Transcript History Presentation

Presents
What is a Missional Church?
Transforming Leadership,
Transforming Lives!
Primary Ingredients of
Missional Church DNA
A true helix is complex
A true helix is complex
So is the church
The Missional Church
An authentic faith community whose
primary focus is serving outward, on
mission with God, bringing Christ’s love
alive in its neighborhood and beyond.
Mission Markers
6 DNA markers of
missional churches
Mission Markers
1. Treats its context as a fluid/constantly changing
mission field
2. Active in & supportive of mission
3. Mission = Great Commission (making disciples)
+ Great Commandments (loving God and
others as self)
4. Recognizes all people as the subject and object
of God’s mission
5. Engaged in transformation of persons,
churches, systems, culture
6. Multiplies church, disciples, mission
Marker #1
Treats its context as fluid
You live in a constantly changing
mission field
Marker #1
What changes can you identify
since 1958?
•
•
•
•
In your community?
In your church?
In our denomination?
Which change the way we do/be church?
1958
2008
Our 50-year timeline
Marker #1
Mission Field
• Missional people live in the imagination
that they are God’s missionaries living in
a mission field.
• Missional people live in the reality that
they live in a land where the Christian
faith does not dominate culture or society.
Marker #1
Traditional characteristics
of a mission field
1. Other beliefs
2. Diverse cultures and languages
3. Social needs & justice issues
4. One or more “overlooked” people groups
5. Lack of enough churches that are reaching
out to their community
Marker #1
Has your community become
a mission field?
1. What other belief systems are present or dominant?
2. What languages are spoken?
3. What cultural world views are represented?
4. What social/economic needs & justice issues are
apparent? Who is affected?
5. Are there “overlooked people groups”?
6. Is there a need for new or more “indigenous”
churches to reach out in your community?
How is your church responding?
Marker #2
Active in & supportive of mission
Supportive of
1.“Over there”
2. Financial
3. Denominational
• Foreign (IM)
• Home (NM)
• Regional
4. Programs
5. Low direct involvement
Engaged in
1.“Right here”
2. Participation
3. Congregational
• Cross Cultural
• Contextual
4. Mission teams
5. High levels of
engagement
Marker #2
How might we be active in the
missions we support?
• Are there community services we can
partner with?
• Can we receive training from missions
we support?
• What else?
Marker #3
Missional church recognizes its
mission includes both…
The Great Commission
• Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them
to obey everything I have commanded you.
― Matthew 28:17-20
The Great Commandments
• You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, & all your mind.
• You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
― Matthew 22:37-38
Marker #3
The Great Commission
Matthew 28:17
God calls your church to leave its
“stained glass borders” and go into all
the world with the Christian message
to make new disciples, teaching them
to obey everything Jesus has
commanded us.
Marker #3
The Great Commission
(Evangelistic) Mandate
• The outcome of discipleship is believers
who are equipped, empowered and
engaged in the work of God’s mission in
their context and beyond.
• Jesus invited (called) people to experience
discipleship by becoming involved in his
mission activities before they came to faith.
Marker #3
The Great Commission
(Evangelistic) Mandate
• What does your church perceive to be
the goal of evangelism?
• In what ways does your church
demonstrate faith and invite others to
become disciples who also follow Jesus
into God’s mission?
Marker #4
Treats all people as subject &
object of mission
Object of Mission
“Acted upon/served”
• Served
• Evangelized
• Contextualized
for…
• Expect little from
Subject of Mission
“Active/Engaged in”
• Participating in
• Evangelizers
• Incarnated within
own culture
• Expect God to speak
and act through
Marker #4
Object of Mission
In your community,
who do you
• Serve?
• Evangelize?
• Advocate for?
• Expect little from?
Marker #4
Subject of Mission
Who do you expect to
• Participate in mission?
• Invite others to be disciples?
• Incarnate the Christian message?
• Serve and speak God’s voice to us?
Marker #5
Transforms people, church
& communities
This missional endeavor seeks to hold
persons, churches and communities
accountable to their God-given task of being
missional, and provides opportunities and
resources for transforming to that purpose.
Marker #5
Transforms people
• How are church members being transformed
by God’s Holy Spirit? How are church
members being equipped for service?
• Resources and opportunities for renewing
members for mission?
– Spiritual vitality?
– Personal integrity?
– Missional intentionality?
Marker #5
Transforms church
Incremental changes are implemented
intentionally to enable a church to move
toward becoming a “community of faith
which directs its ministry focus outward
toward our community and world beyond.”
This is a continual process.
Marker #5
Transforms church
• What resources are in place for your church’s
transformation toward its missional purpose?
• What systems (boards, committees, governing
bodies) are undergoing change to be focused
outward?
• What new initiatives are being born and what
programs no longer serving their purpose are
being put to rest?
Marker #5
Community transformation
• This missional endeavor extends beyond personal
transformation to corporate transformation, calling the
systems and powers of our communities to their rightful
position of servanthood of the people they tend to
subjugate.
• No system, the church included, is exempt from its need
for the liberating transformation of the Christian message.
• If your church no longer existed in your community
why would it be missed?
Marker #5
Transforms context
How can your church participate
in community transformation?
– Making it a safe and just place to live
– Calling systems to servanthood
– Promoting cultural sensitivity
– Supporting economic development
– Supporting religious freedom
Marker #6
Multiplies church,
disciples & mission
• Multiplication of missional action through
multiplying missional teams
• Multiplication of missional faith communities
through extension and bridging
• Build into your missional teams the DNA of
reproduction!
Marker #6
Multiplies church,
disciples & mission
• What mechanism does your church have in
place to foster missional action through
creating new missional teams?
• How will your church build into its first
missional team the DNA of reproduction so
other teams that include people from the
community can be formed?
Keeping “missional” in focus
Looking at “church”
through missional
eyes is like looking
at the familiar in a
new way.
Keeping “missional” in focus
The new “missionalway” will go in and
out of focus, until
trained eyes can
hold the old and the
new in focus.
The Missional Church
An authentic faith community whose
primary focus is serving outward, on
mission with God, bringing Christ’s love
alive in its neighborhood and beyond.
Missional in terms of ABCUSA
Policy Statement on Evangelism
Evangelism is the joyous witness of the
People of God to the redeeming love of
God urging all to repent and to be
reconciled to God & each other through
faith in Jesus Christ who lived, died, and
was raised from the dead.
Missional in terms of ABCUSA
Policy Statement on Evangelism
So that being made new and empowered
by the Holy Spirit, believers are
incorporated as disciples into the church for
worship, fellowship, nurture and
engagement in God’s mission of
evangelization & liberation within society
and creation signifying the Kingdom which
is present and yet to come.