the missional church

this morning, i tuned into my first-ever webinar featuring rick mckinley, the pastor at imago dei. the topic was the externally-focused church: breaking into the kingdom. i’m so grateful i took part in it.

two colleagues joined me, and between the three of us, we cried and laughed and threw out some “amens,” though not one of the other 240 online attendees could hear. it’s incredible to me that we were so engaged that even with a mute button pushed on the speaker phone, we’d be provoked to respond with such fervor.

essentially, the focus of the talk was the missional church - what it is and how we become a part of it. early on, the moderator shared that we (the church) can’t measure effectiveness merely by weekend attendance, but by the transformational effect we have on our communities. he took a look at the relationship between attraction and mission, citing matthew 22:2-5 and luke 14:18-20, before inviting rick mckinley to share a few of the paradigm shifts he considers essential to becoming a missional church:

1. from how-to to want-to
2. from coming to going
3. from protection to proclamation
4. from relevance to influence

i won’t write up the entire talk here because i’d really rather have you watch it and then dialogue in person with you about it over a drink. i’ll put out the link to it when it’s finally up online.

essentially, it lights my fire. i don’t know if i’ll get a chance to participate in the envisioning process at my own church, but at the very least, i feel so grateful to be soaking all of this up. i dream of what this place could look like, what madison would be like if we confessed our lack of desire to love our community, to love our neighbors, and declared our willingness to be interrupted in our routines, to radically alter everything we’ve set up so nicely to accommodate our lives.

last tuesday at our church family meeting, my heart broke (in a good way) to look around the room and wonder who god was prompting to serve him creatively, who in the room was ready & willing to allow the spirit of god to employ them in proclamation, in creative missional works that no one has ever dreamed about. that’s powerful.

i am so excited. and whether or not i get to go to the externally-focused church conference in may (though i admit i would be psyched out of my mind to attend), i am part of the missional church. and i am thankful to be serving a god who keeps coming around, who doesn’t give up on us, and who keeps prompting us to respond to his love for us and for the whole world.

This is what the kingdom of God looks like.
Christians blaze through this dark world and set it on fire with their love.
It is contagious and spreads like wildfire.
We are people who shine, who burn up the darkness of this old world with the light that dwells within us. And perhaps the world will ask
what in the world passed through here …
We are not just called to be candles.
Candles make for nice Christmas services and for a nice peace vigil. They can remind us taht God’s light dwells within us and that we are to shine that light in this dark world.
But we are not just called to be candles. We are called to be fire.
Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution