As I pointed out in Discipleship, Mission, and Church: A Plea to Learn Our History, the words “mission” and missional” are being used in two different ways today.
One refers to the impulse toward evangelism and individual discipleship. According to this view, churches are missional when they are focused on “going out” to the world rather than attracting unbelievers to a worship service. In this paradigm, every individual Christian is called to be a “missionary” of the good news.
The other refers to God’s grand, glorious, and original Mission – His Eternal Purpose, the very thing that provoked creation itself. While the Eternal Purpose of God benefits us humans, it’s primarily by Him, through Him, and to Him.
It’s a Purpose centered not on saving lost souls or making individual disciples, but creating face-to-face communities under the headship of Jesus Christ that embody and reflect the Kingdom of God on earth as the habitat of God and humans. Its focal point is to expanded the fellowship of the Godhead, creating a Bride, a House, a Body, and a Family for the Lord’s own good pleasure and enjoyment.
Discipleship and evangelism naturally and organically take place within this habitat, but they aren’t the goal. The goal is something for God Himself. (See From Eternity to Here for a detailed unfolding of God’s Grand Mission . . . His Timeless Purpose.)
Two books have been published recently that are missional. One is based on the first use of the term. The other is based on the second.
Right Here, Right Now: Everyday Mission for Everyday People
The Community Life of God: Seeing the Godhead As the Model for All Relationships
Two missional books, each looking at the Mission from two different yet complimentary perspectives.
Related:
Discipleship, Mission, and Church: A Plea to Learn Our History
Thanks for pointing this out Frank. It would be great to have this library available in electronic format for the same discount for those of us who are in other parts of the world.
Jesus spoke to crowds and brought to them the good news, very true. This is usually the main focus of many Christians today. Go out and tell all about Jesus, but perhaps we should remember Jesus taught by example. What did He example? He had a small Life community in the flesh on earth. “They will know you are my disciples by your love for one another.” Jesus said this is HOW they will know. By our love and life of community, they will see, they will know by this Way. Again, by example of our lives of His family, community in Him. This is how Jesus taught us to show all the world who He is, and thus community is outreach by example of Life and the love for one another. What is one another? Close knit, face-to-face community under His headship.
Frank, I’m glad you used the word “complementary”. These are not necessarily exclusive or opposing views. The common ground between these two views can be found in one word: incarnation.
The Incarnation is perhaps the most profound event in all history. It is the link between eternity past and eternity future. It is also the link between God and humanity.
For all that Milt Rodriguez writes about entering into the community life of God — also a profound concept — that reality is impossible without the incarnation. For apart from Jesus, no one has even seen God.
If we are truly the Body of Christ, we will collectively reflect his nature. We will live incarnationally, as he did — just as he constantly abided in the Father, which you and Milt rightly emphasize. Jesus was the friend of sinners and made religious people mad. (Perhaps we all have a bit of this characteristic in us!)
Alan Hirsch, Michael Frost and others who promote a missional view of the church do so with a passion to remind us of the reality and power of the incarnation. In that, they do the Body of Christ a great service.
Thank you for drawing attention to a topic that many find as refreshing as understanding God’s eternal purpose, which is your distinct passion. For in the incarnation, we see a picture of how the awareness of eternal things is lived out in space and time, in the nitty gritty of loving God and loving one another.
Jeff: Incarnation as it relates to us fallen mortals means implicitly humans living by the life of God. This central point of the gospel is missing in much of the missional conversation today and from much missional activity (I expand this point in “From Eternity to Here” and “Jesus Manifesto”).
The impulse is instead on doing something *for* God. And *trying to be like* Jesus. Opposed to learning to live by the life of Christ (as Jesus lived by the life of His Father). Milt’s work is very strong on this point, as all I know who emphasize the Eternal Purpose are. For the Eternal Purpose is fulfilled when we discover how to eat from the Tree of Life. So I’m not sure incarnation is what separates the two. To my mind, that’s not the difference. I think the former is more reductionist (emphasizing a few points in the whole — saving lost souls and making individual disciples namely and protesting against Christians being insular and attractional with respect to the Sunday morning liturgy) while the latter is more holistic. In that vein, I wish every missional person would study DeVern Fromke’s ULTIMATE INTENTION until it started coming out of their pores: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0936595027?ie=UTF8&tag=reimagchurch-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0936595027
Kat: you are correct, the greatest evangelist and the greatest disciple-maker on the planet is the ekklesia *when* she is expressing her Lord in all of His multisplended glory. She is what turned the Roman Empire on its ear. In the same way, when she’s functioning as she should in the 21st century in a locale, she has the same magnetic effect.
This is why my work is so strong on how the church functions . . . because she is the key to evangelism, disciple-making, transformation, and the fulfillment of God’s original mission.
The idea that says “the church isn’t important or doesn’t matter” fails to understand who or what she is and how her Lord views her. The problem here is that of equating “church” with a human institution.