Missional: Missional. Pastor Ben Squires. My Heart for Bethel

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1 Missional: My Heart for Bethel Pastor Ben Squires Missional *Mission-minded] refers more to an attitude of caring about missions, particularly overseas. Missional means actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining biblically sound. Think of it this way: missional means being a missionary without ever leaving your zip code.*a+ particular congregation or denomination can be mission-minded without being missional (Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches).

2 Unlearning the Unmissional Jesus told us to go into all the world and be his ambassadors, but many churches today have inadvertently changed the go and be command to a come and see appeal. We have grown attached to buildings, programs, staff and a wide variety of goods and services designed to attract and entertain people. Missional is a helpful term used to describe what happens when you and I replace the come to us invitations with a go to them life. A life where the way of Jesus informs and radically transforms our existence to one wholly focused on sacrificially living for him and others and where we adopt a missionary stance in relation to our culture. It speaks of the very nature of the Jesus follower (Rick Meigs, What the Missional Church Looks Like Rick Meigs, The missional church knows that they must be a cross-cultural missionary (contextual) people and adopt a missionary stance in relation to their community. The missional church will be engaged with the culture (in the world) without being absorbed by the culture (not of the world). They will become intentionally indigenous. The missional church understands that God is already present in the culture where it finds itself. Therefore, the missional church doesn't view its purpose as bringing God into the culture or taking individuals out of the culture to a sacred space. The missional church is evangelistic and faithfully proclaims the gospel through word and deed. Words alone are not sufficient; how the gospel is embodied in our community and service is as important as what we say. The missional church recognizes that it does not hold a place of honor in its host community and that its missional imperative compels it to move out from itself into that host community as salt and light. The missional church will align all their activities around the missio dei -- the mission of God.

3 The missional church practices hospitality by welcoming the stranger into the midst of the community. The missional church will be desperately dependent on prayer. The missional church gathered will be for the purpose of worship, encouragement, supplemental teaching, training, and to seek God's presence and to be realigned with God's missionary purpose. o The missional church is not a dispenser of religious goods and services or a place where people come for their weekly spiritual fix. o The missional church is not about big programs and organizations to accomplish God's missionary purpose. This does not imply no program or organization, but that they will not drive mission. They will be used in support of people on mission. The missional church is orthodox in its view of the gospel and scripture, but culturally relevant in its methods and practice so that it can engage the worldview of the hearers. The missional church will help people discover and develop their spiritual gifts and will rely on gifted people for ministry instead of talented people. o The missional church is not a place where "professionals" are hired to do all the work of the church. o The missional church is not a place where the "professionals" teach the children and youth about God to the exclusion of parental responsibility. The missional church is a healing community where people carry each other's burdens and help restore gently.

4 Missional Measurements JR Woodward ( A Working Definition of Success Not simply how many people come to our church services, but how many people our church serves. Not simply how many people attend our ministry, but how many people have we equipped for ministry. Not simply how many people minister inside the church, but how many minister outside the church. Not simply helping people become more whole themselves, but helping people bring more wholeness to their world. (i.e. justice, healing, relief) Not simply how many ministries we start, but how many ministries we help. Not simply counting the resources that God gives us to steward, but counting how many good stewards are we developing for the sake of the world. Not simply how much peace we bring to individuals, but how much peace we bring to our world. Not simply how much we immerse ourselves in the text, but how faithfully we live in the story of God. Not simply being concerned about how our country is doing, but being concern for the welfare of other countries. Reggie McNeal s The Present Future The Collapse of the Church Culture WRONG QUESTION: How do we do church better? TOUGH QUESTION: How do we deconvert from Churchianity to Christianity? Revelation 5:9-10: 9 And they sang a new song: You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.

5 The Shift from Church Growth to Kingdom Growth WRONG QUESTION: How do we grow this church? (How do we get them to come to us?) TOUGH QUESTION: How do we transform our community? (How do we hit the streets with the Gospel?) John 4: Woman at the well A New Reformation: Releasing God s People WRONG QUESTION: How do we turn members into ministers? TOUGH QUESTION: How do we turn members into missionaries? 1 Peter 2:9-12: But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. The Return to Spiritual Formation WRONG QUESTION: How do we develop church members? TOUGH QUESTION: How do we develop followers of Jesus? Philippians 3:4-11: If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

6 Missional at BetheL: Incarnational Jesus came into our world to send us out into our world. Going into the life of community. Relationally Attractional It is all about a relationship with Jesus. Our relationship with Jesus prepares us to call others to relationship with Him. Relationships will attract others to Jesus. Transformational Jesus has transformed us giving us new birth through faith. Mission is seeing Jesus transform the lives of others. Intentional This is why we re here. This is why we re here. Reformational The missional church *is always+ both reforming (reclaiming essential biblical and theological truths) and forming (responding to new and changing contexts) (A Field Guild for the Missional Congregation, p. 72).