What Doesn't Missional Mean?
What Doesn't Missional Mean?
What Does Missional Mean?, Week 14
by Andrea Lingle
For the last three months we have been on the journey of contemplating what does missional mean?
We discussed how the Gospel serves as a missional initiation to reorient our lives in following Christ.
Building off this, we looked at the woman anointing Jesus in the Gospels and highlighted how being missional means we reorder our definitions of what is “normal.”
We then saw, through the eyes of Peter denying Christ and other examples of stories throughout Scripture, that there is a freedom in failure that can lead us to receive a deeper sense of love. This means being missional.
Missional also means that we un-segment the different parts of our lives that keep us from being able to embrace others as we hear in the words of Paul, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
Being missional involves binding together within and without our faith communities through grace as we are led by the Holy Spirit.
To be missional means to be sent out in a new way as we find the church changing. We are encouraged to choose C, to pursue following Christ in non-traditional ways.
Missional living must be done together. The church itself and other faith communities can be identified as a means of grace and therefore we are all encouraged to grow and watch over one another in love.
It takes a contemplative stance to be missional with others as God helps us move from places of pity to compassion.
Missional means remembering who we are and who we represent; a God who calls us to rely upon the hospitality of others as we serve patterned after the teachings of Christ.
Missional is found as much in a large suburban church offering a model train ministry as it is in a new monastic family sharing the journey of gathering tadpoles in a local park with strangers.
Missional includes experimenting with a contemplative stance and imagination.
Missional is finding different ways to be a neighbor right where you are, as simple as grilling out in your front yard instead of the back.
After looking at everything we have covered, we could say, what doesn’t missional mean? What in our communities of faith, our daily lives, or our world does not lend itself to the divine broad scope of being missional?
Or maybe a better question is, what is keeping us from being missional?
Invitation to Missional Mindfulness:
How has this theme of discussing “what does missional mean” impacted you and your faith community?
In what ways might God be leading you to be missional in the weeks to come?