This breakout was primarily about what it means to be “missional.” Here’s my rough notes:In defining missional we are tempted to apply it to everything we do.
Truth is sustained in the clarity of words.
The word missional and everything it represents carries the full weight of the future of the church.
More of the same will not get significantly better results.
The problems of the world cannot be solved by the same type of thinking that created those problems.
It is not:
-emerging – largely a renewal movement
-simply being evangelistic; just because it’s outreach doesn’t mean it’s missional; typically done by telling people they have to come to our “culture”; to be missional is to be a sent people
—you should be attractive, but what happens is “extractional”; people are extracted from their culture
-social justice – part of it, but not exclusively; an expression of it;
-simply church planting – a tool that missionaries use
All mission in the West should be cross-cultural.
Every church planter needs to think like a missionary.
-missionary stance in relation to culture
-missionary distance – attractional works when people are only slightly removed; but in a far removed culture whre missionaries deal attractional is actually extractional;
It’s not so much that the church has a mission as much as the mission has a church. God is a mission in the world and we can join him in that mission.
You do not bring God into a place. He is already there.
The job is to disern the hand of God in people you would normally write off.
Mission is the outward thrust, not collection but a driving out.
Incarnation is the way the sent God comes to us.
-God is in the neighborhood for 30 years and no one notices. That says a lot about his patience, respect for culture, and how we should engage the world. Subversive.
-Mission best expresses itself incarnationally.
What are the marks of the church?
-People
-Jesus
-Covenant community
-Transformation/discipleship
-Mission
-Worship
Most churches center themselves around worship.
When we say missional church, we mean that mission is the organizing principle.
