What is a Missional Church?

“Missional” is a term that is quickly becoming the next consumer brand label for hip churches hoping to attract savvy (and disgruntled) North American Christians. This is unfortunate because the theology associated with this term has the power to alter the declining condition of the Western Church and give it new energy.

Years ago the Church Growth movement reached its peak in the “Seeker Church.” Then the Church Health movement spawned the “Emerging Church.” These were good movements that lost their long-term potential. One reason for this may be that ‘strategy’ did not always accompany ‘theology.’ Thus, the movements developed critical habits arguably  reflective of modern culture more than God’s Kingdom. However, some leading theologians are contributing significantly to this next movement. Noted scholars include Lesslie Newbigin, Stuart Murray, Alan Hirsch, Darrell Guder, George Hunsberger, Richard Mouw, Ed Stetzer, and Jim Belcher.

Central to the Missional Church thinking is a return to a theological foundation of the mission of God – misso Dei. Beginning with the Father sending the Son, the Father and Son send the Spirit, and the Father, Son and Spirit send the church. The purpose of this sending is to testify to the Good News of God’s goodness. Thus, the church, both as a community as well as its personal members are sent to bear witness to the nature and work of God. It does this through words, works and worship.

At first glance it may seem difficult to see the dynamic shift at work in this re-centering proposition. Unlike the Church Growth movement that focused its attention on the needs of unchurched people, and unlike the Church Health movement that focused its attention on the church, this movement focuses attention on God. For the Missional Church, the work of God is central. God gives believers authority to testify as a result of their encounters with Christ and His story and work.

It is important to note here that “missional” is not meant to imply that doing “missions work” as understood from the past is the current trend in church growth. This misunderstanding is leading the way toward turning the “missional” label into a consumer brand. Some “missional communities” are emerging simply as groups of Christians doing good deeds together in the world. While this is still important work, it is not the theological end of the Missional Church movement. We use the term “missional” properly when we root it in its linguistic meaning – “to send.” The Missional Church movement is about returning the church to its sent-ness. One church expressed it correctly with their annual vision slogan, “The Church has Left the Building.”

Ed Stetzer says that missional church is “a full expression of who the church is and what it is called to be and do” (Breaking the Missional Code). His chart gives a concise explanation of the progress toward this full expression.

Church Growth	Church Health	Missional Church
Members as inviters	Members and Ministers	Members as Missionaries
Conversion/Baptism	Discipleship	Missional Living
Strategic Planning	Development Programs	People Empowerment
Staff-Led	Team Leadership	Personal Mission
Reaching Prospects	Reaching Community	Transforming Community
Gathering	Training	Releasing
Addition	Internal Group Multiplication	Church Planting Multiplication
Uniformity	Diversity	Mosaic
People-centered	Church-centered	God-centered
Great Commission	Great Commandment	Missio Dei

Missional Churches will take God’s people to places that have been ignored for many years. Most “attractional” churches have attracted all the people they are going to attract because they only reach people who are like them or who want to be like them. Missional church send people to bear witness of God’s goodness to people for whom our symbols, language, songs, and structures have no meaning. These may have even been barriers to the Good News for those others. But by bearing witness in a new cultural language – hip/hop culture, goth culture, artist culture, young adult culture – the gospel not only takes on meaning for the un-churched, it also takes on deeper meaning (more fuller meaning) for those sent-ones bearing witness to what God has done.

One foreseeable barrier to Missional Church will be the way that it challenges current church models and missions. To send out a group of people to neighbors in a congregation’s backyard requires the admission that all have not been welcome, and one congregation is not able to be all things to all people. And as new congregation’s emerge, with their own translations of the Good News and new priorities for leadership, current congregations will have to weigh the value of those changes for their own ecclesial expression.

But the continual conversion of the church is important for its future, a conversion that happens when we live as the sent-ones we truly are.

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