How NOT To Be a Missional Church series: Click | View Series

The missional church movement has been good and bad. On a positive note, let’s focus on the bad. I want to suggest three ways to not be a missional church. In continuation of the series, this post examines some of the defects of social action-driven mission.

Social Action-Driven Mission

This approach probably creates the best community of the three mentioned in this series. A socially-minded and active church attracts socially-minded non-Christians. When my City Group recently cleaned five apartments from top to bottom for some homeless women and children, we all got a little closer. There’s something about being on a common mission—the sweat, the jokes, the empathy, and the memory–that unites folks. Creating a missional memory strengthens community and mission. It also raises questions with non-Christians you serve. But is social action enough?

1. Social action-driven mission isn’t unique to the church.

There are plenty of non-Christians engaged in social mission—serving the poor, the needy, the abused, and the homeless. They don’t need a church to engage in social mission. There are thousands of non-profits that can do this. What sets the church apart? If we are banking on social mission to be the unique contribution of the church, we’ll lose the game, and more importantly, the souls.

2. Social action doesn’t create new community.

Although social action mission creates community, it doesn’t create new community. Regenerated, new creation is the unique work of God the Spirit (Tit. 2.11; Gal. 6:15) through faith in the Son (Tit. 3:6-7; 2 Cor. 5:17). If we convert people to community and social mission alone, and not to Christ, we offer a very incomplete gospel. Regeneration is both social (Matt. 19:28) and spiritual (Tit. 3:5). The Spirit, not social mission, makes men new.

3. Social mission can lead to liberal church.

When we reduce mission to social action, we run the danger of becoming a socially-minded liberal church that neglects large stretches of the Bible requiring repentance and faith in Jesus. When missional communities focus on social mission alone, they disregard their evangelistic identity, gifting, and responsibility as the church of Jesus Christ, the Jesus who died and rose to make all things new—people and products, souls and society.

This series has attempted to identify some of the shortcomings in expressions of missional church. When mission is driven by events or evangelism, or social action, we engage in incomplete mission. When we engage in incomplete mission, we offer an incomplete gospel to our neighbors, towns, cities, and world. In a future series, I will take a more positive tack by exploring three areas that promote being a missional church.

This series is based on Jonathan Dodson’s talks at the LEAD ’09 conference.

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A Diverging Church and Culture

Increasingly, ministry in North America is an exercise in crossing cultures. As the culture moves its own way with everyone “doing right in his own eyes,” the church and the culture look increasingly divergent. Thus, Christians are left with a challenging task: how do we faithfully proclaim a clear biblical gospel in the shifting sands of culture?

It would be arrogant to think our culture different from all the others where the gospel is preached. For two millennia, Christians have addressed cultural questions.  Honestly, it has not always gone well. In every cultural encounter, some go too far and many don’t go far enough.


Joining Jesus In His Mission

Thus, in the Re:Train course "Missional Missiology," we will be asking missiological questions from a missional framework. The title of the class gets at the issues. First, we will look at things from a “missional” perspective. In other words, we will seek to join Jesus in his mission. That will require us to understand things like the mission of God, the Kingdom of Christ, the work of the church, and the cultural context.

The last point, the cultural context, gets at the missiological question. Missiology asks, “How can we most effectively be engaged in mission here, now, in this place and culture?”

We stand at a crucial time in the North American church, but the answers are always the same— a biblically faithful culture engaging and transforming its culture for the glory of God, the redemption of men and women, and the advance of his Kingdom.

Dr. Ed Stetzer teaches a course on Missional Missiology at the Resurgence Training Center. For more info, go to ReTrain.org.

Books By Ed Stetzer:

• Compelled by Love: The Most Excellent Way to Missional Living
• Comeback Churches: How 300 Churches Turned Around and Yours Can, Too
• Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community
• Planting Missional Churches
• 11 Innovations in the Local Church: How Today's Leaders Can Learn, Discern and Move Into the Future
• Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them
• Perimeters of Light

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Missional cultural engagement is a challenge. How far does one go to engage culture? According to missiologist Ed Stetzer, that is the nature of contextualization. In his recent post Ancestor Worship and Taiwanese Christians, Stetzer gives some helpful guidelines on contextualization as well as this short video of a Taiwanese believer explaining the difficulty of contextualization in his culture of ancestor worship.

Rain City Hymnal

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There is a strong emphasis on Jesus’ pattern of discipleship in the Gospel of John; maybe the reason is because John's readers live at the furthest ends of the gospel's reach. The interaction of Jesus and his disciples is presented in a clear narrative, and we are given a model of discipleship. We’re going to explore the intentional actions of Jesus while he raised up his disciples.

Jesus started with good drink and hospitality

It would do stodgy Christians good to meditate on the fact that Jesus began his signs and wonders with making excellent wine and giving it to his friends and family to enjoy. This wasn't wine from a box; it was good wine. The waiters were amazed that such good wine would be served later in the evening—this was the good stuff that's at eye level on the grocery shelf, not the stuff near the ground on the corner.

This wedding was on what John refers to as the third day—the previous two days Jesus was busy starting his core group. He began with hospitality and invited them to stay the night at his place and quickly became close enough with the first two disciples that he gave Peter the nickname "rock."

Jesus was hospitable—he was welcoming, personable, and friendly. His personality was so magnetic that the disciples were drawn to him—he was such a good host that he even brought them to a wedding party, and made sure they had enough good wine to drink. Now that's a good guest to have at a wedding—bringing extra wine in case the father of the bride was too cheap to get enough.

This is a series of reflections on how Jesus made disciples, based on the book of John.

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Missional Christianity Series: Click | View Series

The Shadow of Poverty

Every day in United Sates, there are literally millions of people who are living in poverty in the shadow of our nation's great wealth. Hunger and poverty are quickly becoming a serious epidemic in U.S. Every month close to twenty million Americans go hungry. According to the census, over 35 million people live below the poverty line. Most of our nation's poor are children or elderly. There are over 50,000 orphans in America. Many more people nationwide are homeless and can't fill their basic needs for food and clothing. Drugs, domestic violence, and illiteracy are also harsh realities for many people.

Who are these people in need? Where can we find them? They are in our cities, communities, and small towns. They are our neighbors, fellow church members, and even family members. They are not numbers or statistics; they have names, faces, and feelings. Government organizations alone cannot reform or solve the problem. The problem usually has a spiritual root, and the church is already equipped with the answer. We are called by Jesus Christ to minister to a lost and hurting world with love and compassion.

Think Outside the Box

There are a number of ways that you can do effective community ministry. The key is thinking outside of the box. We need to think of new ways to reach our communities for Christ. Depending upon the need in your community, your church can start a food pantry, serve meals to the elderly, offer literacy training, start an after-school program for at-risk youth, or start an art ministry to reach local artists. Our church began an art-mentoring program that has reached hundreds of at-risk youth in our community and in South America. Community ministry shows people in the community that you care.

Meeting the Needs of the Community

We will never know what our community needs until we begin to get outside of the church building. It is amazing how little church people actually interact with non-churchgoers. Matthew 9:35 tells us when Jesus went out into all the cities and villages he saw that the multitudes were weary and had compassion on them. As Jesus went into the community he saw the needs of the people. Get into the community and start assessing the needs of your town or city. Make a personal inventory of the needs, and then you will be able to begin meeting them.

Following God's Heart For the Needy

I think that God is bringing about a renewed awareness for social ministries in the church. For too long the church has focused solely on numerical conversions, forgetting about the need to minister to the whole person. In the past, social ministry has been looked at as something that only liberal Christians do because they lack the spiritual aspect of the Christian faith. There may have been some abuse, but that is no excuse for us to neglect social ministry altogether.

God is concerned about the needy, destitute, hurting, poor, and orphans of the world. The word of the Lord tells us that we are commissioned to care for those around us who cannot care for themselves. Too long we've tried to stick band-aids on wounds that will not heal overnight. Being missional is going into places where the world doesn't want to go. Ministry is very dirty. If we are going to make a difference, we must roll up our sleeves and join in the work of Jesus among the poor and disenfranchised of this world. Find the needs of your community and begin to fill them by being a missionary to your city and community.

Recommended Books

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Missional Christianity Series: Click | View Series

Believe, Then Share

Once we firmly trust and believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior, we must make his name known to the entire world. This is also called the Great Commission. His name is beautiful, wonderful, and altogether lovely. The Bible tells us that one day, "every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, to the glory of God" (Phil. 2:10). Jesus' last words to his disciples were, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matt 28:20).

Evangelism Means Good News

Sharing our faith is the duty of every believer. This is commonly called evangelism. The word evangelism comes from the Greek word evangelion, which means gospel or good news. We are all called to share the good news of Jesus' love and forgiveness with the world. It is not as important how we share our faith as whether we share our faith. There are many different ways that Christians can share their faith with others.

Pray and Receive Help

Sharing our faith begins with prayer. Pray that God will give you the right opportunity and words to say to others. You would be surprised how many opportunities there are to share your faith with others. The Holy Spirit will open hearts when the time is right. Many times people never share their faith because of fear, but the Bible says that "God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7). The Holy Spirit will help you move past all of your fears and share your faith with boldness. It's like fishing; you don't know what the fish are biting until you cast your line into the water.

Care, So They Can Too

The best way to share your faith with your friends and family is by personal or friendship evangelism. Being an authentic Christian day after day is the best way to win somebody to Jesus Christ. To be a living witness does not remove our responsibility to verbally share our faith; rather it gives us the opportunity. We must share the message of salvation whenever God opens the opportunity. The Bible says, "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17). Nothing can replace the power of the Word of God when it is spoken out of a heart of love and under the leading of the Holy Spirit.

To be continued.

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Missional Christianity Series: Click | View Series

Chosen For This Time and Place

As the Father sent Jesus, he also sends us into our time and culture. Mark Driscoll says, "It is imperative that Christians be like Jesus, by living freely within the culture as missionaries who are as faithful to the Father and his gospel as Jesus was in his own time and place" (The Radical Reformission). We have been chosen by God to live in this time and place in order to fulfill the mission of God.

Acts 17:26-27 tells us that God has determined the exact place and time where we should live so that that men may find him. It is truly awesome to realize that you have chosen by God to be his representative to this world. It is both a great privilege and a great responsibility. Paul describes our calling in the following way: "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:20).

We Have Come To Serve

Christian ministry is God's way of showing the love of his Son Jesus through his church. Christians must strive to always be like Jesus, our perfect example. Jesus said, "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). This scripture beautifully embodies the task of Christian ministry. To be a minister is to be a servant. We are to serve and give our lives for others. Serving is the example that Jesus gave; therefore we should follow it.

As the church we are called to care for a lost and dying world that is in desperate need of a savior. Too often we compartmentalize the different ministries of the church. We have viewed social ministry as something we do on one hand and evangelism on the other. God is calling the church to rediscover the biblical model of holistic ministry. Jesus met both the physical and spiritual needs of the people he ministered to. As the Body of Christ on earth, we are his representatives to a lost world. Therefore, what we do and say are of eternal importance.

The Missional Coin

There are two primary ways that every Christian can become missional. The first is by sharing a verbal witness. This is also known as the evangelical witness, or more commonly, evangelism. This is when you share the gospel message with your words. The second way we can fulfill the mission of God is called the social witness. The evangelical and the social are two sides of the same coin. We are called to lead people to Christ with both our words and our actions.

To be continued.

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Missional Christianity Series: Click | View Series

Being a missional Christian is simply following the way of Jesus, who was the greatest missionary. The Bible tells us that he came from heaven to earth to die for a lost and dying world. The following scriptures reveal how the mission of God was fulfilled through Jesus Christ and how we are called to continue and complete the Missio Dei in our culture:

• Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." (John 4:34)
• "I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me." (John 5:30)
• "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me." (John 6:38)
• "I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me." (John 7:29)
• "And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him." (John 8:29)
• "We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work." (John 9:4)
• And Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me." (John 12:44-45)
• "For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak." (John 12:49)
• "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." (John 13:20)
• "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." (John 17:3)
• "For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me." (John 17:8)
• "As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world." (John 17:18)
• Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." (John 20:21)

To be continued.

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Missional Christianity Series: Click | View Series

Missio Dei

It is impossible to grasp the true heart and soul of Christianity without understanding the mission of the church. Christians have been sent as missionaries to share the gospel in our present culture and to fulfill the Great Commission. The church is rooted in the concept of the Missio Dei, which recognizes that there is one mission: God's mission. Missio Dei is a Latin theological term that can be translated as "Mission of God." The church is not an end in itself; the church points beyond itself to fulfill the mission of God. Robert Webber reminds us, "The calling of the church in every culture is to be mission" (The Younger Evangelicals).

Being Missionaries Like Our Missionary God

To understand what it means to be a part of the mission of God begins with understanding that God is a missionary God. The very being of God is the basis for the missionary enterprise. God is a sending God, with a desire to see humankind and creation reconciled, redeemed, and healed (The Shaping of Things to Come). God's mission can be seen throughout the pages of the Bible and history, and nowhere is the mission of God better understood than in the person and work of Jesus Christ. John 3:16 tells us "God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

Missionaries To Our Own People

Many Christians and churches teach and preach that missions are something we support or do, such as sending or supporting missionaries in other countries. This was the case 20 to 30 years ago. However, in the 21st century, the mission field has come to us. We live in a post-Christian world where many people simply don't know the gospel anymore. Therefore we are all called to be missional and share in the mission of God. Ed Stetzer says, "Being 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" (Planting Missional Churches).

To be continued.

Rain City Hymnal

The first offering from Re:Sound is the Rain City Hymnal. Listen online and get the record from the Re:Sound website. Find out more.

The guy I first started church planting with used to tell the story of the first time he attended a church business meeting. He’d recently been converted and was looking forward to plotting the downfall of Satan with the other members of the church. What a letdown! They spent the meeting talking about the restrooms in the church building. Somehow churches have a tendency towards maintenance mode.

The great thing about church planting is that it puts mission at the heart of church. When you’re eight people meeting in someone’s front room—as the Crowded House was once—then you can’t help but be about mission.

But church planting also puts the church at the heart of mission. So much evangelism today is about me doing my thing with my friends. We have evangelistic ministries divorced from the church. This is not the New Testament way. New Testament mission was church planting.

Mission at the heart of church. The church at the heart of mission. Welcome to church planting.

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