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9th November 2009

Post

Missional = Normal (or aleast it should be) Part 1

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I have been reading about what it means to be a missional church. I have to admit, I guess what I am learning is what I have always thought it should be like anyway. However working in several churches, I saw glimpses of it, but somehow there seemed to be other factors at work.

Some things I have been learning.

- Missions is not a committee or a ministry of the church, it is the church. We cannot relegate some trip to Mexico as Missions, as a church we are to be on Mission all the time. Funny how I would spend weeks to prepare kids for a mission trip, 2 times a week we would meet together and talk about the culture we were going into and how it was different than ours, how we should not say certain words “stupid” is very offensive in Mexico : $ err I mean…anyway. We would learn the background of the people and what they ate and where they hung out. Yet in my local church I never did that with my church friends, I didn’t try to figure those things out for my own city. I take the blame, I didn’t know, even though I said, “I have always believed” that this was what we should do. As a younger unsaved person I went to a church that did not preach the bible, they were very seeker sensitive, yet they did not offer much truth. I think maybe part of not engaging the culture more was a fear that I would fall into that trap. So I made sure I taught the bible and evangelism to my students, but it seemed in my ministries we would only really engage the culture with our big events. I am glad God is allowing me to learn once again. I really have loved every church I have been in and I think they loved me too : ) But as I continue to learn what it means to be on mission all the time as a church, I am getting excited.

- Another false view I had of the church was it was a place I could choose as I pleased. I could pick up and move whenever I wanted and I did. When I felt that I had done all that I could do I moved onto another challenge. I don’t regret this, Paul did it and I may do it many more times in my life. As I have been reading some great books, I am realizing that I need to not go to a church just because my skills fit and they have a job opening, but because I want to love that city. Like if I live somewhere I am going to church there, like close by! I am not gonna drive to a church more than 10 miles from my house. I want to love the exact area God puts me in. I want to be engaged in the community, I want to make it a better place, because Jesus is redeeming people there, He is not just redeeming people but changing the culture of those people at the same time and transforming communities with the Gospel. I use to think if a church moved in next door, that our church would lose people and that was scary, but now the way I see it is more people to be missionaries in our community. So refreshing to know that we dont have to worry about building the kingdom (Mt. 16:18) because Jesus said He would do that. I need to seek it (Mt. 6:33), I need to recieve it (Mk. 10:15) and I need to enter it (Mt. 7:21) and Jesus does His work through me as I know my part.

- Last one for this post, I need the Gospel. It is as evident to me as the day I realized that Jesus was a Doctor and He came for sick people and that I was very sick. I realize it more and more each day I live, I need His grace. I gotta have it, I cannot go on without it. If I lose everything else, I dont want to lose this. And the great news is, it was never about how good I was, always about Jesus, the story is about Jesus, I am in it somewhere but I never forget this is not my story it is His-Story. Jesus is the center of everything, if a church can have a service and Jesus is not a the center of the worship and the message, that is not a Missional church. It has lost it’s head literally! Jesus is the senior pastor and leader of every true church. I never want to be the senior Pastor because that is Jesus Job. I want to be in a church where when you leave the gathering sunday, Jesus is everything. When I feel like I am something, I want to be with people who remind me of who Jesus is and what He did for me, I want people to tell me the Gospel when I am anxious, when I feel unworthy, when I think I am good, I have learned that I need the Gospel always and I need to have the name of Jesus on my lips and my life. I want to be a fragrance of life, a person who has that life inside of him that makes men says, “Oh, thats what it looks like.”

Thanks for reading some thought I been having. : ) Tone

For more: Here are some thoughts I borrowed from another blog.

  • The missional church is one where people are exploring and rediscovering what it means to be Jesus’ sent people as their identity and vocation.
  • The missional church is faith communities willing and ready to be Christ’s people in their own situation and place.
  • The missional church knows that they must be a cross-cultural missionary (contextual) people and adopt a missionary stance in relation to their community.
  • The missional church will be engaged with the culture (in the world) without being absorbed by the culture (not of the world). They will become intentionally indigenous.
  • The missional church understands that God is already present in the culture where it finds itself. Therefore, the missional church doesn’t view its purpose as bringing God into the culture or taking individuals out of the culture to a sacred space.
  • The missional church is about more than just being contextual, it is also about the nature of the church and how it relates to God.
  • The missional church is about being — being conformed to the image of God.
  • The missional church will seek to plant all types of missional communities.
  • The missional church is evangelistic and faithfully proclaims the gospel through word and deed. Words alone are not sufficient; how the gospel is embodied in our community and service is as important as what we say.
  • The missional church understands the power of the gospel and does not lose confidence in it.
  • The missional church recognizes that it does not hold a place of honor in its host community and that its missional imperative compels it to move out from itself into that host community as salt and light.2
  • The missional church will align all their activities around the missio dei — the mission of God.
  • The missional church seeks to put the good of their neighbor over their own.
  • The missional church will give integrity, morality, good character and conduct, compassion, love and a resurrection life filled with hope preeminence to give credence to their reasoned verbal witness.
  • The missional church practices hospitality by welcoming the stranger into the midst of the community.
  • The missional church will always be in a dynamic tension or paradox between missional individuals and community. We cannot sustain being missional on our own, but if we are not being missional individually we cannot sustain being mission-shaped corporately.3
  • The missional church will see themselves as representatives of Jesus and will do nothing to dishonor his name.
  • The missional church will be totally reliant on God in all it does. It will move beyond superficial faith to a life of supernatural living.
  • The missional church will be desperately dependent on prayer.
  • The missional church gathered will be for the purpose of worship, encouragement, supplemental teaching, training, and to seek God’s presence and to be realigned with God’s missionary purpose.
  • The missional church is orthodox in its view of the gospel and scripture, but culturally relevant in its methods and practice so that it can engage the world view of the hearers.
  • The missional church will feed deeply on the scriptures throughout the week.
  • The missional church will be a community where all members are involved in learning “the way of Jesus.” Spiritual development is an expectation.
  • The missional church will help people discover and develop their spiritual gifts and will rely on gifted people for ministry instead of talented people.
  • The missional church is a healing community where people carry each other’s burdens and help restore gently.
  • The missional church will requires that its leaders be missiologists.
  • Got these from http://www.friendofmissional.org/