Just over two years ago, I was introduced to a burgeoning body of thought and practice loosely collected under the title "missional." Since then, I have learned about a whole world of exploration, books, authors and speakers, conferences - all associated with the same word. And somewhere in that process, I was invited to be on the board of an organization dedicated to helping congregations be transformed into missional communities. Ever since, I have been on a dead run, trying to wrap my mind around what the word "missional" means. Since I'm supposed to know what I'm talking about now . . .
And here's a little bit of what I've learned.
It's NOT a new program to be added to the already existing programs of a church.
This is NOT business-as-usual material for churches trying to stay competitive. . . with one another.
Being missional is NOT first and foremost about having a heart for missions or sending money overseas, although that usually is true of people who are missional.
Being missional first of all calls for a different orientation from what the Church has had in an age of modernity. As our culture(s) moves from modernity to post-modernity, the Church is becoming increasingly marginalized; the culture is losing even a basic understanding of the Scriptural story; the Church is increasingly considered irrelevant to the culture. In such a context, the attractional model so dominant in modernist thinking within the Church is becoming and will become less and less effective, conservative Christianity will be villified more and more for its understanding of an exclusive Gospel and anything smacking of absolute truth, and the meaning of our language will no doubt be co-opted more and more, emptied of its meaning and replaced by meaning the culture is more comfortable with.
As a result, a missional orientation emphasizes the SENT Church, rather than the GATHERED Church. The locus of attention moves more from what we do within the Church walls (as crucial as that is and continues to be) to what we do with the other 95% of our week out in the world, being the Church on the world's turf.
Our focus becomes what we DO before what we SAY. The deeds of Jesus before the words of Jesus. Show, then tell. Lord knows there's a lot of people who are saying "We're sick of you telling us what you believe." The best way of earning the right to talk is to walk.
Being missional means becoming one of them before you can expect they will become one of us.
Missional living means being Kingdom-focused, well above local-church focused. In other words, competition between churches has to die.
The missional lifestyle is participatory. Not removed. It's something about hands-on.
Missional means servanthood over control. It really does mean coming alongside people confessing how many less answers we have than we thought we had once upon a time, but that we love them and want to be a neighbor. A good neighbor.
A missional person is little. Little trumps big.
Missional life means making partnerships with groups and organizations that you might not agree with about everything, but with whom you can partner on an issue. It means the death of the Christian "ghetto."
Being missional means community rules over program, especially the "one-size-fits-all" program.
That's what I think thus far. A great primer to introduce the subject is an article by Alan Roxburgh called "The Missional Church", found in the journal Theology Matters (2003?). Or the book by the same name, edited by Darrell Guder. Or try the blog Allelon (missional maps), or Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight. And towards the top of my list, I unashamedly encourage you to check out the work of the organization I get to work with, the Presbyterian Global Fellowship, at www.presbyterianglobalfellowship.org.
I'd love to know what you think. . .
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5 comments:
I am checking out PGF as I write this... I just have to say, "Very Interested!" Have a wonderful day!
I read The Missional Church my second year at Regent. And we talked a lot about being missional. So maybe now it's so much a part of my thinking that I don't recognize the difference of it...but to me, it just seems obvious--of course we should be doing those things, of course we should be meeting people where they are, of course we should work with other organizations, of course we should get rid of the Christian ghetto. It seems like what Jesus was on about. And Paul...I think he was pretty missional. So, I think it's a good thing. I don't really think it's anything new--I think there have been Christians living missionally since the Church began. But I think somehow western Christianity, perhaps especially evangelicalism, has lost this mentality.
It's worth pursuing. It's worth thinking about and studying. I'd love to hear more about what you're thinking.
I think the reason I pose the question is because the resistance is so high in the church entrenched in modernity. There is an inertia that blocks people from even thinking consistently or clearly. Thus, what you have embraced is beyond the pale for many. The newness that is before us is in contrast to the cultural captivity of the western hemisphere Church that has become only too obvious in these last two decades. And it will take a great awakening for that same Church to "get it."
I agree...with everything you said.
I think the hard work will come in discerning how to call the church to what's next without throwing out the wonderful gifts that a more traditional/modern approach offers. I have been in a situation where a pastor has basically said that the "old" way of doing church is completely wrong, we have nothing to learn from it, and we are the generation that's going to get things right. I think that's a very wrong attitude and approach--we stand on the shoulders of giants and we have much to learn from generations who have gone before us, even as we seek where God is calling us now.
I totally agree that this is a discussion that needs to be had, and that there will be lots of resistance to it--perhaps more in the States than here in Canada.
By the way...in my last comment when I said "And Paul..." I was referring to the apostle, not addressing Paul Parsons!
What else are you reading along these lines?
peiMissional has deep roots, seen differently from where one is standing.
Earning the right to be heard was Jim Rayburn’s motto as he founded Young Life back in the day. It was not new then.
John Herman Bavinck and Rolland Allen taught those who would listen in the middle of the last century. Donald MaGavran and Leslie Newbigen brought their observations from the church at work in India back to the States and England. MaGavran was the father of the church growth movement, which melded into many church planting movements, most of which have practiced missional life all along and have embraced the current terminology. Newbigen affected many in the UK and has become a big influence within the younger community that combines emergent and missional. Hudson Taylor was a practitioner in China over 150 years ago. It does resonate with the calling of the church from the days of Jesus.
All of this to point out that within a major part of the evangelical church, missional has been practiced and promoted. I am very much less familiar with the practice of mainline churches so I do not know of their practices. I used to be better at straw men than I am now.
Practices of the contemporary church are certainly mixed. There has been much pragmatism that many dislike. But missional has its roots in pragmatism as well as principle. Wagner and Newbigen certainly spoke from what worked as they tried to bring principles to describe it.
For me the more central issue isn’t an emphasis on missional, as much as what missional is about. That is the gospel. If talking missional gets more people to focus on the person and work of Jesus, that is good. If it refines loving others for His sake, so much the better.
That is what Rayburn and Bavinck and Allen and MaGavran and Newbigen and Taylor were all about—there is life only in Jesus. Let us shine the light on the source and purpose of our mission.
Grace, Dan
By the way—two other great contemporary resources are Reggie McNeil and Ed Stetzer. Whatever you can get from either of them is worth a ponder.
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