Tag: Missional Church

8 Ways to be Missional (without overloading your schedule)

Posted on April 7, 2009

Missional is not an event we tack onto our already busy lives. It is our life. Mission should be the way we live, not something we add onto life: “As you go, make disciples….”; “Walk wisely towards outsiders”; “Let your speech always be seasoned with salt”; “be prepared to give a defense for your hope”. We can be missional in everyday ways without even overloading our schedules. Here are a few suggestions:

  1. Eat with Non-Christians. We all eat three meals a day. Why not make a habit of sharing one of those meals with a non-Christian or with a family of non-Christians? Go to lunch with a co-worker, not by yourself. Invite the neighbors over for family dinner. If it’s too much work to cook a big dinner, just order pizza and put the focus on conversation. When you go out for a meal, invite a non-Christian friend. Or take your family to family-style restaurants where you can sit at the table with strangers and strike up conversations (Mighty Fine Burgers, Buca di Peppo, The Blue Dahlia, etc). Have cookouts and invite Christians and non-Christians. Flee the Christian subculture.
  2. Walk, Don’t Drive. If you live in a walkable area, make a practice of getting out and walking around your neighborhood, apartment complex, or campus. Instead of driving to the mailbox, convenience store, or apartment office, walk to get mail, groceries, and stuff. Be deliberate in your walk. Say hello to people you don’t know. Strike up conversations. Attract attention by walking the dog, taking a 6-pack (and share), bringing the kids. Make friends. Get out of your house! Last night I spend an hour outside gardening with my family. We had good conversations with 3-4 neighbors. Take interest in your neighbors. Ask questions. Engage. Pray as you go. Save some gas, the planet.
  3. Be a Regular. Instead of hopping all over the city for gas, groceries, haircuts, eating out, and coffee, go to the same places. Get to know the staff. Go to the same places at the same times. Smile. Ask questions. Be a regular. I have friends at coffee shops all over the city. My friends at Starbucks donate a ton of left over pastries to our church 2-3 times a week. We use for church gatherings and occasionally give to the homeless. Build relationships. Be a Regular.
  4. Hobby with Non-Christians. Pick a hobby that you can share. Get out and do something you enjoy with others. Try City League sports. Local rowing and cycling teams. Share your hobby by teaching lessons. Teach sewing lessons, piano lessons, violin, guitar, knitting, tennis lessons. Be prayerful. Be intentional. Be winsome. Have fun. Be yourself.
  5. Talk to Your Co-workers. How hard is that? Take your breaks with intentionality. Go out with your team or task force after work. Show interest in your co-workers. Pick four and pray for them. Form mom’s groups in your neighborhood and don’t make them exclusively non-Christian. Schedule play dates with the neighbors’ kids. Work on mission.
  6. Volunteer with Non-Profits. Find a non-profit in your part of the city and take Saturday a month to serve your city. Bring your neighbors, your friends, or your small group. Spend time with your church serving your city. Once a month. You can do it!
  7. Participate in City Events. Instead of playing X-Box, watching TV, or surfing the net, participate in city events. Go to fundraisers, festivals, clean-ups, summer shows, and concerts. Participate missionally. Strike up conversation. Study the culture. Reflect on what you see and hear. Pray for the city. Love the city. Participate with the city.
  8. Serve your Neighbors. Help a neighbor by weeding, mowing, building a cabinet, fixing a car. Stop by the neighborhood association or apartment office and ask if there is anything you can do to help improve things. Ask your local Police and Fire Stations if there is anything you can do to help them. Get creative. Just serve!

Don’t make the mistake of making “missional” another thing to add to your schedule. Instead, make your existing schedule missional. Check out this related article on integrating Gospel, Community and Mission into everyday life.

Learning Gospel through Mission

Posted on March 3, 2009

This weekend I served with my City Group on the eastside, a low income, non-white part of town. We joined up with a charismatic group called One Love. We stood out like egg whites in a frying pan. Fortunately, we didn’t get fried though things definitely got hot. Before we left, we asked the Spirit to teach us while we served, and man did he ever.

I confess, I was skeptical of the approach at first. Christian hip hop, tent and chairs, face-painting, firetruck, testimonies—old school. But the Spirit warmed things up. People split out of their subsidized housing into urban playground to hear the gospel, to see the gospel.

As I heard Tony’s testimony I was converted again. The power of the gospel, plain and simple, drew my affections to Christ. I couldn’t stand. I sat down and wept three times. I was a mere student, barely a pastor, learning from an 20 year old, street-wise, profoundly redeemed, deeply passionate X-gang member. Tony cried out:

“My dad left when I was 8. My mom was a prostitute. I didn’t have no love. I looked for it on the street. Gang-banging, flaggin colors, slinging, I thought I was somebody, but I wasn’t. The street couldn’t love me. I needed God.”

He went on to describe his trial for aggravated assault of a police officer. While in jail he read the Bible three times. He crumbled under the weight of the gospel. He told God, “If you let me out of prison I will preach your Word. If you don’t I will glorify you here.” Trial day came. Evidence was marshaled. But the long criminal record was gone. Erased from the computer records. The video of aggravated assault was played. Scrambled. They re-burnt the DVD to no avail. All evidence gone. His record was wiped clean…by Jesus. Tony has been set free to preach the life-changing power of the gospel, the all-sufficient love of God in Christ, to be a missionary.

We learned the gospel all over again. Sure, we painted faces, talked with apartment dwellers, played with kids and talked about Jesus. But we were outsiders. Tony and his missional posse contextualized the gospel with boldness and cultural savvy. They threw out words and acronyms I had never heard before. They brought the gospel to the hood…and I worshipped and I learned.

May we never stop learning the gospel.

Neil Cole: Parasitical Parachurches Feeding on Church

Posted on February 21, 2009

Neil Cole’s new book Organic Leadership is insightful, provocative, and prophetic. The first section of the book points out the weeds growing in the soil of the American church. One particular weed is the parasitical effect of parachurch ministries. To be sure, Cole does not view all parachurch organizations as an impediment to the church; however, he prophetically points out how the parachurch has assumed the role and mission of the church leaving her weak and anemic. Consider these areas of capitulation:

  • Her leadership development has been assumed by colleges, seminaries, and Bible institutes.
  • Her compassion and social justice have been given over to nonprofit charitable organizations.
  • Her global mission has been relinquished to mission agencies.
  • Church government and decision making have often been forfeited to denominational offices.
  • Her prophetic voice has been replaced by publishing houses, self-help gurus, and futurist authors.
  • Her emotional and spiritual health has been taken over by psychologists, psychiatrists, and family counseling services.

The Anemic Church

Now, before you react let this settle. Detect the truth in these statements. Where can your church recover certain elements, perhaps not in totality but in measure? Cole is not sweeping all parachurches aside. Rather, he is pointing out the professionalization and specialization of the church into ministries that have left the church anemic. We have capitulated to this fragmentation of the church. Cole notes:

The world today looks at the church wondering what relevance she has. The only use they see for the church is performing the sacerdotal duties of preaching, marrying, burying, baptizing, and passing around wafers and grape juice. The church was once a catalyst for artistic expression, social change, and the founding of hospitals, schools, and missionary enterprise, but today she has settled for providing a one-hour-a-week worship concert, an offering place, and a sermon. (116)

Ralph Winter: Sodality and Modality

Cole is careful to note the distinctions made by Ralph Winter regarding sodalities and modalities. Winter’s helpful article emphasizes the more apostolic, missionary nature of certain entities like Paul’s roving, planting, missionary bands. These are sodalities. These sodalities don’t do everything that the church is responsible for, instead they specialize. Modalities, on the other hand, are a little more static though missional and are churches. The church is a modality because it is given the responsibility to do everything that God has commanded us to do (feed the poor, disciple, translate the bible, etc.). A church is modality and parachurch sodality. Sodalities can weaken or strengthen churches.

Cole affirms the need for both modalities and sodalities but contests these distinctions as a point of division between church and parachurch. He writes: “both modality and sodality are part of God’s redemptive purpose. Both are the church in the eyes of Paul. I do no think he saw himself as at all separate from the church…” (122).

What do you think? Where has your church capitulated to the parasitical parachurch? Is there a way forward? And what of the modality sodality distinction? Are both mission agencies and local churches together the church? Much more could be said on these matters.

Get Better Missiology: Read the Missional Redwoods

Posted on January 28, 2009

Okay, here are my thoughts on the so-called Missional Tree (I surprised no one has commented on this). The idea of a missional tree is pretty cool and potentially helpful; however, this tree is an incomplete, second generation tree. I realize that these books are practitioner oriented, with the exception of Guder, but there’s not one biblical theology of mission listed. What about Chris Wright’s landmark The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative or Stetzer and Hesselgrave’s forthcoming Mission: God’s Initiative in the World?

All the books listed here were published within the past ten years (and we need fresh publications like these). Missional theology has been in existence much longer. Look no further than Ed Stetzer’s fine historical work on the Meanings of Missional to uncover some of the missional greats. But before there was Stetzer and Guder there was Bosch, Walls, Hiebert, Kraft, Van Engen, etc. These missional redwoods tower over many of the books features in the missional tree, both in history and content. Consider this rich description of the missional church from Andrew Walls first published 20 years ago:

Christian faith is missionary both in its essence and in its history. At the heart of the Christian fiath lie assumptions about the Lord and the Ground of the uinverse and the common nature of humanity and affirmations about Jesus Christ that forbid its appropriation to any person, group or community as a private possession. The conviction that Jesus is Lord and the testimony that Christ is risen cannot mean that much unless they are to be shared. But both the faith of Christians and the nature of the church are missionary in a much deeper sense, more closely related to the “sending” idea from which the word “missionary” came…The mission of the church is not simply to add to itself but to bear witness that by his cross and resurrection Christ brought back the whole creation and defeated the powers that spoil it. In this sense all Christian life is missionary, as is the work of Christians and their commerce and habits of life, their art and music and every activity that demands choice.

If that isn’t deep and wide missiology, then I don’t know what is! Walls has influenced many missiologists. His first-hand experience in Africa outpaces the missional wisdom of many popular missional authors. We do well to get under the shade of such missional redwoods, to think their thoughts after them, and plant churches that sink strong missional roots into the soil of our cities, towns, and churches.