Across the church scene in America, a new concept is all the rave among those who are ‘in the know’. This idea is spoken about in conferences and talked about by Christians, especially of the younger generations. The concept I mean is called ‘MISSIONAL’; and listening in on conversations or reading some of the latest literature, it seems clear the concept is central in many circles. As things go, however, many of Jesus followers are not ‘in the know’. Many don’t read the latest literature, attend the most popular conferences, or listen to the most popular speakers on this subject, be they young or old. And as a result, the question many in our church community are asking is, “What does missional mean in the first place? Is this some new idea, the latest religious fad, or is there really something to all this talk about ‘missional’ life, missional church, missional whatever?”
Being a ‘missional christian’, or being a ‘missional church’ is actually easy to grasp; and we see how easy it is to grasp through a very simple illustration. Imagine with me for a moment that you, or you and your family, are going to be missionaries to a country other than your own. Imagine you have gone to this country to ‘make disciples’, like Jesus instructs in Matthew 28: 18-20; and imagine your end goal is to start a new church. How would you go about this task?
I suspect if you moved to a new country to make disciples and form these disciples into a congregation you would live in a certain way and prioritize certain activities to accomplish these goals.Another way to say this would be to say, you would follow a plan~a road map~to accomplish these goals. What would this plan look like?
First, you would have to move into the country, in order to serve as a missionary there. And moving to this country would mean you would move into a specific city and in that city you would live in a specific neighborhood surrounded by many specific families, all of whom are from your new country and most of whom will not be believers.
Once in the country, city and neighborhood where you will be serving, you will have to learn the language of the people around you. You see, in order to make disciples one must be able to communicate with people; and so, you and your family will take the time to learn the language of your neighbors. Language learning never takes place in a vacuum however~it always involves conversation~and so as you learn the language you will, of course want to practice speaking the language, and this will mean conversing with your neighbors. As you do this you find they invite you to come to their homes to eat with them, they invite you to their celebrations to celebrate with them, and they invite you to go places with them just to be with them; and over time, you begin to do the same towards them.
As you and your family are involved in this process day by day, you begin to learn your neighbors stories and they begin to learn your story. You learn of their joys, their fears, their struggles, their problems and their tragedies as they learn of yours. And you also learn of their religious and spiritual beliefs and they learn of yours.
As this process takes place and your relationships grow with your neighbors you begin to discover how you can serve them in Jesus name and where their story intersects God’s unfolding story of deliverance, redemption, and freedom through faith in Jesus Christ; and from there, as opportunities to explain God’s good news arise, some of these neighbors trust Jesus. This means you now begin to teach these new brothers and sisters in Jesus more and more about Jesus and how to follow Jesus as they form the core for a new congregation. And, as they grow in following Jesus they in turn do what you have done toward their own friends and family until, over time, more people trust Jesus and the process repeats. Can you imagine moving to a new country, city and neighborhood and living this out on a daily basis?
Now, imagine doing this very same thing in the neighborhood where you live today. If you can imagine living like this toward your present neighbors and friends in the neighborhood and city you live in at the moment, you are imagining what it means to be MISSIONAL. Isn’t that really, really simple to understand?
You see, the whole idea of being ‘missional’ really isn’t a new concept. It is really an old concept with a new name. Jesus established the meaning of missional in Matthew 28: 18-20. Being ‘missional’ simply means we live as we would if we were missionaries toward our own friends and neighbors who don’t follow Jesus right where we live, right now; and it means we do this purposefully, with the view to see them become Jesus followers, through us.
A missional Christian, then, is an individual believer who lives like she/he would as missionary, making disciples of the people in his/her own neighborhood, school and work place. A missional community is simply a small group of missional believers who do the same together, making disciples of people from a specific, identified neighborhood, sub group or area in the city they live in. And when the majority of people from a given local gathering of Christians (a local congregation) are living with the purpose of making disciples individually and as groups, we have a missional church.
Being a missional follower of Jesus means we live toward our own neighbors the same way we would if we moved to a new country to be missionaries. And since we already know the language here at home, we can move immediately to building friendships, and to meeting real needs in the name of Jesus.
But how do we do this? We do this like a missionary would, by eating with our neighbors, celebrating with our neighbors, doing life with our neighbors, while living in front of them and serving them as Jesus followers; and as we do, we have opportunities to explain to them why we live like we do. We are able to tell them God’s good news, the gospel.
