As first I was excited.  Raised by a reluctant pacifist and wrecked in grad school by the neo-anabaptist writings of Stanley Hauerwas, I spent the Bush years growing increasingly uncomfortable with the inter-relation between American militarism and the Christian right.  More and more I feel the need to distance myself from what some have called the “Christian Military Industrial Complex.”  Could it be that all my Facebook friends felt the same?

I hope so.

There is an integrity problem that faces those of us who wish to see the Church act more in line with the justice teachings of the Hebrew prophets and the peace teachings of Christ.  The problem is, we have failed to differentiate ourselves from the systems that help catalyze many of our modern problems.

In other words neither I, nor many of my Facebook friends, have lived through the situations that cause many of the problems our culture is wrestling with.

Defeating water scarcity, and the socio-political problems it creates is going to take more than raising money to build wells in Africa, although that’s part of it.

Defeating racial inequalities is going to take more putting an African American in the worship team, although it’s not a bad idea.

Defeating the disaster of poor stewardship of our planet is going to take more than buying organic, although it’s a good idea.

These are difficult problems.  There is a danger in the current popularity of the justice conversation, and the growing pacifism conversation: we might be satisfied with just talking about the problem. Nothing this complex can be solved in a blog post, however I think there is one principle of Jesus that can help us get to the root of the issue.

When Jesus wanted to solve the problems of mankind, he showed up.  As Eugene Peterson says, “the Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.”

I fear that our responses to Bin Ladin’s death are reveal a desire to see the church become peace-oriented.  At least, in 140 characters or less. (and yes, I know the hypocrisy of calling this out on a blog….)  It’s just going to take a lot more work.

Any attempt to solve the deep problems of our culture can only grow out of an incarnational understanding of the issue at hand.

But what does that look like?  What does incarnation look like in:

- The deep misunderstanding and hatred between Muslims and Christians?

- The sense of sometimes self loathing experienced by rejected and closeted homosexuals?

- The lack of education in the third world?

- The lack of access to healthy food in urban America?

- The staggering divorce rates and co-habitation rates of modern America?

Community of Character by Stanley Hauerwas.  When I first read Hauerwas’s The Peaceable Kingdom it sent me down a path that has defined much of my thinking ever since.  I’m super excited for more.

Experiencing the Trinity by Darrell Johnson.

Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard.  I’ve been through this once before on audio.  Anyone who I’ve ever talked to about books knows that there’s no one I hold in higher esteem that Willard.

Spiritual Direction by Henri Nouwen.  I’m not sure how I’ve made it this far in life without reading Nouwen.  Time to change that

The Ascent of a Leader by Thrall, McNichol and McElrath.  Leadership books always inspire me toward greater focus.

Spiritual Leadership by Blackaby.

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, by Phillip Jenkins.  More of a sociological study for the “Global” in MAGL.

Announcing the Kingdom by Glasser, Van Engen and Redford.  Written by the Fuller Missions staff, this looks to be the heaviest theological work I’ll be doing this quarter.

Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission by Lesslie Newbigin (not pictured). As I’ve said before, Newbigin is responsible for launching much of the conversation in the Church today.  This will be important.

Time to get to work!

1. Ditch the Professionals

“I would put first the declericalizing of theology so that it may become an enterprise…in that corner of the private sector which our culture labels “religion,” but rather in the public sector where God’s will as declared in Jesus Christ is either done or not done in the daily business of nations and societies, in the councils of governments, the boardrooms of trans-national corporations, the trade unions, the universities and the schools.”

2. We’re Banking on the Sky to Fall. “Second, I would place the recovery of that apocalyptic strand of the New Testament teaching without which Christian hope becomes merely hope for the survival of the individual and there is no hope for the world. The silencing of the apocalyptic notes of the Gospel is simply part of the privatization of religion by which modern culture has emasculated the biblical message.”

3.  Knowing Jesus Doesn’t Mean You Know Everything

“…I would put the need for a doctrine of freedom which rests not on the ideology of the Enlightenment but on the Gospel itself. The world will rightly distrust any claim by the Church to a voice in public affairs… But the freedom which the Enlightenment won rests upon an…illusion of autonomy – and it therefore ends in new forms of bondage. Yet we have no right to say this until we can show that we have learned our lesson: that we understand the difference between bearing witness to the truth and pretending to possess the truth…

4. Kill the Denominations

“…I would affirm the need for a radical break with that form of Christianity which is called the denomination. Sociologists have rightly pointed out that the denomination (essentially a product of North American religious experience in the past two hundred years) is simply the institutional form of a privatized religion. The denomination is the outward and visible form of an inward and spiritual surrender to the ideology of our culture. Neither separately nor together can the denominations become the base for a genuinely missionary encounter with our culture.

5. Remember, Most the World’s Christians Live in the Southern Hemisphere

There will be the need to listen to the witness of Christians from other cultures. The great new asset which we have for our missionary task is the presence among us of communities of Christians nourished in the cultures of Asia, Africa, and the West Indies. We need their eyes to see our culture afresh.

6. We need more than the weapons of the world

But finally, and this is fundamental, there will be the need for courage. Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and powers – realities to the existence of which our privatized culture has been blind. To ask, “Can the West be converted?” is to align ourselves with the Apostle when he speaks of “taking every thought captive to Christ,” and for that – as he tells us – we need more than the weapons of the world.

Related Posts/Links

- Has the Missional Church Already Failed? (and the original article that inspired my own)
- A multipart review of Alan Hirsch’s Forgotten Ways

The term “missional” has been floating around since the 70s, but exploded in popularity over the past five years.  It’s generally credited to Lesslie Newbigin, who realized the need to apply the missionary principles he learned in India to the Western Church.  Over the last few years the term has popularized by writers like Darrell Guder, Alan Hirsch, and Ed Stetzer.

Like any trendy terminology, it’s only a matter of time before a term is co-opted by a certain group to mean whatever they want it to mean.  Some trendy church words from the past few decades include “reformed,” “nations,” “life-giving,” “seeker-sensitive,” “purpose-driven,” “emergent,” and “culturally relevant.”  Each of these terms are birthed out of a sense of burden from an individual or group to make up for something missing in the church.  Over time, the terms are institutionalized and their meaning and scope are limited.  Perhaps this has already happened to missional.

A quick and dirty definition of missional church might be:

1.  A church who recognizes that God is on a mission, and that they are part of it.

2. A church that sees themselves as “sent” into an existing culture, and seeks to live out God’s kingdom within the reality of that culture.

3.  A church that is concerned about God’s whole mission, both redeeming lost souls and restoring broken systems.

Across denominations, churches have pounced on the term missional live a pack of starved animals.  Perhaps this comes out a genuine recognition that the church is being increasingly marginalized by the Western culture.  Perhaps it grows out of a sense of purposeless.  If churches turn their minds to the seeking their place in the mission of God, this can only be a good thing, right?

So how is the term missional being misused?  Here’s some examples:

USE: Churches who place a high value on evangelism renaming their existing style of outreach as missional.
MISUSE: Doing so without questioning the effectiveness of their methods, or any long term disadvantages they may create for the ongoing mission of God.

USE: Individuals focused on social justice issues rebranding their pet causes as missional.
MISUSE: Focusing on broken systems at the expense of broken individuals.

USE: Movements focused on particular structures-ie “traditional family,” right or left economic models, patriarchy, feminism, environmentalism, etc- slap missional on top of their agenda.
MISUSE: Promoting a structure that is rooted in a culture, trend or time period, without questioning its place in the kingdom of God.

If the missional church fails, it is not because there is a problem with the theology of joining God’s mission.  It’s because we’re trying to force God into our mission.

Perhaps some good questions to ask before applying the word missional on something are:

- If Jesus were physically here right now, would he be involved in this?
- How does this action help bring individuals and systems within this particular culture closer to God’s ideal?
- Does this action forward the mission of God, or just solve my immediate need?
- If this effort succeeds, who will receive the glory? Who will suffer?
- Where does this action fit into the overarching story of God and his people?

Related Posts:

- Forgotten Ways Review
- How the Irish Saved Civilization

Although I doubt that author Thomas Cahill meant it to be a missiological textbook,  How the Irish Saved Civilization provides an almost step-by-step breakdown of the methods necessary to catalyze a continent-wide missional movement.

The book opens with a description of the western world on the precipice of the fall of Rome.  The key player is Augustine, the brillia

nt thinker credited with inventing individualism, and medieval Catholicism.  In comparison to the state backed, violence justifying Augustine stands Patrick.

Exiled as a shepherd in ancient Ireland, the Roman Patricious develops a deep faith and love for the Irish people.  Despite being released back into the Empire, Patrick feels called back to his adopted homeland.  In a single generation, the first recorded missionary since Paul is able to affect a change that can only be paralleled by the pre-Constantinian church, and perhaps today’s Chinese Christian movements.

Learning from his humble and trusting example, Patrick’s heirs take his mission back to the continent. Monasteries become starting points for cities that will gather and nurture civilization.  Along the way, they painstakingly copy down the Old and New Testaments, as well as the great works of Latin and Greek literature.

Here we find an Irish model for missional living.  While saving souls, bring people together and promote the best of what man has to offer.  Perhaps it’s not too late for us to save civilization.