How Do We #ReCenterChrist?
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Personally? Corporately?
Organically not Programatically?
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In our Ministries and Meetings?
Our Groups and Gatherings?
With Family and Friends?
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ReCentering Christ
We intentionally shift from running an agenda
to responding to a Person.
We devote intentional time to four simple, repeatable practices:
1. Invite — Welcome Our Savior’s Presence
“Jesus will be called Immanuel” (which means “God is with us”). — Matthew 1:23
What we are doing:
Addressing Jesus personally. Honoring Him as present Lord — not speaking generally “to the room,” but to Him.
Language we can use:
- “Jesus, we welcome You.”
- “We worship You and recognize Your authority over this time.”
- “Our desire is to listen, learn, and follow Your lead.”
Practice: Worship — brief, focused, Christ-directed.
Outcome:
A gathered awareness that Jesus is not an idea we discuss but a Lord we encounter.
2. Invoke — Petition Holy Spirit Participation
“The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” — Acts 13:52
What we are doing:
Yielding control. Asking the Holy Spirit to guide, convict, clarify, unify, and empower.
Language we can use:
- “Holy Spirit, fill us — give us ears to hear and hearts to obey.”
- “Guide our conversation; shape our motives; interrupt us if needed.”
- “Intercede with us and teach us how to pray.”
Practice: Fellowship — shared yielding and shared listening.
Outcome:
A posture of dependence replaces self-direction, and the gathering becomes Spirit-led rather than leader-driven.
3. Investigate — Probe & Ponder Holy Scripture
“Keep on asking… seeking… knocking…” — Matthew 7:7
What we are doing:
Letting Scripture set the agenda. Asking better questions. Seeking discernment before decisions.
Language we can use:
- “Lord, help us ask the right questions.”
- “Grant us discernment as we seek Your will in Scripture.”
- “Show us the next faithful step.”
Practice: Discipleship & Leadership — obedience-based discernment.
Outcome:
Decisions are shaped by the Word of Christ, producing clarity, courage, and concrete obedience.
4. Involve — Participate in Christ’s Ongoing Work
“Remain in Me… and you will bear much fruit.” — John 15:5
What we are doing:
Moving from insight to obedience. Aligning our plans with what Christ is already doing. Participating rather than merely planning.
Language we can use:
- “Lord, where are You already at work?”
- “How do You want us to join You?”
- “What step of obedience are You calling us to take now?”
Practice: Mission & Implementation — responsive action.
Outcome:
Ministry shifts from activity for Christ to participation with Christ — bearing fruit that reflects His life and leadership.
Ponder This . . .
When we consistently Invite, Invoke, Investigate, and Involve, Christ is no longer a name we reference at the beginning of a meeting — He becomes the living center of everything that follows. Our worship shifts from routine to reverent awareness. Our leadership shifts from control to dependence. Our decisions shift from preference to obedience. And our plans shift from self-generated activity to Spirit-guided participation.
Over time, this rhythm reshapes culture. Meetings become sacred space. Conversations become discernment. Ministry becomes partnership with the reigning Christ. What begins as four intentional practices becomes a transformed way of leading and living — Christ not added on, but truly centered.
What does that look like? Feel like? What is the evidence of our transformation?
Tools For Your Leadership
√ReCenterChrist_Slide_Deck.pptx
√ReCenterChrist_Styled_Worksheet.pdf
√ReCenterChrist_Workbook_Spread.pdf
© Phil Miglioratti @ Reimagine.Network (with Assistive Inquiry) * Permission to Post, Print, Project
BONUS Content >>>SCROLL for RELATED COMMENTARY by GUEST-POSTERS + FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS
Guest-Post: Lilian Schmid, Author, Prayer Strategist and Coordinator, Prayerstrategy.org
"How would you differentiate between focusing on Christ and recentering Christ?"
"We have become satisfied with learning about Christ, but we are weak at living with Christ in our daily decision-making and recognizing the leading of Christ in our ministry planning and modeling (worship, fellowship, discipleship, stewardship)!" Agree-or-Disagree then explain why
Focusing on Christ
Focusing is an act of attention. It means turning your eyes toward Jesus studying Him, admiring Him, learning about His character, His teachings, His works.
It is informational, directional, and often cognitive. It is possible to focus on Christ without being formed by Christ.
Hebrews 12:2 “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…”
Recentering Christ
Recentering is an act of re‑alignment. It means placing Jesus back at the core of your decisions, desires, priorities, and ministry structures.
It is transformational, relational, and practical. Re-centering means Christ is not just the subject of our attention but the source, standard, and steering force of our lives. You can’t recenter Christ without surrender, obedience, and reordering your life around Him.
Galatians 2:20 “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
“We have become satisfied with learning about Christ, but we are weak at living with Christ in our daily decision-making and recognizing the leading of Christ in our ministry planning and modelling (worship, fellowship, discipleship, stewardship)!” Agree or disagree — and why
I agree and here’s why
Many churches and believers have developed a strong informational discipleship but a weak relational discipleship.
We know:
But we often struggle with:
We have become excellent students of Christ but hesitant companions of Christ.
This shows up when:
The critique is not harsh it’s hopeful.
It’s a call to move from knowing Christ to walking with Christ, from admiring Him to depending on Him, from programming to presence.
"How can I begin to recenter Christ?"
You begin to recenter Christ by giving Him not just our attention, but our access. Re‑centering Christ is not one dramatic act it’s a quiet, steady re‑alignment of the heart.
Re‑alignment: “No longer I…” my preferences, my ego, my agenda
This is not merely focusing on Christ it is living from Christ.
Pleasewrite a prayerwe can pray to begin a Spirit-led, Scripture-fed journey to recenter Christ
Lord Jesus,
I come to You with a willing heart.
I confess that I often focus on You without fully yielding to You.
Today, I ask for a holy re‑alignment.
Center my mind in Your truth.
Center my desires in Your will.
Center my decisions in Your wisdom.
Center my steps in Your Spirit.
Where my life has drifted, draw me back.
Where my priorities have scattered, gather them again around Your name.
Where my plans have taken the lead, teach me to follow instead of direct.
Holy Spirit, guide me into a life where Christ is not only the One I look toward,
but the One I live from.
Shape my habits, interrupt my assumptions,
and form in me a heart that responds quickly to Your leading.
Let the Scriptures feed me,
let Your presence steady me,
and let obedience become my joy.
Jesus, be the centre of my thoughts,
the anchor of my identity,
the source of my strength,
and the Lord of my daily life.
Recenter me, Lord gently, deeply, and truly
so that everything I am and everything I do
flows from You.
Amen.
From my interview with Tom Lutz
PHIL>>>For pastors and church leaders who want to recenter Christ in every ministry and meeting, in worship-fellowship-discipleship-stewardship, what are the first changes—in mindset and in practice—you would encourage them to make?
TOM >>> I would suggest beginning with a shift in mindset: moving from seeing ministry as primarily the transfer of information to seeing it as the formation of people. The goal is not simply that people know more, but that they are being shaped into the likeness of Christ in every area of life.
From there, I would encourage leaders to consistently connect biblical truth to real life. Jesus did this continually—He spoke in ways that helped people understand how God’s truth intersects with their daily work, relationships, and responsibilities.
Practically, this means asking a second question in every ministry setting: not only, “What does this passage say?” but also, “What does this look like when lived out?” That simple shift begins to move teaching from abstraction to application.
Finally, I would encourage leaders to recover the pattern we see throughout Scripture: grace first, then guidance. When people understand who they are in Christ, they are then ready to receive how they are to live. That is where the Law finds its proper place—not as a burden, but as a guide for Kingdom living.
√here to read the complete interview
GUEST-POST by Pastor Rande Smith
His message closes with:
"This is a hope-filled story for every follower of Jesus, who, like me, has felt defeat.
And it’s at those times that Jesus is often able to speak more clearly than ever before.
And through that experience there is “resurrection!”
A lot of people naïvely say, “Oh, I love Jesus so much!”
But how do we really know if we truly love Jesus?
Is it just a tender emotion that we feel inside … or is there more to love than that?
If we really love God, it’ll be shown in our life.
“Do you love me?” Jesus asked Peter.
And today He’s asking us that same question.
What kind of love does Jesus want us to have? …
What kind of love do you have for Jesus? …"
If it is time for a recentering - click >>>here to get the right perspectvie.
A new hymn for the Church that seeks to Recenter Christ
Christ Is All!
In the church we love that kind of brash rhetoric. What are we gonna to do? We’re gonna change the world! It’s a sermon title, a song lyric, a conference theme, a youth rally battle cry, a motto for a movement. We’re important people! We’re world-changers! We’re history-makers! I understand the appeal. But I also insist that as far as the church is concerned, the assumption that it is our task to “change the world” is mistaken and wrongheaded.
It’s not our job to change the world. Jesus is the Savior of the world, not us. (The buoyant hope that sustains me in dark days is my conviction that the world really will be saved because Jesus really is the Savior of the world. Apokatastasis, baby!) Changing (or saving) the world is a task belonging to the Son of God. Our task is far more modest: To simply be that part of the world already changed by Christ. As Yves Congar said, “The church is the world as believing in Christ.”
Clarifying our task is important. When we think it is the task of the church to directly change the world, we find the lure of political power impossible to resist. When we assume we are the ones to change the world, we reach for what we imagine to be the most immediate means of effecting change—political power. We’re the good guys, so we should control the sword of Caesar, right? We’re the ethical ones, so we should control legislation, right? We’re the trustworthy ones, so we should be entrusted with coercive political power, right? Wrong! When the church (as an institution) sets out to change the world by political power, it does not change the world, it becomes the world.
Stanley Hauerwas has said it a million times: “The first task of the church is to make the world the world.” To be a faithful church we must be something other than the world. We must be fundamentally different from the world. But there is nothing more worldly than coveting political power. A church prioritizing political power becomes just another religious iteration of the world as it is. Nothing really changes. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
The church is given the keys to confer or withhold forgiveness, not the coercive sword of political power. When Constantine offered political power to the church by making it the state-sponsored church of the empire, the church willingly embraced the offer. It seemed too good to be true. (It was.) Church collusion with the apparatus of the state was probably an inevitable mistake in the fourth century, but it has been our bane ever since. There are always strings attached to Caesar’s gifts. For a seat at the table of political privilege and a hand upon the sword of political power, the emperor expects a kind of allegiance that can only lead to compromise.
Christ is ever and always a challenge to the aspirations of empire, but when we get too cozy with Caesar our willingness to take a prophetic stand quickly evaporates. This is true for both elephants and donkeys. Christians who play for the elephant team and Christians who play for the donkey team both agree that political power is essential, they just disagree on what to do with it. But I’m suspicious of the whole project.
Whether offered by Constantine or Charlemagne or Donald Trump, we keep thinking that political power is a gift instead of realizing that it is a poison that will eventually corrupt us. We are like the valiant but tragic Boromir in The Lord of the Rings who thought the One Ring was a gift that could be used for good. In Boromir’s fateful words I hear the church’s recurring justification for the pursuit of political power.
But Boromir’s pragmatic justification for taking possession of the Ring of Power led to his betrayal of the Fellowship. We don’t need Caesar’s sword as the Ring of Power. By the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the church is given the power of co-suffering love, not co-regency with Caesar. The church is not to covet a share in the coercive power of the imperial sword. If Caesar offers it, we must refuse it. We don’t need an invitation to Palatine Hill or the White House. Breakfast with Caesar is always a bad idea—that kind of proximity to worldly power is too great a temptation. We cannot flirt with political power and not be corrupted by it.
My critique of both the Christian Right and the Christian Left is the same. (Caveat: I acknowledge that in the present moment there is no moral equivalency between the two, at least in my view. Nevertheless my critique remains.) My critique is this:
With both the Christian Right and Left, Christian is reduced to adjective duty in service to the all-important political noun. What really matters is Right or Left politics, while Christian is tacked on as a nice religious accoutrement. When some faction of the church becomes the de facto religious wing of a political party, Jesus is reduced to a mascot who is trotted out on stage to meekly utter his endorsement. I am Jesus Christ and I approve this message. God forbid!
The kingdom of Christ is its own politics, and as such it will never neatly align with any of the political parties of this world. The prime imperative of a political party is to win. But “winning” is not an imperative in the kingdom of God. Partisan political winning too often gets in the way of Christlike love. By their very nature the politics of this world are incapable of embodying the kingdom of heaven. When it comes to the politics of this age Christians need the saving grace of modest expectations.
“For here we have no enduring polis, but we are looking for the polis to come.” –Hebrews 13:14
The church is to be a present and visible anticipation of the polis to come. And I believe it can be. Do you think I’m a romantic idealist? Perhaps I am, but I do see real-life glimmers of kingdom-come day-after-day in the church I’ve been a part of for forty-five years. In actual lived reality the poor are provided for, the rich are taught how to share their wealth responsibly, the immigrants are welcomed and protected, the overlooked are given recognition, the ostracized are given dignity, the losers are lifted up, the winners are taught humility, the addicted are invited into a community of recovery, the grieving are wept with, and sinners of every stripe are given the good news of God’s grace. This is not naïve abstraction or wishful fantasy, this is on-the-ground justice, this is grace made visible. It’s not a perfect church, but it is a church where mercy and justice have kissed, and where kindness is a culture. If you doubt it, come and see.
What I’m describing is the yeast of the kingdom of God hidden in three measures of flour. It’s not the glory of triumphant political power, it’s yeast. It doesn’t effect change by coercive force but through the quiet miracle of fermentation. It’s not loud or ostentatious; it’s not fearmongering, and it doesn’t hand out voter guides. But the bread still rises, the water still turns to wine. It’s very local, very proximate, very personal, and mostly quiet. It won’t make headlines—it’s too pedestrian for that. And if you say, “That’s how we change the world!” I say, “Shh! Don’t say it out loud! It’s a secret! It’s yeast hidden in the dough. It’s our hidden treasure.”
We’re not trying to change the world. We’re content to be one tiny corner of the world being slowly, quietly, patiently transformed by Jesus. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
BZ
P.S. This is a hastily dashed-off foray into political theology—the most fraught of all theological territories. And whenever I dare to venture into that tricky territory, I hear my own, Yeah, but… What this piece needs is ten-thousand words of nuance, but I’m not going to do that here. To tell the truth, when I engage in political theology, I agree with about eighty percent of what I say. So if you found something in this piece you disagree with, there’s a twenty percent chance that I disagree with it too. Keep that in mind before you get too mean in the comments. Mercy triumphs over judgement.
Photo: St Mary’s Church on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, UK
Guest-Post: "Memory"
THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF REMEMBERING. One way is to make an excursion from the living present back into the dead past. The old sock remembers how things used to be when you and I were young, Maggie. The faraway look in his eyes is partly the beer and partly that he's really far away.
The other way is to summon the dead past back into the living present. The young widow remembers her husband, and he is there beside her.
When Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24), he was not prescribing a periodic slug of nostalgia.
-Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words