Friday, June 20, 2008
Define Missional
This is an exercise for everyone. Give me your definition of "missional." This is the buzz word that I have heard from several church planters. However, I am not sure if there is any consistence to what it means. Let me know what you think of when you say or hear that a church or person is "missional."
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6 comments:
missional: taking the missionary spirit and methodologies and applying them in your own local context.
There are positive and negative aspects of doing this.
Is that a technical definition from somewhere, or are you just giving the basic idea? That is the same basic idea that I have, but didn't know if you found that somewhere. Also, could you (or anyone else) elaborate on what you think the positives and negatives are?
Missional is a lifestyle that all Christians should adopt since all Christians are called to share the Gospel.
Missionaries, as most people think, are full time, paid staff, that are on the field day in and day out with the express purpose to carry the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord to the nations.
All Christians are called called to demonstrate a missionary lifestyle, that is, demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ in their daily lives. In so doing, we have the opportunity to share the good news that Jesus is Lord to those whom we impact.
I afraid, most people who claim to be Christians today, are content with salvation and are not missional in the least.
Justin, what are the negative aspects of being missional?
Billy,
I certainly do not want to answer for Justin. However, I think some of the negatives are in how the application works. For instance, there are many people who are being "missional" who look very much like the world to do so. That is my fear for many new church planters. I do think that many people in our day do not take the call to be evangelistic and missional seriously, and many people (even around here) never hear the gospel. In that case, I want to be missional because it's Biblical. I don't want to become like the world, however, in order to take the gospel. Since I am not sure that is what Justin means, I look forward to hearing his thoughts as well.
I've seen pastors and missionaries alike who "who look very much like the world". So, the negative is not being missional, it's being worldly.
People everywhere don't hear the gospel, not because people are being missional. They are not hearing the gospel because the gospel isn't being proclaimed.
For those of us who are serious about missions, I don't see how being missional can be a negative thing.
Perhaps I don't understand what you are saying. Perhaps you are saying people CLAIM to be missional, but in affect, it's only talk.
I take very seriously Jesus commission to go and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all thing Jesus commanded.
None of us can be perfect in our efforts to be missional. We succeed when we do what Jesus said, "GO".
I believe that the devil himself would have us not try, for fear of failure.
Billy,
We should definitely rejoice when the gospel is proclaimed (as Paul did in Philippians). I certainly would not want to down play that at all.
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