Radical Reformission Quote #15

From chapter 1, eat drink and be a merry missionary: imitating the reformission of Jesus.

Reformission is ultimately about being like Jesus, through his empowering grace. One of the underlying keys to reformission is knowing that neither the freedom of Christ nor our freedom in Christ is intended to permit us to dance as close to sin as possible without crossing the line. But both are intended to permit us to dance as close to sinner as possible by crossing the lines that unnecessarily separate the people God has found from those he is still seeking. [...]

I am advocating not sin but freedom. That freedom is denied by many traditions and theological systems because they fear that some people will use their freedom to sin against Christ. But rules, regulations, and the pursuit of outward morality are ultimately incapable of preventing sin. They can only, at best, rearrange the flesh and get people to stop drinking, smoking, and having sex, only to start being proud of their morality. Jesus' love for us and our love for him are, frankly, the only tethers that will keep us from abusing our freedom, yet they will enable us to venture as far into the culture and into relationships with lost people as Jesus did, because we go with him.

Radical Reformission Quote #14

From chapter 1, eat drink and be a merry missionary: imitating the reformission of Jesus.

[Talking of Jesus's conversation with the woman at the well] Lest we overlook the magnitude of this moment, notice that this is the only place in John's gospel that Jesus declares that he is the promised Old Testament Messiah. And he reserved this great revelation not for the seminary professors or megachurch senior pastors but for the woman he had come to earth to spiritually court at a lonely well in the heat of the noontime sun. And Jesus revealed her sin, putting his finger on the dirtiest and most scarred portion of her soul, which smelled like death, hell, and sin. He cleaned it, healed it, forgave it, and replaced it with grace and the Holy Spirit, as only he can.

Born again, the woman decided to start her life over, which is the essence of repentance. She sprinted back to Sychar with good news to tell. She told anyone who would listen that she had been a sick and wicked woman governed by her loneliness and perversion but that things had changed once she met Jesus. We can only imagine the looks on people's faces, including the many men who likely had seen her unclothed but who had never seen her clothed in righteousness.

Radical Reformission Quote #13

From chapter 1, eat drink and be a merry missionary: imitating the reformission of Jesus. See the previous three quotes for background.

As I left the bar, God convicted me of my proud addiction to morality and my attempt to look like a decent guy so that others will like me. I was so insecure that I feared not only that my Christian friends would see me walking out of a gay bar with queer cowboys but also that the queer cowboys would reject me for being a Bible thumper who, deep down, believed they were running to hell in their cowboy boots. I cared more about how I appeared to people than about whether I shared the passion of Jesus for those who are lost.

That night, I learned that reformission requires that Christians and their churches move forward on their knees, continually confessing their addictions to morality and the appearance of godliness, which does not penetrate the heart and transform lives. In the end, I learned that God's mission is not to create a team of moral and decent people but rather to create a movement of holy loving missionaries who are comfortable and truthful around lost sinners and who, in this way, look more like Jesus than most of his pastors do.

Radical Reformission Quote #12

From chapter 1, eat drink and be a merry missionary: imitating the reformission of Jesus.

[Mark goes to a gay rodeo committee meeting upstairs from the bar. See the previous two quotes for background.] The meeting started with introductions, everyone giving their names and vocations. [...]

When it came to my turn, I tried to avoid the inevitable conflict and lied to them by saying I was a spiritual something-or-other, hoping the queer cowboys would smile, nod, and ignore me. But one of the cowboys asked what my religion was. So I came out of my closet and told him I was a Bible-thumping, old-school Christian preacher, causing some of the guys to laugh, thinking I was kidding. [...]

[After the meeting] One of the guys asked if I was actually a real pastor and began explaining how his lover and many of his friends had died of AIDS. Actually, he began discipling me, articulating with great pain the loneliness and death that filled his community and explaining why he feared death. [...] I sought to relate the gospel to his life: sin causes death, but Jesus is God who became a man and died -- when he was about the same age as this man -- in order to rise from death, forgive sin, and give eternal life to those who repent of sin and trust in him.

Radical Reformission Quote #11

From chapter 1, eat drink and be a merry missionary: imitating the reformission of Jesus.

My friend took me to the bar and introduced me to a number of his gay buddies, who were drinking -- of course -- light beer. Feeling like I was wearing someone else's underwear, I stood there and tried to be inconspicuous, praying that no one would recognize me. Then someone I had graduated from high school with approached me with a surprised look. She asked, "What are you doing here?" And I quickly blurted, "I'm married to a woman and here with a friend, but I'm not a gay guy, so please don't tell anyone I'm a queer." She laughed and we chatted for a few minutes until a song she obviously liked came on, and she then shuffled off to the dance floor with her girlfriend.

Then a guy introduced me to himself and hit on me. Stunned, I did not immediately respond but instead stared at the poor guy, trying to figure out why he looked so familiar, how he could mistake me for a gay guy, and if I was really good looking. It then hit me and I asked him, "Are you my mailman?" He replied, "Yes, I am a mailman." Suddenly, I wanted to kill myself and never get mail again.

Radical Reformission Quote #10

From chapter 1, eat drink and be a merry missionary: imitating the reformission of Jesus.

I got a phone call from an old college friend whom God had used to bring me to faith. [...]

Over lunch, he informed me that he had been a closet homosexual throughout college, had joined the military after graduation, and had recently been discharged for having sex with fellow soldiers. He was presently frequenting public bathrooms throughout the city and having anonymous sex with various men. He shared that he was wrestling through whether he believed that he was a sinner and whether he still believed in God. When I invited him to attend church with me, he declined, saying it was unfair for me to expect him to come into my Christian subculture since I was unwilling to go with him into his homosexual subculture.

And he was right. So, feeling convicted to be like Jesus, I told him I would be happy to go into his world if he would come into mine. Seeing an evil dervish grin emerge on his face, I knew I was in trouble. He invited me to a gay country and western bar he frequented.

Radical Reformission Quote #9

From chapter 1, eat drink and be a merry missionary: imitating the reformission of Jesus.

Doesn't the story sound like the plot of a trashy, daytime television talk show? The God-Man is born to a teenage virgin in an animal stall, grows up with a blue-collar dad in a dumpy rural town, and has a weird cousin named John, who lives in the wood and survives on a steady diet of bugs, sugar, and repentance. [...]

The constipated religious leaders of his day accuse him of being a drunkard, a glutton, and a crooked guy who always hangs out with the wrong people: easy girls like Mary, crooked mafia types like Matthew, and the kids in high school who always wear black concert T-shirts, sport greasy male ponytails, and smoke cigarettes just off school property during lunch (Matt. 11:19).