Going Missional… That’s a phrase we are hearing more and more of in American Christianity.
What is it? And, why should you consider going missional?
Well, for starters, going missional is a way of living, it’s not an affiliation or activity.
It comes from a belief that we have gotten away from the original conversation God wanted to have with the world and the church, and have become the Introverted Church.
We have instituted, implemented, internalized, and inhibited the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and the lives of those that God is wanting to reach through us.
Going missional involves an active engagement and reconnecting with this conversation to the point that it guides every aspect of the life of the missional believer.
It means you will have to get your hands dirty.
Going missional means seeing all life as a way to be engaged in the mission of God in the world.
A mission to offer redemption and an abundant life.
Going missional will require that you make three shifts, both in your thinking and in your behavior:
From internal to external in terms of ministry focus
We must change our ideas of what it means to make disciples, shifting our emphasis from continual bible study, studying about Jesus, and all things that look and sound spiritual in our sheltered environments protected from the world to a world outside our stained glass windows and blessed four walls. It will require dropping the status quo and getting out of our comfort zone. We will have to start following Jesus into the world to join him in his redemptive mission.
Find where God is working and get there to be a part of it.
From program development to people development in terms of core activity
Making disciples is messy. It’s why so few actually do it. Most pastors and preachers are groomed to do project management, sermon preparation, and religious rites. They are not trained or taught how to develop people.
And honestly, most leaders don’t give themselves to developing and making disciples because they have never had it happen to them. We will have to unlearn a lot of bad habits and bad thinking to move away from the activities and behaviors that support these program-driven model.
It’s time to ditch the pulpiteers and build up people developers.
From church-based to kingdom-based in terms of leadership agenda
The church is a conduit, linking people to the kingdom life that God has for them. Unfortunately, we have substituted church activity as the preferred life expression of an abundant life in Christ. That kind of thinking is like believing an airplane is more interesting than the destination it is taking you to.
We have turned evangelism into some kind of activity or program that we train people to engage in rather than understanding evangelism is a natural by-product of those that follow Jesus.
Stop making Jesus a commodity.
Do you realize that most churches, especially in the Bible Belt (that’s where I live and what I know best), frequently involve some kind of ploy to get people to connect to their church? Also, the people in the pews don’t want to do it; if they did, we wouldn’t have to work so hard to recruit them or guilt them into working on their evangelism efforts.
We need a better alternative
Instead of an evangelism outreach, let’s try a blessing others outreach.
When we start to bless others that can’t or aren’t able to bless us back, things start to happen. Others will take notice. Those we bless will begin to ask questions.
“Why are you doing this?”
Having your motives questioned is music to the ears of someone prepared for it.
“I am a follower of Jesus, and I am blessing you because that’s what he came to do.” This answer opens the door for spiritual conversation.
There are a lot of people that have other obligations on Sunday, and by an unspoken, but an all too real consequence of our congregation’s schedule (11 am on a Sunday Morning), we are in fact telling the majority of the world that we don’t really want them there>
If we don’t find a way to be the church and bless them where they are, they may never experience the love of God.
The only way we can do that is by going missional.