The Tension With Being Missional
July 7, 2008 | Filed Under missional |
Recently I have listened to several people raise concerns over the tension between cultivating a missional direction for their lives and the need to gather as a congregation for worship and spiritual nourishment. This is one of the reasons I stated in my article on Missional: More Than a Buzz Word that we must begin with spiritual formation.
If we are to “go and be” then we need to be experiencing spiritual transformation to ensure that we have the capacity to impact the lives around us. I think it is also important to be reminded of Darrell Guder’s description of the church when he states that the church is the “called and sent people of God.” We cannot neglect one over the other. We are both “called” and ”sent.”
Along this line of discussion here is a very good post over at Swinging From the Vine titled “Potential Problems with Missional” where Makeesha offers a corrective on the risk of ”compulsive activism.”
Here is a small piece of her post:
It would be a tragedy if a missional paradigm shift caused people to forget about God. Sabbath and setting aside time to gather in sacramental community to worship the One always needs to be central. I strongly believe we need a push away from the “performed” Sunday service that usually does more to drain the people than glorify God but that doesn’t mean we should abandon the gathering completely. After all, as a Christ follower, I still believe in the need for the breath of God to infuse our lives.
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I guess I see the gatherings of the church as serving the purpose of the mission. Ekklesia was the term used in the first century for public gatherings to discuss and resolve issues, then the people would spread out again. It was adopted by the early Christians as the word for their gathering. They were the people called out together to meet, discuss issues and then return to their communities. The gatherings should be for this purpose. Spiritual nourishment and edification for mission.
The via activa must be balanced by the via contemplativa (private and public). The two are two peas in a pod. The interdependence of the two is a good goal to strive for.
[...] Missional Tension. Here, Brad Brisco shares some important reflection upon the important task of living missional lives in spite of the challenges it brings. [...]
ya, it seems when being missional means we stop gathering for mutual encouragement we have missed it
[...] On this blog I will be connecting you to things I find interesting out on the world wide web. Also I might have a few thoughts of my own, but probably not that many. I would like to link to a good article [...]
The missional church is an integrated, balanced incarnational, extractional, and attractional church. This three-fold, biblical approach provides clear values for a missional church. One without the other two leaves the church wanting.