What is a Missional Community? – Part 2

Thinking about Missional Communities requires that we undo some of our current ecclesiology. Remember, this is a paradigm shift . . . like the switch from pay-phones to cell-phones. To understand their usefulness requires us to think differently. I still watch people with cordless phones standing near the phone-base as if a cord were attached. These people haven’t quite grasped the usefulness of the new technology – their paradigm has not yet shifted.

In the same way, we won’t grasp the usefulness of Missional Communities if we keep trying to fit it into our old understanding of church.

People who have only known “program” churches try to fit Missional Communities into what they know. And for them, Missional Communities are a program of the church that better coordinate service projects.

People who have only known “pastor-centered” churches try to understand Missional Communities through their paradigm as well. These folks may see this as a strategy to bring new people into the church.

Both of these ideas start from an institutional view of church – or what some call a ‘Constantinian’ or ‘Christendom’ view. This idea comes from the argument of missiologists like Newbigin, Hunsberger,Guder and Murray . . . and it goes sort of like this: once Constantine mandated Christianity in the 5th century CE, structures were in place to set in motion a new kind of Christianity that no longer needed to be sent out. Rather than having to go and spread the Good News of God to the ends of the earth, the Western church absorbed the world and began expecting people to behave like Christians. This required a great deal of internal work and institutional management.

But as Clayton Schmit puts it, “the church in North America today no longer exists in the privileged era of Christendom. Post-Christendom means that the church in the West, just as in every other part of the world, is a church in mission (“Sent and Gathered”). Once again, the church needs to see itself as sent to people who do not know the patterns of Christian behavior because they have not heard the Good News of God.

In other words, every Christian in North America is a missionary to the people of North America. And Missional Communities must support this reality. If “Missional Community” becomes one more program that extracts Christians from the places they live, work and play, something is drastically wrong. Those relationships are precious both to God and people who worship in our churches. Also, most people don’t have time for one more of our programs or even one more relationship.

Missional Communities, when done right, are designed to support people to bear witness to God’s goodness in the places they are already sent. Here are some ways this can happen:

1. Missional Communities are praying for each other as they build loving relationships with unchurched people in the places they live, work and play.
2. Missional Communities are places to learn ways to be a more effective witness to God’s goodness through teaching and practice.
3. Missional Communities are loving environments to which Christians can invite their unchurched friends to be involved in meaningful service in the name of Jesus Christ.
4. Missional Communities are a place to come in from the “mission field,” receive and give love and encouragement, and then to be sent back out with the blessing of God and knowledge that one is not alone.

The service projects or ministries that give Missional Communities their identities are Spirit led. They become ways in which the Spirit draws people together through a common interest in God’s work. These ministries are a continual reminder that we are sent people. They can even be a means by which Christians practice bearing witness to God’s goodness.

Because they are Spirit led, they also represent the work that is meaningful to unchurched people in the community. This makes them excellent outreach mechanisms. God uses this work to draw people who are in relationship with those within a Missional Community to Godself. And as people serve alongside Christians in Missional Communities, they are introduced to the loving community of Christ-followers – people who value them and the things they care about.

Missional Communities must see themselves as a team of missionaries to those who have not heard the Good News of Jesus Christ in their city. They could learn much by studying churches around the world where Christians are in the minority. For example, they might consider the work of a church in Morocco where only 25 Christians gather weekly in a region of over a million people. How are these Christians in Morocco living as sent people? What do words like “community,” “incarnation,” “service,” “witness,” and “Gospel” mean to them? What strategies do they use to be the light of Christ – together? How do they support each other in their collective mission?

This is the shift that is at the core of Missional thinking. Without this new paradigm, Missional Communities will be one more program that either extracts Christians from the North American mission field, or imposes additional good works on the poor while neglecting or excluding unchurched Americans thirsty for Good News.

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