Despite the preponderance of missional church resources, American Christians are slow to live missionally. Why is this? In our last post, we suggested that one reason is that we are motivating the church with best practices of mission, instead of an identity of mission grounded in the Missio Dei. Today, I’d like to suggest another motivation, with a twist.

Any evangelical can tell you that they are supposed to be on mission, but very few are. They can rattle off the Great Commission by memory, while running along no differently. Yet, all four Gospels contain missional mandates from the resurrected, King Jesus himself (Matt 28, Mark 16, Luke 24/Acts 1, John 16/21)! Why does missional disobedience persist? Perhaps because…

1. We don’t take Jesus seriously. Jesus is our friend, not our Lord.
   
2. We think the missional mandates are for apostles or super Christians only.
3. We have a functional God that we like more than Jesus.
   
4. We believe that mission is optional and that we won’t be judged for our missional disobedience.
5. We don’t actually believe the gospel.