According to Roxburgh and Boren, missional is “an invitation for people to consider a new way of being church.” That sounds like anything remotely related to church right now. We’re trying to figure out some new way of doing the same old thing and there are thousands upon thousands of buzzwords that try to define what that thing is. Missional is just another one of those silly words that pretentious pastors say to each other and then nod earnestly. But, buzzwords don’t make a leader.
Still, Roxburgh and Boren elaborate that this missional thing “was intended to create a space in which … a new imagination for what God wants to do in and through the church.”
This still isn’t saying much to me. And perhaps this is why I gave up reading this book last year. I was frustrated by this thing that was trying to define itself by what it is not. It’s not mission trips or some new outreach program. It’s not a label to describe a new model for church growth or some newfangled way to reconfigure the way our church’s staff, building or government works. Great. What the heck is it then? Roxburgh and Boren describe it as a river where one wades in to find a way to flow with the current so that it’s more like a way of being. And it’s this that interests me about being missional. Because we need to figure out what it looks like to be ourselves. We need our own way of being that isn’t caught up in buzzwords but in the ways that we engage the world. It’s why I asked the church to read
David Kinnaman’s unChristian this July in our
Summer Reads. Because we bump into these attitudes all of the time and it’s easy to dismiss them or argue with them or insist, “Oh, but we’re not like that.” But, maybe we’re wrong. Maybe they (those outsiders out there) know us better than we know ourselves. Right?
So, I’m testing the theory. This summer, I’m trying to enter into as many conversations I can where church people don’t really go. We might like to go there and get their people to come to our church, but that’s not my motive. I’m not interested in growing the membership. I’m interested in how Christians live out their faith missionally. Or maybe without the buzzword. I’m asking the same question each time: what are the spiritual needs in this place? I’m trying really hard not to ask how we can help because right now I’m interested in the stories. I’m trying to understand where God is moving in this place at this time.
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Still, Roxburgh and Boren elaborate that this missional thing “was intended to create a space in which … a new imagination for what God wants to do in and through the church.” 
Cooking with Elsa 
Very interesting. We will be starting a series at church on Sunday with Eric Law's Holy Currencies: Six Blessings for Sustainable Missional Ministries. I expect to not like it. Hope I will be wrong… 🙂
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the whole Missional thing is confusing, for sure. I mostly liked McNeal's Missional Renaissance, because it talks about the church gathered as a training ground for people being the church wherever they are.
(at least, I think it was that book…I read a lot on that topic a couple of years ago and my memory of the titles doesn't always match with my memory of the contents!)
That's what I think it means to be a missional church: to be a body that gathers to equip members to be in the world as disciples.
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The “M” word, where I was living, was used for dusting off old programs and calling them something new…and then parading around like the emperor in the fable of “The Emperor's New Clothes”.
I like the image of wading into the flow or current. There are places where it runs much faster than others…there are soft and hard places…rocky and smooth places.
I still think a different word is needed because missional just takes too much to unpack what it is not.
~~Elaine
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