Missional living

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines "missional" as "Relating to or connected with a religious mission; missionary." In contemporary usage "missional" is an adjectival alternative to "missionary." Although both words are related to "missio" (Latin: sending), some scholars, including Darrell Guder et. al. in The Missional Church[citation needed] believe "missional" focuses on the the Church's indigenous, rather than cross-cultural context, with the church contextualizing its methods, morality, and message to fit this indigenous culture.

In this usage "missional" has rapidly entered the lexicon of the growing emerging church movement whose participants have coopted the term for their own use, enabling participants in this movement to recognize each other across denominational lines. Different emergents may use the term with different nuances and connotations, but the term persists as essentially a postmodern alternative to the ecclesiology and missiology of Evangelical Christians. The practical outworking of emergent, missional living does not coincide with the emphases on propositional evangelism, teaching, and holiness found in historic Christianity. Missional believers are more inclusive than exclusive, refusing to identify boundaries that could be perceived as an "us vs. them" mentality. Within this atmosphere so-called missional believers seek to enhance the lives of all postmoderns regardless of their belief system or lifestyle.

In contemporary, postmodern usage "missional" has become more narrow in scope than traditional terms such as "mission" and "outreach" which infer the inclusion of propositional evangelism and instruction. Jason Zahariades identifies the difference between a traditional "disciple making," evangelical church and a missional church as fundamentally theological[1] . Missional churches are non-traditional in more than methodology. Their non-traditional methodology and tolerance results from an embrace of postmodern epistemology that changes their theological self-understanding. Any differences in activity result from this difference in identity. This postmodern identity causes missional believers and churches to identify with culture rather than consider themselves alien "prophets" to it.

[edit] Further "Missional Christian" Reading

  • What do missional churches look like?By Ed Stetzer
  • What is a missional community?By Jason Zahariades
  • Seay, Chris. "Is Pomo Nomo?" Christianity Today, February 20, 2003.
  • Jones, Andrew. "What I mean when i say Emerging-Missional Church", Feb 1, 2006, Tallskinnykiwi.com [2]
  • George R. Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder eds., The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (March 1996).
  • Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21 Century Church, Hendrickson Publishers (November 2003).
  • Darrell Guder (Editor), Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (February 1998).
  • Ed Stetzer and David Putman, Breaking the Missional Code, B&H Publishing Group (May 2006).

[edit] Evangelical Christian Critiques

[edit] See also

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