Missional

I am glad someone commented on Michael Frost check out the forge website

I love the concept of missional there is a great site called Friend of missional for me missional is more than just the latest church buzz word or another programme that we can add on to our already busy church schedules, it is a subtle yet fundamental shift in church thinking.

I found this on the missional site:

What is Missional - A Short Answer

"Jesus told us to go into all the world and be his ambassadors, but many churches today have inadvertently changed the "go and be" command to a "come and see" appeal. We have grown attached to buildings, programs, staff and a wide variety of goods and services designed to attract and entertain people.

"Missional is a helpful term used to describe what happens when you and I replace the "come to us" invitations with a "go to them" life. A life where "the way of Jesus" informs and radically transforms our existence to one wholly focused on sacrificially living for him and others and where we adopt a missionary stance in relation to our culture. It speaks of the very nature of the Jesus follower." Rick Meigs

I don't know who Rick is but I like him.

Another guy called JR Woodward writes about missional, he says it is:

• Not simply how many people come to our church services, but how many people our church serves.

• Not simply how many people attend our ministry, but how many people have we equipped for ministry.

• Not simply how many people minister inside the church, but how many minister outside the church.

• Not simply helping people become more whole themselves, but helping people bring more wholeness to their world. (i.e. justice, healing, relief)

• Not simply how many ministries we start, but how many ministries we help.

• Not simply how many unbelievers we bring into the community of faith, but how many ‘believers' we help experience healthy community.

• Not simply working through our past hurts, but working alongside the Spirit toward wholeness.

• Not simply counting the resources that God gives us to steward, but counting how many good stewards are we developing for the sake of the world.

• Not simply how we are connecting with our culture but how we are engaging our culture.

• Not simply how much peace we bring to individuals, but how much peace we bring to our world.

• Not simply how effective we are with our mission, but how faithful we are to our God.

• Not simply how unified our local church is, but how unified is "the church" in our neighborhood, city and world?

• Not simply how much we immerse ourselves in the text, but how faithfully we live in the story of God.

• Not simply being concerned about how our country is doing, but being concern for the welfare of other countries.

• Not simply how many people we bring into the kingdom, but how much of the kingdom we bring to the earth.

I hope that what we do here in Ibiza is missional, I believe it is.

The guys at missional have a recommended reading list, check it out missional reading list

I hope this word missional doesn't become another brand name, the way that the emergent guys in the states have become.