the “sent” church 2
May 29, 2008
Series recap: Part 1
Southern Baptists have become recurrent users of the word. The Assemblies of God Department of U.S. Missions contains this word as one of their four values. The Evangelical Free Church organized a summit built on this word for their leaders in 2007 and they have renamed their church planting leadership to mirror this word. The Nazarene Church’s denomination has embraced this word as their denominational objective. (1)
The word? Missional.
Many individuals within evangelicalism are attempting to classify and analyze this word. Its unclear connotation has brought it to the point that even some of its first and fervent users of the term are becoming restrained to use it themselves for concern of their audience misunderstanding their meaning. But the advocates of the idiom, “missional,” see it as a term set apart from other similar words like “missionary,” “mission,” and “Missio Dei.”
If the patois of the missional church is to become a beneficial way of structuring communities of God’s people in a postmodern culture, then we have to expend the time to comprehend what is at stake in the speech we are using. And if Christian fellowships are truly rediscovering that they must view themselves as a “sent” community, they must fully understand what it at stake so as to better chart a course for the future of evangelicalism.
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1) Ed Stetzer, “Meanings of Missional – Part 1,” EdStetzer.com – A Lifeway Research Blog, 14 August 2007, available from http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/2007/08/meanings_of_missional_part_1_1.html; Internet; accessed 10 May 2008.
Posted in church, culture, emerging church, emerging culture, history, incarnational, missiology, missional church, pastoring, post-Christian, post-Evangelical, postmodern, theology
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May 29th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I do discipleship once a week with a leader of a christian organization. Something he said stuck with me “I can’t witness to anyone sitting at a desk, I gotta get out there and meet people.” Very true. He is of the persusion that the church sets a table and tells lost people to come to it and this is in and of itself ineffective. The church is made up of individuals who should ‘go’ form relationships with the lost in order to win them to Christ. Sometimes you invest a long time in a friendship just to tell them about Jesus in one conversation. The lost want a relationship with believers but are spooked by either the word ‘church’ or what they perceive the church as being. This has to change. I believe the only way is through genuine ‘missional’ relationships. My friends I wish to win to Christ will still be my friends even if they reject him until the day I die. If believers puff themselves full of pride and don’t learn to love their neighbor as themselves, the future of Christianity in the west will look as bleak as it does in europe. My relationship with God is based upon my day in day out dependence upon him via Bible study, prayer and obedience. The same goes for winning the lost. It’s the way you handle yourself in front of them, what you say and what you don’t say. To quote the dude at the beginning of ‘what if I stumble’
“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians….. that is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable” - Very Prophetic
May 29th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Brad
I ran across you blog via google alerts today. I just completed a short piece for our baptist state convention paper on what it means to be missional. I had to conserve my words more than what is probably needed to clearly explain/describe, but here is a bit of what I shared, might add to the discussion.
I also just finished a sermon today that I am going to share Sunday at a church in Lawrence on the “sending nature of God.” I have found one of the best studies on the topic to be DuBose’s book, which I also mention in the following piece. Blessings brother!
More Than a Buzz Word
The term “missional” has become a popular buzz word in Southern Baptist circles over the past couple of years. Because of its frequent use, some people have assumed that “missional” is a new word. However, the term was used by Dr. Francis DuBose, former professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, in his book “God Who Sends” published in 1983.
Despite the fact that missional terminology has been in use for at least a quarter of a century, it is being applied today in such a wide variety of ways that many times it results in confusion. While any word is defined at least in part by the intention of the person using it, I believe there are some essential distinctives that can be identified to bring clarity and explanation to the use of the word missional. I would argue for the inclusion of three key elements to best understand what it means for a church to be missional.
1. The Missional Church is about the missionary nature of God and His church.
The church is a vital part of the missional conversation. However, the church is seen not as “a place where” religious goods and services are provided, but instead it is understood as the gathered and sent people of God.
The Missional Church understands the purpose of the church is derived from the very nature of God. Scripture is replete with language that speaks to the missionary nature of a Triune God. God the Father sends the Son, and God the Father and the Son sends the Spirit, and God the Father and the Son and the Spirit sends the church.
In the Gospel of John alone, Jesus describes Himself more than thirty times as “one sent.” In the final climatic sending passage in John’s Gospel Jesus sees himself not only as one sent but also as one who is sending: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).
Therefore missional churches are those communities of Christ-followers who see the church as a missionary people sent, individually and collectively on a mission. They understand that the church does not simply do mission, instead it is mission.
2. The Missional Church is about the church being incarnational rather than attractional.
Those with a missional perspective no longer see the church service as the primary connecting point for those outside the church. The missional church is more concerned about sending the people in the church out among the people of the world, rather than getting the people of the world in among the people of the church. Others have described this distinction as a challenge to “go and be” as opposed to “come and see.”
Missional churches see their primary function as one of actively moving into a community to embody and enflesh the word, deed and life of Jesus into every nook and cranny. I love Eugene Peterson’s “incarnational” rendering of John 1:14 in the Message paraphrase when it says, “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”
3. The Missional Church is about actively participating in the missio Dei, or mission of God. Many times we wrongly assume that the primary activity of God is in the church, rather than recognizing that God’s primary activity is in the world, and the church is God’s instrument sent into the world to actively participate in His redemptive mission.
As the sent, missionary people of God, the missional church understands its fundamental purpose as being rooted in God’s mission to restore and heal creation and to call people into a reconciled relationship with Himself. It is God’s mission, or missio Dei, that calls the church into existence. Or in the words of South African missiologist David Bosch; “It is not the church which undertakes mission; it is the missio Dei which constitutes the church.”
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