Comments on: Missional Isn’t A Bad Word

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 21:02:30 +0000

I visited a self-described missional church a year ago in my area. It was a vast change from the more traditional church I was formerly a member. I pondered what they were about but ultimately thought it wasn’t for me and joined it’s “mother” church on a different part of town.

In this year my views on worship and form have been challenged and expanded. Now I can’t seem to get this missional church out of my head - especially since its so close to my house (a poorer area) vs. across town (in an affluent area). I find a mental tug-of-war going on.

The teaching of the planting church gained my confidence that they are true to the gospel, to accurate theology, etc. Doubts about these things were part of the reason I didn’t feel the missional church fit my family to start.

A lot of the things I’ve read on your website in support of missional churches make sense to me. Could you please comment about my remaining doubts?

(1) How do these churchs feel about the primacy of teaching. I’ve always embraced that faith comes by hearing the word. Dumbing down the message or reducing the sermon to 15 minutes is unnecessary for any culture and unwise. When I visited the missional church mentioned, I recall leaving witht the feeling that that is what happened.

(2) I’m white, married, 41, with two young kids. I wonder what kind of church experience my kids would have in a missional church. I embrace the missionary mindset of impaciting my community, but do I sacrifice my kids on that alter?

(3) Obstacle three for me is who the church is for. I don’t want to be in a church that exists only for themselves, but I have the impression that missional churches exist only for the unsaved. As a (self-described) mature Christian I wonder about my growth. Do missional churches nurture believers? One statement that I heard years ago sticks with me: Church is primarly for beleivers to worship & praise God, to be edified and equiped to go out and impact their world. I fear that missional churches have this equation backward.

(4) When I first became a christian in my late twenties, I resisted a lot of the thoeloges. However, the church today seems so anti-theological that they aren’t even equipped to recognize error. Why do missional churches resist seminary training?

Thanks for your patience. I am truly trying to sort these things out and determine if God is calling me to a missional church. Your comments about my questions/thoughts are appreciated.

By: Histrion (Jay H)

Histrion (Jay H) — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 13:18:32 +0000

Michael writes: I doubt if many of the critics of missional churches would find it commendable if a Southern Baptist church in the rural south ventured to Africa to start a church that was a clone of their own culture. Those critics would not object to missionaries seeking to create an indigenous church that looked like its culture rather the culture of the missionaries. Yet when church planters pursue this approach in the cultures and subcultures that exist in North America, it seems difficult- even impossible- for some to see what is happening in the context of missions and missional thinking about evangelism and planting churches. Instead, it is presented as a compromise of the Gospel. This is puzzling.

I don’t find it puzzling at all. From the point of view of those church planters, those people in Africa need to be introduced to Christ, whereas the people of America know, or knew, Christ and are simply in rebellion against God. Therefore, what would be culture in Africa is sin in America, and the response is therefore different: gently guide one, while pummeling the other with commands as to what he or she should be doing differently.

Our outreach to students at Christian universities, as detailed in the previous blog entry, seems to be an example of the latter approach.

By: HannahIm

HannahIm — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 05:41:49 +0000

You saved me from having to write this article myself. Thanks, Micheal. I am one of the younger evangelicals you mention who were raised in a highly missions oriented environment. We weren’t SBC, but as a rural blue-collar Bible church, we were close! I read books like “Peace Child” in which the author Don Richardson rethinks the concept of the (*gasp*) atonement and finds a way to present that truth in terms of the tribal culture. Subversive stuff. Now I’m all grown up and I read about people doing the same stuff (though less radical IMHO) in North America and I have a hard time seeing how that’s so dangerous and terrible. Yes, I’m reading the critics (read D.A. Carson this very morning), and I know they have some points, but overall they seem to be missing the big point. We have to incarnate the gospel wherever we are because the gospel itself is not limited to any one person, language, or culture.

By: jwblair

jwblair — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 03:28:45 +0000

Michael, what I think you touched on in so many words is fear. When I read the various watchblogs, especially in their reaction to the emerging church, in all the criticism, in all the accusation, in all the attacking of straw men, I sense fear. Barna’s conclusions and exhortations in Revolution may be off, but the data itself says it all. People are leaving established churches for other forms.

The emerging missional church, for all its flaws, is one of the only things I see that is addressing the problem by seeking ways to proclaim the gospel here - in this culture - where we so desperately need it. Our affluence and apathy are killing our souls, and all the study of the fine points of theology are worth squat if people don’t first come to grips with the eternal Kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope more people hear about men like Ed Stetzer, Andrew Jones, and Mark Driscol, and through them, Jesus.

By: steve

steve — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 02:11:40 +0000

wow iMonk…that perhaps said it better than anything I’ve heard…