Not because I'm in the midst of participating in a competition like the Amazing Race or Survivor. Yet in many ways, I feel like I'm racing against myself. Admittedly, I've never had a knack for competitions all my life. I'm not a competitive person except when it comes to competing against myself. And it is never just for the fun of it. My competitions against myself are usually matters of consequence to me in that there is a cause involved for which I'm willing to pay a cost. But that's another story.

The competition today is about getting the last bits of my fortune packed up in time to be loaded onto the 5-tonne lorry this evening. The move was originally scheduled for tomorrow, but the logistics company has moved the date forward. It has been a long time since my home has looked so disorientated.

And amidst this disorientation, there is a strong sense of anticipation at what is to come. This is true of both my community and myself. At times like these, we have nothing profound to say. I suppose it's because much of what's happening didn't happen at our word. Our words bring nothing into being. We are going through this experience of change together in having embraced the consciousness that God is the One actively writing our story. The fingers that wrote the ten commandments, those very fingers are writing our life stories.

And right now, the challenge of my life story lies in having to prepare for the following:

1. The new appointment to teach Christian Theology in a seminary. It is the challenge of positioning my role as someone who points to Who I know rather than one who flaunts what I know. It is the challenge of loving those that I teach and inviting them to love me in return.

2. The intimidating schedule that lies ahead of me in the year to come. It is the challenge of remembering to love God and to love my neighbour beyond the pulpit, the conventions, and the lecture rooms. It is the challenge of being missional.

As the appointments get more demanding, the feeling of vulnerability and inadequacy sets in more intensely. Same story. Same life. New chapter. Adrenalin rush.

I apologise for the disruption to the present series of thought - On Being Missional. I'm busy trying to work out my missional life here, that's why. But once my missional life stabilises somewhat in the next couple of weeks, the series will be back on track.

The "mood" that hovers over as I go through the motions of packing and blowing dust off my shelves is "reflective rush". This is particularly true as I go through some one thousand books on my humungus bookshelf. How I have grown in my intellectual pursuit.

I remember how some seven years ago, I entered seminary with an intellectual hunger to exhaust the Word of God, to know everything there was to know about him. To be hailed among my fellow believing friends as the bible expert. To have clear lines drawn between right and wrong, to have clear ready answers for everyone who asks. Today? I am more a learner than I ever was. I look back at my life and see in myself a young novice who had unknowingly fallen prey to the Enlightenment's modern positivism in that I had uncritically embraced the assumption that 1) all truth can be exhaustively embodied by man, and 2) all truth can be adequately articulated through scientific/rational language. Just staring at my collection of books, this naivette shows.

And now...beyond just being "evangelical" (whatever that term means anymore) or "liberal" (I happen to know some post-liberals who are more evangelical than some professing evangelicals themselves! *shrug*), I seek to know who God is and how I can better live my life unto him. Theology is no longer just a pursuit of knowledge; it is a process of spiritual formation that I thrive on. God is more to me now than he ever has been, and I desire to seek him more deeply. And yet there is something in me that agonises at my inability to seek him, save for his own initiative in opening my eyes to the sacred things.

I am no longer just seeking truth. I am now seeking the Truth. And beyond a mere body of propositions (however it may be categorised), this Truth is Jesus himself. The more I have sought to know him, the more I have realised that I do not know him as much as I desire to. He is Perfect Truth; he is Ultimate Truth. Although my articulation of my knowledge of him may be largely true, it is never terminal or absolute. This is not because the Truth is not absolute, but because my understanding of him is not absolute (even flawed at times...Lord, help me). And even at times when I gain a deeper understanding of him that I may think to be absolutely true, my linguistic capability fails me and the power of language breaks down. I am feeble.

I resolve to listen, to share, to give, to receive, to invite, and to learn. The moment I decide to assert or banter with others, I am defying my own realisation that my theology is inadequate and should be open for correction. Always. The Truth is bigger than me. The Truth is the One who said "I am". And in knowing him, I vanish into his shadow.

It must be accentuated that the Great Commandment to love God and our neighbour is not one that demands a passive love. It is a demand that finds physical expression in the life of the Christian. This was made evident in the life of the Christ who healed the sick and raised the dead. And this legacy is one that must by continued by the missional community that Christ has instituted.

In other words, loving our neighbour must be the tangible expression of our love towards God. The one sign by which true believers are to be distinguished from those who make up empty professions is acts of love done in Christ's name and the emulation of his earthly example (Matthew 25:31-46).

A loving community is what we are called to be. And yet, it is a love that compels us to do something as a demonstration of who we are as a missional people. The doing is not something that panders to strife, for it is something that becomes innate in the life of a community that is called to be. The community that embodies love naturally plants the fingerprints of love in all its works and outward expressions. One cannot exist without the other, for the doing is the evidence of the being.

To the well-meaning Christians who truly care for the welfare of this couple, please do buy a plane ticket and fly yourself to pay them a visit. Take time to listen to their life story, the struggles that Jessie has been through in life, and the struggles that both of them have been through in their relationship. Understand the pain, the brokenness, and the sense of helplessness. First know them as people, as friends - not as sensationalised news - then give your take on their situation. Know both of them as the other before saying what you think of them. Because that's what Jesus would do.

To the well-meaning Christians who think "right" and "wrong" is all that matters in such matters, you're wrong. Because that is not how God thinks. The God who judged the world to be wrong also laid his life down to rectify that wrong. When we judge something to be wrong, what are we willing to lay down to rectify that wrong? To think that we can pass value judgements based on fragmented and sensationalised bits of information published on the media is to be unjustifiably naïve. It's always easy to judge, because it makes us feel so right about ourselves.

I am not saying that they are right...I'm simply saying I'm not sure we are the rightful judges. And I'm saying that since I have not afforded the time and the resources to meet them in person to truly understand them, I have no right to cast the first stone.

A stone for you, anyone?

It will not be an utterly long series, but I hope it will adequately explain (certainly in an inadequately feeble way) what it means to live the missional life. This is, of course, a crucial train of thought for myself because it constitutes the heart of the organic missional community that I come from.

I suspect that the term "missional" was coined in recent times (at least in part) to mitigate some very obvious misperceptions that arose from the use of the terms "mission" or "missionary". At least, it is in this spirit that my community and myself have come to emrabce this term. In our journey towards understanding what being missional is, we have been confronted by some realisations pertaining to what being missional is not:

We have realised that being missional is not about rendering our community preoccupied with embarking on multiple mission trips each year. Rather, it is about having our community embody what it means to have a missional spirit in the core of our being, whether or not we are out in the missionfield. Being missional is not about (although it certain does include) becoming missionaries. The point here is that a community may have embarked on missionary journeys and still not be a missional community.

We have also realised that being missional is not about doing mission as a one-week programme. Rather, it is about the community of God being the programme for the world. It is not about hiding our incapabilities behind some externalised evangelistic programmes. It is about sharing our brokenness with the world in all its reality, hiding behind nothing save for the cross of Christ.

In the final analysis, being missional is not just about doing. It is about being. But I'm running ahead of myself here. More about all this in entries to come.

We seek to write our own life stories that will be told at our impending earthly departure. We desire it be said of us that a great legacy has been bequeathed to the world by virtue of our existence. We desire it be made mention that a legend has been lost. And so we strive for greatness. We strive to achieve great things so that the world will attest to our worth.

No few men have entertained these deep desires and, in fact, even attained them. But they are the very ones who have also expressed great remorse at the reality of an empty existence and a strange sense of isolation from the greater scheme of things. They have everything and yet feel like everything is nothing. Even at the top, they still find themselves preoccupied with thoughts like "If only..." and "What if..." In the world of greatness, they have lost themselves. In a world of significance, they have become isolated from themselves.

When is a man ready for great things? When great things mean nothing to him anymore because he finds the reason for his existence in the simple things in life. He is ready for greatness when, beyond constructing monuments, he finds fulfillment in sharing an icecream (and therefore friendship) with a little child.

The glory of life is found in the simple things.

If only these people would understand and be willing to strive with you towards that state of perfection you so long for, huh? You have tried to so many times and in so many ways to make them listen to what you have had to say. And yet their stubbornness invalidates your intentions and thwarts your motivations, and that frustrates you into sweat and tears. It reduces you into a state of perplexity.

You know what...I would like to invite you to explore a new approach with me. It is the approach of embodiment.

Maybe it is time to stop talking. Maybe it is time to stop engaging in the rhetorics of persuasion when no one is truly interested to listen in the first place. But embodying the message is an entirely different thing...people can stop you from talking, but no one can stop you from loving and living!

And the beautiful thing about this is that people can shut their ears from your message, but no one can help themselves watching you live! So let's stop talking and get a life!

Over the years, experience in the field increasingly affirms his inadequacies over and over again. At some point, there is an inclination for him to abandon that desire to strive for adequacy and to just "make do"; it is not even about rendering one's best anymore, but rather, to simply "make do". This person is, in all likelihood, inclined to settle for mediocrity for the rest of his ministerial life, because of a choice to simply "make do". He is not so much broken, but rather, defeated (the distinction is subtle but evident).

But there is this other type of minister who refuses to yield to the reality of inadequacy. He keeps striving towards excellence and perfection, many times stumbling at points of frustration. In many ways, he struggles to be the best in his own strength and ability. But one day, he breaks. He finds himself in a position of helpless paralysis, and cries out "Lord, I cannot."

At this point, God says "Yes, you cannot. It is I who can." And the man starts all over again, this time ministering his life to the world from a position of weakness and helplessless. He now offers himself to the world not as a strong teacher from an advantaged position, but as a servant of the Lord who is willing to be broken over and over again for the glory of his Master.

The result of this change in his paradigm of ministry creates deep impact and great works, and yet this reality fails to occupy the compartment of pride in his life because he is keenly aware that the glory arising from God's work must never be possessed by any man.

Even now, I remain unsure if ministering from that place of helplessness is already a reality for me. If I am not, then I pray that the Lord will take me there. Again and again. I know it will most likely cause me to weep in pain and suffer in agony, in more ways than one. But if that is what it takes to live in a posture of sonship, I want to be there. I truly do.

At a moderate speed, the cool wind caresses you and brushes its fingers through your hair. As it wraps itself around you, it whispers distinct harmonies of nature. And your eyes are confronted with nature's spectacle that has been for far too long and far too much taken for granted...wild reeds and swarming bushes on both sides of the bank. Right above you, just several metres away, congregations of birds taking flight in close proximity...in all sorts of colours, shapes and sizes.

And this just persists for hour after hour at that moment of your life. It somehow concretises a consciousness that you are meant to be there by the guiding hand of an invisible force, not of your own doing. And this provokes a strange sense of anticipation.

Then suddenly...BANG!...an epiphany is burst forth from within you as a doxology is birthed from your being. Every bit of substance in your personhood cries out with nature in a loud symphony, shouting "Holy holy is the Lord, the whole earth is filled with his glory..."

I find myself standing at a point of paralysis, deeply desiring but being helplessly unable to love God as deeply as I want to. This arises from a daily consciousness of this compelling love of Christ, who invites me to journey with him in the way of love. I find myself being confronted by a frustrating incapacity.

But I found grace. A grace that grips me, sustains me in this love and never lets me out of sight. A grace that keeps on loving me despite my inability to reciprocate the way I should. But it is also a grace that keeps longing for the day when I may love my God in a state of holy perfection.

A love so mysterious beyond my foolish comprehension. And yet it is this very love he seeks to perfect within me. I look within myself and fail to see how the perfection of this love is even possible. But I must believe that he can do it.

Why bother pretending to be all right when deep inside we know that we're not? Why try to look strong when all there is left on the inside is hardly a strand of energy left to sustain one throughout one's journey?

Why is it not better to lay down one's pride and begin crying for help from a community of equally broken people who would do their best to stand with us in our struggle? At least, even if they had nothing else to offer, their identification with our struggle would lessen the isolation effected by our struggle.

If Christ be the Christ who would call out to the prostitutes and tax collectors, then he is also the Christ who calls out to all others who are "not okay". He is the same Christ who invites those who are "not okay" to come and struggle together and to subsequently experience together the redemptive ability of the broken Christ.

I dream of the power of a community that empowers each individual within it to say "I'm not okay, but that's okay".