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Being Missional – A Shift in Thinking

First a necessary word of caution for those who wish to explore and understand what it means to be the missional church or people. Alan Hirsch rightly states that “the word ‘missional’ over the years has tended to become very fluid and as it was quickly co-opted by those wishing to find new and trendy tags for what they themselves were doing, be they missional or not.
 It is often used as a substitute for seeker-sensitive, cell-group church, or other church growth concepts, thus obscuring its original meaning.” As a result, missional is often looked upon as just another phase or program. But we error when we do so, for missional is more than just another movement, it is a full expression of who the ekklesia of Christ is and what it is called to be and do. At its core, missional is a shift in thinking. This shift in thinking is expressed by Ed Stetzer and David Putman in their book, “Breaking the Missional Code” (Broadman & Holman, 2006) like this:

• From programs to processes
• From demographics to discernment
• From models to missions
• From attractional to incarnational
• From uniformity to diversity
• From professional to passionate
• From seating to sending
• From decisions to disciples
• From additional to exponential
• From monuments to movements

 And let me add a couple more to Ed’s list:

• From services to service
• From ordained to the ordinary
• From organizations to organisms

Making this shift can be difficult for many (particularly Evangelical Americans), but to fully appreciate what the missional church is, we must look outside of our traditional understanding of how we do church and realign ourselves with the biblical narrative. So, as you consider the following “description,” don’t attempt to understand it within your traditional framework, shift your thinking.

HT: Friend of Missional

Related posts:

1. The Missional Church – What it is NOT!
2. What the Missional Church Looks like
3. Michael Frost on the Missional Church
4. Missional Communities
5. A new way of doing church?