The Missional Church

For some time now many have sensed that the authenticity of the church in America has wained. It feels as if we have ceased to be the church that God has called us to be. The seeker sensitive model has gone by the wayside. Many of the originators of this model have now abandoned it. Many have been left with a void that is accompanied with the question: "Now what?"

Many times in history the church has experienced these, "Now What?", moments. In fact, this is how the church began. After the crucifixion of Jesus, the disciples found themselves asking this very same question. Those who had been close to Jesus were almost in a "Now What?" depression (Luke 24). However, Jesus appeared to them many times in an effort to pull them out of their depression and get them focused on what they needed to do for the kingdom. It wasn't until Jesus himself cooked breakfast for his disciples on the seashore that they finally begin to understand what their calling was. Jesus had a mission for them.

That mission has not changed. Christ has the same mission for us today. Yet, for the last decade or so the church at large has had a skewed view of what that mission is. We have tried diligently to get people to "go to church". That's not the mission Christ has called us to however. Rather, Christ has called us to "be the church." It's what he was talking about in Acts 1:8, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

The temptation for the early Christians was to stay in Jerusalem and "go to church." Jesus however, wanted them to reach out and "be the church". We have that same temptation today. We are prone to be Christians who spend time with our Christian friends, build dynamic programs in our church and expect the world to come and check us out. Yet our mission for today is to take the church and the message of Christ to the world. When we "be the church" beyond the walls of our building, we are his witnesses; that's the mission he has called us to.

The missional church is not a model; it's a response. It's an acceptance of what Christ has called us to do in it's simplest form. A church can do missional things. Our church at West K recently hosted a BBQ in the inner city so we could engage the homeless community and share God's love. That was a missional type thing for our church to do, but it does not make us a missional church. A church becomes missional when it's members live lives that are missional...when its people do missional things. When a church does become missional, you no longer talk about church growth...you just watch it happen.

There are basically three stages to becoming a missional church. First, the churches leadership and it's people begin by doing church-wide missional things. You purposefully engage outsiders with God's love with events and programs that meet needs in the community. Next, small groups within the church accept the mission and begin to do missional things. One of our small groups purchased socks, gloves and hats and handed them out personally to homeless people on the street. Thirdly, individuals in the church personally accept the mission and do missional things as well. A couple of girls in our student ministry make sack lunches for those in need who lives on the streets. No church program was needed. They just felt the call to "be the church" and they responded. When this level of saturation is achieved you have a full blown missional church. Currently here at West K we are in stage two and are flirting with stage three; we are soon to reach critical mass. Watch the video below to get an even better idea of what we are talking about.