The next missional network gathering will be Thursday, January 22nd from 12 noon to 3:00pm. (There will be free food for lunch!)

For at least the first two meetings in 2009 we will be examining ReJesus: A Wild Messiah For A Missional Church, the new book by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch.

In addition to discussing the book during our network times, we will create opportunities on the blog to dialogue on a chapter by chapter basis. You can download the introduction and chapter one here and here. 

Here are a couple of excerpts from the introduction that will provide a bit of the book’s flavor:

What ongoing role does Jesus the Messiah play in shaping the ethos and self-understanding of the movement that originated in him?

How is the Christian religion, if we could legitimately call it that, informed and shaped by the Jesus that we meet in the Gospels?

How do we assess the continuity required between the life and example of Jesus and the subsequent religion called Christianity?

In how many ways do we domesticate the radical Revolutionary in order to sustain our religion and religiosity?

And perhaps most important of all, how can a rediscovery of Jesus renew our discipleship, the Christian community, and the ongoing mission of the church?

And

So this book is dedicated to the recovery of the absolute centrality of the person of Jesus in defining who we are as well as what we do. As hard as it is to truly follow him, we assert that we must constantly return to Jesus to authenticate as well as legitimize ourselves as his people. We have no other Archimedean point by which to set our coordinates or any other touchstone by which we can assess the abiding validity of our faith and to see if we are authentically Christian.

The love of Jesus, and our commitment to live in conformity to him, is in effect an inbuilt spiritual mechanism at the heart of the church’s theology and experience that provides an instrument for our ongoing renewal. It seems to us that a constant, and continual, return to Jesus is absolutely essential for any movement that wishes to call itself by his name.

Kansas City Missional Network

Thursday, January 22nd
12:00 – 3:00pm
Kansas City Association
8745 Ballentine
Overland Park