There is some really great discussion happening around the role of salvation in the missional conversation. Last week we began to look at the connection between missiology and soteriology and briefly talked about how salvation was viewed in missions history during the modern paradigm, beginning with the Enlightenment.

Here are some others who have weighed in on that question:

• Brother Maynard: Salvation in a Prologue to Missional Discussion (recap)


• Tiffany Smith: Examining how we think about...salvation and missions...


• David Fitch: Missional Soteriology: Does the Missional Vision Change How People are Saved?


• Jared Wilson: The Two-Fisted Gospel: A Manifesto for Kingdom Militancy


• Jonathan Dodson: What is the Gospel of the Missional Church?

Today, I would like to continue to look at the role of salvation in the missional conversation by revisiting one of the most influential and controversial figures in 20th century missions history (someone I have written about before in this series here and here) and talking about a major shift in the discussion in the 1970s. His ideas on salvation will become key...

J.C. Hoekendijk

With the rise of fundamentalism in the 1920s, the Social Gospel's counteraction began with painting salvation, not just as transformation in individuals, but increasingly as the annihilation of distorted and prejudiced structures. This trend was evident until a new era of confidence was birthed in the 1960s, ushered in particularly via J.C. Hoekendijk.

In our previous installments of the "Mondays are for Missiology" series, we investigated the unique connections between the kingdom of God, eschatology, the church and mission (and all the interrelationships therein). As we've walked through this discussion I made the comment, "I see much missional historical naïveté." What exactly do I mean by that? Well, some of what I am hearing from some (not all) missional thinkers are the same words that other individuals said decades earlier-- and it subsequently led to theological ruin in the missio dei movement (something to which almost all, not just evangelicals, would agree).

So how do we not make those same mistakes again? I believe it helps by going back and looking at the roots of the missional movement and having a robust theological discussion that heightens our awareness of the issues at hand.

To that end, today I want to shift gears and begin to look at these missional issues through a more soteriological (the study of the doctrine of salvation) lens, covering the nature of salvation.

Here is something that has been posted at several places on the web today:

David Fitch once said that most missional thought leaders "emphasize incarnational forms of church over attractional; the church as Missio Dei over mission as program; organic forms of missionary living in neighborhoods over ministry set in a building." Yet many others seem to add the term to the current program they are attempting to promote or make cool sounding. As Ed Stetzer noted, "The word missional is used to bludgeon legalism and antinomianism alike. To some it is a sign of freedom from all established forms of the church and to others it is a degeneration into syncretism with the world."

So, do we abandon the term and move on? Not yet, because the concept behind missional is really big and words help us when we can agree on their definitions-- or at least we can agree what we mean when we use a word.

Continue reading Prologue to Missional Discussions.

Over the last few weeks we have looked at the relationship of the church, the kingdom of God, and mission. I want to bring these ideas to a close this week and move onto a new theme beginning next week. Please join the conversation in the comments. I enjoy the discussion!

The Church on Mission for the Kingdom

We may now see how when everything becomes mission, nothing is mission. The church does not point to a reality in itself, but rather to the kingdom of God and the reign of Jesus Christ. The church stands for something more elemental and invasive than itself. Because the kingdom is more all-encompassing and far-reaching than the church, the church must be recognized as a servant to Christ's kingdom.

Bob Roberts has earned degrees from Baylor Univeristy, Southwestern Seminary, and Fuller Seminary. He planted Northwood Church in 1985 that has since planted 140 churches in the United States. He has written for various periodicals and journals both faith based and secular international relations journals. He works with the United Nations and various State Departments of various governments around the world doing humanitarian engagement projects. He frequently travels to seriously challenged nations to help with development, engagement, and reconciliation. Their focus is to engage the society with the Gospel through the use of ordinary disciples vocations. Bob has written 4 books, Transformation, Glocalization, The Multiplying Church, and recently Realtime Connections: Linking your job with God's Global work. Bob speaks around the world on globalization, faith, church planting, engagement, and a variety of global affairs issues. He is married to his wife of 30 years Nikki, they have 2 children, Ben and Jill, a daughter-in-law Ashley, and an exchange student they consider their own - Ti.

Bob will be leading a lab at the missionSHIFT conference this summer at Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina on July 12-15. Bob's lab is titled, "The Glocal Church: Missional beyond Program." Here's a brief description.

Hugh Halter will be speaking at the missionSHIFT conference this summer at the Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina on July 12-15. Hugh is the national director of Missio, a ministry team committed to training, developing, and apprenticing Incarnational leaders for the church. Within Missio, Hugh co-directs the MCAP, an online collaborative training environment for Incarnational leaders, pastors, and church planters. Hugh is also lead architect of Adullum, a local movement of incarnational communities in Denver, CO. As co-author of The Tangible Kingdom, and the accompanying Tangible Kingdom Primer, Hugh is an advocate for disoriented God seekers and loves to inspire and re-orient leaders around the mission of God. I was happy to write the foreword for his next book, AND...the Gathered & Scattered Church coming out through Zondervan/Leadership Network/Exponential in April. At the missionSHIFT conference Hugh will unpack the sotry of Adullam to help you think beyond the normal church plant methods, funding options, and kingdom results. The key focus will be on decentralizing incarnational communities and holding the congregation together through non-consumer gatherings.

Ed: Tell us briefly how you came to the work with Adullam and what all fills your days?

It's Monday and time for another installment of "Monday is for Missiology." Long time readers of the blog are familiar with my Meanings of Missional series, but for those who have missed it here is where the conversation unfolded on the blog.

Meanings of Missional

The Meanings of Missional: Part 1
Where we ease into the word, missional. Where did the term come from, and do we really need it today?

The Meanings of Missional: Part 2
Where we begin to look at the relationship between the words mission, missions, and missional.

The Meanings of Missional: Part 3
Where we consider the sentness of the church as fundamental to the word "missional."

The Meanings of Missional: Part 4
Where we look at the role of the church and evangelism in the missio Dei.

The Meanings of Missional: Part 5
Where we consider the need to be God's missionary people, with a biblical definition of mission, focused on the missio dei.

Monday is for Missiology: The Eschatological Dimension of the Missional Church

Monday is for Missiology: The Church, the Kingdom, and the Mission

As I've said before, I believe it is very important to look at theological and historical roots of the missional conversation if we want to frame the current discussion with integrity. If we don't, we could easily make some of the same mistakes that caused the leftward trajectory in a theological direction during the missio Dei movement in the mid- and late-20th century. We want to be faithful to the Scriptures as well as good students of history.

Today we will look at a couple of caveats regarding the eschatological language (the coming Kingdom is "already and not yet") of mission.

Caveats

Citing German Lutheran theologian Ernst Käsemann, Bosch raises some points of caution regarding the language of the church as "sign or sacrament." Käsemann believed that this kind of vocabulary might muddy the distinction between Christ and the church. To call the church a "sign" may obscure that the only genuine sign of the church is the cross of Christ. Concerns like these inspired the World Council of Churches at the Faith and Order meeting in Louvain, Belgium in 1971 to clarify: "The church...is a sign. But it is also no more than a sign." Further, they said, words like sacrament are not attributes the church confers to itself: "God himself has chosen the [church] to be in Christ the sign or sacrament of the unity of his kingdom." Bosch summarizes these points by saying, "When the church, in its mission, risks referring to itself as sacrament, sign, or instrument of salvation, it is therefore not holding up itself as a model to be emulated. Its members are not proclaiming, 'Come to us!' but 'Let us follow him.'"

Additionally, it is of the utmost importance to evade the common dueling extremes:

1) the extreme eschatologicalization of mission, and

2) the extreme historicization of mission.

First, an obsession with "end times" can paralyze mission. Walter Freytag strongly criticized missionaries and mission agencies that appeared to welcome the corrosion of society as a sure indication of the imminence of the Second Coming (parousia). M.A.C. Warren also notes that Freytag warned that the stress on the waiting for the "not yet" could "easily lead to 'quietism'...," making the church "guilty of the sin of temerity...[and] timidity." Bosch continues:

A fixation on the parousia...simply means that we are evading our responsibilities in the here and now. Submitting to Christ as Savior is inseparable from submitting to him as Lord in our personal lives but also political and economic systems in the corporate life of society.

On the other hand, a fixation on an entirely "this-worldly" understanding of the eschatological character of mission is equally dangerous. The threat lies in the abandonment of any idea of the uniqueness of the church and instead concentrates on what happens in the world outside the church. The incarnation becomes the representation of the world-historical salvation process that emerges gradually through cultural, moral, social, political, and even revolutionary illumination.

The attraction to an over-historicized eschatology seems to arise when individuals become impatient with the "slowness" of the kingdom coming and in turn, take control and redefine the kingdom, seeking to build it with newer techniques, while continuing to use the name of Christ to endorse their programs and social endeavors. "Mission" merely becomes shorthand for the fulfillment of societal responsibilities.

Bosch is quick to say that the problem with this paradigm is that in becoming the "arbiters of what action is appropriate," God's reign always passes sovereign judgment over the pinnacle of our ideals and often goes against the grain of history, overcoming our diminution of the gospel to mere ethics. He continues: "We will never realize our blueprint for a societal and political order that will match the will and rule of God...[T]he future holds the primacy. The ultimate triumph remains uniquely God's gift."

So, where do you think we are erring today? And how can we avoid the reactionary pendulum swing from one extreme to the other?

Dan Kimball is on staff at Vintage Faith Church, planted in 2004 in Santa Cruz, CA. He is the author of several books including They Like Jesus But Not The Church. He is a columnist for Leadership Journal and Outreach Magazine. He is adjunct faculty at several universities including Wheaton College, George Fox University and Western Seminary where he teaches on church and mission. Dan is part of the leadership core for Origins, a new network focused on evangelism and the mission of Jesus to new generations. He blogs at dankimball.com.

Dan will be joining us in the Missional Manifesto conversation leading up to missionSHIFT this summer at Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina on July 12-15. Dan's role is to serve as a "framer" to what we hope will be a helpful document in leading the church forward in missional ministry. I asked him to answer a few questions about his current ministry and role in the upcoming conversations around the manifesto.

Ed: Vintage Faith Church is not a typical place of worship. Talk about what distinguishing characteristics it has in terms of practice, preaching, and ministry.

Continue reading missionSHIFT: Introducing Dan Kimball.

Last week, I resurrected my "Meanings of Missional" series and I really enjoyed the discussion in the comment section of my post on the role of eschatology (referring to the coming Kingdom) and its relationship to mission and the church. I have to admit, I really like talking about the historical and theological roots of the missional conversation. Don't get me wrong, I am ready to move the conversation from debate to action, but as I said last week, I think it is very important (and wise) to look at the historical and theological trajectory of the missional conversation.

Today, we will look at the relationship of the church and the Kingdom of God to mission.

I am very pleased that my friend Alan Hirsch will be joining us in the conversation leading up to missionSHIFT this summer (July 12-15 at Ridgecrest). Alan has been one of the leading voices in calling the church to live missionally and he will play a significant role in guiding the discussion regarding the Missional Manifesto.

I asked Alan if he could stop by the blog and answer a few questions about all things missional and what is happening in his life and ministry right now.

Ed: What do you see in the church that is giving you hope that we are doing better at engaging in God's mission?

Continue reading Missional Mondays: Introducing Alan Hirsch.

Today I want to introduce you to Linda Bergquist. She will be speaking at the missionSHIFT conference this summer. We are also excited to have her voice as a part of framing the Missional Manifesto.

Linda and her husband Eric live in San Francisco, California. She is a New Church Starting Strategist and the co-author of "Church Turned Inside Out" from Leadership Network (2009).

I have known Linda (Dr. Bergquist ) for many years. When I was a professor (oh so long ago) she took several of us on a tour of the marginalized communities where God was at work in the Bay area. She has a passion for people on the edge of society and the change that the gospel brings. You can find out more about her work in San Francisco at her site Plant Churches with Us.

To introduce her to you, I asked Linda to answer a few questions about herself.

In September Brent Thomas, pastor of Church of the Cross in Peoria, AZ, took issue with a 9 Marks review of Jim Belcher's Book, Deep Church. Brent saw the review by Greg Gilbert as not only "snarky," but also unfair. In fact Gilbert's review actually received a response from Belcher himself on Trevin Wax's blog. There Belcher explained how Gilbert had somehow missed the point of his book. In his blog post Brent wondered if there was something of a growing rift within Reformed Evangelicalism related to the issue of the "missional church."

Just last week Brent's suspicions seem to have been confirmed through another 9 Marks publication by Jonathan Leeman. Leeman's article, "Is the God of the Missional Gospel Too Small" is troubling in that he argues missional thinkers place a heavy emphasis on social justice that moves the church away from a proper emphasis on the gospel. Brent explained,

On Friday morning I asked this question on Twitter, "What are the key passages or texts that speak of God's people (OT and NT) being on mission? I'll publish the top 10 on the blog." This generated a good response and you offered up passages of Scripture from both the Old and New Testaments.

Here is a screen shot of one of many pages of helpful comments:

Here is a top ten of the passages cited. Some are explicit, others less so, but the mission of God and our calling to join Him is clear. I will be using these in my forthcoming study bible article on John 20:21.

I believe that John 20:21 ties our mission into Jesus' mission. In other words, we join him in His mission. There are many verses that relate to that (and I often use Luke 4 and Luke 19:10 as good summary statements), but I was looking for verses that were more clearly connected to the call of God on His people.

Here is the list of ten verses that indicate God's people are sent on mission:

GENESIS 12:1-3 The Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

EXODUS 19:5, 6
Now if you will listen to Me and carefully keep My covenant, you will be My own possession out of all the peoples, although all the earth is Mine, and you will be My kingdom of priests and My holy nation.

ISAIAH 6:8
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying:
Who should I send?
Who will go for Us?
I said:
Here I am. Send me.

MATTHEW 24:14
This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come.

MATTHEW 28:18-20
Then Jesus came near and said to them, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

MARK 16:15
Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.

LUKE 24:46-48
"This is what is written: the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead the third day, and repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And look, I am sending you what My Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered from on high."

JOHN 20:21
Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you."

ACTS 1:8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

1 PETER 2:9-10
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people for His possession,
so that you may proclaim the praises
of the One who called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light.
Once you were not a people,
but now you are God's people;
you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.

What is missing? What verses more clearly represent the fact that God's people are sent for His mission? As I mentioned, I do not include the verses that point to how/why Jesus was sent (though that is valid and we join Him in His mission).

Once my little list is done, I will include them as a footnote in the HCSB Study Bible, next to my article on John 20:21.

As I mentioned and shared details on Saturday, I'm doing a conference tomorrow in Chicago. Whenever I come to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I do a one-day seminar for pastors as part of my class.

In this case, I will be focusing on "missional leadership." I recently taught on the subject in Oklahoma. Here is the video:

Missional Leadership from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

You can get more information about this training at the One Day web page.

Here is the outline that I used in the video and I will be using tomorrow:

Missional Leadership

1) Reconsideration of Leadership

a) From superman to everyone
b) From church to kingdom
c) From me to we
d) From personal power to people empowerment

2) Rejection of Clergification

a) From three tiers to one mission
b) From "called to the ministry" to "called to ministry"
c) From "called to missions" to "sent on mission"
d) From exceptional to ordinary
e) From "priests" to a "priesthood of believers"

3) Renewed focus on mission

a) From "full service" to "simple mission"
b) From "pay, pray, and get out of the way" to "join God on His mission"
c) From decisionism to disciple making
d) From "mission statement" to "Jesus mission"
Luke 4
Luke 19:10

4) Realignment of priorities

a) God is a missionary God
b) I personally join Him on mission - modeling
c) I lead others to join Him on mission - leadership
d) I equip others - multiplication

I hope that is helpful. Be sure to watch the video to get the context.

I am on my way to Canada right now, and it reminded me of another international trip-- just a few days ago. Let me recap my Upstream Collective vision trip to Taiwan and ask you to consider partnering in mission there.

We were blessed to be able to worship with Taiwanese believers on Sunday Morning. The beauty of the church was apparent when they invited us to join them for a meal. Afterword, I interviewed Taiwanese Pastor Chen and Michael Carpenter interviewed a student who attended church with us that morning.

The next day, I related a little Chinese history to the group in front of the Chaing Kai-Shek memorial. In the back of a Taipei cab, I interviewed Marshall Dallas of Second Baptist Church, Houston. I later interviewed Los Angeles area church planter and pastor Ray Chang of Ambassador Church, an Evangelical Free congregation, about multi-ethnic church. Ray also posted about it on his blog, Transformission.

Phil and Irene Nicholson led us through a Temple as people worshiped ancestors, Buddhas, territorial gods, and idols. It was a telling illustration of the spiritual state of Taiwan. We walked through some of the rougher parts of Taipei, where we saw the trafficking of women. We were encouraged by OMF's ongoing ministry there, including work among single mothers,shopworkers, prostitutes, and the homeless.

Then we lost Rodney Calfee in the Red Light District. Literally lost him. We found him later, though, and he learned his lesson.

Later in the week, we heard from Robert, a Taiwanese believer who eloquently explained the need for contextualization. I then posted "Five Reasons Missional Churches Don't Do Global Missions" which was, according to one commenter, "by far the best work I have ever produced." I'll let you be the judge, but it is an issue about which I am very passionate.  We need to put the "missions" back in "missional."

Finally, from atop the world's tallest building, Taipei 101, I interviewed missionary "Garth" about church planting in Taiwan.

We're thankful for several blogging friends who kept up with us during the trip. Their participation helped add a "virtual" element to the trip that allowed others to participate from home. Among the virtual trip commentators were:

• Tall Skinny Kiwi, who was reminded of his first experience in Asia.
• J.D. Greear was kind enough to give us a shout from his blog as well.
• Todd Littleton pointed out the trouble with superimposing American methodologies.
• Grady Bauer also followed along, and highlighted the trouble of importing American culture along with the gospel.
• David Jackson picked up the fundamental differences between religion and relationship.
• Bob Hyatt mentioned our trip and someone named Caleb Crider.

Our hope for this trip is to help shape the ongoing conversation about all things missional  (especially in the international context). I'm convinced that the best way to have a missional perspective here at home is to be actively engaging unreached people groups with the gospel in other places-- where it's much easier to see the need for things like contextualization, indigenous expressions of church, and biblical missiology.

I'll be leading another Upstream Collective trip, this time to London and Paris, with Daniel Montgomery of Sojourn, Louisville,  in the Spring of 2010. Sign up for more information on the Upstream Collective website.

I am writing this post from Taiwan. As I have been working with both local leaders and American pastors, I have been struck by a few things and thought I would share them with you.

First, I have traveled to Taiwan as a part of the Upstream Collective. The reason is to accompany American pastors with a desire to be missional on a cross-cultural, international encounter. (You can scroll down the last few posts to learn what we are doing in Taiwan.)

Each person on the trip has the missional impulse as part of their DNA, and they are here to consider how they might join God on his mission globally. While I admire the faithfulness of these men, I must admit my surprise to see that there is not a bigger interest in such global concerns among American pastors in general. My fellow travelers seem to be rare of a breed in ministry.

Second, when I blogged about this on Sunday, two readers contacted my hosts-- one working with the Presbyterian Church in America and one from the Oversee Missionary Fellowship (OMF). Why? Well, according to one email, the author explained, "I'm particularly interested in attracting young missional church planters here."

Third, I was recently told by a pastor who called himself "missional" that his church needed to pull back on their global mission support to help their people "be missionaries right here."

All this provokes me to ask, "Why are so many missional Christians uninvolved in God's global mission?" As the missional conversation continues and deepens, what has occurred that has led to our blindness to the lost world around us?

There are five reasons I think this has happened:

1) In rediscovering God's mission, many have only discovered its personal dimensions.

I don't mean they have somehow localized mission into their interior, "private" life-- that would make little sense. Rather, the encouragement for each person to be on mission (to be "missional") has trended toward a personal obligation to personal settings, rather than toward a global obligation to advance God's kingdom among all the nations.

"Missional" has merged with privatized Christianity to serve as the reason for personal projects carried out in personal spheres. This is not bad, necessarily. But when the missional impulse is not expanded to include God's global mission, it results in believers moved only to minister in their own Jerusalems with no mind toward their Judeas, Samarias, and uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8).

2) In responding to God's mission, many have wanted to be more mission-shaped and have therefore made everything "mission."

Missions historian Stephen Neil, responding to a similar surge in mission interest (the missio dei movement of the 1950s and following), explained it this way: "If everything is mission then nothing is mission." Neil's fear was that the focus would shift from global evangelization (often called "missions") to societal transformation (often called "mission"). He was right.

Recently John Piper echoed these same concerns, differentiating between evangelism and missions. He reminded us that when "Every Christian is a missionary" equals "missional," then we have diluted the need for and specialness of missionaries to foreign lands. (Although I would want to nuance John's language a bit, I agree with his point.)

One American church's website recently identified their ministry as missional, which they proceeded to define as "reaching out to the community to invite them to come" see what is happening in the church. Another's young adult community service project consisted of landscaping the church grounds. Inviting people to church and cleaning up the church are noble endeavors, but passing them for "missional" and "service" is ministerial naïveté at best. It demonstrates the fuzziness that creeps in when labels become catch-alls. And as the outer edges of the missional label gets fuzzy so does mission to the outer edges of the world.

3) In relating God's mission, the message increasingly includes the hurting but less frequently includes the global lost.

One only needs to watch the videos to see the emphases: global orphan projects, eradicating AIDS, Christmas shoeboxes, etc. All of these causes now have advocacy groups, and rightly so, as they are important. However, their vocabulary and frames of reference do not frequently make room for evangelizing the very people they touch. The message of world evangelism, actually, seems more common in legacy/traditional churches than in missional churches. Missional churches seem to speak more of unserved peoples rather than unreached peoples. As we engage to deliver justice, we must also deliver the gospel regardless of anyone's status in a culture.

4) In refocusing on God's mission, many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news.

St. Francis allegedly said,"Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words." Interestingly enough, Francis never actually said this, nor would he have done so due to his membership in a preaching order. But it is a pithy quote tossed into mission statements and vision sermons in missional churches all around my country. Why? It seems that many in the missional conversation place a higher value on serving the global hurting rather than evangelizing the global lost. Or perhaps it is just easier.

I am not urging a dichotomy here, only noting that one already exists. It is ironic, though, that as many missional Christians have sought to "embody" the gospel, they have chosen to forsake one member of Christ's body; the mouth.

5) In reiterating God's mission, many lose the context of the church's global mission and needed global presence.

For whatever reason-- the admirable one of commitment to the local church or the ignoble one of commitment to personalized consumeristic Christianity-- we have lost the grand scope of the entire family of God. While Christ calls people from all tongues, tribes, and nations, we have become content with our own tongue, tribe, and nation. Many churches are wonderfully embracing the missional imperative, but as they seek to "own" the mission by adapting their church into a missional movement in their local community, some inadvertently localize God's mission itself and lose the vital connection all believers share together. A hyper-focus on our own community results in a, have lost vision for the communion of the saints.

So how do we fully embrace missional without losing the mission? The Mission Exchange (formerly the Evangelical Foreign Mission Society) asked me to talk to their global leaders on the topic "How to Put 'Missions' Back into Missional." In my talk, I proposed four principles we needed to consider:

First, recognize it is God's mission, and we need to be passionate about the mission as He describes it. We don't own mission and it is not ours to define. A church vision statement is fine, but God's mission is better and bigger. Our first task is to submit to God's mission.

Secondly, evangelicals have understated the call to serve the poor and the hurting and need a stronger engagement in social justice. This sounds counterintuitive if we are seeking to remedy the loss of concern for articulated evangelism. But social engagement entails relational engagement, and relational engagement entails opportunities to share the gospel. The successes and experiences in our communities should awaken hearts and minds to global needs. We just need to maintain the reason for social justice: the glory of God in the worship of Jesus.

Third, share God's deep concern about His mission to the nations-- that His name be praised from the lips of men and women from every corner of the globe. Feel the Great Commission in your bones. Ask God to turn your heart to those you cannot see. As Paul did, develop ways to "struggle personally" (Colossians 2:1) for those far away.

Fourthly, churches that are serious about joining God on his mission will obey his commands to disciple the nations. The end product of missional endeavors should be a thriving Christian ready to produce more thriving Christians.

It appears to me that many missional churches are missing the Great Commission in the name of being missional. That makes zero sense. It is a huge (but historically common) mistake.

If we are truly interested in being missional-- in joining God on His mission-- our efforts should actually reflect His stated mission. We are bound to the Great Commandment as the fullest human expression of God's love. But the Commandment is not hermetically sealed off from the Great Commission. Rather, the Great Commission provides the what of mission, while the Great Commandment provides part of the how. Answering the age-old question of "Who is my neighbor?" should result in the desire to "make disciples of all nations."

Yesterday, I posted the video from my training in Oklahoma. I neglected to add the outline and notes, so I am posting them here. You can see the video here and the notes are below.

At the One Day web page, you can find those outlines, with "blanks" if you want to use them as training notes. Bob Mayfield tells me that 16 of the 273 churches have done their "One Day," but they have already trained over 2000 leaders. I am encouraged!

Missional Leadership

1) Reconsideration of Leadership

a) From superman to everyone
b) From church to kingdom
c) From me to we
d) From personal power to people empowerment

2) Rejection of Clergification

a) From three tiers to one mission
b) From "called to the ministry" to "called to ministry"
c) From "called to missions" to "sent on mission"
d) From exceptional to ordinary
e) From "priests" to a "priesthood of believers" codependence

3) Renewed focus on mission

a) From "full service" to "simple mission"
b) From "pay, pray, and get out of the way" to "join God on His mission"
c) From decisionism to disciple making
d) From "mission statement" to "Jesus mission"
Luke 4
Luke 19:10

4) Realignment of priorities

a) God is a missionary god
b) I personally join Him on mission - modeling
c) I lead others to join Him on mission - leadership
d) I equip others - multiplication

I hope that is helpful. Be sure to watch the video to get the context.

I am always calling the church to think of herself and live out her calling as God's missionary people. And while there is much being written on all things "missional" these days, a lot of it is theoretical and theological. We need that, but we also need practical resources, advice and tools to share with others that will encourage missional living.

One is Alan Hirsch's The Forgotten Ways handbook. Another is The Tangible Kingdom Primer. Compelled By Love and Sent: Living the Missional Nature of the Church are also practical starting points.

People are also sharing their ideas and experiences online. Jared Wilson, pastor and co-founder of Element in Nashville and author of Your Jesus is Too Safe, offers Five Missional Practices You Can Do Now. Steve McCoy, pastor of Doxa Fellowship in Woodstock, IL and uberblogger at Reformissionary offered two posts giving good practical advice for living as the sent people of God this summer. Be sure to check out Summerbia and Summerbia: Connection Tools.

* Piper, Driscoll, Greear, and Stetzer - Q&A Session