What Inigo Montoya would say to the Missional Church

Christianity Today has an article this month entitled “What Makes a Church Missional?”

It rightly notes that the word, only 10 years old, has become muddled and encumbered with inaccurate baggage.

The author, J. Todd Billings of Western Seminary, is right to point out that people continue to employ seeker-sensitive tactics (highly polished programs, preaching to felt needs, church marketing) and are merely slapping the word “missional” on it because it’s the thing to do.

Like Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride, we should say, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

(To which they cry, “Incontheivable!”)

 

Unfortunately, Billings doesn’t do much to clarify things, or use helpful examples. In one case, he cites the story of a pastor friend:

 

After pastoring a church for several years, a friend of mine started recommending changes. Instead of leading the entire service herself, she involved various church members. She also suggested that the church advertise in the yellow pages and think of ways to reach those without a church home.

 

Her elders vetoed her ideas. Now, that story is just sad on all kinds of levels, especially because it’s not missional either! At this point, it seems downright traditional, if not quaint, to want to advertise in the yellow pages. At best, it’s low-grade seeker sensitivity (or attractional).

 

Billings would have better served the audience by 1) pointing us to some more recent developments of “missional” which stay true to the meaning explained in Guder’s book, and 2) by contrasting missional with traditional and seeker-sensitive (attractional) approaches to ministry.

 Here’s my stab at defining missional:

 In recent years, significant sectors of the Church in the West have shifted away from attractional or seeker-sensitive ministry, towards what has been called a “missional” orientation. Rather than treating missions in an adverbial sense, i.e. something the Church does (its tactics), missional in an adjectival sense is something the Church is (its identity).  A missional ministry orients everything it does to God’s mission (missio dei), which is to restore God’s shalom to a fallen creation through His Son Jesus Christ. This reclaiming of the Church’s identity leads to a reorienting of her spirituality and activity. Just as the Church takes on a new identity, so too our view of the Christian life takes on a new tone, character, and quality – a new ethos. The missional ethos is well expressed by Paul in 1 Cor. 9:22-23: “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

Missional people perceive themselves as sent people; their “underlying attitude toward themselves and their world” has shifted, they are sent-ones. Every Christian is called and sent to the world, just as Jesus was sent into the world. “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” (John 20:21).

As usual, if you want a concise summary of Missional, look no further than Tim Keller’s characteristically brilliant and succinct article here.

 

It’s also worthwhile to watch the YouTube videos with Keller and Mark Driscoll where they flesh out these themes and do the contrasting I mentioned. There’s a whole bunch of clips. That will get you started.

 

As many of you know, I am particularly concerned with translating good missional theology to the practice of campus ministry, and have been doing some writing on that. I’ll try to get some of that up soon.

 

Here’s the link  

 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/march/16.56.html