What is an intentionally missional church?

While at the Keswick Convention I picked up a magazine, ‘Mission Matters’, which is a free magazine, and so I hope it is ok for me to share with you part of one of the articles in this magazine.

Bryan Knell, Consultant with the Global Connections network, was writing on the theme, ‘What is an intentionally missional church?’

Missional has become something of a buzz word in recent years, with really being clearly defined. I think that it is one of those terms best defined in action, or perhaps in the six characteristics of a missional church that Bryan has identified.


Before getting to these six characteristics, Bryan writes, ‘changing the culture of a church from being pastorally centred to being missionally centred is almost impossible. Very few established churches have managed to make the change.’

I’m sure those of us in established churches (in this context not newly planted churches) will be well aware of the challenge and difficulties in making this change. However, I’m very grateful for Bryan’s qualifications, ‘almost’ and ‘very few’. I believe that congregation need to become missional. I believe in a God who works miracles, who sees an army in a valley of dry bones. My God can change the established church I serve into a missional church. And he can do it in your church also. This doesn’t remove the need to serve and work for this goal, but encourages us that with God nothing is impossible.

To Bryan’s six characteristics (and so added comments):
1. Vision – the dominant and priority vision of a missional church is to see the Kingdom of God expanded by gospel proclamation and social action. Mission is not limited by geography or method. How healthy a church is, how much it has achieved in the past year, its aim for the coming year and its 5/10 year goal will all be determined by mission.
It is good to see gospel proclamation linked with social action, for too long these have been held separately by too many in the church. There is no one method that fits all, or will achieve all the missional purposes of God – i.e. we need to do more that preaching! I’m challenged by how few of our plans are determined by mission, this needs to change.

2. Decisions – all decisions at every level will be made on the basis of mission opportunities and prospects. “If it does not involve mission, we will not do it.”

3. Equipping/Empowering – the church will make it a priority to train, equip and mentor its members for mission. This will involve helping Christians identify where they can naturally do mission and giving them confidence to make the most of these opportunities. Secondly, it will also involve identifying new circumstances where they can be involved in mission together and thirdly, decide which mission projects will be supported by the church.
It would be good to be part of a congregation where mentoring was seen as part of ‘the minister’s’ role.

4. Preaching/Teaching/Learning – the Bible will be taught through a mission hermeneutic. This means that it will be assumed that mission is the over-riding message, focus, fabric and structure of the whole Bible – Genesis to Revelation; that all the issues that the Bible covers have to be understood in terms of their affect on and contribution to mission. The Bible will be taught not just as valuable spiritual wisdom but to equip Christians to respond to the questions and issues that they face as they do mission.
This is very good, reflects Chris Wright’s work in his book ‘The Mission of God’. We do not have a biblical basis for mission, we have a missional basis for the bible. Let’s get that one the right way round!

5. Worship – worship will be inspired by missional concepts.
a) Firstly, the glory of God which is enhanced when people come to acknowledge him as Lord through mission.
b) Secondly, the prospect of worship in heaven when people from every tribe, language, people and nation will gather round the throne. (Rev 7)
c) Thirdly, worship will be enhanced and invigorated by the testimony of those coming to faith and being blessed by God through mission as it is in heaven. (Luke 15:7)
Some challenging idea here and in the final point.

6. Community – fellowship will be vital because of the challenges, pressures and attacks that Christians are facing as they reach out in mission. People are drawn together when they unitedly attempt a task or face a challenge.

I sense many congregation know they need to change, but aren’t sure what they need to change into. I hope these six characteristics may be helpful for some in find a way forward into mission as a congregation.

Approaching Preaching

I found this book at Keswick, and already am glad that I did. Dale Ralph Davis was speaking on the first week, check out the programmes on clayton.tv

This is a book on preaching, or perphas a book on Old Testament narratives in preparation for preaching. In chapter 1 Dale writes on an approach to preaching.

Quoting John Owen, "For a man solemnly to undertake the interpretation of any portion of Scripture without invocation of God, to be taught and instructed by his Spirit, is a high provocation of him; now shall I expect the discovery of truth from any one who thus proudly engages in a work so much above his ability." (p. 1)

I found this a humbling reminder of my human weakness, a great challenge to any professional pride in handling Scripture. A call to prayer and dependance upon God is surely the only way to approach preaching.

Later on, "In facing Scripture one must take account of two realities: Spirit and text. This fact forces me to one of my operating presuppositions: God has given his word in the form of literature, part of which is narrative; I should therefore use all available tools for understanding literature. So I seek the Spirit's aid and use an approach suited to the form of his word." (p. 3)

What a great operating presupposition! Let's try to understand God's word starting from the form in which he has given us his word - literature, narrative. This leads to some obvious questions.

Why? What is the authors intention?

"Now all this concern with a writer's intention is terribly out of step. I call it 'dinosaur hermeneutics'. Reader-response criticism is more the current rage; it only wants to answer, 'How does this text affect me?' There is no precise or correct meaning but only meanings which arise from within the reader. I admit my preoccupatin with a writer's intention is dated. And I really don't care. It's hard to get away from the suspicion that someone meant to mean something with a text. Sooner or later folks will recognize that - again." (p. 4-5)

Yes, yes, yes! Words consciously and deliberately placed in sentences, in paragraphs, in narratives mean something. I do not construct a meaning by imposing my meaning upon a text - that is textual abuse. Submission to Scripture begins with a sustained seeking of the purpose of the text, the intention of the author.

Dale then comments on: (ii) How? What is the Structure of the text? (iii) What? What is the actual content of the text? Before coming to So what?

"We need to hear some loving mockery behind us, crying, 'So what? What difference does all this study make for anyone? Why should I want to pay any attention to this?' If we are constantly 'berated' that way, it will make us far better interpreters." (p. 7)

We have not preached, we have not studied a portion of Scripture until and unless we have answered this 'So what?' question. The authors intention must connect with my life. The structure and content of the passage must bear down upon me and land on Monday morning.

What a simple and straighforward approach to understanding Scripture in preparation for preaching. Pray as though everything depended upon the Spirit (which it does) and work hard at a few simple questions as though the whole thing is depending upon your study (which it does).

May God raise up such preachers and ministers of his word in our land.

Steve Brady at Keswick

Introducing the evening series on Faith At Work for the evening celebrations this year Steve Brady spoke on these three headings:

Faith leans upon a person

Faith lasts under pressure

Faith lives by the promise

It was a good talk and I'm sure you'll be able to catch it on clayton.tv

Steve shared a quote from Churchill, "The secret of success is going from failure to failure with no noticeable loss of enthusiasm."

When going from 'aparant' failure to 'aparant' failure it is good for those of us involved in Christian service to remember, we already know the end of the story - our God wins!

The theme for the Keswick Convention this year was 'Faith That Works', during week 3 when we were there this theme was opened up by Vaughan Roberts in morning bible readings from Proverbs and in the evening celeberations by studies in Hebrews 11.

Stephen Gaukroger, who is the founder-director of the Clarion Trust International, spoke very helpfully on three evenings.
On the Tuesday evening Stephen opened with a definition of faith that I want to share here. Faith is difficult to define, we can end up piling words upon words to try to explain what we mean by this small word. However, faith is seen by its effect, by its fruit. An action is needed to demonstrate, or give validity to, a statement of faith.
This is not the same as saying faith is a verb rather than a noun, faith can be both, and at times needs to be both. However, every time we profess our faith, or seek to describe our faith, we should give thought to the action or deed of faith that will demonstrate, give life to that profession.

Although coming in the middle of the week this definition of faith was well illustrated in Hebrews 11. Let us pray that it will be similarly displayed in our living by faith, the faith that works.

Phatfish

A great band we heard at Keswick, both this year and last year. Here is a you tube video which they made for one of their songs - Rise Up.

Brenton Brown

We bought this cd last week at Keswick and I've been listening to it since coming home, in the car and on the train to 121 yesterday.

What a great set of songs. Just now a favourite is 'Come Let Us Return (Gloria)'. A song which begins as a praise song ends up in a prayer for mercy and for God to establish justice.

Let mercy rise like praise to your throne,
let mercy rise like praise to you throne
Father touch your church, 'til justice fills the earth
Let mercy rise like praise to your throne

Check out Brenton's web site here, and there is a my space page where you can hear this song.
I hope you like it. Thanks to Fred Drummond for recommending Brenton's music, good one Fred!