I have not yet read all of the 50 posts from Monday’s Missional Synchronized blog, but of those that I have read here are four that you should not miss.

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.