We recently hosted another meeting of the Church Planting Leadership Fellowship here in Nashville.

One of the speakers for the event was Neil Cole. I've written about Neil on the blog in the past as well as in the book 11 Innovations in the Local Church (with Elmer Towns and Warren Bird).

Neil's strategy for church planting is one that runs countercultural to the typical American model-- large start, rented facilities, band, etc. Instead of duplicating Sunday morning worship experiences, Neil advocates the creation of simple, organic house churches that can multiply rapidly. His focus is not on the weekly worship experience as much as it is on daily disciple development.

For Neil, that simplicity boils down to having the right DNA in a "church":

D--Divine Truth
N--Nurturing Relationships
A--Apostolic Mission

This method of church multiplication and church planting has been very successful overseas, but it not as well known (or impactful, I think) here.  I think one of the more likely places that organic churches might take root is in the urban centers of the U.S.

So, I thought it interesting to find former megachurch pastor Francis Chan now engaged in planting such churches.

Many of you know of Francis through his books Crazy Love, Forgotten God, and Erasing Hell or through his BASIC DVD series.

He served as pastor of Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, Calif., until just last year. After taking some time off in 2010 and 2011, Francis has landed in San Francisco and is working to start a church planting movement in the inner city through organic communities.

Chan may use different terminology than Neil Cole, but the premise is the same - to bring life-change through small, organic communities that live out the gospel daily with a focus on discipleship rather than large worship gatherings.

You might find interesting a panel I moderated with Chan, Cole, and Dave Gibbons that touches on these issues:

In his book Organic Churches, Cole writes:

Instead of bringing people to church so that we can bring them to Christ, let's bring Christ to people where they live. We may find that a new church will grow out of such an enterprise, a church that is more centered in the life and the workplace, where the gospel is supposed to make a difference...What would it be like if churches emerged organically, like small spiritual families born out of the soil of lostness, because the seed of God's kingdom was planted there? These churches could reproduce just as all living and organic things do...We must take Christ into people's lives, and it must be in the context of relationships.

Relationships matter to God. They matter to people as well. And in a multihousing context where relationships can be easily formed and quickly grown, organic churches sown with gospel seeds and watered through gospel-centered discipleship can produce gospel fruit even in the hardened soil of urban population centers.

Since we've been talking a great deal about mission over the past week, I thought it would be helpful to get some different views -- I plan to present several over the next few weeks. Let me say that differing on the mission must not become a point of division between gospel-preaching pastors and other leaders. We can, and must, recognize that good and godly people can hold different views of what the mission is -- particularly how it relates to deeds.

Yes, there are some who depart orthodoxy and lose the disciple-making component and the gospel is not preached. But believers who love the Lord and his word can and do have differences about whether the mission includes deeds of mercy, societal engagement, etc. This is a conversation about and with fellow believers, but one we believe is helpful so that we do not end up believing there is only one "received" view. Good friends can, and do, differ and go on as friends.

In the Missional Manifesto (more details here), we tackled this issue with the following statement (a bit of a consensus statement Tim Keller, Alan Hirsch, Dan Kimball, Eric Mason, J.D. Greear, Craig Ott, Linda Bergquist, Philip Nation, and Brad Andrews):

We believe the mission and responsibility of the church includes both the proclamation of the Gospel and its demonstration. From Jesus, we learn the truth is to be proclaimed with authority and lived with grace. The church must constantly evangelize, respond lovingly to human needs, as well as "seek the welfare of the city" (Jeremiah 29:7). By living out the implications of the gospel, the missional church offers a verbal defense and a living example of its power.

Some have said that we do this by joining Jesus in his mission. Russell Moore, the Dean at Southern Seminary, explains:

Some evangelicals talk as though personal evangelism and public justice are contradictory concerns, or, at least, that one is part of the mission of the church and the other isn't. I think otherwise, and I think the issue is one of the most important facing the church these days.

First of all, the mission of the church is the mission of Jesus...

The content of this mission is not just personal regeneration but disciple-making (Matt. 28:19). It is not just teaching, but teaching "them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:20)...

This mission is summed up in the gospel as a message of reconciliation that is both vertical and horizontal, establishing peace with both God and neighbor. The Scripture tells us to love neighbor "as yourself" (Lk. 10:27-28).

This is not simply a "spiritual" ministry, as the example Jesus gives us is of a holistic caring for physical and economic needs of a wounded person, not to mention the transcending of steep ethnic hostilities. As theologian Carl F.H. Henry reminded evangelicals a generation ago, one does not love oneself simply in "spiritual ways" but holistically...

[W]e do not react to the persistent "social gospels" (of both Left and Right) by pretending that Jesus does not call his churches to act on behalf of the poor, the sojourner, the fatherless, the vulnerable, the hungry, the sex-trafficked, the unborn.

To be clear, there are things that only Jesus Christ has done and can do in His mission. Only He can serve as the Mediator between God and humanity(1 Tim. 2:5). Only He can make atonement for our sins through His death on the cross (Heb. 9:24-25). Only He can give life to all who come to him (Jn. 10:28). Jesus Christ alone will bring into existence a Kingdom without end in which all are redeemed from their sin, reconciled to their God, and restored in their humanity (1 Cor. 15:20-28).

And while the Scripture is clear that there is only one Reconciler, it is also clear that we are given the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18). The Father sent the Son to seek and save and serve (Lk. 19:10; Mt. 20:28), and yet Jesus sends us just as He was sent (Jn. 20:21). 

We need to understand the differences between the work of Jesus and the work of the church.  They are not the same thing, but they are connected by a divine command with the latter pointing to the former. The lesser shining light on the greater.

Here are more thoughts from Darrell Guder from our recent conversation. In this case, it deals with the missional vocation of the church:

In terms of missional ecclesiology, I continue to find it very important to stress that the gathering of the church is not the ultimate purpose of mission, but rather it is the primary means by which God is carrying out his healing mission in the world. The gathered life of the Christian community is, then, not an end in itself but the way in which God's people are equipped for their vocation as witnesses in the world. I would insist that we consider every action and activity of the gathered church in terms of its missional vocation: how does what we are doing together "equip the saints for the work of ministry, the building up of the body of Christ," which happens as the church is scattered in the world like salt, leaven, and light? I am especially concerned that the gathered, public, worship of the community be both practiced and experienced as missional formation for apostolic living in the world. I think that our classic emphasis upon "Word and sacrament" must be re-thought in terms of missional formation.

Closely linked to that would be the concern for the interpretation of Scripture as missional formation. It is not enough to define Scripture as the norm which guides our understanding and practice of our Christian vocation. We need to understand that it is the particular work of God's Spirit to use the Biblical witness as the primary agent for the ongoing missional formation of the gathered church. This necessitates reading, studying, and interpreting Scripture on the basis of that missional center. That in turn means that we must develop a missional hermeneutic that will equip us to be confronted by Scripture as God's missional formation for our witness. This seems to me to be a much higher view of the authority of Scripture: It is the Spirit-given authority to form us for missional living. Scripture's authority is not an abstract proposition but the actual power God's Spirit gives this Word to effect our missional obedience.

What do you think?

BTW, I planned to link to Guder's Wikipedia page but he does not have one-- seems like one of you Wiki angels could help him out.

Missional. Depending on your perspective, it brings warmth to your soul or a shiver down your spine.  Yet, just about everyone is using the term now-- often without awareness of the historical debate around the terms and focus.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series.

This is my final post from the M in Central Asia. We've already seen the uniqueness of ministering in the secularized, nominally Muslim country where he is located. He also told us about how M's are required to minister across Central Asia: through business. Today, we'll look about how churches can be involved in partnerships across the area in general and his country in particular.

Tell me more, particularly how churches can be involved.

Thanks again to John Piper for the invitation to teach at Saturday night's session of the Desiring God National Conference. All the main session videos will be posted later at their Desiring God site. You'll want to watch or listen to the messages from Louie Giglio, David Platt, Michael Ramsden, Michael Oh, and John Piper. If they release the break out seminars and panels, there is some excellent content from some thoughtful leaders there as well.

Here is an iPhone picture of one of the worship times from behind the stage.

"How can they hear?" might be the most appropriate question related to contextualizing gospel communication. Those who would respond to the gospel must have some basic understanding of what they are being asked to consider. Understanding something of the environment in which the original action took place and how the gospel impacts the conditions of their own setting is essential for a person to respond to the gospel message. It is not what the gospel means to them, but what the gospel means for them, as it is the objective, real work of the Son of God. This is something that Paul understood clearly. When the Apostle stated his willingness to become "like" a Gentile, express weakness or much more, the purpose was so that his hearers could grasp the implications of the gospel where and "when" they were.

I have said it many times, but it always seems to bear repeating-- contextualization is not watering down the message. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. To contextualize the gospel means removing cultural and linguistic impediments to the gospel presentation so that only the offense of the cross remains. It is not removing the offensive parts of the gospel; it is using the appropriate means in each culture to clarify exactly who Jesus was, what He did, why He did it, and the implications that flow from it. Oftentimes, it is unclear communication (and a lack of contextualization) that contributes to some rejecting something they do not understand. If the feet of those who bring the gospel are beautiful upon the hills, it is at least partly due to the fact that those who hear the gospel understand and appreciate its life transforming truth. This often occurs through critical contextualization.

Christan contextualization has to include and understanding of the work of Jesus, in His incarnation, life and teaching. Incarnated as a first century, Palestinian Jew, Jesus was so thoroughly a part of His culture than, when being betrayed by Judas, He had to be identified by a kiss. He didn't levitate above the earth or have a perpetual light emanating from Him. He came to earth fully man. He ate the same foods as the disciples, walked the same roads, grew tired, slept and prayed. His teaching consisted of familiar to the people in his context: farmers, widows, fields, crops, money and heaven. Jesus didn't merely bring heaven to earth; He taught about it in earth's terms from a very specific cultural environment.

Paul followed this method. Whether Athenian philosophers, the libation or heathen poets, he used culturally familiar and appropriate markers as bridges to cross, communicating and clarifying the gospel's truth. Being weak meant that he humbled himself to bring the gospel to those society viewed as weak. To the strong, he presented his credentials of apostleship to garner a hearing. Before Jews, he refrained from legally offensive behavior. Before Gentiles, he exercised his freedom in Christ. In whatever situation he found himself, he used whatever way possible to bring and communicate a clear gospel to as many as possible, even if only a few responded. He did not allow context to become a barrier to the gospel; he even used cultural cues as a bridge for effective gospel communication.

So, contextualization matters because clear gospel communication matters. Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts in the comments.

-----------------------------

If you are interested in more, here is a lengthy series I did on the issue of contextualization.

What is culture, and why does it matter?
The Need to Contend and Contextualize
Knowing and Making Known the Gospel
Untangling Cultural Engagement
Indigenization
Loving and Hating the World
The Contextualization Spectrum
Ruining and Recovering Relevance

I've been using the blog for an interview with a "worker" in Central Asia over the last two posts (see Part One and Part Two). Today we'll change gears again and talk about some of the theological issues that arise when doing ministry among Muslims.

These are important issues and, well, it seemed like a good idea to actually ask someone who has dedicated his life to doing ministry among Muslims.

One of the controversial things about working among Muslims--and it has flared up again recently in the states--is some of the terminology that used when relating to Muslims. I understand that you have been a proponent of the "Allah" terminology. In other words, you refer to God using the term, "Allah." Why?

Well, in my view you use whatever is the best word. Words are symbols. Symbols carry different types of meaning. I would never call God "Allah" in English. But I would never call Him anything else in Arabic, because it's the word available to us. It's the word that means God.

Here in the country where I live, we have two words. The first is a word with a Shamanist background. Or we can use "Allah," which is a word with a Semitic background that is almost identical to the word that Jesus used to refer to His Father on the cross when He said "Eloi, Eloi . . ." The Aramaic and the Arabic are virtually identical in pronunciation. We have communities of Christians here which predate Islam who still to this day worship in Aramaic and who call God "Allah"-- and they have been since long before Islam ever existed. So, it's our word. In many ways, the whole thing is a silly argument. The key is to use whatever word is most useful in any given environment.

In an area where the only word they have is Allah, I use Allah. If I'm speaking Farsi, I use the word "Khoda," which in their language is the neutral word for God. So it's entirely a matter of utility, in this case. In English, the word Allah means to most people the god of Islam. Here in this country, the word Allah simply, generically means God.

Recently in Christianity Today I wrote that we shouldn't pretend that Christians and Muslims pray to the same god. Volf wrote that it's fundamental for peace that Christians and Muslims pray to the same god. You think we do not. Why?

For the same reason that I believe that we and Mormons don't pray to the same god, or we and Jehovah's Witnesses don't pray to the same god. The true God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is eternally triune. There is only one God which means that they're praying to a false conception of God.

As an Army Chaplain, I was criticized for my lack of ecumenicism because I would not hold a joint worship service with my Jewish friends. I would say we could pray at the same time, but we're not praying together. How could we be? I am praying to a God who is irreducibly Trinitarian and they are praying to a god who is unchangeably Unitarian.

Bob Roberts is a friend of mine and he recently challenged me: "If American Christians loved Muslims like Paul loved the Jews it would change the world." What do you think?

It would. So much of it is hospitality toward strangers. America tends to be a very unfriendly environment for the stranger. But a huge Old Testament concept is how we relate to the stranger. If simple hospitality issues were addressed, taking the initiative is important. In my country, you ask somebody how to get somewhere and they're probably going to walk with you there, not just give you some directions. So I think that if the Christian community began taking initiative to practice hospitality toward the Muslim immigrants in their area, that would just go a long way. If we will do it, they will reciprocate. And in that context you will find it very easy then to get into gospel conversations.

What about those of us in the United States? How can we better relate to Muslims?

There are huge communities of Central Asians and other Muslims in America. Unfortunately, those people, for the most part, encounter hostility from Christians. Instead, I say to seize the opportunity. Love on them. Love them warmly. But when you invite them over, please don't serve pork!

I had to learn the little things myself as I engaged my Muslim neighbors. I knew we could not serve pork, but was surprised they could not come over to roast marshmallows-- until they explained to me what is in gelatin. But, they were still thrilled that we invited them over.

Right, because it may have pork products in it. But love those folks. They are incredibly reachable, and often still in very close contact with their relatives back here. Right now, what they perceive is that Christianity is their enemy. Anything American Christians can do to break that down will only help us. My main message to the American church right now is simply, "Love Muslims." If we allow nationalism to interfere with the Great Commission we have failed them and the Savior who sent us.

Thanks to my friend and co-laborer for sharing. Great and helpful information. On Sunday at Grace Church, we will talk about some steps we are taking in regards to "Loving Muslims" (the resources are here). I hope you are as well.

This is the second in a four part series with an M serving in Central Asia. You can read the first part here. Here we dive into how this brother works, relates to people, and shares the gospel in a culture that is hostile to it and its witnesses.

Previously you mentioned the folk Islam aspect of where you are. Can you expand that thought a little?

Under the former Soviet Union were seventy years of Communism. During this time the outward practice of Islam was destroyed, but the cultural identity as Muslims was reinforced. That's how they maintained themselves against Communism. I don't know if your readers will know this, but the "New Soviet Man" was Russian. It was supposed to be about the friendship of peoples and how we're all blending together. In spite of that the new Soviet man spoke Russian, thought in Russian, and read Russian literature. It was the Russian empire.

Most of the Muslims that I met when I first moved to another country twenty years ago couldn't have said Namaz if their lives had depended on it. They did not fast during Ramadan and knew virtually nothing about formal Islam. I was the only person I knew in the first town I moved to who had read the Koran. But, their sense of Muslim identity was extremely strong. To draw the correlation to the American South again, there are hundreds of thousands there who are "Christians," but do not read their Bible, tithe, keep the law of love or anything else remotely related to following Christ. They just haven't killed anyone, so they are Christians. It's all cultural.

One of the things that needs to be emphasized among Americans is that faith has become kind of an avocation--a hobby almost. Is it of a way of life here?

This is part of a way of life. It is what they are taught in school--the glories of the Islamic jihad against the Christian world. And for centuries our people were the vanguard of that jihad.

Interestingly though, and happily, what we face here then is an environment where we're dealing with people who are extremely friendly, who are extremely hospitable, who receive us very well. This is true all over Central Asia. The only place overseas I have ever encountered real bigotry against me personally was in Great Britain. Central Asians have always treated me with incredible kindness. This includes being among Afghans, who are one of my favorite people.

We're also in a place where it is incredibly easy to get into a conversation about religion. I mean really easy. And so, opportunities to share the gospel are abundant here. But Islam has a built-in apologetic against Christianity. They are taught here in school that the purpose of the Council of Nicaea in 325 was to change the New Testament. And that's where it happened and when it happened. It was at that point that all this stuff about Jesus being God and dying on the cross were added to what before was a document that agreed entirely with the Koran.

It's what they've been taught in school and it's what they believe.

I am looking forward to speaking at the 2011 National Desiring God Conference, "Finish the Mission: For the Joy of All Peoples." Our friends at the DG Blog invited me to write a post and asked me how to connect the "missional" theme with "missions"-- and how we can and should embrace both for the glory of God.

Here are two quotes:

To say that being missional is to join God on his mission but then not identify what God's mission is, is to simply create a new word without any helpful focus. We should all rejoice with healthy missional churches as they are considering anew the nature of God as One who sends. But, the question then becomes, what exactly does he send us to do? It is fine, but never enough, to say we are to be about his agenda in the world. We must consider both the work itself and its scope.

...

One of the challenges in the missional conversation is that for many it's a rediscovery of the personal dimension of mission, but often leaves out the global dimension of mission. Correcting this problem is perhaps best found in going back to the origin of a missional focus.

Head over to the Desiring God blog to read the whole thing.

If you are planning on attending the conference, remember to register before August 31 before the final month price increase. You can also get a special rate due to our partnership with the International Mission Board.

This is the final post of an eight-part series on Developing Missional Churches for the Great Commission. Here are the first seven posts:

1. Understanding What We Mean When We Talk about Being Missional
2. The Great Commission and Missional Thinking
3. The Challenge of Being Missional
4. The Missional Idea in Scripture
5. God Sends
6. The Compartmentalized Mission
7. Go Where God Sends

Cultural Relevance and Living Sent

The gospel is always a stumbling block. But, the fact that so many people reject the gospel before they get to the gospel is a painful reality. In our well-meaning bid to "make the Bible and God relevant," we often marginalize ourselves from the very culture we seek to reach. The Bible and God are relevant in this culture and in every other culture. He and His gospel are relevant. Always. We are the roadblocks to relevancy, not the Bible. We live in a way that makes God seem irrelevant, but He is not to blame.

A missional church with a Great Commission passion will care about relevance--making the message clear. Cultural awareness, relevance, and engagement are an important element of missional theology and being on mission yet these are not the only elements.  Our churches are to be biblically faithful, culturally relevant, and counter-cultural communities. Being biblically faithful is possible without being culturally relevant or counter-cultural communities. Being biblically faithful and counter-cultural is also possible. But to be true to all three elements is challenging. Part of our task of being missional is to be all three. Being missional means we live, act, and think like a people living on mission.

I was in Romania a few years ago with one of my former students, Chris. He had never been out of the country until then. Driving around Bucharest, we passed the American embassy and discovered that it was on high alert. You could see all these Marines with their guns ready and the American flag flying proudly. But Chris had never been out of the country before. He did not understand how American Marines could have weapons ready and American flags could fly on Romanian soil. The answer is related to what Scripture says about how we are to live sent.

In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul refers to himself, and, I think, to all believers as an ambassador. When you are leading a missional church, you are establishing an embassy (to use a diplomatic term). You are involved in making the invisible kingdom of God break through to become visible through the development of a church in that time and that place. You are representing God in an alien land. In 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Paul speaks about what it means to be sent as representing and participating in the mission of reconciliation:

From now on, then, we do not know anyone in a purely human way. Even if we have known Christ in a purely human way, yet now we no longer know Him like that. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come. Now everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ; certain that God is appealing through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, 'Be reconciled to God.' He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

Paul's imagery is that we represent a sovereign king from another kingdom. When you plant or develop your church--whether in Mississippi or Manhattan or Madrid--you are establishing an embassy whose purpose is to propagate the good news of the King from another kingdom. This is what it means to live sent. This does not simply mean we go for the good of the city, though it does include good for the city. This does not simply mean loving the poor, though it does include love for the poor. We go for what missiologists call a "transforming mission."  Sometimes we say that sharing Christ through planting churches and serving the community are two sides to the same coin. But this is a bad metaphor because it implies that those two sides have to be flipped one to the other. The mission is not two things; it is one thing. A "transforming mission" changes us and people far from God because we live sent.

I have planted several churches and led in revitalizing several others. The reason I love church planting is the simple focus of planting and sharing the gospel. The good news of Jesus Christ being communicated and transforming the lives of people in the community around me is what evangelistic ministry is about. Admittedly the pressure changes as a new church grows. You will feel the pressure to do so many other things, many of them considered to be good ministries. But holding to a missional theology will remind you that the nature of the mission leads to the transmission of the Gospel. It should be true of all churches as they pursue a missional position that they hold the mission of God as primary.  The mission is not the mission; the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ is central to the mission.

Paul said, "We are ambassadors for Christ; certain that God is appealing through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, 'Be reconciled to God'" (2 Cor. 5:20). When you lead a church, recognize that the church must be three things: biblically faithful, culturally relevant, and a counter-culture community. Put the gospel, the authority of Scripture, and the centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the center of all you do.

Some ministries teach you to ignore culture. Do not listen to them. Their view hurts the mission of the church. They teach you to preach against culture. Yet, preaching against culture is like preaching against someone's house--it is just the place where they live. There are good things in it and bad things in it too. But our task it not to preach against a house. Our task is to engage those who live in the house (near and far from us) with the good news of Jesus Christ. We need to engage people in culture with a biblically faithful message.

To engage culture with a biblically faithful message, we also need to culturally relevant strategies. Again, fundamental to the nature of the gospel is the proclamation of the gospel. But even further, fundamental to the proclamation of the gospel is being sent to people--and that means we must understand those people. Cultural relevance is understanding and communicating with the people God has sent you to reach.  People are afraid of that term because it seems to be a compromise.  It need not be.

Cool and trendy does not necessarily mean culturally relevant because the definition changes from community to community across America. It changes even more dramatically across cultures. I would encourage you to be a church that seeks out those who are far from an understanding of the gospel and make the gospel comprehensible to them.  Everyone who interacts with your church ought to understand what is going on while he or she is there. That is what being culturally relevant means. It is an issue of communication, making sure church forms, style, and method support and aid gospel proclamation. One important focus of being culturally relevant is to create an environment where people are comfortable, at ease and their defenses are disarmed, so they can receive the message of the gospel.

You cannot always be sensitive. The gospel is not sensitive to the conscience or practices of the lost. The cross is scandalous and causes people to stumble across it. It is supposed to offend the sinner, pierce their conscience, and convict their soul. But the church should never create an environment, systems, or rules that cause people to stumble before they even get to the cross. Instead, as ambassadors, we should speak winsomely and act graciously toward those in need of our King's message.

Your church must be biblically faithful, culturally relevant, and finally a counter-culture community. Tim Keller talks about being "counter-intuitive." He explains we are to do those things in the name of Jesus Christ that might surprise, transform, and be salt and light in a community. The purpose is that the name and fame of Christ might be more widely known.

So, What does it look like?

I think part of the challenge is to keep "missional" from dying as a buzzword but flourishing as an idea that presses believers forward into God's work. "Missional" is not a new word for cutting edge and contemporary. And, it should not be used as the adjective for every ministry so we can pretend we have missional music, missional quilting, and missional lighting. Instead, we need to ensure that missional is a driving force for how we live out God's work. I have already warned about the dangers of the theoretical without the practical. God's sending us is a big idea. Simply stated, it means participating in the mission of God, being theologically formed, theologically shaped, and theologically sent. That means perhaps a different kind of church.

So I encourage you, when you look at your community, to fall deeply in love with it. Remember when Jesus walked down that mountain outside of Jerusalem? He looked over Jerusalem and wept for it. The people were like sheep without a shepherd. When you lead a church, say, "Dear God, I want to lead a biblically faithful church, rooted in the soil of the culture where I am; a church that becomes a counter-culture community representing you as an ambassador, as a king from another kingdom--an invisible kingdom that begins to be made known here through the gospel to the glory of Jesus Christ."

In some recent dialogue with Darrell Guder, editor of the Missional Church, the book that brought "missional" to the front of the conversation, he shared some thoughts on the phrase "missional church."

Guder explained:

One of my students has described [the missional church] as a "scaffolding term." It should not be necessary to speak of the "missional church," but since it is possible for a church to exist that does not understand itself as defined by God's mission, the term is needed.

We shouldn't have to say "missional ecclesiology" or "missional theology," but the plain fact is that the church in the West has been doing ecclesiology (and theology in general!) for centuries and ignoring its fundamental and comprehensive mission while doing so. Perhaps there will be day when we talk about theology, or church, or witness, or scriptural interpretation, and it will be unquestioned that what we are talking about is defined by God's mission and our vocation. Then the term, like a scaffolding after completing the job, can be dropped. But we are a long time from that point, I fear.

I think that the term should be unnecessary (like the phrase "biblical preaching," might I add). Yet, we add the modifier because it is needed to refocus the church on the mission of God.

What do you think? Give your thoughts in the comments.

This is the seventh of an eight-part series on Developing Missional Churches for the Great Commission. Here are the first six posts:

1. Understanding What We Mean When We Talk about Being Missional
2. The Great Commission and Missional Thinking
3. The Challenge of Being Missional
4. The Missional Idea in Scripture
5. God Sends
6. The Compartmentalized Mission

This is the sixth of an eight-part series on Developing Missional Churches for the Great Commission. Here are the first five posts:

1. Understanding What We Mean When We Talk about Being Missional
2. The Great Commission and Missional Thinking
3. The Challenge of Being Missional
4. The Missional Idea in Scripture
5. God Sends

Mission Gets Compartmentalized

In different ways, missions have been compartmentalized. What became of this is a view of missions as a specific activity or ministry of the church and only specially called people participated in it. Historically, in the early part of the twentieth century, there was a desire to elevate missions as a discipline in Christian settings. So people began to distinguish between evangelism and missions. Evangelism was defined as telling the good news and propagating the gospel in Christendom—particularly Europe and North America. Missions became a cross-cultural focus that involved an academic discipline that had to be done differently. They knew that crossing cultural boundaries—such as reaching the Iban in Malaysia—would need different skills to proclaim the gospel. So we created a discipline from that perceived difference, and that discipline was called “missions.”

Also, the term “missions” was, at times, used to describe the inferior status of non-Christendom churches, rather than describing the work of advancing the gospel, certain ministry outpost were called “missions,” instead of a church. In the early twentieth century, believers living in countries outside Christendom were not part of any “church.” Thus, in the nineteenth century, Christians in China were not part of a Chinese church; they were part of an Anglican church in London as a “mission.” They were not full communicants. Believers in the Two Thirds World were in an Anglican mission or a Baptist mission or a Presbyterian mission. Effectively the “missions” status relieved these churches from the responsibility of doing missions themselves, and ultimately, created the idea that only established churches from certain parts of the world could do missions.

But, over time, leaders began to recognize that all churches were called to participate in God’s sending work. They realized that churches in every region have a task and a responsibility to send people to the uttermost parts of the world to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. No matter the place of origin, the world is the responsibility of every church. So the language has begun to change. New works were no longer called “missions” but churches, because Christians began to realize that the church is wherever God had planted it. Furthermore, wherever the church was, it was on mission. In other words, the mission was from everywhere and to everywhere. The church is sent and is a sender, in every time and in every place.

In due course, people noticed that the West needed to be re-evangelized. As people wondered how the churches would “win back” the West, grand conversations about missiology emerged. In part, that face gave rise to the term “missional.” Being missions-minded was not and is not sufficient; we have to be missional. It is an important distinction.

In many denominations and fellowships, we have many missions-minded churches, giving large amounts of money to missions. Cooperative giving to missions is a central idea of what it means to be a part of my denomination, and also in many others. But the challenge is that many times, in spite of being mission-minded with great global thinking, we miss the impulse of being the "sent people" of God to our local culture. Too often we've "outsourced" the mission of God.

I fear that in the shadows of our own steeples people far from Christ have never heard the good news communicated to them in a way that they can understand. We need to recognize that the church sends people but the church herself is also sent. The challenge is that many of us have not yet figured out how to be sent into our own community. Being missional means we have to live sent here, to our place and among our people.

I frequently speak at conferences and training events. I remind them that in spite of their exposure to the greatest church minds of the day (the other speakers), they should resist the tendency to live as if they are “sent” to their (the speakers’) communities. Often, pastors and leaders hear about what’s going on with Wayne Cordeiro in Hawaii or Andy Stanley in Atlanta, and say, “I want to be just like that.” What happens is that you begin to think that the key to what they have done is the way in which they have done ministry. It is easy to forget that when we are sent to a place, and that, in many ways, the how of missional ministry is determined by the who, when, and where of culture.

In the first two entries in this series, I was writing about why Christians should use the term incarnational in describing how they live on mission. Be sure to read parts one and two before wading in here.

Of course, the Apostle Paul doesn't use the word incarnational, but his words fall into our discussion when we read, "To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings." (1 Cor. 9:20-23)

I appreciate what Alan Hirsch said on his Facebook page,

If missional refers to our 'sentness' as believers/church, then incarnational shapes the way we should engage in that mission.  God came into the world in an act of profound identification not only with humanity as a whole, but with a particular group of people. That He was in the neighborhood for 30 years and no-one noticed says a lot about God and how He engages the human situation.  The Incarnation thus shows us that God speaks from within a particular culture, in ways that people can grasp, understand, and respond.  The Incarnation gives us the primary biblical model of engagement--this is how God does it and we who follow his Way should take a similar path.  Incarnational mission requires that we contextualize the Gospel in ways that honor the particular cultural and existential situations of various peoples without compromising on the mission itself.  If missional means going out (being sent) into the world, then incarnational means going deep down into a culture...

I think people misunderstand me when they think that incarnational mission does not mean that we evangelize people but just have to identify with, and love, them.  That we simply go to them and be with them.  This is clearly not the case as proclamation is a vital part of incarnational mission.

In the end I believe that we not only can but should use the term "incarnational" to describe our approach to the mission Jesus gave the church primarily because of his words in Jn. 20:21 when he said, "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you."

Jesus sends the church into the world to do his will, just as the Father sent the Son into the world to do his will. The church is sent in a similar way Jesus was sent, though with a different mission. Jesus was sent by the Father (incarnated) to save a people for himself, and with them all of creation (Lk. 19:10; Col. 1:20). Jesus sends the church into the world in like manner (cultural immersion, relational identification, divine purpose/agenda) to make disciples of all nations. Jesus fully incarnated, taking on flesh in order to rescue the world from sin, death and hell. Following his example and command we, obviously to a lesser degree, "incarnate," in order to make disciples as we make his excellencies known (Mt. 28:18-29; 1 Pet. 2:9).

Some will not like the use of the word, but I hope we all agree on what it is we are looking to see the church do: to be in the world, while remaining distinct, with the aim of fulfilling the Great Commission. The use of a word will not make the church more faithful, but neither does abandoning the word. What we need is clear theology giving birth to strong missiology. You see, I don't think the term "incarnational mission" is likely to weaken the church's christology. It's already weak. If anything, emphasizing this idea gives us an opportunity to revisit both incarnation and incarnational.

Incarnational mission does not make light of the incarnation, but exalts it as the means by which God saves and the message we proclaim; God became one of us to save us. Incarnation is a theologically heavy term, one the church must truly appreciate. I would encourage our churches to on the one hand teach the doctrine of the incarnation and let it move us to marvel, wonder, worship, and evangelize, and on the other hand take Jesus seriously when he says he sends us into the world as the Father has sent him.

I always like working through ideas such as this, so I'm looking for healthy dialog in the comments. Feel free to weigh in and discuss.

A few weeks ago, I started what will be a three-part series on the concept of incarnational mission. It was prompted by a not-so-subtly titled article, The Incarnation Is About a Person, Not a Mission. It is a well-written article on mission (unlike many things about "mission" lately). Also, it is published at The Gospel Coalition, a group with which I resonate. So, with those things in mind, I decided to write a short response-- which turned into three parts!

Be sure to read part 1 before venturing into this post. Also, read John Starke's post at the Gospel Coalition site.

In that post, I wrote:

We are continuing to make our way through the affirmations found in the Missional Manifesto. I am enjoying looking at these in greater detail and the conversation we are having around them. We have tackled seven of the affirmations in previous posts. You can read about them here:

Scripture
The Gospel
The Kingdom of God
Mission
The Church
Christocentric
Disciple-making

Today we come to the eighth affirmation on duality. Here is the statement from the Missional Manifesto:

We believe the mission and responsibility of the church includes both the proclamation of the Gospel and its demonstration. From Jesus, we learn the truth is to be proclaimed with authority and lived with grace. The church must constantly evangelize, respond lovingly to human needs, as well as "seek the welfare of the city" (Jeremiah 29:7). By living out the implications of the gospel, the missional church offers a verbal defense and a living example of its power.

One of the most intense debates surrounding the current missional conversation has been that of the duality of Gospel proclamation and Gospel demonstration. Some see works of mercy and justice as an implication of the Gospel, others as a facet of the gospel "diamond," and others as a co-equal of the Gospel. How we resolve the tension is important as we and our churches move forward missionally.

It is interesting to me as a missiologist that many think this is the first time in missions history that we have struggled with the tension between these two poles. It is not. We would all do well to understand historically how these discussions have turned out in the past. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it would be historical naivete not to. We need to discover that the last two times Christians "discovered" social justice, it did not end well.

The distinction between social justice and Gospel proclamation might go back to Jonathan Edwards, who said that God's work has two facets: 1) the converting and sanctifying of individuals and 2) the grand design in creation, history, and providence. Many of you know Edwards as one of the preeminent theologians of the church in the 18th century, a preacher used by God during the Great Awakening. You might not know that he championed both of these mandates.

Between 1865 and 1900, however, attention to social and political deeds faded (though not entirely) among evangelicals. Consequently, from about 1900 to 1925, nearly all progressive social concern garnered suspicion among evangelicals and therefore drastically waned. The expansive sweep of the participation in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Awakenings had shrunk to a narrow and socially uninvolved sectarianism. (Some of this view still prevails in certain church contexts around the world.)

One of the most influential historical happenings related to this discussion was that of the missio Dei movement in the late 1960s and 70s. In the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions under the heading, "Missio Dei," we get an overview of this movement:

(J.C.) Hoekendijk challenged missionaries to identify and integrate with the suffering masses, seeking to realize God's shalom on earth. As this occurred in the 1960's and 70's, the World Council's ministry focused almost entirely on social, economic, and political "liberation"...Unfortunately, the leaders in the World Council of Churches also...neglected humanity's need for reconciliation with God.

In the late 20th century, another movement emerged called a theology of liberation - a complex phenomenon coming from the Third-World. To a large degree, theologies of liberation developed in protest against the failure of the Western church and missionary circles to grapple with the problems of systematic injustice. In this paradigm, Third-World peoples had to take their fate into their own hands and unfetter themselves through a revolution.

Also in the late 20th century, the theme of "God's solidarity with the poor" began to take hold with the World Council of Churches and by the time of the Bangkok conference on the Division of World Mission and Evangelism in 1973, terms like "salvation" were repainted as "liberation." At the CWME at Melbourne in 1980, the poor were put in the very center of missiological consideration.

In recent missions history, while the mainline tradition was wrestling with the missio Dei movement and Liberation Theology, evangelicals were largely absent from those two conversations. In the middle of the last century (before the missio Dei emphasis), evangelicals began to consider a shift in attitudes toward Gospel proclamation and social justice. They were not so much "in" the ecumenical conversation, but they were influenced by it. Some might say they were challenged by it.

It wasn't until 1966 when the Wheaton Declaration affirmed the evangelical social concern in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and stressed the magnitude of ministering to physical and social needs, that they also stated that these efforts should occur "without minimizing the priority of preaching the gospel of individual salvation." At the 1966 Berlin World Congress on Evangelism, Billy Graham spoke for many evangelicals when he included a social facet within evangelism but added that improved social conditions were a consequence of successful evangelism. Throughout the 80's more efforts coalesced to overcome the dichotomy between evangelism and social justice from evangelicalism.

The duality of Gospel proclamation and social justice is always a challenging one. Evangelicals have generally seen the ecumenical approach as unhelpful and to be avoided-- while often co-opting some of the ideas and even language of the ecumenical movement. I want to remind you of something I said in the post in this series on the gospel.

I think it is crucial to remember that there is a difference between the gospel and the implications of the gospel.

The gospel is news: the good news of the gracious work of Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection that restores our relationship with God when we, as the manifesto says, repent of our sin, confess the Messiah as Lord, and trust in him. A gospel-centered mission will always include a call to the individual to place their faith and trust in Jesus. This is why evangelism is an indispensable part of mission.

But the gospel is also a story. Many today prefer to describe the story-arc of the Bible as "Creation-Sin-Redemption-Restoration." The addition of restoration emphasizes that God 's end game is to restore His creation back to its original order. God's purpose is to redeem individuals, who join God in acts of restoration (mercy and justice) and ultimately, gathered as one people who will dwell securely forever in a restored creation (Revelation 21). So while the gospel is God's work of redemption in Jesus Christ, the followers of Jesus Christ demonstrate the hope of the gospel in both words and deeds.

Neil Cole's new book, Journeys to Significance: Charting a Leadership Course from the Life of Paul, is out and aims at helping us understand the Apostle Paul and what he learned on the field as a missionary. This is really a book about the process of leadership development, and it is worth your time if you are leading in any capacity. Neil is the author of numerous books (many of which you have probably read or heard of), and is serving a group of rapidly multiplying organic churches that meet in homes, campuses and places of business all over the world.

Neil was kind enough to answer a few questions about his new book for us on the blog, and will be hanging out with us to answer your questions in the comments section.

Can you describe how this book is different than your other books?

My previous books were all written to do two things, expose some unhealthy patterns in the way the church does ministry and reveal a more organic and healthy manner. These books all focused upon four areas that are part of my mission statement: to reproduce healthy disciples (Search & Rescue, Cultivating a Life for God), leaders (Organic Leadership, TruthQuest), churches (Organic Church and Beyond Church Planting) and movements (Church 3.0).

Journeys to Significance, while also addressing leadership, is written in a narrative form following the life of one of the greatest leaders to shape history-the apostle Paul. It is easy to read because it tells a dramatic story. It is also a leadership book because it draws principles of how God matures a leader from the story.

There are a lot of books written about Paul and leadership, why write another?

I found that in spite of the volumes written on Paul there wasn't a single one that brought to light some of the observations in this book. Most of the books on Paul's life view his missional strategies as being the same approach varied only by circumstance. What I found was that he is a great example to us of a missional leader who is willing to learn and improve with each venture.

I also was able to offer some plausible explanations for some long standing questions regarding the book of Acts, such as: why would Paul and Silas receive a beating in Philippi when they were both Roman citizens? Why did the Holy Spirit forbid Paul and his team from preaching the gospel in Asia on the second journey? There are a lot of simple explanations that make sense within Luke's narrative.

One thing that this book does as well is it gives a solid biblical framework for the expansion of apostolic mission-- and why it works.

What was the process you went through to write this book?

I have this value that I can't write a book on a subject that I haven't experienced myself. This book is about how a leader matures through the various phases of life, so I had to learn the ideas of this book first hand. It literally took me 16 years to write it. There is evidence of this on the internet where you can find early editions of articles or sermons I would give that touch on these ideas. Even my first publication with Bob Logan in 1995 (Raising Leaders for the Harvest) has a fragment of this idea in it. Even though I had these ideas about Paul and the book of Acts, I needed to walk some of the paths of maturation that Paul went though before I could write this book with any authority. Not that I have arrived at maturity mind you. I still hope to have many more years of learning, but I have experienced enough to back up my observations and not sound like a kid who doesn't know what he is talking about. Over the last 16 years, not only did I learn more about how a leader matures, but I also gained experience in mentoring others through various phases of growth and all of that adds substance to the book.

I calculated that I have read Acts at least 100 times in those 16 years as well. I have studied other people's works on Paul and Acts and stand on the broad shoulders of some great scholarship as well.

What is the big idea of the book?

Most see Paul as an expert teacher. I see him first as a great learner, and that is why he is such a great teacher...and missionary. The idea of this book is that God brings all leaders through some similar phases and processes of development, and Paul is no exception. So the main idea of the book is examining how Paul was prepared by God to change the world, and how each time he learned something he got better...as a person and as a leader. He is the one who challenges us to follow him as he follows Christ. Too often people immortalize Paul as a saint who can do no wrong, but when we do this we steal from him one of his greatest qualities-his ability to learn. We learn, along with Paul in this book, how to become a leader whose influence spreads further with each life-lesson until we finish well as he did.

What are some of the missional lessons Paul learned that we may also need to learn?

There isn't the time or space in this venue to explain all of them, but one that is very interesting is how Paul learned to do more by doing less. On his first journeys he did the majority of the evangelism work and left behind weak and immature churches susceptible to error (such as the Galatians). Near the end of his second journey he was instructed by Christ to stay in a place longer and find future leaders in the harvest fields. After this lesson he stayed a year and a half in Corinth and then 3 years in Ephesus. While in Ephesus Luke tells us that every person in all of Asia heard the message. Wow! Paul stayed in one place, did less and less of the actual work, but empowered others to carry the work on where he could not. It meant he stayed in one place longer, but after he left the church was not just viable and indigenous, but had already proven it could do the work without him. They were not dependent upon him. That is a leadership lesson that we definitely need today where so much is done by our leaders while the vast majority of the congregation simply receive and do little. Paul learned to do less so that others could do more.

Be sure and pick up Neil's book, Journeys to Significance. Until then take the opportunity to join the conversation below.

Today we look at to the seventh affirmation of The Missional Manifesto: disciple-making. You can find the six previous installments of this series here:

Scripture
The Gospel
The Kingdom of God
Mission
The Church
Christocentric

Here is the wording of the manifesto's seventh affirmation:

We believe that discipling of the nations is the essential aspect of the mission of God (Matthew 28:18-20). The gospel calls people to respond in faith and repentance to the good news of the Kingdom in and by the gospel's power. The maturing of believers is inherent to the work of the church ushering those who place faith in Jesus from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity (Colossians 1:28). This means the church trains its members to be leaders in deeds of justice and ministry to the poor, as well as live out the implications of their faith in business, the arts, in politics, the academy, the home, and in all of life. As the church makes disciples, it equips them to bring their faith to bear on every area of their lives, private and public.

As we have made our way through the affirmations of the manifesto, we have looked at the authority of Scripture, the thrust of the gospel, the inauguration of the kingdom of God, the advance of the mission, the singularity of the church, and the centrality of Christ.

But what is the end game? What should the intersection of the Word of God, Jesus, the gospel, the kingdom, mission, and the church produce? That brings us to today's affirmation: disciples.

One of our framers, Alan Hirsch, says it this way:

...rediscovering what it means to radically follow Jesus is now an area of strategic--and definitely missional--concern. To recover mission we are going to have to take discipleship seriously again, but the reverse is also true; to rediscover discipleship we are also going to have to take mission seriously. We cannot be true disciples without also being missionaries (sent ones) to our worlds.

...The church must become missional or fade into increasing irrelevance in the 21st Century. But we simply cannot get there from here without factoring discipleship into the equation. We can't have one without the other: if there be no mission there can be no discipleship, and if there is no discipleship there will be no mission. And there can be no missional church if there is no disciple-making church--it's as simple as that. If ever there was a time to recover the true meaning of the Great Commission to make disciples of the nations it is now. [1]

Alan is right. Discipleship is a missional concern. Without mission, there are no disciples. Without disciples, there is no church and there is no mission.

Let me be frank. The elephant in evangelicalism is this: We have focused our energies on our corporate worship gatherings, sermons, and organization-- while we have struggled to produce disciples. If the central command of the Great Commission is to make disciples, and your church's philosophy of ministry revolves around marketing, facilities, and programs, you have missed the point. You must have a plan for discipleship if you want to be missional.

To some it may sound counterintuitive to say that to be missional you must value discipleship. In the recent past, discipleship has been seen as primarily an educational endeavor inside the four walls of the church. Unfortunately, discipleship programs have had a tendency to "puff up" (1 Corinthians 8:1) rather than to send out.

Now don't get me wrong, at the heart of discipleship is knowing the Scriptures intimately. It requires instruction. But when the reality is that it has become normal for us NOT to grow, something is wrong with our discipleship. LifeWay Research recently studied over 2500 church attendees and only 3.5% of those we surveyed over the course of a year displayed any measurable growth. Something has to change. (We are in the process of completing an even larger study on the subject, out next year.)

In Colossians, I see a focus on discipleship from the apostle Paul when he says:
For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven't stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. (Colossians 1:9-10)

I see a progression. Knowing → Being → Doing

We can observe from Scripture a clear pattern that spiritual transformation begins with exposure to the truth. As God's revealed Truth (the Word) penetrates the mind it leads to the transformation of heart and character. Paul also expresses it this way: "Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2).

The renewal of the mind, a work of the Holy Spirit, brings about spiritual growth. Here you can see the pattern of knowledge leading to understanding (knowing), which leads to walking worthy (being, or living out who we are), which leads to bearing fruit (doing).

Discipleship and mission interface in the "doing." As a disciple understands the gospel and lives in light of it (Galatians 2:14), he/she will naturally be on mission, proclaiming and enacting the gospel. This is how more disciples are made and churches are birthed.

Disciples don't just know, they do. If we disciple through knowledge and not action, then we have raised up puffed up Gnostics. It is concerning to see knowledgeable people not living in mission, but criticizing it.

When Jesus commanded us to teach the world to obey all that He commanded, he was showing us what discipleship look likes. And it's inevitable: obedience-based discipleship leads to mission-shaped disciples. So let's help people become disciples on mission, becoming spiritual self-feeders, serving the marginalized, loving their neighbors, and telling others about Christ. It the end game of mission.

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[1] Alan Hirsch, "No Mission, No Disciples," from catalystspace.com; excerpted from Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship, by Alan and Debra Hirsch (Baker Books, February 2010).

Words have meaning--but they have meaning to groups.  For example, "justice" means something very different to the people who read Tim Keller than it does to the people in the United Church of Christ.  It's possible to argue that because there are differing understandings of the word, Tim Keller should not use the term "justice" at all.

That, of course, would be a mistake.

Such is the case with the word "incarnational."  While I can find many bad uses of the the word, I can more easily find poor uses of the words "gospel," "grace," and "missional." Just as I am not about to abandon the use of those words, I am convinced that the word "incarnational" and the idea behind it is so helpful we need not run away from it--though we do need to explain it. My explanation will take a few separate posts, so stay with me and join the conversation in the comments.

The doctrine of the incarnation explains how the eternal Son of God came into the world as fully human in the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is the fully-realized hope of "God with us" as he is fully God and fully man. The incarnation is one of the core doctrines of the Christian faith that separates us from other religions and faiths. As the Apostle John said, "every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God," and, "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist." (1 Jn. 4:2; 2 Jn. 1:7). Here we are talking about the hypostatic union (the union of the divine and human natures in Jesus) and its purpose.

Historically the extra-biblical term, incarnation, has been helpful to us as the church as we have sought to be clear concerning the person and work of Jesus. More recently some have begun to use the term "incarnational" to point to one aspect of the church's mission and life, and this has received some push-back.