a working definition of missional church
The phrase ‘missional’ and ‘missional church’ originated in the work of a group of North America practitioners, missiologists and theorists, called the Gospel and Our Culture Network (GOCN) who came together to try and work out some of the implications of the work of that remarkable missionary thinker Lesslie Newbigin. It was Newbigin who, after returning from a lifetime of work in India as a missionary, saw how pagan Western civilization really was. He began to articulate the view that we need to see the Western world as a mission field, and that we as God’s people in this context, needed to adopt a missionary stance in relation to or culture. Just as we would in India for instance. His work captured the imagination of a church in crisis and decline and shaped the thinking of generations.
However, the word ‘missional’ has over the years has tended to become very fluid and as it was quickly co-opted by those wishing to find new and trendy tags for what they themselves were doing, be they missional or not. It is often used as a substitute it for seeker-sensitive, cell-group church, or other church growth concepts, thus obscuring its original meaning. So, do we dispose of it and come up with another term? I think we need to keep it, but reinvest it with deeper meaning. The word sums up precisely the emphasis of the radical Jesus-movements that we need to rediscover today. But more than that, in my opinion it goes to the heart of the very nature and purpose of the Church itself.
So a working definition of missional church is that it a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the Church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true Church. The Church itself is not only a product of that mission, but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people.
If we can embed this inner meaning into our essential identity as God’s people, we will be well on our way to becoming an adaptive organization. This mission can express itself in the myriad ways in which the Kingdom of God expresses itself—highly varied and always redemptive.
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I almost lost it the first time I heard people at my CLB (church left behind) saying that they were missional or wanted to be more missional. It was then that I knew this term had been, as you say, co-opted by those trying to identify with the emerging church/generation with little understanding of the true meaning…because our clb was not nor is it currently missional even in a broad sense of the word.
I like your working definition - it’s tough though because when we tried to communicate our feelings about it to our clb leaders, they all nodded their heads in emphatic agreement because their definitions of the words used in the definition were different than ours.
one of the biggest annoying misapplications of this concept is to use missional to apply to “outreach” or “evangelism” or to use it to apply to a church that is trying to be relevant.
Part of the struggle, ime, is that living the mission/being missional is so much a heart issue, it’s difficult to articulate specifically what it means esp. to modernists who are desperately grabbing for concrete black and white definitions so they can find the “10 steps to becoming missional”
ahh the joys of communication
One of my disappointments is to talk with Jesus followers who invariably want to define themselves in terms of what their faith community is perceived to be. When you mention something about the missional paradigm, it is all to common to hear, “Oh, our church is missional.” It is hard to get them to think in terms of missional being more about them than it is about their faith community and its programs.
Taking off on the “obstructing God’s purposes,” Scot McKnight from June 07..
“My own view on this is that we dare not let ourselves begin defining sin by reducing it to breaking the law. We have to begin with God, and define what is ultimately right by looking at God. I’m Trinitarian, and what is Ultimately Right is what drives the Life of the Trinity. That seems to be the Mutual Interpenetrating, Sacred, Loving Presence of the Father, Son and Spirit. This interpenetrating life of the Trinity, called the perichoresis, defines what is Right. What is Right is that engaged and engaging Relationship — and everything in our world that is “right” is a reflection of that perichoretic relationship.
“Now this leads me to this: Sin is whatever impedes the flow of human life and our world into that everflowing perichoretic loving dance within God. Whatever resists it; whatever works against it; whatever breaks down human union with God; whatever distorts the world’s design to participate in that dance is sin. This also means that whatever impedes proper love between humans and humans or between humans and this world is also sin. The law comes in merely to clarify where love is breaking down. Defining sin by ignoring love misses what sin really is.”
what do you guys think of the British equivalent term “mission-shaped church”? Is it a better term?
I like missional, but by saying in the definition that “In other words, the Church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission” doesn’t go very far in actually defining or codifying what “missional” is because “mission” has not been defined.
Further, if mission is not defined, and therefore what it means to obey the mission, then to say “The Church itself is not only a product of that mission, but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible” leaves open a very wide door for people to define “by whatever means possible” as truly whatever means possible!! And in light of all the violence I have seen and studied that has scarred our world…that is very very scary indeed.
mmmm, good point Gary. So we agree that the ends must be consistent with the means. And that brings us to the Kingdom of God. By the way Alan Roxburgh, when pressed to define the meaning of ‘missional’ says back to the questioner. Well, you define the Kingdom of God in three sentences and I will define missional. Its a good answer. And it also highlights the difficulty in defining the term.
Hi Alan, I wonder if a definition of missional is elusive because what we are seeking to describe is primarily attitudinal and not just behavioural. If we could define missional with a list of behaviours we could be done quicly. However since missional is an internal perspective on why and even how (read again the manner of attitude in which things are done) the church that approaches life together in the grace and truth of Christ cannot just make a list of desirable actions. For me, the missional hope is that our life together would be powerfully dominated by love for Christ and each other in such a way that people whose journey does not yet include Christ would meet Him.
“mission-shaped church”
When I hear that phrase I think immediately of the lovely Queen of the Missions in Santa Barbara California, built by Franciscans in the 1700s. So, basically, a mission shaped church is an adobe structure with a tall bell tower and ruins of old aqueducts around it.
Missional suggests approach and practice. Mission-shaped suggests architectural influence. Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m a Californian.
That three sentence rule about defining the Kingdom, and thus missional, seems a bit tricky. Maybe we can find some help for it.
“Being missional is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
“Again, missional is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
“Again, missional is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.”
mission-shaped: so, a church that is shaped by the mission. I’m not sure that really says anything different or more effectively and to me, it speaks more to behavior than ethos.
I agree, it seems a tad clumsy, but it is more descriptive.
Could I suggest that Newbiggen saw something about the UK on his return that is much more significant. In my discussions with him he was among the first to see that God was at work in the culture and to challenge to idea of society being “secular”. This is revealing when discussing whether “mission-shaped church” is an adequate alternative for “missional” as an Anglican who contributed to the initial work on the report I believe it is flawed - it tends to focus on what the Church should be doing (in a rather earnest way)which is a relatively small part of the piture rather than focusing on what God is doing and joining, indiviudually and as a Church. Mission-shaped church is already proving to inhibit our missional thinking here so I would hope that others will not adopt it.
that’s a very good point Tom - and I agree to the extent at which I can understand what you’re saying.
“Mission-shaped church” sounds like a book that Rick Warren would write.
It has a great point though. The church has a missional morphology (couldn’t help myself with the alliteration). When you you ‘look’ at the church you see mission. Much like if we had looked at Adam before the fall we would have ’seen’ God.
The only way an adjective like ‘missional’ can be defined successfully is in terms of the definition of its corresponding noun. What does ‘mission’ mean? Figure that out, and when you’re doing it, that is ‘missional’!
In some ways it’s an oxy-moron, we shouldn’t have a church without it being missional. Yet we all know that’s not the case.
Definitions are tricky because we hear words in different ways, ie Patrick’s thoughts above.
But maybe the definition is more helpful in looking at what the church isn’t, so we can become more missional.
Lastly, wanting to be missional or saying it, doesn’t make it so. To truly be missional is really difficult.
Al, I think missional was quite radical and provocative initially because it wasn’t where most of us lived. It was a novel concept!
Now everyone claims to be missional. It is the word of the day and as such has been weakened.
Is ‘missionary church’ more descriptive - in that it says we will function in every way as missionaries?
Or is what we did at our last Forge gathering more helpful - adding a descriptor to missional so that we now speak of ‘missional incarnational’
While I can see value in all forms of church and a need for divrsity I know my own calling is to the missional incarnational (which for me equates to ‘missionary’)
I think ‘missional’ is a broadly accepted word that allows us to mix in broad company, but most of us on a new journey are seeking to take the missional incarnational path and this is where some of the tension comes
Unfortunately, some have highjacked the term missional. I could think of a few recent books that have come out with “missional” in the title that had little do with the concept.
I still believe that it is a helpful and important term. “Missional,” from missio (which means sent), emphasizes the sent nature of the church. This sent nature is based upon the sending action of GOd. Jesus said, “As I have been sent, so I am sending you” (Jn. 20:21
).
When looking at what the church is sent to do–its mission–we must look at the life and ministry of Jesus. This life and ministry is broad, and any summaries fall short. The church must constantly re-tell the story of Jesus, for this narrative is the story that shapes the church and gives it is oranizing principle.
On the other hand, Jesus himself gave some explicit statements as to why he was sent==to seek and save the lost, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God, and to serve. In my mind, the explicit sending passages must remain primary in determining the church’s mission, while giving these explicit passages shape and form by constantly re-telling the fuller narrative of Jesus.
Tom, you have reminded me that most of this is conditioned by a certain view of history, a lens or paradigm that determines how .. or whether.. we circumscribe God’s activity in the world. We western believers are generally dualistic… God is at work in the Church, but not in the broader culture. That is a flawed theology and ignores Jesus teaching on the kingdom of God. To quote Todd Hiestand,
“Karl Barth helpfully points out that the church is a part of world history; the gospel takes place in “world occurrence.” Somehow I grew up with the assumption that there were two histories of the world: biblical history and world history. While this was likely never explicitly expressed as truth, it is what I instinctively learned. World history was somehow profane and corrupted and biblical history was holy and redemptive. But, Barth shows that this dichotomized view of history is unhelpful to mission. The church would be “guilty of a lack of faith and discernment if it seriously saw and understood world history as secular or profane history.” 6 Instead, he states that we simply cannot separate the church from world history. He writes, “[The church’s] history takes place as surrounded by the history of the cosmos and is everywhere affected and determined by it. Conversely, it is not without significance for the cosmos and its history that its own history takes place.”7
6 Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics, IV.3.2. The Doctrine of Reconciliation. (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 687.
7 Ibid., 684.
Len, that’s a great comment. Very chewy!
What sort of secular history are we talking here? Alexander the Great type history or the origins of man secular history? The former has no conflict with scripture (since scripture is silent), the latter however is distinctly at odds with scripture.
However, if we are talking things that have happened outside of the church sphere since the death and resurrection of Christ then I can see how this might be unhelpful dichotomy. Especially if one believes in the Sovereignty of God.
“…the gospel takes place in ‘world occurrence.’”
I really think the definition of Gospel has been exploded so that now it really means everything God is doing, and by consequence, it means nothing.
Is our precious Good News, good news indeed to everyone? No. It is only good news to the redeemed. It is just plain confusing to the unregenerate mind (i.e. “foolishness”). Why is it so that our Good News isn’t “good” to all? Because it requires one to humble oneself, turn away from the sins one loves and put one’s trust in someone other than oneself. Surely that is “bad news” to someone who sees them self as not at all needing a saviour.
Let us not include everything in the term ‘gospel’ in an effort to legitimise our ideas, but let the Gospel be the Gospel and justify our ideas with scripture.
Alan, I’m going to adopt that term, “chewy”…mmmm…
I think this quote on what ‘missional church’ is, is really helpful. I just posted the same quote from the book a few days back! It seems to me, that some people are using missional as just a catch-all term for church that is different or non-traditional. Unfortunately some of these non-trad expressions become very inward focussed naval-gazing things. To always have an external, get-involved, community-focussed expression of our love for God and others has to be key. And this idea of not separating two ‘histories’ helps this, because it stops us living our present day ‘history’ on parallel lines, separated from the world around us. Instead of being ‘in the world but not of it’ we easily go for ‘of the world but not in it’. I know I can tend to this.
I love that you have rooted the concept of missional first to community. Sure, we can be individually missional, but I think that out of community it is most authentic and effective.
Peace,
Jamie
Following up on Gary’s chewy comment in point 5, personally I prefer to invoke the word “incarnational” when speaking to CLBers because at least it allows you the scope to distinguish between incarnational mission and other forms on mission. Or here’s a thought, what about “missional-incarnational” church? Maybe I should co-opt that
PS. How’s this for a working definition: a missional church is one without a missions team.
(or alternately, one where there is no pastoral team, only a missions team)
As Hamo suggested, the Forge tribe decided to drop using the term Emerging Missional Church and adopted instead Missional-Incarnational Church. We feel that it describes us far better, theologically, missiologically, and methodologically.
I like that, Matt…how about this: a missional church is one where everyone is a missionary–one sent by God to continue Christ’s work.
…or should that be “sent by Christ to continue God’s work”?
Then, we have to make sure we understand just what God’s work in/through Christ is, eh?
Matt, good one
I belong to the Missionary Church, Inc. Bring it on!
I still prefer Als definition “a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world.”
Thats because it encompasses the things that a missional church must have - community ( both in the church and in the wider community), incarnational, mission. It also emphasises that it is not dualistic.
Often we forget about the community aspect. Perhaps that is why most churches who call themselves missional are not missional because they do not have equally close links within the surrounding community as they do within in the church community.
I agree, Dave, that this is a good definition…
But I would go so far as to say that the “community” experienced within too many local churches is not authentic community reflecting the Eternal Community…and we need to clean up our ideas and practice of community before we “infect” the surrounding community!
And it is the dualistic challenge that we are all still grappeling with, here, that makes authenticity so difficult to understand. That Sunday-Monday disconnect between the members–the brothers and sisters–insulates us from each other’s pain and burdens…
I am concerned that we have a strong Body that engages in God’s mission, not a weak and sickly one. We want to spread the Good virus….
Len absolutely - and actually the dualism is subtly apparent in James’s misquote of John 20:21
and more obviously in Isaac’s classic modern-era American evangelical understanding of who the Good News of Jesus Christ is for. While we believe that the Gospel is founded primarily in Jesus Christ (a la James) or that God is only interested in those who respond to him (a la Isaac) we have a Gospel which is profoundly at odds with the Trinitarian Christian faith.
Hullo-o-o
I haven’t contributed for a while - I have viewed from a distance, checked in every now and again, but life is presently so devastatingly painful that I’ve had little time - and to be honest, little inclination - to contribute…
There are only so many hours in a day and I want to be Jesus to real people, not just split theological hairs… I’m not suggesting that is ALL that is going on here and in other blogs, but I do wonder how much we are actively involved in community when we can spend several hours in the day commenting on blogs… perhaps I’m just reflecting my own baggage?
I lead a church. We began seven years ago, three families seeking to serve God and people. We are not a perfect church… we are a church of bruised, battered and broken human beings, being healed and seeking healing in Christ.
At one stage, sadly, I was tired of having to explain to people in our wider community that while we were a church, we were not like the church they thought the church was like, we were not like the church down the road, we were not like… blah, blah, blah. One day it dawned on me that I was tending to make excuses primarily because deep down I was concerned what other people might be thinking of me… God seemed to be suggesting that perhaps I might like to get over myself!
Because there are so many people talking nonsense and doing anti-Christ things, but using Christ’s name, and I might be associated with them I had a need to qualify that I was different… well maybe I’m not… maybe my arrogance in trying to qualify myself as different actually puts me right in the same class as the useless pillocks that call themselves Christian but don’t do what Jesus does! He says that in the future some people will come to Him, saying they did things in His name and He’ll reply that He never knew them!
I realised that Jesus Christ said He would build His church, that the church is His body, His instrument on the earth, that it was going to be my lot in life to be part of His body, the church. I figured if it is good enough for Him, and I genuinely seek to follow Him, then I might as well get used to being misunderstood and get on with it… I care less today what people think of me, or what ideas they may have - good or bad, right or wrong - about the church. I’m concerned instead to be who God created me to be, to lead a bunch of people who want to try to be like who God created them to be, to be increasingly like Jesus Christ… who frankly was most critical of religious leaders… like me!
So, we use the term “church” and we don’t apologise for it, frequently we do have to redefine what it actually means to be the church of Jesus Christ, but no longer in terms of what we are NOT like, rather in terms of who Jesus is… we aim to fill the term church with right meaning - even if it takes a generation or two! At times we have defined ourselves as a community of Jesus followers - but frankly that doesn’t make much difference to people who have no religious background.
While I can flex my theological vocabulary in places like this, as a church we don’t use the term missional, we don’t talk about missiology - we simply expect it. We don’t talk “missional church” specifically, instead we have simply sought to be continually connected to our community in fresh ways. So as people have connected with us as a church community it is simply normal practice to get involved in ventures in the church community AND related to the wider community.
I’m less inclined to discuss terminology with people and more inclined to discuss my heart with God. I’m less inclined to blog and more inclined to get off my backside and serve my community. I’m less inclined to spend time with people who just want to warm a pew and more inclined to hang out with Jesus’ followers in community. I’m less inclined to play Sunday church and more inclined just to be the church wherever I am and whoever I am with…
At the end of the day I don’t expect Jesus to quiz me on how I define missional as much as I expect Him to ask how I demonstrated His love to my fellow human beings. And it seems like something is going on, because twice in the last six months our local chamber of commerce has come to our church to ask for help in community ventures… can someone tell me if that’s missional?
Slainte
A Celtic Son
DEar CS, its great to have you back, and I fully understand the feelings expressed here. I/we are just glad to have you pop up every now and again. Peace bro.
“To be Jesus to real people” - Celtic Son - this is Celtic Bob - Alan this is the definition - I like everything in your definition of missional church except organized and living around “the mission of God” it’s too functional and military - yes we do activity - I live for that - that’s why I loved what Celtic son wrote - But, to be Jesus to real people that goes beyond function to essence and it embodies the charicature of the Kingdom which is Jesus. The only point I would challenge you at Celtic son - is many times people talking about “being the presence of Jesus to people” generally stop at their own tribe, city, or ethnos - to be truly missional it has to go beyond your level of comfort and cultural identity or you’re just social. Am I saying ignore your local - no way - you should be so busy you only have time to check blogs one every other day and then focus just on 2 that challenge you - then as I would say, “Move ‘em chunky legs.”
Hi Bob…
I appreciate your challenge… I’d suggest though that perhaps it’s contrary. I’d suggest that the greater problem in the western church mindset is that people are more comfortable giving beyond “their own tribe, city, or ethnos,” mostly donating financially to others, and avoid being and doing in their own locale! We aim to make a difference holistically and in “glocal” terms - a word I’ve come across somewhere!
Locally we’ve run clean-up campaigns in schools, run community fairs with everything - food, drinks, jumping castle, gifts etc - all free, made donations to school libraries, joined in our local community street fair on a Sunday (gasp), supported our local secular youth service - two of us are on the voluntary management committee… we give food hampers to people, run craft groups for senior people, playgroups for young mums and babies every week. In our gatherings we try to ensure we use energy wisely and we’re recycling waste as best we possibly can.
Globally, from our little community we support people that we personally know in mission, on 5 continents. We are raising funds for a team of us to go to Uganda to build a community home for kids orphaned by AIDS and war there, at the end of 2008. We just gathered finance to give an offering of $10,000 to a church in another community that we heard is having financial trouble. Basically we’re more interested in recognising what Jesus called us out for and getting on with being and doing that… the calling out is not simply about “us” and eternal security… we are called out to participate in saving the world!
Of course there is a price to pay, people who encounter us for the first time on a Sunday very quickly realise that there is a high level of expectation. If they are just looking to sit in a Sunday church service then we’re not it… so many don’t stay. Those who do, rise to the level of expectation and get involved in our broader sense of mission… it is “normal” practice for us. Many people have become involved in our “missional activities” before ever considering themselves to be connected in Christ. We have people who would not yet call themselves Christians, involved in our events in the community and in our Sunday services - funny thing, in time the vast majority of those people have stuck around long enough to make a connection in Christ.
I agree with Neil Cole in a sense, that we need to lower the threshold for people coming into the church and raise the bar on discipleship. We welcome people readily, but we live with high expectations and we find that more people than you would think are looking for meaningful existence and want to play a purposeful role.
Time for me to move ‘em chunky legs… there’s a God to connect with and people to love and serve
Slainte
A Celtic Son
Celtic Bob,
I have to agree with A Celtic Son (side to Bob C: I’m not his sister either
) in that too many focus on “foreign” missions without engaging in their community.
I would turn the screw one more time, though, and suggest that many churches are filled with hurting and needy brothers and sisters to whom no one extends a hand in time of need.
Now, before anyone jumps on me…all three scenarios must be balanced. We must love those in the household of faith first, and then love those in the community — local and glocal — to whom we hope to offer God’s invitation of adoption! Neglect of any of them is not acceptable and will result in abberation.
Yes…we must lower the threshold and raise the bar!!!
…but, gentlemen, let’s not have any more talk about moving chunky legs, eh
Obviously, CS, I was not thinking of your church in my comment!!!
I agree with Peggy. We certainly need to not forget the people in the church, I concur that balance is required.
I did a quick google search of the Neil Cole quote and found this, “We need to lower the bar on how church is done and raise the bar on what it means to be a disciple.” — If this is indeed an accurate quotation then the meaning is possibly quite different from what is quoted above.
However, I still whole-heartedly disagree with the notion that “the bar for church” should be lowered (though of course I agree with the second half). You might think this mere semantic word-play but “church” is the body of believers so how is it possible for the bar to be lowered?
Secondly, why on earth would a non-believer WANT to go to church? What’s in it for them? Do you really think they want to hear about how they need to ‘bend the knee’ to Jesus? Do they really want to hear about the fallaciousness of the doctrine of transubstantiation?
We wonder why we have so many weak Christians about. Most of evangelicalism (US term; “mainstream church” in AUS) would suggest more programs to help people “connect” with other people in the church and other programs to see people grow. Post-moderns/emerging types on the other hand posit a Sunday-Monday disconnect, the direct result of dualism, and the pervasive influence of consumerism that keeps otherwise “good” Christians from growing.
Is it at all possible though, brothers and sisters, that the reason for the lack of growth is that the “branch” is dead? Or in fact was never grafted onto the “vine”.
There are enough unsaved people in church gatherings as it is, so I can’t really imagine why one would invite more…
Isaac…
You seem determined to push people’s buttons, perhaps there is pleasure for you in being an agent provocateur, perhaps you’re not even a genuine follower of Jesus and you just want to play the religion game… because your points are mainly misinformed, unbiblical and ungodly, your perspective is narrow, religious (in the worst sense) and malnourished and if I cared less I’d simply laugh and leave it alone.
Instead of googling quotes do yourself a favour, get a hold of the text and read it in it’s context, you’ll find that my interpretation of Neil Cole’s comment from memory is more accurate than your miscontextualisation of your googled quote. The internet is not a neutral resource, use it carefully rather than just looking for support for your preconceived notions. Are you prepared to actually learn, or just looking to reinforce your already shaped opinion?
Neil Cole speaks about lowering the bar on how church is “done” - it relates to the dominant way that the church in the west tends to run our Sunday church services, and make out that somehow that is the sum total of “church.” His point is that we have developed an alien culture that we expect people to come in and understand without explanation. His expectation, like mine, is that if people are genuine disciples of Christ then we ought to raise the bar on expecting disciples to behave like Jesus did. Correct me if I’m wrong… Jesus was accused of hanging out with prostitutes, sinners, publicans, tax colectors, the lowest of the low in His culture… Jesus was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton… is that your Jesus? It certainly doesn’t fit your comments… If that’s not your Jesus then who is the god you’re worshipping?
I have asked you in the past and you have avoided answering… what is the fruit of your life that qualifies you to sit in the seat of judgement and comment? You’ve caught me at the wrong time Isaac… I’m beyond being nice…. frankly you are disingenuous… your comments DO NOT CONCUR with Peggy Brown. You have no intention of bringing balance, your comments (and previous ones) make it clear that you simply want to gather your “mainstream, evangelical” concept of the precious redeemed, and hide in a box until Jesus comes back. What on earth happened to Jesus command to “GO into all the world…
You have no intention of being missional, locally or globally, it’s all about those who are already “in!” Just so that you know, I have spent all week in and out of hospital with a young couple IN our church - already saved - who had a stillborn baby last week. I have been in touch with a girl in church whose father has had a major stroke and is paralysed and have also been connecting with some senior people whose illnesses have deteriorated… I have spent the majority of my time this week caring for Christians… but that is not the sum total of my life. Isaac, I am about balance… frankly you don’t seem to have a clue what authentic Christian living is all about, which makes me question whether you are actually a follower of Jesus at all.
You are free to “whole-heartedly disagree”, but frankly I am unconcerned about your disagreement because I suspect it is just an uninformed opinion, not based at all on fact or experience, and more concerningly it appears to be the opinion of a heart that does not embrace the things that truly concern the heart of God. I have seen the fruit of lowering the bar on how church is “DONE” and raising it on who the church is… what’s your ground for disagreeing? Is it just that it hurts your existing brain-washed idea of what church is about - then it’s time to grow up Isaac and learn to think for yourself, instead of regurgitating someone else’s mistaken opinion.
You’re right of course that people don’t want to go to a church service to hear about our pathetic discussions regarding doctrine - that is whether they are Christian or not! However people are fascinated with the person of Jesus… The rationale that most people here are basing discussion upon is how we BE the church that Jesus Christ died for - not the pathetic self-serving, “it is all about me” counterfeit that you have been exposed to and seem determined to promote.
Who are you, who do you think you are, what gives you the right to make the kind of ungodly statements that you do? There are not enough unsaved people in church gatherings, precisely because people like you buy the lies and deceit of religious charlatans. One reason for the lack of growth is a complete lack of grace… people who claim to be “Christians” sitting in judgement and completely lacking in love.
God so loved the WORLD - not the church Isaac, not believers, not evangelicals… God so loved the WORLD - that He sent His Son… Do you get it? Jesus came for the sick not those who think they are well!
Answer the questions Isaac… why should we listen to your opinions, do you actually have any grounds, biblical or experiential, to justify your opinion? What fruit is there that justifies your comments? I’d be delighted to engage with someone who is sincere and has a justifiable basis for their opposition to what I have come to believe, but I have no time for opinions that are ungrounded philosophising…
A Celtic Son
OK guys - just keep in mind the percentages that we spend on ourselves in the west as opposed to the rest of the world. The people who go versus who stays. BUT, I would say this - the reality is you do what God puts in front of you - here and there - as long as you do that - you’re “missional” in my book. I love what you’re doing Celtic Bob - that’s missional. How can anyone criticize that - you are emulating what it should look like. Just fyi I don’t advocate you have to “go” to engage. I believe most people’s jobs is their number one ministry - they just don’t realize it. Sadly, most think when you say that - start a Bible Study at work - I think we’ve got enough of those already.
Hey CS !
Just want to encourage you to continue to contribute from time to time
I prefer to read as I don’t have that much to add to the discussions, but I really enjoy reading what you write and your perspective. I don’t know what you’re living but there has been a couple of times when I’ve prayed for you.
Slainte
Espen
Hi Espen,
I appreciate your encouragement and your prayers… our church community are going through hell at present - and when one part suffers we all suffer, so I take it personally!
Be Blessed
A Celtic Son
Missional Church carries hundreds of different meaning as you describe, Alan. How about:
“N.T. Missionary Movement”
-following in the footsteps of Jesus
-fulfilling the Great Commission of making disciples
-filled with a commitment to be incarnational daily
-flowing full of the Holy Spirit and be led by Him
Does this help, I know it helps me?
My pastor attended Alan Hirsch’s recent class at Fuller - Reactivating the Western Church for Mission: The Forgotten Ways. Each day he blogged about what he was learning/experiencing. I had read “The Shaping of Things to Come” some time last year. In interacting with my pastor each day on his blog and reading some of the blogs on this website, I understand my pastor’s passion for applying what he learned/experienced in this class. As a result, I too have been wrestling with these ways of following Jesus.
I put together a three page overview of thoughts about what it means to be a missional church. I put this material together so that people from my community at Open Door(including me), would have a start at understanding what it means for a church to be missional. I primarily quoted from material on this blog. I hope that’s ok. In case anyone is interested, I put it on my blog. The post is titled “Reimagining the Church as Missional Church”:
http://ponder-anew.blogspot.com/
A traditional, institutional church is about attracting a crowd; a missional church is about sending a crowd. Thoughts?
WASABI, the church must become a sending church. The traditional American church goes to church to gather. In a missional setting they gather as the Church to go.
Our going to church days must end as the priority of our lives. We must BE the Church that lives in community to fulfill the mission of Christ.
I’ll never go back to going to church! We are the Church so as the Church we go.
You are wise beyond your years. If you get this right as it appears you have, many miracles will follow. Not to mention the expansion of the kingdom through your life.
Bob,
Thank you for your comments. I am actually not that young. Like you, I am a baby boomer.
I am part of a traditional church, but participate in a Sunday evening ministry which is just beginning an emerging-church to missional-church transition.
I know it will not be easy to try to be missional in a traditional, evangelical (that should mean we are already missional shouldn’t it?)PCUSA church.
As I mentioned earlier, I am working on introductory material to acquaint interested people in my church with what it means to be missional. Lately, I have decided to put it in language that evangelicals can perhaps better relate to than what is being used by cutting edge missional church practitioners. I hope I have maintained the substance of what it means to be missional:
I believe that God is calling each believer in the church to be a fully devoted Christ-follower:
Participating with the Holy Spirit, go into the world as messengers and messages of God’s redeeming love made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Build up those who believe in Jesus. Constantly die to our sinful natures and live according to the Spirit. Build faith-expressing communities of full-of-God’s-Word, full-of-prayer followers who are fully devoted to Jesus Christ and to each other. Lead one or more fully-devoted followers into the world to share the gospel and build up new believers, just as Jesus did; just as his disciples did.
Does this represent what it means to be missional?
I am also thinking about something that is happening in the workplace that may have a counterpart in the lives of many Christians - specialization which leads to compartmentalization which leads to outsourcing. One example of this phenomenon is raising children. We “outsource” bringing them up with perhaps 21 years of preschool, kindergarten, primary, secondary and college education; Sunday school and youth group activities; television viewing and computer games; specialized activities such as sports and music. To what extent does God call every believer/parent to be more involved than this in raising up their children in the way they should go?
Question:
To what extent do church goers “outsource” reaching the lost and building up new believers. Church goers pay their contributions and attend church, even spend some time in ministry, but their ministry of sharing the gospel may be totally outsourced to the pastor at the pulpit and to the missionaries that the church supports; their building up of believers may be totally outsourced to the pastor of education, directors of age-level Sunday school programs, the volunteer Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders, the small group leaders. To what extent does God call every believer to be involved in sharing the gospel and building up fellow believers?
wasabi,
That’s one big question! Your thoughts about “outsourcing” is right on…my husband and I are raising our three sons, with encouragement from teachers and others. And I’m working on bringing lifestyle evangelism back in my neck of the woods.
Be blessed.
Peggy,
Thanks for you comments. I have worked very hard for at least ten years in the sound reinforcement ministry (to make church more attractive to seekers). I resigned my position a few months ago. I am believing more and more that God does want each believer to have some part in sharing the gospel and building up fellow believers. Here is a restatement of what I wrote earlier -
I believe that God is calling each believer in the church to be a fully devoted Christ-follower:
Participating with the Holy Spirit, go into the world as a messenger and demonstrator of God’s healing, redeeming love. Testify how my redemption from sin has been made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Build up those who believe in Jesus. Constantly die to my sinful nature and live according to the Spirit. Work at building faith-expressing communities of full-of-God’s-Word, full-of-prayer followers who are fully devoted to Jesus Christ and each other. Lead one or more Christ-followers into the world to share the gospel and build up new believers, just as Jesus did; just as his disciples did.
By expecting the above from each believer, I am describing a higher bar for discipleship. Even though I am a part of a traditional church, I can also, in good conscience advocate lowering the bar for doing church. I advocate lowering the bar for doing church as measured by worldly, not biblical standards.
John Frame has written that, “Worship is the work of acknowledging the greatness of our covenant Lord.” (”Worship in Spirit and Truth,” p. 1) Rather than find and attend church worship services that please us, we should practice mercy all week and make the worship services our opportunity to do the WORK of acknowledging God. The worship service is our opportunity to serve God, not the time for our worship leaders to serve us. It is not the job of our worship leaders to create a pleasurable worship experience for us. They are work leaders in the community-wide effort to “acknowledge the greatness of our covenant Lord.” “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6
Could we spend $500,000 on good sound and lighting rather than $1,000,000 for excellent sound and lighting? Do we really need entertaining worship services to do the work of worship. What does the high bar of worldly excellence contribute to the work of acknowledging the greatness of our God?
Rather than being ambitious for our church, we should be ambitious for God. I think it is all too easy to develop the mindset that the success of the church depends on the work of the members rather than the work of God. If we focus on the church as resources to be stewarded and processes to be managed rather than sheep to be led by Jesus Christ, we turn the church into an idol – a work of our hands.
I maintain that by lowering the bar on worldly excellence we could spend more time and money on efforts to go out into our communities and share the gospel with unbelievers who would then come to our churches because they have been attracted to Jesus and his disciples.
You are preaching to the choir here, brother! Yes, ditch the $500,000 on sound and lighting…but I am such an over the edge radical
My dad was going to write a book called “When Good Enough is Best”–but he was to busy serving to get around to it…I may have to do that one as I pick up his mantle and continue his church planting and disciple-making ministry.
I find that a term like “missional” is always better understood after attempting to describe its meaning in a different (preferably non-western) language. It helps to get at the meat of what you are trying to say by inventing terms out of other terms that may or may not have the “right” connotations. The meaning of words will and normally always will change. What I am deeply concerned about is whether our hearts are changing as well or are we becoming fortress thinkers and defenders of terms. A.W. Tozer has said; “The most important thing about a man is what he thinks when he thinks about God”. As I live and work with Muslims in a country I cannot name I am constantly drawn to this idea with regards to my Muslim bretheren who struggle daily to please Allah hoping that because their good ritual Allah will show them grace on the Day of Judgement. It is not the terms we use that matter, it is what we think when we use these terms and as important, what those around us are thinking as these terms are being used. How we use them and how we live our lives while using them will determine in large part how those terms will be understood.
I’ve read your thread of conversation, but I still don’t think you have defined “missional”. Seems like a word looking for a definition to me.