Exploring The Community Coming To Be Known As Missional – 3rd & Final
In an attempt to further develop the ideas I articulated in my article, “The Community Coming To Be Known As Missional”, I have been exploring it in more detail what I did and did not mean. I am examining 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. Here is Part 3:
“We are the Community Coming To Be Known As Missional. Each among us is our leader, each among us is led. We honour the diversity of our community by leading from along side or beneath, not from above. Every gifting, perspective, experience and individual is valued equally, not according to position or power. Each among us is our teacher, each among us a student. We honour the wisdom of every individual, especially those on the margins, as Christ Himself identified with their trials.”
I am not advocating anarchy or anti-establishmentism, but rather challenging how worldy models of power and hierarchy based authority have usurped God’s intended community of mutuality, service and humility. Not surprisingly, the world is beginning to see the wisdom in this, impacting science, business, government, etc. embracing truly Biblical values with stunning positive impact. Recognizing that there are times people need leadership, the nature and excerise of the leadership can be very different than what we are used to.
We recognize that when one leads it does not reflect on their value nor on the value of those who follow. While we would give lip service to such beliefs, (again) in practice it doesn’t always seem to happen. Language of “roles”,”giftings” and “equal but different” can be used to subtly determine who can and cannot lead based on a positional power-based model. We then see language like “anointing” and “chosen” to defend position or silence protest. “Submission” can be robbed of its beauty when used as a weapon to control in worst cases.
Finally, while not creating an equal opposite to this problem by elevating them to sacrosanct level, we acknowledge that those on the margins have much to teach us. By this I am not suggesting that they are better suit to teach or lead (though in some cases that is true), but rather that in relating with them in love and service, the challenges it raises teaches more deeply than any sermon ever could. Those challenges will stem from their sin and brokenness- trust me, many of the poor would not think twice about accepting a gift with one hand, while stealing with the other (sounds like some businesses I know…) and/or they will stem from our own sin and brokenness- such as our complicity with consumerism and individualism or our abandonment of our vocation of missional justice to the state.
“We celebrate the differences amongs, even that which we cannot reconcile, not in denial of the absolute, but in the gift of humility that those differences require of us. Without denying our differences, we no longer allow them to categorize us or divide us. It is in the diversity that the image of God is most fully reflected in and through us.”
This is not the uncritical tolerance that denies absolutes, but the unconditional love that is absolute. It recognizes that, as important as issues of doctrine and theology are, if we define our relationships and missional commitment upon that exchange, we miss the heart of the Gospel. Jesus said He IS the Truth and that Truth will be found (not exclusively) in our missional engagement with the world and service to the other.
We do not embrace uncertainty with the pride of enlightened postmoderns, but humbly in our acknowledgement that Scripture, history and our lives demonstrate time and again that God’s people get it wrong. Yes, this is a dangerous tension to live with, but the false safety of taking refuge in the extreme- be it easy relativism or unmovable fundamentalism- will only kill the seeds of hope that we are called sow. Again, our differences and how we respond to them in loving and godly ways is a reflection of the Trinitarian nature of the God in whose image we are created.
“We are the Community Coming To Be Known As Missional, but we are not there yet. We acknowledge our weakness and foolishness, as it is the weakness and foolishness of God. We are flawed, broken, proud and afraid. While we are committed to becoming this community without apology, we acknowledge that our becoming is dependant on the whole Body of Christ. While we believe we have something to offer the whole Church- something critical and prophetic- we also acknowledge that we need them equally as much. Above all, we need God- Father, Son and Spirit- to complete in us what we are created to be.”
Finally, and most importantly, we end where we began. We are moving towards something on a path that is somewhat unfamiliar to us. We are not masters of our domain, but travellers in a journey towards God (voyageurs, in other words). We are daring, bold and commited on the one hand, but often pushy, cocky and stubborn on the other, for which there is no excuse. Sometimes, however, our foolishness and weakness are the keys to truly being missional- like the shared brokenness of a 12-step program, we don’t have to have it all together before God loves us or we love each other. What a hope for the world to see!
Some may not feel as strongly as me on this point, but I deeply believe that the best future for this community will emerging alongside the traditional church, seeing both sides informed and guided by the other. Most of us would not be where we are without the traditional church, sometime for worse, but more often for better I think. We need each other.
In the end, though, no model, theology, value system or manifesto will truly change anything. Only by the grace of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit will any lasting good be birthed from this shared journey towards becoming the community known as missional.
Anything to add? Fire away!
