Exploring The Community Coming To Be Known As Missional – 1
I have been encouraged to see Bill Kinnon’s provocative polemic, “The People Formerly Known As The Congregation”, make its rounds through the blogosphere, inspiring and provoking conversation. I am also honoured that he considered my piece, “The Community Coming To Be Known As Missional”, part 3 of a series inspired by him (Emerging Grace write Part 2; John Frye Part 4; and most recently, Greg Laughery Part 5).
In an attempt to further develop the ideas I articulated in my article, I thought it could be beneficial to explore in more detail what I did and did not mean. I will examine each section, trying to share the heart of what I hoped to communicate, where I think it should go or how it should look and why it is important to me. In order to avoid an overly lengthy piece, I will break it up over a few days.
“The Community Coming To Be Known As Missional”
The title obviously intentionally played off the title of Bill’s original piece. However, where Bill’s piece expressed what he no longer identified with, I wanted to try and identify with that which I hope we could become. As a Canadian, I know how easy it is to define ourselves (immaturely) by what we are not (i.e. “I am not American!”)- something that became apparent to me as I learned to embrace my Canadian/American dual citizenship.
Further, I used the phrase “coming to be known as” to reflect that we have not arrived yet. This is so critical, given the often heated engagement of missional ideals with established Christian traditions. It should ground us in the humility that we are very new to many of these ideas and expressions, therefore requiring us to extend (and request) grace to(/from) those outside our experience.
“Let me introduce you to The Community Coming To Be Known As Missional. There are millions of us, but even very few of us will change the world around us.”
While I do believe that (globally) millions of Christian identify with these values, both in belief and in practice, the second sentence is intentionally written to demonstrate that such numbers are not what is important, not lending us any sense of legitimacy or authority, but rather that the conviction and commitment of even a few holds the capacity to do great things through the Spirit of God.
“We are community because it is the incarnational reflection of the Triune God in whose image we are created. We are a community that prefers walking rather than sitting, going where the Spirit has already gone before us, be it in our neighbourhood or ends of the earth. We are united by relationship and vision, not locations and buildings.”
Anyone who knows me or reads this blog frequently will know that true community is a deep and residing passion in my life. My conviction is that being created in the image of God is significantly (possibly even central) a reflection of His Trinitarian nature. Therefore, it is when we live and love together in the sacramental unity that we best reflect God. That is, in large part, righteousness.
It is the very Trinitarian-centered community nature that drives us out of the doors of our churches- not in rejection of them- into the world where God is already at work, calling us to join Him. As my good friend Brother Maynard is fond of saying, “The best theology comes in boots, not books”. Not a rejection of theological understanding and knowledge, it is rather an attempt to respond to the dynamic tention between our beliefs and our lives. While too few Christians have been involved in their own communities, I do not believe that this move towards local missionality should come at the expense of global missional endeavours. Christ calls us to the end of the earth.
Whether it is churches, “parachurches”, volunteer organizations, etc. people tend to find themselves involved and commited on the basis of two major influences: relationships and vision. If you are there for the relationships, but do not embrace (or believe in) the vision, you risk creating nothing more than social clubs. If you are there for the vision, but do not work towards true relationship- well, as Corithians tells us, “if you have not love…”. It is not a rejection of locations or buildings, just a rearrangement of their priority. (I will explore the relationship to buildings and programs in a later post in this series)
What do you think? Anything you would like to add to each point?
