Rubio’s.

I didn’t want to eat at Rubio‘s and I passively aggressively let my poor wife know it. When the boys complained, saying they didn’t want to go to Rubio’s, I told them: “Too bad: we don’t get a choice, the coupons chose for us.” That wasn’t fair to her, but I didn’t want to eat at Rubio‘s.

And it wasn’t because I don’t like fish tacos. I do. In fact, I love their beer-battered fish burrito. The fact was, it was a beautiful Spring day in Phoenix and I didn’t want to spend it at some chain fast-food restaurant, regardless of whether or not I actually liked the food. I was being a spoiled wanna-be hipster (I don’t actually want to be a hipster, even if you could actually define what that means, but then again, that’s a sign of hipsterdom, isn’t it?! HELP! It’s a vicious cycle!).

To my credit (because this true story doesn’t really flatter me), I had a moment of clarity during which I told my awesome wife: “Who am I to compain about where we get to eat out for lunch? What a spoiled American I am”. But I didn’t want to eat at Rubio’s and not only am I spoiled American, I wanted to assert my individuality. I wanted to buck against Suburbia. I wanted to eat at a one-of-a-kind restaurant with a cool atmosphere, great food and good music. But I live in Suburbia.

I don’t just live in Suburbia, I live in the epitome of stereotypical Suburbia. There are malls evenly spaced every 20 malls or so, all with the same accoutrements: Best Buy, Red Lobster, Target, and then Lowes and Home Depot across the street from one another just in between each commercial section of town. Our homes all look the same. People get a block or so from their home, open the garage, pull in and close the garage before they even get out of the car. It’s not uncommon to live in an area for years and never even know your neighbor’s name. Our color palate is various shades of beige with a slight Southwest motif. When buildings get older, we tear them down and build strip malls.

I didn’t want to eat at Rubio‘s. But then again, I have visited foreign countries. I have been fed food I didn’t order; sometimes without even knowing what I was eating. And I didn’t complain. Because I was on short-term missions trips. I understood what it meant to live as a missionary, to lay down my own preferences in order to connect with another people group. What if I’m a missionary to Suburbia? If I can chomp on a chicken foot in China without complaining, surely I can eat a fish burrito even if I’d rather not. Man I’m spoiled. Rotten.

I wonder what might change in my daily routine if I lived everyday life with Gospel intentionality? I would go to the restaurant where my wife and I know the server rather than the restaurant I prefer. I would eat a burrito without being a snob. Because God has placed me as a missionary to Suburbia.

World Magazine recently posted a piece in which Anthony Bradley argues that “the push to be ‘radical’ and ‘missional’ discourages ordinary people in ordinary places from doing ordinary things to the glory of God.”

A few days ago on Facebook and Twitter I made the following observation:

“Being a ‘radical,’ ‘missional’ Christian is slowly becoming the ‘new legalism.’ We need more ordinary God and people lovers (Matt 22:36-40).”

He goes on to say:

I continue to be amazed by the number of youth and young adults who are stressed and burnt out from the regular shaming and feelings of inadequacy if they happen to not be doing something unique and special.

After considering the “anti-Suburban” bent of much moder “missional” thinking, Bradley ties the push to be “missional” and “radical” with narcissism and an unhealthy push towards being “radical.” Bradley concludes and asks:

The combination of anti-suburbanism with new categories like “missional” and “radical” has positioned a generation of youth and young adults to experience an intense amount of shame for simply being ordinary Christians who desire to love God and love their neighbors (Matthew 22:36-40).

Bradley pointedly asks:

Why is Christ’s command to love God and neighbor not enough for these leaders?

The other day, I noted that knocking down straw-men is simply not enough for humble but challenging discourse. Sadly, I wonder if that’s not exactly what Bradley has done. Bradley has presented an understanding of being “missional” that excludes and condemns everyday believers (all of us). However, I think he has simply taken a caricature of “missional” and run with it. While there certainly may be missional practitioners who foster this kind of environment, I can’t help but read Bradley’s concerns through my church family’s understanding and practice of striving to be “missional.”

I want to humbly challenge Bradley to look beyond the hype machines to the actual missional conversation that is happening behind the spotlights. His notion that being missional is not for everyone is simply ludicrous. After all, Steve Timmis and Tim Chester have presented our church family with the notion of living “everyday life with Gospel intentionality.”

In other words, the primary context for missional living is the everyday life of the everyday believer. We as a church family have intentionally sought to strip away the church calendar in order to free people up to live ordinary life; just differently. Though my main concern here is not the “new radicals” that Bradley lumps in with his missional concerns, is the call to die to self really something “ordinary” Christians are exempt from?

I have to be honest and say that I am confused by what Bradley expects everyday believers (which, by the way, his very notion perpetuates the myth of laity vs. clergy, but that’s another point entirely) to be doing and how that varies from the call of a vast number of missional theologian practitioners. Bradley concludes:

Perhaps the best antidote to these pendulum swings and fads is simply to recover an mature understanding of vocation so that youth and young adults understand that they can make important contributions to human flourishing in any sphere of life because there are no little people or insignificant callings in the Kingdom.

While I disagree that missional is a fad, his notion that “youth and young adults” can and should “make important contributions to human flourishing in any sphere of life because there are no little people or insignificant callings in the Kingdom” is exactly how I would describe missionally. Followers of Jesus should be striving to redeem the everyday. Freeing people up to live as missionaries in their everyday context is anything but legalism. In fact, I have seen numbers of people finally “wake up” from their Evangelical pew sitting slumbers.

While I appreciate the dialogue and even the pushback against “missional,” I am deeply concerned that so many well-intentioned evangelical writers simply mischaracterize what it the vast majority of people I read, learn from and interact with mean by “missional.” The thrust is exactly what Bradley says it’s not: you don’t have to be a superstar to live an extraordinary life in and for the Kingdom. In fact, that’s exactly who thrives in Jesus’ upside-down economy.

The missional types I interact with are at the forefront of regaining a healthy theology of vocation, they are pushing people to not add lots of church events to their calendars but to sieze the day, every day with the numerous ways God gives every one of us to live faithfully. They are urging people to intentionally serve others, to build relationships of discipleship and gospel fluency no matter where someone might be along the spectrum of faith.

It’s amazing to me that what one person sees as the freedom of the Christian life that’s so often lacking in modern evangelicalism, another sees as the new legalism while arguing for exactly what so many missional types are expounding. How is it that the term “missional” is now so widely used but so poorly defined in any sort of consensus. I understand the term to be exactly what Bradley argues for.

What do you think?

It’s interesting to think through some of the implicit assumptions we pick up along the path of life. Like that weirdly glinting rock that you couldn’t take your eyes off of it, so you put it in your pocket and them promptly forgot the reason it attracted you in the first place. The Christian life is one of growth and change. We are not the same people we once were. Nor are we now who we are yet to become. What’s best for us in one season of life may or may not be the right fit years later. It is also possible that we might not have been ready for that season, had it dawned earlier in life.

Certain things become fixtures for certain seasons of life. A certain church family might be a good fit, providing you with the challenge and growth you need for a certain phase of life, but you can’t imagine going back to it years later. And that’s OK. Because the Christian life is about growth. And just like you may need a certain church’s emphasis during a particular phase of life, not every local church is for every person.

Every local church has, for lack of a better way to put it, a “personality.” And not every local church is the best fit for every person. This was an interesting conclusion to come to as a church planter. The implicit (and sometimes explicit) advice is to get as many people as you can as quickly as you can and hold on to them for as long as you can. Because that’s “success,” right? Pardon my sarcasm.

But if the goal is to get as many people as you can as quickly as you can and hold on to them for as long as you can, then you will, by necessity, water-down your own vision in order to please as many people as possible. Thus, we have many church planters now pastoring churches they themselves might not even be a member of if it were up to them. Every local church has its own culture. There ought to be certain things that are universal to Christian communities:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, sacrificial love for one another, etc. But there are also millions of possible contextual variables from that point forth.

You are not best friends with just anyone. In fact, if you’re like most people, there are only a handful of people that you really connect deeply with in your lifetime. And everyone gravitates towards different people and that’s a beautiful thing because it celebrates the uniqueness of the personalities God has given us. But it’s not just that deep-level connection that is selective and unique. Not everyone line dances. Not everyone likes football. Not everyone crochets. Not everyone yodels. Not everyone likes NASCAR or American Pickers. Some people like Bob Dylan and some people like Prince and some people like both. So we clump with those who share our peculiar particulars. And that’s OK as long as we remember that our peculiarities are no better or worse than someone else’s, so let’s celebrate all the weirdness instead of judging other people’s pop culture weaknesses.

So we need to learn to know ourselves. And we must find environments where we are encouraged to truly become sanctified versions ourselves rather than watered-down versions of someone else. And not every person is going to find that in every local church. That doesn’t mean that if you just don’t like any of the churches in your area that you can sacrifice Christian community because all of your preferences aren’t being met. That’s selfish consumerism. You may have to make compromises to be in Christian community, but remember, it’s most likely just for a season of your life. The day will come when you can’t imagine going back to be a part of that church because you’ve grown so different from that time in your life. But that day also dawns with the realization that you would not be the person you are now without that time in your life.

So be thankful now. And let’s all become sanctified versions of ourselves rather than watered-down versions of someone else.

“Christian Celebrity Culture” is such an odd phenomenon. Christian leaders putting themselves on display is certainly nothing new. Jesus intentionally incorporate His disciples into everyday life. Paul urged his readers to follow his pattern of life. I wonder how many of Paul’s readers read those words and thought things like “I’ll never match up to that! That Paul is too holy for me!” Or, how many in the original audience compared Paul’s place in life to their own: “We should all be like Paul! Why isn’t our church more like that?!”

There seems to be a glut of “missional” videos and sermons with people sharing stories of gospel transformation; at a personal and community level. While I love that the idea of living missionally is gaining exposure as a normative expectation of every Christian, I also worry that the flood of success stories has an unintended impact on many. It’s not uncommon for these success stories to breed discontent and sometimes even discouragement in local church families. We as individuals look at these videos and hear these stories and wonder why we don’t have exhilarating stories to share. And why doesn’t my church family look like that one? Why don’t my pastors look like those pastors. They must be doing something wrong. I need a church that lives like that. Stories that were meant to encourage and spur on, oftentimes actually discourage. Because we compare ourselves without the context of everyday life.

I wonder if that’s how Paul’s original audience took his audacious statement that they should imitate him as he imitated Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). Though it’s hard to know for sure, I doubt that Paul’s audience met this claim with the same discouragement of comparison that we meet celebrity Christian success stories with. I think there’s an important difference. In Philippians 4:9, Paul says: “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Notice: Paul says to practice not only what we’ve learned and received and heard, but seen. I can learn a lot of internet sermons. We now have unprecedented access to arguably some of the richest theological teachings ever, at the click of a button. I can listen to world renowned pastors and teachers. And I can easily begin to place them on a pedestal. And it’s not long before discouragement nips again at my heels. Why can’t I be more like them? But Paul says to practice what they’ve seen him do. I may be reading in to the text here, but I don’t think so: to see how Paul lived, they had to share life with him. His teachings were never removed from practice.

The next time you hear some of the conference and video missional success stories, listen for phrases like “Then one day . . . ” What we forget is that the churches, pastors and people in those videos are boiling down days, weeks, months and oftentime, years of perseverance into a single story. So, listen to these stories. Be encouraged that you too can live a missionary’s life in the everyday. But don’t compare yourself or your church to the polished product of a sermon illustration or professionally-produced video.

We must learn to redefine “wins” and “losses” in the grand scheme of things. Most of us are not going to have spontaneous baptisms and mass conversions as we go through our weeks. But we can live everyday life with Gospel intentionality.

I recently had the privilege of writing a piece for Gospel Centered Discipleship about why we (Habañero Collective) host house shows (literally, concerts in our living rooms). One of the reasons is that, as Christians, we believe that culture is extremely important. It’s not my intent to go in to a fuller discussion of why that is at this point (if that’s something you’re interested in hearing, just ask).

Instead, I was contacted by a couple of people asking for further resources on the issue of Christianity and culture. So, in no particular order, are some of the books that have been helpful for me over the years. That’s not to say I entirely agree with everything in all of these books, but isn’t that part of the beauty of reading widely? Even if we don’t fully agree, we are sharpened when we engage with people of the same faith who have a different perspective.

If you’d like to know thoughts on a particular author or work, don’t hesitate to ask. This is in no way a comprehensive, or even ordered list; just some of the first recommendations that came to mind and I just wanted to pass along these resources before I forgot:

• Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch
• To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by John Davison Hunter
• Plowing In Hope: Towards A Biblical Theology Of Culture by David Bruce Hegeman
• When The Kings Come Marching In:Isaiah and The New Jerusalem by Richard Mouw
• He Shines In All That’s Fair: Culture and Common Grace by Richard Mouw
• Calvinism In The Las Vegas Airport: Making Connections In Today’s World by Richard Mouw
• Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends (Cultural Exegesis) edited by Kevin Vanhoozer
• Public Faith, A: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good by Miroslav Volf
• The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Biblical Theology for Life) by Chrisopher J. H. Wright
• Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work by Tim Keller
• Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview by Albert Wolters
• Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile by Walter Brueggemann
• The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann
• He Speaks to Me Everywhere: Meditations on Christianity and Culture by Philip Graham Ryken
• Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts by Steve Turner

My oldest three boys were part of a “Harlem Shake” here in Glendale, AZ:

In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul talks about how, though he has personal spiritual freedom, he is willing to lay that freedom down for the sake of others knowing Jesus better. In 1 Corinthians 9:22-23 se goes as far as to say: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” Though the context is that of “Christian liberty” and the role of a stronger and/or weaker conscience, it presents an interesting question.

If Paul is willing take up or lay down his own freedoms for the sake of other people knowing Jesus, how far should we be willing to go to live on mission. If we keep the context simply at liberties as Paul here does, then it simply means that I will not mention that I occasionally partake of beverage alcohol to the glory of God (who gave us wine to gladden the heart according to Psalm 104:15) and I will not force my libertine friends to be teetotalers.

But what about when applied to the broader context of living on mission in the everyday life? If left to my own devices, I would want to live as a missionary to people slightly sarcastic people just like me who like music, grew up skateboarding and who don’t care at all about team sports; much less “professional” sports. But God, because of the great love with which He loved me, placed me in Suburbia. Not the cool suburbia where gentrification has set in and the worn out strip mall has been brought back to life with cool coffee shops and eateries. No, I live in Target, Red Lobster, Chili’s Best Buy, cookie-cutter subdivision suburbia. Don’t worry, if the Red Robin is too crowded there’s another one a mile down the road. And rest assured, there will be a major league sporting event on every TV in every corner of your favorite chain restaurant.

Professional sports is part of American life. And I live as a missionary in an American context. That means, that, though my personal preference would have been to watch Groundhog Day on repeat all day yesterday, we threw a Super Bowl Party. I had to look to find out who was even playing, but I did. And we had a great time. We made a new friend who just moved here and had no plans. We reconnected with an old friend prior to his upcoming wedding. We got to spend some time with one of our missional community family members who is leaving the country soon. And it was all under the pretense of a football game.

Living everyday life with gospel intentionality means investigating and investing in the regular rhythms of the surrounding culture. If they gather around sporting events, then I should probably at least be conversant in said sport. I don’t have to lie to people and say I really care who wins, but I should be willing to sit next to someone for a while who does enjoy football. Living on mission means throwing parties for things you don’t care about. It means trying to learn to put others wants and desires before my own. It means sacrificing time and energy, it means opening our home for an event I really don’t care about. Because I do care about the God who put these people in my path and for the people He has put there.

Just don’t expect me to buy season tickets any time soon.