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Lovse family As everywhere else in the world, Slovenia locked down in March. Within a day, everything stopped. Schools closed, events and conferences were cancelled, work changed, and life was more…

Last Halloween was cold — REALLY cold. The little pack of kids from our cul-de-sac started out with vigor on their candy-hunting quest, but soon found themselves shivering uncontrollably in their coat-less costumes. Only two blocks into our neighborhood, it was time to retreat! So without any intentional planning, my wife and I stumbled into a prime opportunity to build relational bridges with our neighbors. We invited the pack of kids inside our home and the warm spot in front of our fireplace quickly became the neighborhood candy counting and trading station.

I’m rarely entrusted with kitchen duties, but when the recipe is simple enough, my lovely wife will occasionally hand over the apron. Pancakes are my specialty. Bisquick mix, milk, and eggs. Boom. Pancakes. My Saturday morning triple-ingredient culinary masterpiece! When it gets more complicated than that, my wife wisely and mercifully takes the apron back.

I first heard the good news in 1980 when I was a college student at the University of Washington in Seattle. I was a sophomore living in a fraternity house with a lot of friends. On the outside I appeared to have everything together, but on the inside I had a lot of questions and an emptiness I didn’t understand.

I get mixed responses when I mention that I oversee “missional living” at Fellowship. They usually fall into three categories. Sometimes I can read the response immediately in someone’s expression of confused curiosity that seems to say “What on earth is missional living?” Understandable since missional has been defined in so many ways. Or a smile that communicates resonance with the idea of living ‘on mission’ – and I’m guessing they might have read some recent blog posts or books or listened to a podcast that’s defined it in a palatable way.

“God has initiated every part of His work throughout history. Instead of carrying out His mission on His own, God chooses to accomplish His mission in a very personal way.He chooses to involve His people with Him, working through them to accomplish His purposes. When He is about to take a further step to advance His mission, He comes to one or more of His servants… He lets them know what He is about to do. He invites them to join Him, asking them to adjust their lives to Him so He can accomplish every aspect of His mission through them.”

Joining Jesus on His mission doesn’t have to be complicated – it really just means living intentionally, with the heart of a missionary – and with the Gospel at the center of all that we do. A common fear and misconception is that missional means “additional”… Additional activities, appointments, responsibilities, serving opportunities… Filling up the calendar with more stuff. That perspective can easily start to feel like a heavy burden of duty that induces guilt, rather than a Gospel-centered lifestyle that results in purpose and joy.

I just returned from a week in Postdam, Germany spending time with our global partner, Steffen Weil, and his mittendrin team. (mittendrin means “in the center of it” in German, and is the name of their 4-yr old church plant located right in the center of the city). What a great week of listening, learning and gaining perspective on their vision to reach into their city with Gospel-influence over many sectors of culture – arts, medicine, education, athletics, small business, government, and beyond.

I can only imagine what it’s like to go watch a movie as a family if you have boys. It probably involves action, adventure, swords and super heroes. But God has given me three lovely little ladies (pictured here), which means that when we go to the theater as a family, my experience is … well … different. It contains less action and more drama; fewer swords and more pixie dust. The “action” in the “live action” version of Cinderella that we watched last week simply meant that the movie contained real actors & actresses, rather than the original animation.

“I’ve begun to view the gospel as a verb, not just a noun (“gospeling” each other), and have become more fluent with it. It also helped me think through my own personal story and how it relates to God’s Greater story (Creation – Fall – Redemption – Re-Creation). The tangible experience of gathering to eat weekly and applying Gospel principles with each other was most compelling because I sometimes regard weekly bible studies or meetings as another thing to take me from ‘the stuff of life’. After going through the Gospel Primer with this group, I have the perspective that our family has to eat any way, so why don’t I invite others to join us?”