Gagarin said too much when he returned from space. The Russian cosmonaut pompously declared for the world to hear that he visited the heavens and God was nowhere to be found. A priest in Moscow responded: “If you have not seen him on earth, you will never see him in heaven.” Touché! A charge of too much talk will stick against this Russian cosmonaut. Will it stick on you?

“Too much talk restricts our capacity to listen, (to ourselves and to God) it banishes mindfulness and opens the door to distraction and escapism,” said Michael Casey. We become convinced we are correct in our own conclusions when we talk too much. We begin to think we are wise. When we talk too much the insidious and arrogant attitudes of superiority, manipulation, and dominance become permanent residents when they should only be strangers in the night. When we speak, let us speak rarely, briefly, directly, and simply in imitation of Christ. Let Peter’s tendency of too much talk signal our need and the value of silence as prayer.

Columba Stewart explains that “the issue becomes more clearly one of stewardship. Language is a gift that can be used thoughtfully or thoughtlessly, humbly or proudly. Someone constantly aware of the presence of God will know when and how to speak.” Or if speech is even necessary!

In prayer, silence (within and without) is about learning to listen. I suggest the following course of action for noise reduction.

1. One day a week, reduce or eliminate the external noise in your home after 6:00 p.m.

No gadgets blaring, no talking until the following morning.

Follow Anthony Bloom’s advice: “Settle down in your room at a moment when you have nothing else to do. Say ‘I am now with myself,’ and just sit with yourself. After an amazingly short time you will most likely feel bored.” I hope not. But if we feel bored with ourselves just think how bored others must feel in our presence.

Let the silence teach us. We will learn that often we live by reflection, or reaction. We will learn that often we live not from the inside out but from the outside in; that our life is only a response to incitement, to excitement. We are empty inside. “We are used to things happening which compel us to do other things. How seldom can we live simply by means of the depth and the richness we assume that there is within ourselves” (Anthony Bloom).

Find out who is at home in you. Access the One who inhabits your soul. Then, when you wake up in the morning let these words ring true: “Open my mouth, O Lord, that I may sing your praises!” Graduate to two times a week.

2. Eliminate sarcasm and put downs.

If you do, you will be doing everyone a favor and contributing in a major way to noise reduction, to too much talk. Observe any television program designed to entertain. You will hardly find talk which isn’t put downs and sarcasm.

“When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise” (Proverbs 10:19). Even stronger are these words: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:21).

“Silence is golden” we were told back when. It still is, and the value of gold at true of the market increases daily for those who cultivate a life of prayer and Walk with the Master.

For a related post check out You Talk Too Much

With that topic in mind, here is a very good aritcle on the discipline of silence written by my friend Georges Boujakly. I am going to share the first part of his article today and the rest of it tomorrow. Here is part one:

Silence Communicates

Silence communicates. Silence has to be explained. Silence is capable of a variety of emotions, thoughts, conditions (states of mind), and attitudes. When the principal enters the classroom, a hush prevails. When the child refuses to answer for his actions, rebellion is not hard to see. When a witness to a crime refuses to testify to save the innocent, silence destroys. Sometimes silence is hard to explain.

How would you interpret Aaron’s silence (Lev. 10:3)? Is it grief, rebellion, or submission? How about God’s silence in Psalm 44:23 and 83:1? Consider Jesus’ silence at his trial (compare Mark 14:61 with Isaiah. 53:7)? There is no escaping it, silence speaks; sometimes more than words can say.

Confession: Often I am uncomfortable with silence and its partner listening. I would rather speak than listen. Especially in prayer. My sympathy is more with the one who says “listen, Lord, for your servant is speaking” than with young Samuel when Eli coached him to “speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” In my prayer silence is the underdog. How about you? I’m pulling for the underdog.

Several barriers are to blame. I will only name two. The first culprit is noise. We are always filling our world with noise. 90 decibels or more is nothing for restaurants. Church sometimes fares worse, depending on the music and the excitement of the preacher. Especially so when silence has taken a prolonged vacation from our worship! In life, the electronic gadgets we enjoy contribute a lion’s share to the noises of our lives.

Silence is hard to do. The screams of consumerism, materialism, diversion, and entertainment are hard to ignore. But we must.

Prayer depends on silence. Silence and its friend listening are the life spring of prayer. We must strive to live in conscious awareness of the presence and activity of the God we say we love with heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Silence as prayer is a good habit that will rescue us from the noises of life. Silence is a great help in living and praying in the present moment, the only moment we truly have. 

The first is an excellent post by Alan Hirsch titled “Missional The New Emergent?” While Alan uses the phrase “Emerging Missional Church” in The Forgotten Ways, he argues in this post for the need to make a clear distinction between the words “emerging/Emergent” and “missional.” Alan writes:

Emerging forms of the church must always be subservient to the missional purposes of the church. We can use the term, as I do in my writings, the “Emerging Missional Church”, but the emphasis should always fall on the term ‘missional’. Actual mission must precede any new cultural understandings that the church might develop of itself. The Emerging Church has a certain validity as a renewal movement, but renewal movements come and go, the Missio Dei however, is something that must have abiding implications for the Church’s theology, lest we lose the irreplaceable redemptive core inherent in the Christian view of the world. My advice to ‘emergents’ is therefore, don’t emerge before you have a mission.

Alan then goes on to not only passionately defends the use of the word missional but to argue for the term “missional-incarnational” to best capture far more completely a sense of the Church’s deepest theology and missionary calling. Alan concludes his post with a wonderful statement concerning the use of this combination term when he states: Mission always sets our Agenda and Incarnation must always describe our Way.

You will also find a lively and thoughtful discussion within the comments on Alan’s post.

The second post is “What is Missional? Or A Little More Missional Shampoo” by Bill Kinnon. While Bill has written on the use of the word missional in earlier posts, this post gives some great background on the use of the term as well as mention of some of the key players in the missional discussion.

The third excellent entry is “Missional: to dwell and to die” by Erika Haub over at The Margins. Erika’s post is influenced by the powerful phrase: The consequence of the incarnation is the crucifixion. She writes:

I think if there were one thing I would want us to remember today as we consider all things missional, it would be that as we talk about incarnational living and incarnational ministries and being incarnational wherever we live, we are talking about a way of life that leads to the cross. It did for Jesus, and if I read Philippians correctly, it should for us as well.

Finally, the fourth post that should be a must read is Kathy Escobar’s “upside down, inside out and against everything business school teaches.” Kathy begins with:

I honestly do not use the word for one primary reason–the people I know who are really truly “missional” don’t talk about it too much and the people who are trying to catch the latest church-trend use it a lot.

She then moves to the heart of the issue in a series of wonderful reflections on how each of the Beatitudes should be “woven intricately and deeply into the fabric of our hearts, our communities.”

I should also add how much I enjoyed Grace’s thoughts on how missional must be “With Not For.”

As we walk together with others in their faith journey, we walk in mutual relationships, both giving of ourselves and receiving from them.  When we share the love of God with others, we encounter Christ himself in their midst.  The idea of mutuality is expressed by doing things With rather than For others.  This necessitates that we take the time to know them.  We develop relationships of commitment, to be with them in their journey rather than to simply show up for charity work.

In an earlier post I shared three theological distinctions that I believe are necessary to bring clarity and explanation to the use of the word “missional.” Today I want to move the discussion toward practical issues in congregational life.

However, before considering steps that may be taken to help move a church in a missional direction it is necessary that we challenge our basic theological assumptions about who we are as faith communities in God’s Kingdom. Without such theological considerations we run the risk of simply attaching the word “missional” onto everything the church is already doing rather than gaining a fresh perspective to see more clearly what the missional church is all about.

Therefore, I want to begin by elaborating on the three theological distinctions discussed earlier and then add five practical reflections on how to best foster a missional posture within a new or existing faith community.

1. The Missional Church is about the missionary nature of God and His church.

The church is a vital part of the missional conversation. However, the church must not be seen as “a place where religious goods and services are provided,” but instead it should be understood as the “gathered and sent people of God.”

Scripture is replete with language that speaks to the missionary nature of a Triune God. God the Father sends  the Son, and God the Father and the Son sends  the Spirit, and God the Father and the Son and the Spirit sends  the church. In the Gospel of John alone, Jesus describes Himself more than thirty times as “one sent.” In the final climatic sending passage in John’s Gospel, Jesus sees himself not only as one sent but also as one who is sending: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).

The Missional Church recognizes the purpose of the church is derived from the very nature of God which in turn compels it to be sent as a missionary people, individually and collectively.

2. The Missional Church is about the church being incarnational rather than attractional.

Those with a missional perspective no longer see the church service as the primary connecting point for those outside the church. The missional church is more concerned about sending the people in the church out among the people of the world, rather than getting the people of the world in among the people of the church. Others have described this distinction as a challenge to “go and be” as opposed to “come and see.”

Missional churches see their primary function as one of actively moving into a community to embody and enflesh the word, deed and life of Jesus into every nook and cranny. Eugene Peterson’s “incarnational” rendering of John 1:14 in the Message paraphrase illustrates this well when it states, “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”

3. The Missional Church is about actively participating in the missio Dei, or mission of God.

Many times we wrongly assume that the primary activity of God is in the church, rather than recognizing that God’s primary activity is in the world, and the church is God’s instrument sent into the world to participate in His redemptive mission.

This distinction clarifies the difference between a church with a missions program and a missional church. A church with a missions program usually sees missions as one activity alongside many other equally important programs of the church. A missional church, on the other hand, focuses all of its activities around its participation in God’s agenda for the world.

As the sent, missionary people of God, the missional church understands its fundamental purpose as being rooted in God’s mission to restore and heal creation and to call people into a reconciled relationship with Himself. It is God’s mission, or missio Dei, that calls the church into existence. Or in the words of South African missiologist David Bosch; “It is not the church which undertakes mission; it is the missio Dei  which constitutes the church.”

Fostering a Missional Posture

So what will it take for the church to foster a missional posture? We must first begin with deep reflections and dialogue surrounding the three theological distinctions mentioned above. Beyond these three points there are at least five practical, yet no less important considerations.

1. Start with Spiritual Formation

As mentioned above, God calls the church to be a sent community of people who no longer live for themselves but instead live to participate with Him in His redemptive purposes. However, people will have neither the passion nor the strength to live as a counter cultural society for the sake of others if they are not transformed by the way of Jesus. If the church is to “go and be” then we must make certain that we are a Spirit formed community that has the spiritual capacity to impact the lives of others.

This means the church must take seriously its responsibility to cultivate spiritual transformation that does not allow believers to remain as adolescents in their spiritual maturity. Such spiritual formation will involve much greater relational underpinnings and considerable engagement with a multitude of spiritual disciplines.

2. Emphasize the Priesthood of All Believers

Martin Luther’s idea of the priesthood of all believers was that all Christians were called to carry out their vocational ministries in every area of life. Every believer must fully understand how their vocation plays a central part in God’s redemptive Kingdom.

I think it was Rick Warren who made popular the phase “every member is a minister.” While this phrase is a helpful slogan to move people to understand their responsibility in the life of the church, God’s purpose for His church would be better served if we encouraged people to recognize that “every member is a missionary.”

3. Create a New Scorecard

The church must move far beyond measuring success by the traditional indicators of attendance, buildings and cash. Instead we must create new scorecards to measure ministry effectiveness. These new scorecards will include measurements that point to the church’s impact on community transformation rather than measuring what is happening among church members inside the church walls.

A missional church may ask how many hours has the church spent praying for community issues? How many hours have church members (including staff) spent with unbelievers? How many community groups use the facilities of the church? How many people are healthier because of the clinic the church operates? How many people are in new jobs because of free job training offered by the church? What is the number of school children who are getting better grades because of after-school tutoring the church provides. Or how many times do community leaders call the church asking for advice?

Until the church reconsiders the definition of ministry success and creates new scorecards to appropriately measure that success, we will continue to allocate vital resources in misguided directions.

4. Search for Third Places

In a post-Christendom culture where more and more people are less and less interested in activities of the church, it is increasingly important to connect with people in places of neutrality, or common “hang outs.” In the book “The Great Good Place” author Ray Oldenburg identifies these places of common ground as “third places.”

According to Oldenburg, third places are those environments in which people meet to interact with others and develop friendships. In Oldenburg’s thinking our first place is the home and the people with whom we live. The second place is where we work and the place we spend the majority of our waking hours. But the third place is an informal setting where people relax and have the opportunity to know and be known by others.

Third places might include the local coffee shop, hair salon, restaurant, mall, or fitness center. These places of common ground must take a position of greater importance in the overall ministry of the church as individuals begin to recognize themselves as missionaries sent into the local context to serve.

In addition to connecting with people in the third places present in our local communities, we need to rediscover the topic of hospitality whereby our own homes become a place of common ground. Biblical hospitality is much more than entertaining others in our homes. Genuine hospitality involves inviting people into our lives, learning to listen, and cultivating an environment of mercy and justice, whether our interactions occur in third places or within our own homes. Regardless of our setting, we must learn to welcome the stranger.

5. Tap into the Power of Stories

Instead of trying to define what it means to be missional, it may be helpful to describe missional living through stories and images. We can capture the “missional imagination” by sharing what other faith communities are doing and illustrate what it looks like to connect with people in third places, cultivate rapport with local schools, and build relationships with neighbors.

Moreover, we can reflect deeply on biblical images of mission, service and hospitality by spending time on passages such as Genesis 12:2, Isaiah 61:1-3, Matthew 5:43; 10:40; 22:39; 25:35 and Luke 10:25-37.

The greatest challenge facing the church in the West is the “re-conversion” of its own members. We need to be converted away from an internally focused, Constantinean mode of church and converted towards an externally focused, missional-incarnational movement that is a true reflection of the missionary God we follow. This conversion will not be easy. The gravitational pull to focus all of our resources on ourselves is strong. My prayer, however, is that a clearer understanding of the word “missional” will help to form us and ultimately move us in the proper direction.

To read what others are saying about the word missional, check out the following links:

Alan Hirsch, Alan Knox, Andrew Jones, Barb Peters, Bill Kinnon, Brad Grinnen, Brad Sargent, Brother Maynard, Bryan Riley, Chad Brooks, Chris Wignall, Cobus Van Wyngaard, Dave DeVries, David Best, David Fitch, David Wierzbicki, DoSi, Doug Jones, Duncan McFadzean, Erika Haub, Grace, Jamie Arpin-Ricci, Jeff McQuilkin, John Smulo, Jonathan Brink, JR Rozko, Kathy Escobar, Len Hjalmarson, Makeesha Fisher, Malcolm Lanham, Mark Berry, Mark Petersen, Mark Priddy, Michael Crane, Michael Stewart, Nick Loyd, Patrick Oden, Peggy Brown, Phil Wyman, Richard Pool, Rick Meigs, Rob Robinson, Ron Cole, Scott Marshall, Sonja Andrews, Stephen Shields, Steve Hayes, Tim Thompson, Thom Turner

In addition to discussing key ideas from both “The Shaping of Things to Come” and “The Forgotten Ways”  we spent a significant amount of time talking about how to cultivate a missional mindset within existing communities that are heavily influenced by church growth principles and preoccupied with church activities.

This discussion dealt with the importance of the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer and how every follower of Christ must see themselves as missionaries sent into their local context. The dialogue was especially helpful for the work I am currently doing on a dmin project which focuses on assisting churches in the reallocation of resources in a missional direction.

Another very helpful discussion dealt with fostering new missional communities in a post-Christendom context. One example that Alan shared that I believe illustrates good missional practices for church planting uses the acronym INCH, which I believe Alan said was utilized by Christian Associates International. The basics of the acronym were explained like this:

Initiatives — This is the very lowest level of missional-incarnational practices. These are simple steps taken by individual people of God who carry the word, life and deed of Jesus into the lives of others.

Networks — These are formed when groups of 10-15 people get together to share what is taking place and to participate in missional-incarnational practices as a community.

Clusters — These are basically networks of networks. There is a bit more structure/organization at this level. There may be certain types of training/resources provided within clusters that might not be available in smaller groups.

Hubs — This represents some type of larger gathering for corporate worship, training and larger missionary engagement. Hirsch argues that hubs are probably necessary in certain American contexts.

What do you think about INCH? What applications do you see for it in your ministry? In church planting?

Lastly, a topic surrounding most of the conversation over the two days was recognizing that the lowest common denominator in all of the missional-incarnational practices is discipleship and the difficulty of discipling people in the midst of a consumerist culture. The story of the middle class in America is one of safety, security, comfort and convenience. In other words, American Christians have overwhelmingly chosen the story of the American way rather than the way of Jesus. Hirsch refers to this as living the story of the Kingdom as opposed to the story of the Empire.

How do you model and/or speak of living the principles of the Kingdom vs. Empire?

The second link is David Phillip’s post on measuring success in ministry. If a church is going to develop a missional mindset they will no doubt need to create a new “scorecard” to measure ministry effectiveness. What else do you think needs to be added to David’s list?

HT: Rick Meigs

To fully understand these shifts Bosch argues one must consider the contributions made by the world missionary conferences from Edinburgh (1910) to Mexico City (1963).

When discussing the Willingen conference (1952) Bosch writes:

Willingen began to flesh out a new model. It recognized that the church could be neither the starting point nor the goal of mission. God’s salvific work precedes both church and mission. We should not subordinate mission to the church nor the church to mission; both should, rather, be taken up into the missio Dei, which now became the overarching concept. The missio Dei institutes the missiones ecclesiae. The church changes from being the sender to being the one sent.

In a pamphlet published [after the conference], Newbigin summarized the consensus that had by now been reached:

(1) “the church is the mission,” which means that it is illegitimate to talk about the one without the same time talking about the other; (2) “the home base is everywhere,” which means that every Christian community is in a missionary situation; and (3) “mission in partnership,” which means the end of every form of guardianship of one church over another.

Pat Loughery’s “Things They Tell Church Planters That Are Simply Wrong”

From Eden to Zion and “Five Questions For My Missional Community Friends”

AJ’s series on “Church Planting and Small Groups”

Two links to cafe church planting, one in Welwyn Garden City, UK and another in Leiden, Netherlands

Here are two links that I posted last year that are worth visiting once again: “Six Reasons Not To Quit” by Andrew Hamilton and “Be Prepared to Lose” by Pernell Goodyear

The term “missional” has become a popular buzz word in Southern Baptist circles over the past couple of years. Because of its frequent use, some people have assumed that “missional” is a new word. However, the term was used by Dr. Francis DuBose, former professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, in his book “God Who Sends” published in 1983.

Despite the fact that missional terminology has been in use for at least a quarter of a century, it is being applied today in such a wide variety of ways that many times it results in confusion. While any word is defined at least in part by the intention of the person using it, I believe there are some essential distinctives that can be identified to bring clarity and explanation to the use of the word missional. I would argue for the inclusion of three key elements to best understand what it means for a church to be missional.

The Missional Church is about the missionary nature of God and His church.

The church is a vital part of the missional conversation. However, the church is seen not as “a place where” religious goods and services are provided, but instead it is understood as the gathered and sent people of God. The Missional Church understands the purpose of the church is derived from the very nature of God.

Scripture is replete with language that speaks to the missionary nature of a Triune God. God the Father sends the Son, and God the Father and the Son sends the Spirit, and God the Father and the Son and the Spirit sends the church. In the Gospel of John alone, Jesus describes Himself more than thirty times as “one sent.” In the final climatic sending passage in John’s Gospel Jesus sees himself not only as one sent but also as one who is sending: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).

Therefore missional churches are those communities of Christ-followers who see the church as a missionary people sent, individually and collectively on a mission. They understand that the church does not simply do mission, instead it is mission.

The Missional Church is about the church being incarnational rather than attractional.

Those with a missional perspective no longer see the church service as the primary connecting point for those outside the church. The missional church is more concerned about sending the people in the church out among the people of the world, rather than getting the people of the world in among the people of the church. Others have described this distinction as a challenge to “go and be” as opposed to “come and see.”

Missional churches see their primary function as one of actively moving into a community to embody and enflesh the word, deed and life of Jesus into every nook and cranny. I love Eugene Peterson’s “incarnational” rendering of John 1:14 in the Message paraphrase when it says, “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”

The Missional Church is about actively participating in the missio Dei, or mission of God.

Many times we wrongly assume that the primary activity of God is in the church, rather than recognizing that God’s primary activity is in the world, and the church is God’s instrument sent into the world to actively participate in His redemptive mission.

As the sent, missionary people of God, the missional church understands its fundamental purpose as being rooted in God’s mission to restore and heal creation and to call people into a reconciled relationship with Himself. It is God’s mission, or missio Dei, that calls the church into existence. Or in the words of South African missiologist David Bosch; “It is not the church which undertakes mission; it is the missio Dei which constitutes the church.”