Dave Gibbons – “Third Culture Leadership” (LS09)

Dave Gibbons, pastor of NewSong and author of The Monkey and the Fish, unpacked a look at Jesus’ call to love God with all of who we are and our neighbor as ourselves. While this isn’t a new concept, Dave’s words were provocative and inspiring on how we actually live beyond ourselves to truly love our neighbor. (By the way, here is an interesting review of Dave’s book by author and blogger Scot McKnight.)

He describes a third culture leader as one who is willing to adapt greatly, even painfully to the world around.

To conclude his message, Dave offered four challenges about living obediently more than passionately. His “Four Acts of Obedience” were:

• Deeper collaboration – beyond our ethnicities and own church community for greater impact
• Communal living – living in greater community to reach our neighbor, either living as families in the same house or choosing to move into the same neighborhood
• Prayer – all the great movements started with and were held up by prayer; however, it seems that the church today does not believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, or we would be praying more
• Radical sacrifice for the outsider – for a greater impact we need to choose to die to our own values, our love for possessions, home residence, and money

What do you think that about Dave’s challenge in these “Four Acts of Obedience”?