What is the Missional Church (Part 1)

WHAT IS THE MISSIONAL CHURCH? (Part 1)
The Strange Case of the Missing Church

North American Christianity has a big problem: the Church is missing! How can that be? There are church buildings all over the place! Yet it remains the case: the Church is missing. Not missing, of course, in the sense that there are no church buildings, or services, or programs. Rather, the Church is missing in that the body of people called into being by God and promised to be the people through whom God would bless the world (Gen.12:1-3) is scarcely to be found here. God intended a “missional” church yet we have only a “missing” church? Why?

Three reasons:

1. Our western view of reality is divided in two.

GOD spiritual realm
-immaterial, soul/spirit
-good, beautiful, desirable
______________________________________________________________________

material realm HUMANITY
-nature, bodies, "stuff"
-inferior or even evil

As a consequence, we Christians focus on the invisible, immaterial, inner spiritual realm with a goal to return at death to that good spiritual realm where God resides and from which we originally came.

Thus, the direction of spirituality under the influence of this divided, dualistic, view of reality is both inward (into ourselves, our heart, spirit, soul, etc.) and upward (to the realm of God and the spiritual). The material, physical realm, the world of space and time, is marginalized in our concern as much as possible.

2. We also have a (“billiard ball”) view of humanity. We consider individuals to be complete, whole, sufficient in and of themselves quite apart from relation to anyone or anything else. Thus we think of freedom primarily if not exclusively as “freedom from” any constraint or external influence. Other than family of origin (for most of us), our relationships must be “chosen” by us rather than given to us.

Thus, we view “church” as a “voluntary association of like minded individuals” with whom we associate for spiritual benefit. We might picture it like a billiard table with all the individual balls racked together.

3. We live in a “therapeutic culture” which inclines us to focus on getting our “felt needs” met and being happy. Thus the institutional church is seen primarily as a “vendor of religious services and goods.” This reflects the consumer mentality which saturates and shapes us in this society. We go to a “place” (Church) to get what we perceive we need for ourselves and our families.

When we mix our two-sided view of reality with our individualism and our view of the church as a “vendor of religious services and goods,” we have a formula for the “missing” church. The “church” as such has little or no intrinsic significance for growing in faith or doing God’s will. Its only value is instrumental. It is a convenient “place” for Christians to come to get what they perceive they need. In this way of viewing and practicing Christian faith the church (the “missional” church God always intended) is indeed no where to be found; it is “missing.”

A biblically conceived view of the church, a “missional” church, would have at least the following features.

1. It would be oriented to the “Sending” God. God “sends” forth his love to create a world “very good” (no two level, divided view of reality here!). But humanity rebels, sins, and falls. Then God “sends” Abraham’s family to heal and restore his creation, but they too fail. Undaunted, God “sends” Jesus to climactically and decisively fulfill Israel’s role (which is also Adam’s role) and heal and restore the creation. Jesus then “sends” his people into the world to implement and spread his victory. God and Jesus “send” the Spirit to the people to empower and equip them for this work.

The direction of spirituality in a “missional” church is centrifugal, always moving out from the center, Jesus Christ, to embrace and serve God’s wayward creation. Our focus rests on what we have been given (divine gifts and calling to sacrificial servanthood in the world) rather than what we can get.

2. It works out of a “molecule” model of humanity. We are created to need each other, to be connected or in “communion” with one another; to bear the “image of God” (Gen.1:26-28) together. To be without such relationships is the core of our sinful fallen condition. As God made us in creation, so he deals with us in history by making covenants, binding agreements with his called people to do his work in the world. In this sense and for this community, it is very definitely about “us”!

Orestes Brownson, a Catholic theologian, says it well:

“Herein is the distinction between an association and an organism. In the association, the body has no life but the aggregate life of the members, and therefore, none but what they impart to it; in the organism, it is precisely the reverse, the life of the members is in the body, and they have none but what they receive from it, through their intimate union with it…But now is the Church of Christ, not an association, but a body, an organism, and therefore, does not receive its life from its members, but imparts in them their life; and they can live only in their intimate union with it…In declaring the Church to be the body of Christ, we necessarily declare that Christ is the life of the Church.”

3. Viewing itself as God’s missional people implementing Christ’s victory of the restoration of creation rather than a place where people come to consume religious goods and services, a missional church will function as a “sign” (a prophetic pointer to), “foretaste” (a present experience of), and “instrument” (practitioner of) God’s kingdom work in the world. This means that the missional church, as the prototype of the kind of life God intends and is saving his creation for, is God’s mission. It does not have a mission, as if mission was something different and separable from what the church is, some piece or part of the larger work of the church. The restoration of creation, under the lordship and empowerment of the triune God is “the” thing, the “only” thing for which the church exists and to which it is to bend all its energies and efforts.

We have a “missing” Church; we (along with God and the world!) need a “missional” Church. Enough said!