I have been doing a good bit of reading on the missional church literature. Many of us have been trying to make their point for years. A friend of mine Jerry Cook has written a book titled, “Monday Morning Church.” And he has been harping on the point that the church is not the end of the story. The kingdom of God is. And every member in the church is to touch their world with Christ’s power and love.
I have learned that when all is said and done things that have the real power are organic. They happen out of the rigors of life. They come form rising to the level of need and opportunities that rise in front of you. Churches should and can be networks of people serving the broken. But can you ever really organize enough to hit all needs?
Is the person who feels directed to work with the Red Cross any less a part of missional church than someone who participates in the local official church outreach? I don’t think so.
Church as we experience it on weekends is to be the launch pad for active church. The worshiping and loving church is the necessary send-off for the ministering church. You can’t separate one from the other.
Jerry Cook coined a phrase I have stolen for years. He says, “Christians should be open for business every day of the week.” This is the evidence of a church baptized into the Holy Spirit. We are everywhere gifted by him sufficiently to change the world.
One of my aims as a leader every week is to encourage and celebrate the “going” of the church into the world. Paul expected that unbelievers would come from the outside to see the church. Hence they would be attractional churches (I Cor. 14). But he describes a church empowered to go.
I truly believe that we must work hard at being officially organized as missional churches. But you can’t replace the power of the organic church being His hands, feet and mouth in the world. And I think that happens more than we think.
Is the server of coffee at Starbucks any less spiritual in their work than the worship leader. I don’t think so. Is the businessman teaching business to students in another culture any less important than the missionary. Christians are strategically located and empowered no matter their vocation or task.
One of my concerns about the new literature I am reading is it deems what is the natural result of good missional work, growth, as a cheapening of the church. I am a missional church leader but I also believe in a strong launch pad that might even have some more conventional definitions of success.
I just say if we were all missional the world would be a different place overnight. But ridding ourselves of gathered church will only weaken the launch pad. And failing to be a launch pad for missions in its community renders a church ineffective as the Church. It is only an enterprise at that point.
We have a group of older grade school kids wrecking havoc on our church. They have wrecked our signs. Spray painted the building, you name it. We have had it with them many times. One of our team talked to a school official and we found that this group of kids come from drug addicted families. They are hungry when they come to school and are on the breakfast program. And they are hungry after school. She had the idea of preparing an after school snack for them and inviting them into the church. The poor kids live a hard life. This is missional work.
