Hirsch on Missional Church
I stumbled upon Alan Hirsch’s comment on the phrase “missional” and felt that it communicated some of the same tensions I feel when people use the word missional as if it were just another contemporary term for outreach or missions. That usage bothers me because I don’t want to see an excellent idea get distorted.
Hirsh suggests that we don’t just get rid of the word, but to give is a much deeper and fuller meaning. He suggests:
“So a working definition of missional church is that it [is] a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the Church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true Church. The Church itself is not only a product of that mission, but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people.” (Alan Hirsch at his blog)
Read the whole thing.