Rick is the founding pastor of Imago Dei Community in Portland, Oregon, which he and his wife, Jeanne, planted in October of 2000. Imago Dei has grown rapidly in Portland, loving and blessing the city through the arts, justice and community while embodying the life of Jesus to the culture. He coaches church planters and serves as a consultant to a denominational organization in the areas of church planting and the emerging church. He is finishing his Doctorate from Gordon Cornwell Theological Seminary. He and his incredible Jeanne have four children: Josh, Kaylee, Zach, and Bryce. Rick recently released his first book Jesus in the Margins and his second book, This Beautiful Mess: Conversations in the Kingdom, is now available.
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This session was done in a Q&A format with Donald Miller.
Rick is a unique voice in the Christian culture because he was not raised in a religious home. He was unfamiliar with the Christian language and culture. Rick commented on how in high school and college there are so many subcultures, but how difficult it is, wherever you are at, to integrate into Christian culture.
Anymore in church you can’t assume that everyone is a Christian.
It’s not “how” we want to reach the world – it’s “do” we want to reach the world.
The only way to change our hearts is to get our hearts before God in repentance.
Rick shared about how in the early days of their ministry he led his people in a time of repentance which took the form of a weekly prayer gathering for the city of Portland where the prayed for the needs of their city. They believe through that nine-month period an authentic desire was birthed in their hearts to love people who were not like them.
We need to be missional, but many times in our evangelism comes in the form of trying to sell something. We have an agenda when we really need to pursue intimate relationships.
God is in the streets. We need to love the broken like He does.
The apostles were going so far out of the church to establish new communities.
When we think about suffering, we think uncomfortable. God is in the risk – that’s where faith shows up. When it’s challenged is when you are really changed. Discipleship is a road – it’s a journey – not 10 steps – it’s transformation, not information.
Go somewhere you’ve never been. Repent, not for the things you are doing, but for the things you are not doing. You need to take a risk.
When we go out, we are like lighthouses, darkness will not overpower us.
We need to rely on the discernment God has given us through the Spirit, we need to engage the people in their culture and let them encounter Jesus through you.
Our services shouldn’t be designed to be consumed.
The primary identity of our church is that we are he sent sons of God; we don’t exist for ourselves, we exist for people.
How can we unleash people in the gift and talents that they have? What are the expressions of what God is unleashing? It’s asking God what He is creating. Creating mission is one of God’s favorite things. Don’t just think about it, do it – get your hands dirty.
By protecting the Gospel instead of proclaiming it, we’ve sent the message to the world that God is not for them. We have created a safe place removed from culture We need to change that, care about what people care about, we need to help create culture within a culture.
We are created to recognize injustice and the church should champion injustice. It’s the heart of God.
We need to initiate changing the perspective the community has of our church. If you protect yourself from culture you will lose your voice. There is a journey and a process of loving that we need to embrace.
What happens is that we protect ourselves because we are afraid because we don’t know the culture.
As leaders we look at the church and see problems, but the reality is that the church is the hope of the world – and if a church is truly unstoppable, it is unstoppable. We’ve got set our people on mission, otherwise our church will be misrepresented in culture.
When we get outside the doors, God is on the streets.
