If you spend any time at all surveying the contemporary evangelical church landscape, you have likely encountered the buzzword du jour "missional." It is, don't you know?, the latest thing for churches and pastors to be. The primary problem with this, apparently, is that very few really even know what "missional" is. And as I learned recently, even some of the so-called missional gurus, the thinkers and theologians and ministers who have been workshopping the missional concept for going on two decades, don't come to a consensus on what being a missional church looks like.
As a pastor of a small Christian community in Nashville, Tennessee that is aspiring to the missional mandate, I don't mind venturing a guess, and I hope the readers here won't mind joining me as I explore what it might mean for a church to believe, organize, and act with missional focus. I am neither an expert nor a guru, but that has never stopped me from speaking like I know stuff before.
One of the most insidious problems the people of my generation face when it comes to any purported church movement is just how transitory these movements are. We are a fickle people with no concept of commitment. Our nomenclature is ever-changing, the fanbase for such movements tends to be high passion/low commitment, and worst of all, getting the "movement," such as it is, to adhere to any theological certainty is like nailing Jello to a wall. This is why, in my opinion, the so-called "emerging church" movement is self-imploding, is only a shadow of what it once was, and has become an equal opportunity whipping boy.
The Christian culture has capitulated to the consumerism of Western culture so much that even the well-intentioned "emerging," "postmodern," "ancient-future," and, yes, "missional" movements just become so much posturing. It's aesthetics, a style. So three guys drinking a beer in a pub and talking about transubstantiation becomes an "emerging church."
But our great God is not a pair of blue jeans. (If you catch my drift.)
Missional can and should mean so much more than the misuse of the label suggests. For my community, and for many more like ours, it is not about a style or a look or even, superficially, about an approach. It is about who we are, our identity. And our identity as a Christian community is derived from the very movement of God himself.
If you read deep enough, you will see that many missional leaders say they are taking their cue from the missio dei. This is nerdspeak (Latin, to be exact) for basically saying "the mission of God." Some trace the idea initially back to German missiologists in the 30s, but the notion comes directly from the revelation of God in Scripture. God is on the move, God is on mission, God is sending himself out to draw all men unto himself.
I see the missional God right at the beginning, when his Spirit is hovering over the surface of the deep. I see the missional God right in his very Trinitarian nature, with each Person of the godhead loving and relating to each other. I see the missional God interrupting a stubborn shepherd with a burning bush. I see the missional God calling out Abraham, choosing Jacob over Esau, rescuing younger brothers from the evil of their elders, sending prophets to call nations to repentance. I see the missional God sending himself to redeem fallenness. I see the missional God sending his Spirit to comfort and to convict. I see the missional God sending his Bride, the spiritual body of his Son, into the far reaches of the world to teach the full counsel of his revelation and proclaim the gospel in the great mission of ever-expanding discipleship.
God is a missionary.
Throughout the great narrative of Scripture, what we see is God's initiative and man's response. This really does affect the way one thinks about worship and goes about worshiping. And it really does affect the way the community of Jesus followers thinks about discipleship and goes about discipling.
So for our community, "missional" means following God outside the church walls and into the warp and woof of human existence. It means echoing the emptying, sacrificing, and servanthood of the incarnation (God becoming man in Jesus) in our day to day walk. And to be a missional church means teaching people how to do this and actually doing it together.
In the coming weeks, I hope to unpack this even more, to make it as practical and as ground-level as I can. I will speaking largely from my own limited experience and from the context of my own specific ministry, but I hope it will help illuminate what it really must mean for the evangelical Church to be missional.
Thursday: What Are We On Mission To Do?
Jared Wilson is the pastor and co-founder of Element, a missional Christian community in
Nashville, Tennessee, and an award-winning writer whose articles, essays, and
short stories have appeared in numerous publications.
A graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, Wilson lives outside
Nashville with his wife and two daughters.
Encounter his passion for the ongoing reformation of the evangelical church
almost daily at www.gospeldrivenchurch.com.
I have been studying the Emergent Church, and it is a sad thing. The doctrine is a mushpot of "do not offend" and while not being offensive a Christian in a negative sense, the fact is the word of God is offensive to those who resist it.
I know many strong Christians who went to those churches as first because it was "something new" but what they found was a watered-down version of the gospel and many "stories" that included 5-10 videos of the show "Friends" and the "Simpsons". The sad thing is that new believers or people searching for the truth of the Gospel are being fed a watered down version of the cross. And heaven forbid they should talk about sin....Anyway, I guess I could go on. But the important thing is we need to be praying for the many who are falling into the trap on entertainment-feel good based church (at the expense of truth). There are many churches alive and filled with Spirit of God that do not compromise truth. Thanks for writing this article.
Teresa, thanks so much for the comment and the kind words.
I agree with you that theological integrity is key to the mission of the church -- indeed, theology is key to evangelical identity -- and this is something I'm going to explore in future posts. Defining what is meant by "the gospel" is crucial in this conversation, also.
It's great to see another heart for sharing the Biblical Gospel here on SW. Unfortunately we live in a day when we have to define "gospel" and "Christianity" You might like my article "Would God Consider Me a Believer?" If you have a moment, read it and let me know what you think. God bless you as you share.
this was a well written article. you described the meaning well. i find it hard to understand some of this, but it's nothing to do with you, you simplified it well. i just simply believe in God, as a Light we will gravitate towards. thanks for sharing,
Hi, Jared, I look forward to reading the next installment. If I may comment: Many new Christians are helped by churches you mention. The main thing that holds them for a while is the fellowship and close ties that form. The lack of doctrinal teaching eventually becomes a barrier. I have been inside a few small churches where the Spirit is so palpable and the people so real... the contrast is immediately evident. In one, I heard a Sunday School lesson that was better than most sermons...in a country church outside Carthage, TN. The lay teacher studies "on his own," his uncle told me (the uncle married into my husband's family) "with the Bible." I look forward to reading more of your perspective.
Jane, that's awesome. I am pretty much self-taught myself, not having any formal training in theology or ministerial education apart from a Religion minor in college.
One thing I am very grateful for in my little community is that we are fairly evenly split between long-time believers with lots of theological interest and fairly new and "young" Christians just starting their journey. It's a tough mix to have, but a great one I am really happy about.
Great article. Some wonderfully insightful thoughts. I totally agree with following God outside the church walls. We will all be judged by our works and deeds---not just by showing up for church and saying we love Jesus.
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