Tinkering and Reworking

Leonard Sweet, considered one of the church's most provocative thinkers, said the old model of church is "killing the West," at a conference at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary, according to the Associated Baptist Press.  http://www.christianpost.com/news/old-church-model-killing-the-west-25670/

That is a pretty big paint brush to be painting with.

I think the early church believed that knowing Christ also meant taking on the missio dei, the redemptive mission of God to the whole world.  But I am not sure how that happened as I am sure that the cost of ones life, with Paul running around throwing everyone in prison, meant this was something everyone just "did."  Right now I am thinking about those in the church through the Middle East and North Africa and in other eras, China and Russia.  So what mission look like then and there?

According to David J. Bosch, "mission is not primarily an activity of the church, but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God.  Mission was understood as being derived from the very nature of God…sending the church into the world…a movement from God to the world…. There is a church because there is a mission, not vice versa.  Mission [is] understood as being derived from the very nature of God. It is thus put in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity, not of ecclesiology or soteriology. The classical doctrine of the missio Dei as God the Father and the Son sending the Spirit [is] expanded to include yet another ‘movement’: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sending the church into the world”

That might mean that we know our neighbours, our politicians, our local business establishments.  We share in the community activities and are recognized by the agencies that work there. So our presence is not just through our buildings but their our social networks.

The last thought comes from Samuel Escobar,  “’Mission’ means ‘sending.’”  “The mission to which God sends those he chooses is always a ‘mission impossible, possible only because God will act in order to accomplish his purpose.”

 

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Discoveries on the Journey

"The role of the church is to cultivate a people who can risk being peaceful in a violent world, risk being kind in a competitive society, risk being faithful in an age of cynicism, risk being gentle among those who admire the tough, risk love when it may not be returned, because we have the confidence that in Christ we have been reborn into a new reality."
- Darrell E. Guder, editor, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America

Found this quote on a church website and fell in love with it because these are the things that were found in the early church and what turned the world upside right - these were the things that were found in the Roman Empire that moved them from persecuting Christianity to opening the transportation system to the good news be shared to the then conquered peoples of the world.


A missional church intentionally pursues the mission of Jesus for His glory among all peoples by engaging the culture with the gospel.  Then I found another quote from the same new friend I mentioned above...

"Mission is not just a program of the church. It defines the church as God’s sent people. Either we are defined by mission, or we reduce the scope of the gospel and the mandate of the church. Thus our challenge today is to move from church with mission to missional church."

The church that has been our home church over the past 11 years is right now stuck in a "come to" our church framework and it is becoming more and more painfully obvious that this is inadequate as a missional operation in the community.  Do not get me wrong, every Sunday, both day and evening services, there are calls made for decisions to be made and they are made.  Friends bringing friends is the "come to" approach, but I know what the community at large is saying about our church and it hurts.  Their perception is the view of the love of Jesus that we show them by not showing up in the community and therefore they want no part of that kind of love.

I read this blog - http://nakeddoggy.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/come-to-us-strategy/ - and did not realize that maybe the emerging church was trying to change their brand from emerging to missional - but that is not the case.  There is a very big difference between the two functions.

What we do need to realize is that the unchurched, those who have never been to church, and that might not be very much of the adult population, but it must account for a predominantly large percentage of our older teens and young adult population, would no more drop into church for a casual visit than you or I might drop into a mosque or a gay bar for a casual visit.  Either way, we wouldn't quite know how to behave and may wonder what other people are thinking.

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