| Missional Chic |
| Monday, 23 June 2008 | |
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As I mentioned yesterday, Rick Meigs called for a Synchroblog on the term 'missional' because of concerns that the term has been over and misused. Here are my condensed thoughts on how this came to be:
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No matter what term you use eventually it is going to become “chic” as you say. It seems that people are picking up on the word “missional” to attract people to their specific way of doing church. In the institutional or traditional church, mission, for the most part, is a way to get more people into their Sunday morning church service. I agree with Alan Hirsch in saying that emerging church is not a missional movement. It seems to be “worship renewal movement.” So missional means a way to get people to come to their churches and incorporate candles, stain glass and icons (not to mention liturgy) in their worship. House churches are by and large meeting focussed ( what do we do when we meet?). Mission (to them) means house churches.
For me I like what Larry Chouinard http://lchouinard.blogspot.com/ says (in an article somewhere), Jesus took holiness on the road. The important books and blogs in the future cannot be The Forgotten Ways, Exiles, Present Future and so on. It has to be books (simply written so that everyone can understand) that share their experiences of this new way. In sharing our stories we can incorporate some of our theory/theology. Scripture will come alive once again. I am wondering if this conversation about defining mission is just another excuse to discuss and debate. Frost, Hirsch, and McNeal have mentioned the Chinese church. Tens of thousands of new Jesus people in the next 24 hours. A Pentecost every 24 hours. WOW. The tipping point for the Chinese church is moving and reaching their neighbors (in the midst of persecution). The tipping point for what Neil Cole is doing is going out and doing it. And sharing the stories. The tipping point for the Church of the Saviour was and is its moving out and touching the lives of poor people in Washington DC. They wrote their books out of those experiences. The beauty of sharing stories is that it is no longer theory but action. Stories of what is happening will bring hope that the KING is on the move. I get bored and impatient with endless discussion but stories set my soul, spirit and butt on fire. I wonder if someone could ask as a leading question on their blog. What kinds of things would help you to become a mission Christian? 1 report abuse
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June 23, 2008
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1. "Missional" is totally overused. Watch me overuse it myself, below.
Every church these days has gotta be missional—even though, if you look at their mission statements, every church, not just the missional ones, was founded as a missional ministry. It's just that as life becomes busy, and less motivated individuals join the churches (and expect the pastors and leaders to do the bulk of the heavy lifting), the church evolves towards one of two extremes: (1) a country club where it's all about having Jesus-endorsed fun, or (2) a political caucus where it's all about getting pro-lifers elected, evil stuff banned, and stockpiling canned goods and weapons on the side in case Jesus isn't as pre-Trib as the novel-writers say He is. 2. I might include how "missional" was created as a way of saying, "We want to reach out to the postmodern generation by befriending them and being Jesus to them, rather than trying the traditional methods that, while popular, Jesus never actually endorsed or used by way of example." Trouble is, that doesn't sound as concrete or definite to many as a "mission" does, even though it really is the same thing. 3. Many thoughts. I'll need to blog on them myself, rather than write a giant comment. 2 report abuse
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June 23, 2008
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i think still more milage on the term, despite its shortcomings. too much acceptance across the board to ignore.
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June 24, 2008
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I must make a clarification on my comment about the books (Hirsch, Frost and McNeal). I still think they are great books it just seems to me that we are going to need more books that deal with the rubber meet the road questions/issues. More books that help us see our way through. More books that equip. More books about peeple's journey down the missional raod. More books about the stories that are happening in this missional-incanational journey.
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June 25, 2008
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Missional is an ugly sounding word, but a really good term. Sure, it's worn out and overused, but with good reason. I suspect part of the reason for this is because of the contention around the other overused terms like postmodernity (now meaningless in theological circles) and emerging (both a brand and a heat without light debate).
I still connect with postmodern and emerging as self-descriptors but to use them demands so many qualifications that kills any discussion or intellectual flow. However, it is still possible to use missional without sounding like a minor character in a Dickens novel. 5 report abuse
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June 27, 2008
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Frank,
Thanks for stopping by and for your thoughts. 6 report abuse
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June 29, 2008
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K.W. Leslie,
It is interesting, as you say, how many churches started off missionally. Sadly though, I think new approaches to church planting will ensure that churches are not started missionally. Instead, they're often starting off with mass mailing marketing campaigns, and other strategies that don't require Christians to be missional. Instead it simply reinforces a consumer-Christian mindset. 7 report abuse
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June 29, 2008
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Andrew,
I agree there's more mileage on the term. I wasn't intending to argue against that here. But I think the popularity of the term is already causing problems that need to be addressed. 8 report abuse
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June 29, 2008
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Fernando,
I hope missional doesn't become as meaningless as postmodernity in theological circles. It seems that we're facing similar problems of overuse and popularity with missional that led to where we're at with postmodernity. 9 report abuse
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June 29, 2008
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I agree.
About ten years ago the rot set in with postmodernity when folks in theological and popular Christian circles started using the term in ways totally divorced from the way it was used in the arts, sociology and political philosophy. At that point it became functionally meaningless. When people started saying stuff like "we were once modern, but we are now postmodern," we should have known the house was about to fall. The same inexactitude is plauging missional, which like postmodernity is a really good term as long as we keep it focussed. Like brands, words can only be stretched so far. Missional speaks to an acute problem at the intersection of missiogy, theology and ecclessiology and to a delicious irony between what happens in local mission and foreign mission. As long as we can keep the word in that context and look for other words when speaking from there into other contexts, we can keep missional alive as a useful and functional term. 10 report abuse
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June 30, 2008
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I wonder if the problem is that words like missional come into popular use and nobody is really sure what they mean by them and therefore the whole debate becomes confused.
I read missional as being concerned not only with the inculturation of the gospel, but also as a call for an outward looking perspective- the call to the great commission re-visited. 11 report abuse
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June 30, 2008
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