MISSIONAL CONVO INTRO...

A peep into a portion of my notes for today's EXPLORATION convo for pastors @thegallery around developing a practiacl theology for Mission Communities:

Love to hear from you on this mammoth matter...

“Experimental groups seeking to engage the Christian faith in a postmodern context will often lack the resources, profile or success record of the Boomer congregations. By definition, they are new, untried, relatively disorganized and fearful of self-promotion. They reject the corporate model of their Boomer forebears and thus do not appear, according to existing paradigms, to be significant. But don’t be fooled. Somewhere in the genesis and genius of these groups, is hidden the future of Western Christianity. To dismiss them is to throw away the seeds of our survival.” Gerald Kelly[1]

---

[1] Frost and Hirsch; The Shaping of things to come; pg x,

Some of my thoughts on being ‘missional’:

· Gospel centrality has to be the hub around which every thing spins – that means:

o Understanding the full width the

§ Creation,

§ Rebellion,

§ Redemption,

§ Consummation,

o Land all our preaching in the gospel – to provide meaning, clarity, liberty,

o The key to our discipleship,

· The priesthood of all believers must find expression both inside and outside the community,

· Every believer should see themselves as being both incarnational [to serve their community] as well as missional [to save their community]

· Missional believers see that God has ‘ordained the time and places where they should live’ – this means that the perfect storm in their lives take place where talents, giftings, relationships, vocation, the gospel and context come together,

· Every person’s spiritual journey is valid and essential. The attractional model empowers the superstars to great acts of faith. The missional revelation empowers all believers to do ‘good works God has prepared in advance for us to do’ Eph 2,

· Exegeting culture and context is the second language of this missionary – there is an understanding that I must adjust to impact my world but never at the expense of scripture,

· A missional mind is never stagnant. By its very foundation it is adjusting as the people, context and situation requires… the wineskin changes to accommodate the wine,

· They never forget the poor…