iamhealed.net

A couple of weeks ago, a word appeared in my mind that I don’t think I’d ever heard before:

missional

I don’t think I’d heard of it before because I wasn’t sure what it meant. I figured it had something to do with missions or missionaries or their lives, but I wasn’t 100% certain. I wasn’t particularly having a God moment when it “appeared” in my mind… but I’ve come to know that the Holy Spirit will nudge me along whether I’m particularly paying attention or not. So, I asked my Good Friend Google

Googling “missional” brings up 795,000 entries. Apparently there’s a lot of people talking about whatever-it-is.

Reading over some of the sites and blogs, I quickly learned two more words:

incarnational

emerging

I also learned that there’s no “good” definition of the three words.

Different people use them in different contexts at different times and places. There are all kinds of churches that classify themselves as “missional”, “incarnational”, and even “emerging”. There are Pentecostals and charismatics, POST-pentecostals/charismatics (whatever THAT means?), Reformed folks, Liturgical folks… it seems like these are the current buzz-words to replace “Purpose-Driven” and “Seeker-Sensitive”. Most of the churches that call themselves “emerging” also have the “missional/incarnational” tag attached. It’s all a bit confusing.

I quickly determined that Brian McLaren’s the mover and shaker in the Emerging movement. I haven’t read his book and I’m not really likely to; there’s a lot I can find to disagree with there. Most particularly, I have issues with his “loving” stance on homosexuality. Of course we should be loving to all sinners. That does not offer excuse for any sin. Pr 14:25 - “A true witness delivers souls, But a deceitful witness speaks lies.” (NKJV)

Another mover and shaker in the Emerging movement is Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church and Resurgence. I have actually read his book (Radical Reformission) and found much to agree with in principle, tho there’s certainly much I can’t agree with, either (Reformed theology is just beyond my capacity to grok. I intellectually understand what it means, but it so contradicts everything I read in the Bible that… well, let’s just say I can’t agree with it.)

Most of the “emerging” church/philosophy sites that I’ve looked tend to be so accepting of the culture that I wonder at them. Many “emergents” seem to be fine with swearing/drinking/drugs/sex/movies & tv glorifying same… all apparently as an attempt to become a part of the cultural context they’re in. Also, some are so strident in their “you must be … too” that I’ve really wondered. It seems that the whole point of “emergence” is to deconstruct “traditional forms”… it’s ironic that they should insist that “the new way” is right, thus making it “traditional” in their context of experience… hmmm. That could go ’round, couldn’t it?

So I wouldn’t classify myself or what I see our future church as being to be as “emerging”.

Missional and Incarnational are rather different. While most “emergent” churches are “missional” and “incarnational” (etcetera), there are also plenty of other folks who use those terms.

Missional: n the book “Breaking the Missional Code” (Broadman & Holman, 2006), Ed Stetzer and David Putman describe missional 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

Friend of Missional has a number of related definitions. Some probably cross into the “emergent” category, but overall it gives a pretty good view of what it means to be “missional”.

Incarnational: This article on Incarnational Preaching by Steve Chandler in Encounter (an AoG publication) was how I discovered the term “incarnational”. Paraphrasing:

• Incarnational is missional in nature and focused on missio Dei (God’s mission)
• the church is focused on leading people to Jesus in a natural, relational way
• leaders model incarnational preaching in their living
• this leads to powerful, God-ordained, authentic service that is not tied to “what does the church get” or “how many will show up on Sunday” (reciprocity) but is tied to Jesus’ love and compassion. (not to say that the church “gets” nothing or that people showing up for services isn’t a good thing - just that the church should not be so tied to “results” as a benchmark that they lose sight of the mission)
• Members are encouraged to be visible and relevant in their communities and spheres of influence. Far more is accomplished by relational people than by decree of a church or even Scripture - for people to hear the latter, they must first know the former. (If that wasn’t the case, IMHO the New Testament wouldn’t have been written beyond the Gospels, and God would have left us to wander our way to Him, or not… and that’s hardly the case - Thank God!)
• Spirit-filled believers engaging in relationship with nonbelievers/unchurched folks leads to Spirit-enabled encounters.
• incarnational people think in terms of the present and future as if Jesus is coming SOON - His return is not some far-off event or rumor that it “might” happen “Someday”… it’s imminent and as a result, the message is URGENT.

It’s all a lot to digest and I’m not sure I’ve got a handle on the terms yet - it seems that every blog or website I go to, there’s “more” and there’s so many shades of meaning that can be applied.

I’m not entirely sure that it “matters” anyway. Sometimes labels are helpful; they put information in context and allow people to relate. However, much of that relation is based on assumptions of what the labels mean. For instance, I might say that I’m orthodox and evangelical and Pentecostal in my beliefs. But to different people, those words mean different things. Someone might assume that I’m somehow affiliated with one of the Orthodox churches. Someone else might assume that I’m a stick in the mud, because to our culture, “orthodox” tends to mean “boring, rigid, unfeeling”. Lots of folks assume that Evangelicals are all somehow affiliated with the Baptist churches - even Christians. There’s several types of Pentecostal churches; some are anti-trinitarian and highly unorthodox. If I say, “Pentecostal” - how am I classified? Labels have limitations unless we go to great lengths to explain them.

So, what am I? What will our church be like, when we plant it? There’s a lot to draw from in the “missional” and “incarnational” lines of thinking - a whole lot. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, and said to test all things and hold fast to what’s good. I guess that’s what Ken and I will be doing over the next few weeks and months - testing what we read against Scripture, praying lots, and making plans accordingly.

Apologies for such a long and rambly post - this was less for readership and more for me to sort out some things in my mind.

tag: missional, emerging, emergent, missio dei, incarnational, pentecostal

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Christian, Church Planting, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.