Back on the missional trail

I've been quiet about missional church for a while, more focussed on making things from wood than church. But now I'm back at the desk, it's time to get the brain in gear, and this morning I caught up on my RSS feeds. One that caught my eye was from Brad Brisco at the Missional Church Network.

The post was a short extract from an interview by Ed Stetzer about missional living. With our autumn series at church focusing on the things we believe, his comments about why we don't live missionally are interesting. Stetzer identifies two main reasons why we don't live missionally:

a) because they [the 20's to 30's age group, but surely this is true across the age-ranges] believe someone else is doing it,

b) they are selfish

These reasons are unpacked as follows:

Too many Christians assume or deceive themselves into believing that someone else has explained the Gospel to our neighbors, co-workers and friends. Beyond that, believers choose their traditions over the mission. Entire congregations have decided that “the way we do things” is superior to the mission to go, be and tell the Gospel in understandable ways to the culture surrounding them.

He then identifies the barriers we face which include waiting for the church to be renewed and the difference between today's culture beyond the church and the culture we expect to find. 

What I find most disturbing is his analysis of the two reasons we don't live out a missional life. It disturbs me because a part of me, a very large part of me, recognises it as true and I wonder what I, as a church leader, should be doing about it.

How do I set the tone? How do I live and lead by example?

Some big questions to ask and to answer. 

The one thing of which I am sure is that we can never expect to see a missional church without a missional congregation. And we won't get a missional congregation if the missional people leave the church or wait for it to change. 

The complete article is available here.