I like the word interdependent. It means to be mutually dependent. Jesus said, “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (John 13:35 NLT) I believe He was describing interdependence.

God designed us to need each other. Even though God shaped each of us uniquely for ministry, He never meant for us to go it alone. We will only succeed by remaining dependent on God and by becoming interdependent upon each other.

Our purpose in life is interdependent with the purpose of other believers. God created us to fulfill a mission only we can complete, but you must depend upon each other in order to accomplish the God-sized task set before you.

So how does this apply to Gatetree?

Confess your need – God designed us to need each other, yet one of the most difficult things to do is ask for support or help. It’s even more difficult if it involves a matter of faith or help overcoming an embarrassing sin. By confessing we need help, we’re agreeing with God that He did, in fact, create us to live in loving, supportive community with each other.

Provoke faith – The Bible says we should provoke each other into a deeper love and a stronger faith. One way to do this is to agree, with a group of other believers, to trust God on specific steps of faith and then to encourage each other as we watch God respond to our faith.

Interdependent purpose – Fulfilling your purpose depends on other believers helping you, and fulfilling their purposes depends on you helping them. What big thing is keeping you from being interdependent with other believers? God does not come in condemnation, but in love to support you as he removes this “big thing,” whatever it is. Ask him to help – “I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.”

As a general rule, I detest church business meetings. But last night was entirely different. It wasn’t a large group, but it was the most productive gathering for charting the future ministry of Gatetree that I have ever experienced. There was passion. There was clear thinking. There was one and only one agenda. There was great faith.

The meeting can be summarized like this—we are confident of our mission, we just aren’t sure how to accomplish it. Finally, one of our men, Mike, reminded us of a timeless biblical principle expressed by author/theologian Henry Blackaby, “God is at work in the world, and He wants you to join Him.”

Recently, I read about Bono, lead singer for the rock group U2 and an outspoken and somewhat controversial Christian philanthropist. He recently went on a tour of evangelical institutions to enlist Christian support for the AIDS crisis in Africa. Along the way, he said something to the effect that our mission in the world is not to do our own thing and ask God to bless it, but to find out what God is already doing in the world and get where He is. Same thing.

So what is God up to? I don’t know all the ways God is at work, but I do see four things He is doing in American culture;

First, God is creating in people a hunger for spiritual answers to life’s more difficult questions. That’s why you see the spiritual and the mystical as dominating themes in film and television.

Second, there appears to be a new interest in Jesus. Once again, the popularity of books and media show that to be so. People who may have been closed to Christians or Christianity may now be rethinking their beliefs.

Third, fear. People are afraid. Since 9/11, no one feels safe anymore. And when people are afraid, they are much more open to God than when they are complacent and comfortable.

And finally, people are looking for meaning and purpose in life. How else can you explain the phenomenal success of Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life that took everyone by surprise?

I mention these things because it’s important to remember that, (whatever projects or actions we take to accomplish our mission) when we go out in the world that the conversation that ends with the Gospel has already begun. God is already at work in the world. It is time to go where He is and join the conversation.

We’ve all heard the story before, or perhaps it even happened to you.
You receive a visit from a friend you haven’t seen in a long time. You are overjoyed at the reunion and honored that your friend would see the relationship worth cultivating and would actually seek you out. Or it might be a person you are just starting to get to know, and there are encouraging signs of a potential friendship.

In the course of a pleasant conversation, with the talk shifting randomly from one subject to another, you suddenly find you are discussing the virtues of various vacuum cleaners. You friend brightens at the topic because he’s recently had some great results with an amazing new machine that he extols with great pleasure. You are so taken by his excitement that you find yourself wanting to know where you might find one of these amazing vacuum cleaners since your old model has paled in comparison to his vivid description, and you’ve been thinking about looking into a new one anyway. It’s then that your new friend offers to solve all your problems by selling you one on the spot at a “one-time only, low, low price of $69.95.”

Suddenly, you feel an awful knot in the pit of your stomach. It’s not unlike the feeling you had when you came home one day to find your house had been burglarized. You feel violated, used. And you feel stupid for trusting this person and making yourself vulnerable to his schemes. He’s not after a friendship; he’s after a sale.

A believer’s mission to share Christ with people is one of the five great purposes for which we exist. But without the other four to balance it, we can end up peddling Christ with similar results. Even laying hold of a conversation with the intent of steering it in a particular direction can feel manipulative to a person.

If I listen to the other purposes in this light, I remember that God is in control of everyone’s own road to discovery. I don’t make anyone see the truth, I am only witness to what I have seen and heard. My relationship with people is an end in itself, regardless of whether or not they are Christian or Muslim or Jewish or atheist. My purpose is to serve people, not sell them something. And maturity tells me that the Holy Spirit is my guide as to what to say and when, so as to not even worry about this or be overly conscious of my role in someone’s life as providing anything other than love and support.

“We don’t take God’s Word, water it down, and then take it to the streets to sell it cheap. We stand in Christ’s presence when we speak; God looks us in the face. We get what we say straight from God and say it as honestly as we can.” (2 Corinthians 2:17 MSG)

The Holland family went to the movies last weekend. I took my son and son-in-law to see a “man’s movie” (Transformers), Mary Ann and the girls (my daughter and daughter-in-law) went to see some animated movie about rats. Go figure.

Our movie was exciting and lived up to all of the hype. While there was little redeeming value to the movie, it did start me to thinking about being a transformer.

Not the mechanical kind, but the spiritual kind.

God calls each and every one of us to be transformers.

Think about Paul’s instruction—Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

See what I mean? We’re not talking Autobots and Decepticons here, rather Paul is encouraging us to “shape shift” from the inside out. He challenges us to let God transform the way we think from the world’s way to His way.

When you think about it, we need transforming, because from birth on we are sinful people with a sin nature in a world that knows no other direction but sin. We have an “inner-decepticon” that needs the spark thrashed out of it.

Why? Read it again—Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

Paul is saying that unless we’re transformed, we’ll never really know what God’s will is for our lives. We’ll just continue to go through life stuck in auto-destruct mode wondering why we feel like we’re missing something huge.

Before you were even born, God laid out a good and pleasing and perfect plan that is better than anything we could put together, but the problem is that our sinful ways have blinded us from finding and following that plan. We think the key to happiness is getting everything we want, and that value and worth is found in the way we look, the achievements we earn, or the car we drive. The truth is that these things are just that … things. When God changes the way we think, the plan He has for us shows up on the screen of our lives like a 100 foot robot ready to take on evil and save the planet!

So don’t hide in plain sight. Let God transform your mind so you can go transform your world!