The Upside Down Kingdom
One of the points in Chris Brown‘s sermon at the 2013 WCA Global Leadership Summit was about Jesus turning leadership upside down. Here is a different sermon from a wealth of sermons by a fellow pastor at North Coast Church. This sermon expands well on the upside-down gospel Jesus preached.
Questions to ponder…
If you are skidding in a car, which way do you turn?
If you see an accident in a race car, which way do you steer?
If your ministry has conflict, who do you talk to?
If your plane engines fail and you are falling, which way do you point the plane?
How can we be the person God intended us to be while living in His kingdom?
If someone leaves your ministry, what actions should you take?
The Sermon
Experience and wisdom comes from making a lot of stupid mistakes and learning from them.
Foolishness is to make the same mistakes again and again and expecting to get a better or different result.
At a Church Planting Movement training for missionaries, the mantra is “If You Keep Doing What You’ve Been Doing, You’ll Keep Getting What You’ve Been Getting.” CPM trainers, Bill Smith and Neill Mims, have used this mantra to jolt frustrated missionaries out of their fruitless patterns and into new ways of looking at their community and ministry.
For sure, fruitful Christian ministry is counter-intuitive. Brian, I think you’ll love this one hour lecture by Fr. Richard Rohr: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1kXeklcmMI
Rohr is on my radar for sure!
The upside down nature of the kingdom is most clearly seen in one of Jesus’ famous words.
John 12:24 “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
We who are doing ministry in the West tend to apply this to individuals. We think we ourselves or a certain person should die in order to find life. There is a lot of truth to that.
But I believe that Jesus also had a broader, more plural meaning. I believe Jesus also meant the “kernel” to apply to the body of Christ as a whole and to entire ministries. If your ministry doesn’t die, it won’t live. If your ministry doesn’t die off so that new ministries can be born, your ministry will die with you.
Refusing to let your ministry die and begin a new ministry is like fighting against Jesus’ gospel principles.
Hi Brian just watched the video. Loved it. Thanks for sharing. The only way we can follow and live up to the up side down Kingdom is to read the manual (Bible). So true. I like what he said in Romans 12 how we need to transform our thinking to the upside down Kingdom.
I am beginning to understand this upside-down nature of the gospel, and it is fascinating. It helps me understand why the Jewish leaders were SO over-the-top upset by what Jesus did and said. It helps me understand why a highly credentialed Pharisee like Apostle Paul would give all that up, as well as why Stephen could be so peaceful when he was stoned.