“Missional” is used more and more frequently in churches these days. In a recent sermon at our church the term was in the title and employed frequently (No judgement here on my part about that. The thrust of the sermon was very good.). But the frequency of the use of “missional” makes me wonder about it. Why that term? Do we need “missions” anymore?
Wikipedia has the following entry:
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “missional” as “Relating to or connected with a religious mission; missionary.” In contemporary usage “missional” is an adjectival alternative to “missionary.” Although both words are related to “missio” (Latin: sending), some scholars, including Darrell Guder et al. in The Missional Church[citation needed] believe “missional” focuses on the church contextualizing its methods, morality, and message to fit its indigenous culture.
In this usage “missional” has rapidly entered the lexicon of the growing emerging church movement whose participants have popularized the term, enabling participants in this movement to recognize each other across denominational lines. Different “emergents” may use the term with different nuances and connotations, but the term persists as essentially a postmodern alternative to the ecclesiology and missiology of Evangelical Christians. The practical outworking of emergent “missional living” does not coincide with the emphases on propositional evangelism, teaching, and holiness found in historic Christianity.
In contemporary, postmodern usage “missional” has become more narrow in scope than traditional terms such as “mission” and “outreach” which infer the inclusion of propositional evangelism and instruction. Jason Zahariades identifies the difference between a traditional “disciple making,” evangelical church and a missional church as fundamentally theological.
I came across the following information, comparing the traditional term “missions” and “missional.” Is the below comparison a fair one? I would like your thoughts.
February 7, 2008 at 9:41 am
Great question and post, Les. By the way, the chart that you posted here, which looks very interesting, doesn’t appear completely. Could you try shrinking it down a little? I found the chart online, and it seemed to be quite a fair and accurate characterization of a paradigm shift.
Speaking from personal experience of having used this term (and having recently preached a sermon entitled “Missional Holiness”), I think the wikipedia article has some thing right and other things are aschewed.
In my experience, most people use the term missional to describe the way in which all of God’s people are required to participate in God’s mission in all times and places. Often there is an aspect of contextualization involved, but the issue is really one of joining God’s mission to seek and save the lost.
“Missional” thinking does not coincide with traditional evangelical missiology in so far as it democratizes the concept of missionary and sees this as the vocation of every believer, not just full-time missionaries.
Maybe for some emergents it is true that “missional living does not coincide with the emphases on propositional evangelism, teaching, and holiness found in historic Christianity,” but that is certainly not the case for me and other people I know who use this term. For me, being missional means I must speak AND act God’s truth, teach about AND display God’s goodness and beauty. As you heard in my sermon, I do not think being missional displaces holiness and godly living, but provides dramatic rationale for holiness.
Man, I have so much more to say, but hopefully this can spark some dialogue. Thanks for the post!
February 7, 2008 at 9:44 am
I have fixed the post to place the chart in a PDF.
February 7, 2008 at 11:52 am
Absolutely! I applaud Geoff for discipling his youth to be a light in this dark world!
This is exactly what I was getting at with my sermon on missional holiness: the way we display Christ in our daily lives can have a powerful effect on unbelievers and is a way of participating in the mission of God to the world. I pointed out three specific ways that Peter challenges his readers to live out missional holiness: submission, servanthood, and suffering in a myriad of relationships.
Of course, we need to pray for the Spirit to empower of us in this mission, for we are more often broken flashlights than we are shining stars in the universe (Phil 2).