It looks like this ship wuthering heights dvd download may have left port without me, but I have a few thoughts I’d like to add.
It is a synchroblog organised by Rick over at Blind Beggar and he frames it like this:
“I have a continuing concern that the term missional has become over used and wrongly used. Audio Ur posted a podcast with Alan Hirsch yesterday and I got around to listen to it this morning. Alan takes up this very concern and says things like: It is a critical term. We must reclaim the term. The concept behind missional is really big and it would be terrible to lose it.”
As you would probably know, ‘missional’ was not a word. At least it didn’t appear in the dictionary until recently and it still doesn’t show up on the spell check of the computer.
For a non-word there sure has been some biffo surounding it.
The irony is that ‘missional’ became a word as churches tried to reframe their core business and identity. Today we have ‘missional churches’, but the question you have to ask is instead of what?! Its like having a goal kicking football team or a brick laying construction company… I mean what other options are there?…
Its a frightening thought that for so long this was not an integral part of the church’s psyche – that for so long we forgot about the local arena only to see the overseas need. The current glut of missional speak is possibly an over-reaction to that period of neglect and if we really reflect on on it, then surely its somewhat disturbing to need to use the word ‘missional’ to describe our churches!
There are some interesting variations on the use of this word. As I talk with churches I hear of them doing ‘missions’ and immediately know it will be in a foreign country. I hear them speak of mission and it is local. And the word missional has become the adjective that everyone uses, even if they’re not actually missional.
To its credit ‘missional’ is not an offensive word. People can buy into it and it has excellent pedigree. When I speak with people I usually define missional as coming from the latin ‘missio’ = to send. The church is therefore a ‘sent people’. I think we would all agree on this. Its simple, straight forward and an idea everyone can buy into – even if they don’t do it. Let’s face it – people love new ideas, but new practice is more disturbing and less likely to occur.
Its in the outworking of what it means to be ‘missional’ that most of the disagreement comes. I have come from an evangelical background where there has been a strong emphasis on getting people to come to church and hence ‘missional’ was regularly been co-opted into this paradigm as the obvious intent of a missional church.
Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting people to be part of a rich loving community where they can encounter God, but I believe ‘missional’ is much broader than that. These days I usually describe ‘mission’ as whatever we do that demonstrates God’s love to the world’. And within that ‘evangelism’ is a kind of subset that involves communciating who Jesus is and what he has done – most often in words. I would say that evangelism is ultimately where mission takes us.
While I’m spouting opinions I should add that I don’t like the current trend away from ‘evangelism’ among some of the new expresions of church. It seems like a reaction to the word and its excesses has yet again resulted in a baby/bathwater situation. (FWIW I have been blogging on evangelism over here for the last 4 weeks offering some of my own insights and will be dribbling on there for as long as I have something I need to say)
So in response to the universal adoption of ‘missional’ as the generic adjective to describe pretty much every church you come across, I have been returning to using ‘missionary’ as my preferred descriptorYes, its a loaded one to be sure, as it carries much baggage from historical perceptions of missionaries, but I tend to believe that if we can get people thinking and behaving like missionaries in their own backyards then we must be on the right track.
Hey… missionaries in their own backyards… great title for a blog!
