MISSIONAL CHURCH FOCUS FOR

 CBF OF MISSISSIPPI 

This is not just a passing fad or the next religious flavor of the month. 

Being "Missional" has many facets that we want to explore together. 

 I learned about the Missional Church the hard way.

I am the pastor of a pretty good church, and I mean that as a genuine compliment.  They are authentic, genuine, real, and human, and they are trying to be faithful to the Gospel in a perplexing age in which all the old certainties seem up for grabs. 

In the midst of our struggles, I began to notice that in spite of our desire to reach out to neighbors, and include a wide variety of people in our fellowship, it just wasn't happening.  We were not shrinking - well, not much anyway, but our membership certainly didn't match the great diversity of our surrounding neighborhoods. 

I also began to notice that an incredible amount of energy was being poured into maintaining the institution.  In fact, it seemed to me that we were working harder and harder just to keep the church running at the same speed it did twenty or thirty years ago.  Some people seemed tired, and there was growing anxiety about the future. 

One thing was becoming clear:  unless we could shift some energy from our internal life to reaching out and meeting the friends and neighbors around us, we were going to be in trouble.

It was in the midst of these struggles that I first heard about The Missional Church.  The Missional Church is a vaguely defined movement that began only in the nineties with a group of missiologists who were convinced that something was wrong with the Church in North America.  As they met and studied the matter, they were able to articulate a few convictions, including the following:

First, Western Culture has become a mission field.  If we once believed that our surrounding culture was "Christian", we can now be sure that is no longer the case.  We now live in the midst of a culture that does not speak the language of the gospel, and this culture is no longer shaped around the Church.  The implications for Western Christians are immense.

Second, the Church does not have a mission; the Church is a mission.  The Church is part of peace, healing, wholeness and salvation.  By God's grace in Christ we have been included among God's "sent" people. 

Third, the Church is a sign, witness and foretaste of God's kingdom.

In this column we are going to continue exploring the Missional Church in the months ahead.  For now I will leave you with these three very big assertions.  Discuss those amongst yourselves, and I will look forward to meeting you here next month. 

                                                                               Stan Wilson