I don’t have skinny jeans, cool glasses, a man bun or manicures.

I don’t have an elevated stage with a smoke machine, hip band, brass tinged collection plates and comfy pews for the feel-good masses.

Nor do I peddle “deeper life” and other trans-Biblical messages …

Or promote books, blogs and conferences about “how to” on things I myself don’t do.

Instead, I simply go as I am as Jesus sends me …

To disreputable places where those who are lost and know it live broken lives.

I don’t bring a budget, a “ministry,” a title, an agenda or a program.

Instead, I embrace, respect and honor them in their own communities …

Because “love”, I have found, is such an overused word these days.

I go to simply share the simple message of grace, repentance and redemption …

In the authority of His name and the power of His word.

It is enough:

Lives are changed …

Disciples made …

And simple, indigenous churches emerge – without building campaigns, ministry teams, sound equipment or marketing plans – in places where relationships otherwise naturally happen.

As His Kingdom comes and His will is done, I stay in touch but otherwise recede back to my own local fellowship …

So others can come forth and express Christ in their own wonderfully unique ways that reach their own communities.

It costs almost nothing:

I give of my own labor and resources …

Rather than live off, or peddle for donations, those I’m called to serve.

But this I’ve learned:

Although Christ expresses Himself in different ways in different contexts, and He calls us each to different things …

His Kingdom is never about building our own kingdom.

Forgive us, Lord, for what we’ve done with your mercy and grace …

Because it’s not about us.