Category: Missional Church

Are North American Xns Too Secular?

Posted on March 3, 2010

In the second book of his Future of Christianity Trilogy, The New Faces of Christianity, Philip Jenkins draws a distinction between the Christians of the North and the Christians of the global South. The sharp contrast is between the “worldly wise” of the North and the “godly foolish” of the South.

In the growing North-South confrontation, Southern conservatives find ample justification in the language of scripture, noting the hostility between the worldly-wise and the (godly) foolish, those who remain unseduced by secular learning. Using the Pauline epistles, Nigerian church leaders identify modern liberal Westerners with the pagan Greeks of old: “[In] spite of their pride in their wisdom (the Greek love of sophia) they had become utterly foolish. The last stage had been reached.” To adapt the famous image offered by Tertullian, that great African thinker, Christians of the global South are citizens of Jerusalem, and they follow the Bible; Americans and Europeans, residents of Athens, obey secular texts. And what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?

Perhaps we are just too “sophisticated” for our own good? Too many strategies, conferences, plans, books, systems, mechanisms, communications. What do you think?

3 Essentials for Missional Communities

Posted on March 3, 2010

Through failure and success we’ve developed three clear criteria for health gospel-centered missional communities. Whether a new missional community is formed “out of nothing” or one of our existing groups is ready to multiply, there are three things new groups must have in place before forming: LEADER, a CORE, and a MISSION.

1 LEADER/ A called and qualified leader.

This leader must sense a) God’s call, b) complete the Missional Leader Readiness form, c) meet the leadership qualifications and d) complete City Group Leaders Training.

2 CORE/ A healthy community living out gospel-centered missional community.

Healthy communities are a core of people that a) practice steady state community b) are engaged in mission, c) share leadership and d) keep the gospel central. An initial core size must be at least 6-8.

3 MISSION/ A new group starts with a clear missional focus.

The City Group should be aligned with a local non-profit to serve monthly, or focus on engaging a particular group of Austinites. This clearly defined mission must be accompanied by a plan for engagement. Whether you work with a non-profit or not, your ultimate missional focus should be people. Identify a people group and develop a plan to engage them with the gospel.

GCM Collective Goes Live!

Posted on March 2, 2010

As promised, the GCM Collective Community Site went live yesterday. Over 300 people have already registered. Lot’s of great discussion, best practices, tool swapping, and encouraging stories are being shared. Several Groups have been particularly busy:

  • Planting Missional Churches
  • City Renewal
  • Transition to Missional

Get in on the conversation. I’m learning some helpful things and I’m willing to wager you will too! This is just the “back-end” of the GCM website, what we’re calling the Community Site. The front-end of the site, the Public Site (see pic), will be more resource-driven with an integrated blog, resources, and reviews. It’s coming soon.

Shout out to Drew Goodmanson and Monk Development for creating such a great site!

MissionSHIFT: Clarifying “Missional”

Posted on March 1, 2010

Some people describe mission as incarnational and organic. Yet many others add the term “missional” to their current church programs and attractional church structures. Are both a proper use of the term “missional”?

Enter MissionSHIFT, a conversation and conference to clarify just what mission is and, as a result, develop a “missional manifesto.” Sound interesting? Over the next few weeks, I’ll be participating with you and the leaders below to advance this conversation, to clarify the meaning of missional.

The Manifesto

Sounds awfully juggernauntish doesn’t it? Rest assured, this isn’t a political statement that will put to rest all missional debate. It’s not a parochial attempt to strong-arm one definition of missional. We want to hear from you. However, the intent of the emerging manifesto is to say: “This is what we mean when we talk about being missional.” It might not be a universal statement, but MissionSHIFT leaders hope it will be an important one, one that clarifies missional thinking and practice.

Missional Leaders in the Conversation

Let’s get started. Leave a comment about with your own, rough, 1-sentence definition of “missional.” Your responses will be collated, considered, and responded to as we move towards greater clarity on mission.