Missional is sending. Missional is going. Missional is equipping. Missional is setting the captive free.

Missional is not filling auditoriums with spectators.

Missional is a word overused in this comment and overused in current Christian lingo.

Just because you say it doesn't mean you're doing it.

Now go do it.

As the lead pastor of a church that self defines as "missional," I would say Tim has done a good job highlighting some common threads of missional church practice and experience. I resonate with all of these. I will say that paying lip service to these values and embodying them are very different :-)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but it seems to me that each of the five items that essentially define a "missional" church are all key elements to any church.

Question: Is "missional" actually a different "type" of church (i.e. rural vs. urban, "high" vs. "low" church, modern vs. post-modern, etc.), or is "missional" simply an adjective that should be a description of every church, or perhaps we could say the One True Church?

Side comment: Perhaps part of our problem in searching for descriptions and definitions of movements is our rampant misuse (and misunderstanding) of the word "church" in the first place....

And missional is not neccesarily emerging! So many people confuse the terms. Genuine emerging churches come out of missional and not the other way around.

I think that all the buzz words are worthless. To me, God does not work the same way with all churches or people. Look up in the gospels and you will find that Jesus never healed the blind the same way. With that being said, I believe each church has its own DNA and they need to figure out where the fit in the community and make a difference whether they are missional, meta, cell, or whatever.

One of the reasons that "missional" is so hard to define is because every congregation is located in a unique context, represents a unique blend of gifts and talents, and is used in unique ways to reach the world for Jesus Christ. I, for one, am actually glad we have such a hard time defining what "missional" looks like because of the temptation to commoditize or market the latest "magic-bullet" programs for success. As a pastor, I can't tell you the number of times I receive a brochure in the mail promising a "billion soul harvest" or "THE answer" to all my ministry needs. The fact that "missional" churches resist such easy definition is a great thing!!!

I agree with Jesse. When I read through this post (which is excellent), I thought this is what the church is supposed to be doing. May be we're starting to pull away from Madison Ave. marketing for how to be the church.

Shawna R. B. Atteberry

Missional entails getting back in touch with the church's roots and the Great Commission. "While going make disciples..." It requires going, it requires getting out there, it requires making disciples. It's intentional, it's mission, it's answering the call to be Jesus in and to the community.

Reggie McNeal states that missional is "ordering your life around God's missionary purposes." It requires each one of us and all of us collectively to arrange our lives and ministries to reach people with the Gospel. It requires getting out of the comfort zone and each person becoming missionary minded and acting in his or her context.

It's a tall order, but Jesus said "follow me." I'm trying to follow.

Missional churches do exist. It's just that second you package and commodify something to be marketed it's no longer missional, it's institutional. So missional churches will be illusive on a grand "empirical" stage but will be highly visible in the midst of their communities.

The missional community I am part of is wrestling with moving the majority of the community within a 5-8 mile radius so we can readily interact in meaningful ways with each other and the city around us, together! Being in So Cal some of my friends are selling big homes to move into or even rent small homes or apartments for this to happen.

Churches that have mass gatherings reach the "tipping point" and by default retrench back into programming as ministry. All the other paradigms based on modernity assumed the church provided goods and services to "attenders" or basically consumers. Missional communities make greater demands a place emphasis on visibly discipleship, they combat the notion of salvation as individualized experience and they believe in communal reading of the Scriptures.

Ahhh... the elusive church.

One of the things God can not do other than lying?

In my community a steeple or building stands out as a church. At work. Shopping or at play, because of the redemptive work of the blood of Christ, the believer stands out as the church... you know, the called out one. You know, the one with the Life Giving Spirit, you know, the one in the world but not of it, you know, the one in touch with reality.

Here's a new word some might have not heard “ Churchianity,” Perhaps that is a word that describes the church and a movement of promise if only we will allow God to move. Poor God sitting in by the side lines waiting on our OK. Maybe He'll tell His own to invite the homeless and beggars to the wedding feast while we wait to define the church in a capacity we can understand. Wait, maybe we can come up with a mathematical equation
describing Love.

God in you is mighty? Come on, I can't even win the lottery if I promise to give Him half. Sorry “ church “ been there, done that. My God is much, much bigger than your sanctuary. Accepting Christ is a plus not a set back. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God... not even intimidation.

Missionaries, our only mission is to relate with the Mission living His Life out in us, as us.

Jesus Loves You, ( but I'm His favorite. :)

"Will the real church please stand up?"

The "real" church is and has always been standing up for Jesus. The real church is people, not buildings or even 'home churches'. In many church buildings there are a majority of people and even pastors who are not standing, yet individual Christians who attend those churches and take their relationship with the Father seriously are living out their faith quietly every day. This involves spending time meditating on God's word, something most Christians are not interested in. God said, "I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." When God's Word takes root in a person's heart, they will grow in grace and knowledge and 'missional' stuff (or whatever you wish to call it) will take place. Sadly, many pastors today want to see outward signs of people following Christ but don't lay the Biblical groundwork in their congregations for that to happen.

I think this post offers a description of "missional" that is far too complicated. Describing a church as "missional" merely means that church has decided to focus its energy and resources outward, into the community in which it exists, rather than inward.

The sad reality is that the majority of our churches in North America exist to sustain themselves rather than provide an incarnational witness of our Lord Jesus Christ. A "missional" church chooses to build bridges of ministry to its community. It meets needs with no strings attached. It does thnigs that other churches don't normally do. It places a higher priority upon loving and meeting needs instead of judging, boycotting, and "casting stones."

I think the author's point #5, about being "passionate activists" is a bit over the top. Some of the most "passionate activists" are the people who are quietly and faithfully doing their ministry, not necessarily the ones making all of the "noise" and calling press conferences to make sure the entire world knows what they're doing.

Let's find a balance in being "missional"
http://geoffbaggett.wordpress.com

I enjoyed this article. I pray that the Western Church is growing more and more in this way. I also appreciated Jesse's and Shawna's comments. I think the well-written words in this article is what the Church should be known for. It's a shame that we need to be reminded of what the Church was created for.

I think that any church, regardless of size or location, can be missional. The missional movement is appealing to smaller churches, emergent churches, home churches, etc. because it is easier to "go and do" as a small congregation. I'm interested to see what meta and mega-churches do to be missional.

Does anyone have any examples?

I think what frustrates me about this whole discussion is this:

1: Missional is not a "type" of Church, but rather a recognition of every Church, and thereby, every believer's calling in life. Namely to be "on-mission" with God. That mission is pretty simple-"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

2: Missional can take place in any cultural context because the call to be missional is the call to "go" into a context.

''You will be for me a kingdom of priests'' - Exodus 19:6.

The highest vocation for which God has destined man has not changed through the centuries. When He was preparing a peculiar people to be His agent of world redemption, He told Moses that the true sign that He had sent him to rescue them from Egypt would be what He would say to them when they reached Mount Horeb. Evidently, therefore, the important point would be His commission to them. That would be the way they were to serve Him in the future. And what did He say to them? He reminded them of the way He had delivered them from their oppressors and brought them to Himself ''on eagles' wings,'' to be His peculiar treasure (although His eye and heart were really on all peoples, for ''all the earth is Mine''), and that His purpose was for them to be a ''kingdom of priests'' (Exodus 19:46).

Priests are not priests for their own benefit, but for others. Thus if the whole of Israel was to be a kingdom of priests, it could only have been as intercessors for a lost world. It was for that reason, doubtless, that when God gave them this calling He added the words, ''for all the earth is Mine.'' Not a specially selected number to be priests among them, but all to be priests. That is of great significance. And not only priests, but ''a kingdom of priests,'' called by Peter, when applying this statement to the church, ''a royal priesthood.''

Recently our mission organization got a letter from a pastor saying his church would no longer be able to support us because they had disbanded the church so they would could better serve some of the growing concerns of their community which they hadnt been financially able to address due to the fact that it took most of their money to maintain the physical plant. While there are certainly creative ways to generate money to finance mission, perhaps by building the church around the mission rather than visa versa is the key to truly implementing the missional church in its most accurately definitive form.

I love what Alan says, missional is not necessarily emerging. Important point.

Also, you can still be attractional as long as the "attraction" becomes incarnational.

I think a defining point in being missional is how we use our resources and people.

Example:
If 80% of our budgets are going towards staffing and buildings and our major focus is a one hour gathering on Sunday morning, then I think our impact is minimal.

But, if our resources are going back into the community (and global church) and creating places where God can redeem the community and the people of the local church are "living" out the Gospel within that community, then I think we are entering the essence of being missional.

Thin fine line for sure.

I like what the "missional" church movement is bringing to the table--a re-emphasis that the church's purpose is to witness to the love of God.

I don't think, though, that being missional necessarily means abandoning or diminishing things that happen inside a church building. Where else does anyone find the Spirit of God as present as in the company of believers?

I wrestle with this: is trying to put bodies in the pews a misguided goal? We don't want to be in the business of entertaining people, but can't we desire to bring more people into the family of God? And doesn't that happen when they become participants in a local congregation?

Another way I wrestle with this: to what degree is social activism a "foot in the door" to speak of salvation in Jesus Christ, and to what degree is the activism by itself a missional activity? For example, if we join the cause in fighting AIDS, do we "use" that as an opportunity to speak of the great Healer of all wounds, and invite others to church? Or is that twisting the calling of social activism--should we just do good in order to do good, and not worry about whether that translates into more disciples?

Isn't "missional" just a varient spelling of "obedient"? It is not a varient spelling of "culture", although we have to be sensitive to the cultural context of our obedience to Christ's commands.
And shouldn't our model for "missional-obedient" be Christ's own ministry? I Tim. 1:15 says that "he came into the world to save sinners." Pretty straightforward, isn't it? And shouldn't all of our ministry have that as its goal?
When that goal becomes secondary to social activism and becomes an afterthought to entertainment, perhaps the church is no longer missional, but disobedient.

No, you cannot be "attractional" and still be missional.

Attractional churches create programs or "clubs" which appeal to certain audiences or target markets...missional communities move out into existing communities allowing themselves to be engaged by a new context, resulting in learning and relationship.

Attractional churches, e.g. purpose-driven reach a particular socio-cultural target, but do not do well in moving that class into new contexts for relationship and transformation. Attractional churches, with aggressive marketing and programming, "fit" into a compartment of peoples lives.

Missional churches move disciples in the direction of whole devotion to the community and emphasize communal approaches to worship and witness.

Attractional churches provide a Gnostic like individual amusement session.

Dear Nate,

My thoughts,
I trust that that when you say " that the church's purpose is to witness to the love of God." means each member experiencing and expressing the reason for creation, which is salvation, which means called out by the blood of the Lamb, which means being in the world but not of it. Which means being the new creature, which means being dead to sin but alive to God, which means the work of God.

The church as most know it is not without struggle and so it should be since it makes claims that are absolute and to their knowledge eternal among many other beliefs. few churches although only a few miles apart agree on many of the same "things" other than there should be church growth. Enough issues to keep them apart anyway.

The Church, as wonderfuly expressing God's presence at Pentacost, was not always experienced as such by the church, and we know this as we read Paul's letters. In Him we live and move and have our being is 24/7. God has each one of us in a perticular situation at a given time for a given purpose to Glorify Him since we are His Glory and He is well enough to do it. Of this I'm sure.

My friend in Christ, when Peter was not at all that Pleased about John not having to suffer a death like His, our Lord told Peter " what's that to you." This word is living to me in that it reveales that God is interested in each of us personaly. What a struggle it must have been for Peter to be reveal to himself his chief concern again.

Perhaps the ideal organized church would have a limited amount of pews where every few months some seats would be emptied and then filled to be emptied again. We shouldn't have a hard time looking for people to love since this is the basic charateristic of creation's creator as expressed by Himself in everything and finalized as a person on our cross.

As I have eyes to see, our chief concern is to pick up our inhertance in the moment. That which was lost at the fall and that wasn't church. What was lost was relationship with Life Himself, that relationship which is spoken of to the churches in Revelation.

Finaly, God is always the final word to us. We might sit on the shoulders of Giants in our walk in the Spirit with "Christ as them" but they know that our desire is always to hear the voice of the Father and do His will, until we finaly believe that we are realy for Him and not against Him in all we do because of Him.

People that talk about the missional church 'movement' or even refer to missional churches as if they can be neatly packaged like 'seeker church' or 'youth church' are surely missing the point.

Yes, inasmuch as there is such a thing as 'missional church' it is a recovery of what we should have been doing all along. It is about a 'go to them' rather than a 'come to us' approach - which seemed to be Jesus' way.

The trouble is that we're so beholden to the building focused 'come to our church on Sunday morning' approach that our minds immediately think along those lines. Paradigm shift is necessary (and I include myself in that). No less than a complete realignment of our thinking will do!

www.outofthecocoon.co.uk

i'm lead pastor of a "real church"... are we missional? yeah, i think we are. do i use the word "missional", ummm, no... never.

an unchurched person will never, ever, label a church missional - if we use terms like this, it will become part of our vocabulary and without knowing it we will alienate the very people we're here for.

words matter to me. i think we try too hard to find labels and unique descriptions for things in order to sound intelligent, relevant or unique. keep it simple. KEEP IT REAL.

just thinking out loud. peace.

The term Church has lost its flair. Everyone is looking for the magic adjective that describes what they do, or aspire to do.

Why do we need to have adjectives to describe what we do anyway? Are we that driven by entertainment and today's society that is turned on by the thought of something bigger and greater, that we will betray our local church to go to a "missional" church? You are a church, therefore you are missional.

There are times when I grow weary of the amount of dialogue that takes place over the latest buzzword. Missional, emergent, seeker sensitive, what's next? In our constant searching to "do it right, just the way it is supposed to be done", nothing gets done. Everyone sits around and points their fingers at everyone else, because they "aren't doing it right the way that Jesus told us to", since of course "the way I propose (emergent, seeker, purpose driven, high church, low church, praise, choir...etc, etc) is the best way. It does get annoying after awhile. Rather than constantly discussing, maybe we should just get to work and do the work of the Gospel.

Oh, but then to do that, of course we need to define it so that those around us can know exactly what we are doing so that we can make sure that our labels are correct. So that means we need to discuss it more, blog about it more, and basically waste everyones time.

I've been a Christian for 25 years and have been part of many types of congregations/churches. I don't understand the importance of labeling and distinguishing one type of church from another. Who is helped and uplifted by this? I wonder if we have become so self-involved that our highest need is to define what makes us distinctive and special and "not like those other churches". We are all part of one body and none is more important than another. We have one head and that is Jesus. There seems to be a sort of "at least we know how to do the kingdom stuff..." arrogance running through all of this.

We’re purpose driven. We’re attractional. We’re emergent. We’re seeker sensitive. We’re missional. I think I remember Paul noting something similar somewhere.

First of all, regardless of anything else, I find the article helpful. My family and I just happen to be "in between churches"...well maybe. While I don't expect to rely on a corporate church/congregation as the only or even primary focus of our Christian Community, it is probable that we will "throw in" with a group of believers somewhere in our community. The points are worth keeping in mind as we think about what any community (and each of us) should really be about...and be.

I guess conceptually the thesis that most congregations/movements/denominations/whatever are not perfect examples of "missional" is pretty much a "duh". One could just as easily say the reality deviates from "bride" ideal...except of course the bride's purity is derived from the groom...

Thought provoking. Thank you.

Excuse me for being plain and uneducated, but will someone write a layman's version of Tim's article?

I'd love to have an article that describes the characteristics of a Missional church in terms my elders can understand and grab on to.

Tim's article is written like a lot of them in "leadership,” articulate, powerful, but written as if one professor was trying to impress another. How about a good ole down home type of writing that spells out some clear goals for a church and gives examples of regular old 250 to 400 member churches doing those kinds of things?

I understand we have to refocus on a missional trajectory...but don't tell me about it…lead me to it. We're not suffering from a lack of instructors but from a lack of mentors. Can someone who has budget problems steer a body of believers into one of these missional passions?

Every year I read articles and hear conference talks from leaders of huge or rich churches. Or I’m schooled by scholars who open my mind to ideas but haven’t led a bunch of over worked underpaid recovering sin addicts from point A to point B. Give me a story of transitioning churches and tell that story in plain English please.

Thanks Tim for your plea…it’s the heart of God…now; could one of you smart guys out there translate it for me?

"Missional" is fruit focused... I think Jesus asks us to be "vine" focused.