The Hsu’s Views

I clearly don’t have enough time to surf the web as much as I should. I found an old post by Ed Stetzer on the history (and I suppose the development) of the term “missional.” It is worth reading as worthwhile summary of the development of this critical terminology.

Like many others today, I’m still concerned that the phrase is being co-opted by well-intentioned people to mean both “more” and “less” than it should mean.  Rather than come up with a different term, I think we need understand and use it well.

This article will help.  Happy reading.

Len Hjalmarson over at Allelon has also blogged about Tom Sine’s article and the identification of the four streams that seem to characterize the current re-imagining of church. He focuses on Missional, Emerging and Monastic, confessing little contact with the Mosaic (multi-cultural) stream.

I enjoy Len’s insightful reflections on these streams, and his analysis of how each helps to balance the other. New to me is the connection of chaos theory and the emerging stream. He is absolutely right that all these streams need to inform each other.

In fact, continues Len, “I’m convinced that the convergence zone is where some of the most creative experiments will occur.” If you have a hard time with the notion of the church experimenting, you will be challenged by his reference to Elizabeth O’Connor:

“We would say that the church of Christ is never an experiment, but wherever that church is true to its mission it will be experimenting, pioneering, blazing new paths, seeking how to speak the reconciling Word of God to its own age. It cannot do this if it is held captive by the structures of another day or is slave to its own structures…” (Call to Commitment, 1963)

These words are so helpful for my church as it tries to figure where it needs to go to address the missional challenge before us. We need to hear that if the church is true to its mission, it will be constantly experimenting, and working to communicate the gospel faithfully in each cultural moment.

A side note on the Mosaic stream. I rightly/wrongly associate this stream with my friends that have been burdened for planting multi-ethnic churches. I wonder if it was birthed in reaction to the Homogenous Unit Principle. I think you can also find some crossover with the Kingdom values of reconciliation and social justice issues. Mosaic makes it onto the diagram above… somewhere.

Here is a good article by Tom Sine that lists four approaches that people are taking as they work to reimagine or redefine a Christianity that makes more sense to the world today. The four streams are emerging, missional, mosaic, and monastic. You can read his definitions which are just sketches, and are a bit too distinct, but the categories can be useful. I especially liked the links to churches or movements that represent each of these streams.

As I read the article, I could identify San Diego locals that might be a good representation of the different streams. The reality is, at least with my friends in town, we can fit in several of these streams at the same time. So, I don’t want to put anyone in a box, but if you want to connect with someone in town that would be knowledgeable in a stream this list might be useful.

• Emergent: Sarah Ferry (I just reconnected with) and Erin Martinson (who I’ve not met yet) lead the SoCal Emergent Village Cohort for San Diego. Perhaps churches like MissionGathering would be a good representative.
• Missional: I think I would put myself in this camp, along with friends over at Harbor Presbyterian Church. Jason Evans with the Ecclesia Collective fits here as does Steve Denney of CityWalk Church.
• Mosaic: Yucan Chiu of Ethnos is doing a great multi-ethnic work. Roberto Shim of Harbor Presbyterian Church is beginning a new church plant. My friend Luke Chen of Lord’s Grace has been burdened for multi-ethnic work for some time.
• Monastic: Rob Yackley with Nieucommunities in Golden Hill has tendencies in this direction. For many in the U40 group, there is interest in this stream because of the streams priority on spiritual formation/development as a community on mission.

As I reflect on the creation of this list, I realize how unsatisfying it is to try an attach a label to someone’s ministry or church. Comments or additions?

I’ve been wrestling with needing to define the term “missional,” largely because I get nervous when I hear the word used without a healthy understanding of the term. Too often, the word is thrown into a conversation as if people knew what it meant (I’m probably very guilty of this.) And people listen politely, don’t ask for a definition (because, speaking autobiographically, I would give a long multi-syllabic response which only furthers the confusion.)

I’m most alarmed when “missional” is used as a synonym for “missions” or any outward Christian expression of love, care and concern toward others. These are good things to do, but is very different from what missional means.

Missions can be seen as a “department” of the church that funds various evangelistic or social service activities. It is seen as a subset of what the church as an organization does. Missions is a noun. Missional, in contrast, is an adjective that attaches the idea of “God with a mission”, with “followers on mission.” The shift in thinking is that while missions is something you do… and is often outsourced to professionals or those really committed to God, missional describes the way a disciple lives as one that organizes his life around God’s mission.

I think it is critically important that the church in N. America moves away from the idea that we can fulfill our mission in the world by proxy through missionaries, and personally assume the privilege/responsibility as followers of Jesus.

Alan Hirsch has written a great post about the difference between the “emerging” church people and those who are “missional” church people. Both groups share the desire to find a more relevant way to following Jesus in this new world, Hirsch maintains a distinction between the two. He argues that the “emerging” movement is a renewal movement, whereas the “missional” camp is a missionary movement. In the post, he further elaborates on the distinctions and pleads for restraint on willy-nilly use of the term “missional.” He writes:

And my advice to all you folks on both sides of the debate that mix up the term, be warned! What you are doing is only making it harder for the Church to come to grips with its deepest sense of call and purpose in this time and place–no less! You are therefore mucking around with what could be one of the most significant ideas that the Church has to grapple with if we are going to survive, let alone thrive, in the 21st Century. For God’s sake, be clear in your use of the term or can I suggest that you stop using it.

The post is quite articulate and deserves a good read. Note also his pairing of Missional with Incarnational. The incarnation of Jesus highlights the fact that the best medium for the gospel to be communicated is in the life of a person that dwells among others. Missions might be about going out and doing stuff, but comes back. Missions can also connote an activity or event where the proclamation of the gospel is primarily a bunch of facts one needs to know. In contrast, missional is about going out… and staying out… developing relationships with people and incarnating the gospel message to others.

Reggie McNeal addresses the Reformed Church in America’s leadership conference called, “One Thing.” He speaks about Kingdom in the video below. Wade through the first several minutes of bantering and listen to his teaching about the Kingdom and the church. He includes some interesting comments regarding the fastest growing religion in the world (Christianity - but contrary to this post by Steve Addison.)  McNeal references Philip Jenkins work that it is growing fastest in the Southern hemisphere and asks where is the church stagnant? (N. America)

Memorable lines:

“We have looked at the Kingdom through our church lenses. We need to look at the church through a Kingdom lenses.”

“We’ve worked hard to get the church where it is today.”

You can find both messages (video or audio) at the RCA site.

Here are a few photos from our last U40 meeting at Point Loma Nazarene University on Jun 14, 2008. Click through for more.

First of all, I was recently reminded of a page at DJ Chuang’s site cataloging a massive amount of resources by or about Tim Keller. I think there are few in N. America today that are as clear in their thinking as Keller is regarding the communication of the gospel in today’s contexts. Similarly, his heart and vision for church planting for the purpose of transforming cities is incredibly helpful. In marveling at the material at DJ’s site, I happened upon a quote that Keller made from the Redeemer Church Planting Manual.

“We believe that, paradoxically, churches grow best not when they aim at church growth as much as when they serve the peace/shalom of the whole city. Saint Augustine believed that citizenship in the City of God made us the very best citizens of the human city.”

If we were to talk about keeping our “eye on the ball,” this seems so timely. It really captures well the captures the reason the church exists. Our purpose is not primarily to grow in size or numbers. It is to participate in missio dei and his kingdom agenda of bringing/restoring His peace/justice or, namely shalom.

Here is a great talk by Michael Frost given in 2007 at the Global Presbyterian Fellowship meetings in Atlanta. He does a great job of detailing how we must calibrate everything in our churches around the organizing principle of mission.

If you can watch into the first 15 minutes, you will also be treated to a reminder that God is one that chases, seeks and pursues us. This understanding of God as one who is not far away, but here and at work in our cul de sacs and workplaces has a profound impact on helping us think missionally.

Preacher’s Magazine over at Nazarene Publishing House has published an article by Hal Knight called “John Wesley and the Emerging Church.” Knight does a good job at trying to tentatively define “emerging church” in an effort to make the case that the Wesleyan tradition would do well to embrace this emerging development in the church.

He make several observations about the emerging church and then comments on parallels with Wesley.

1. Emerging churches understand discipleship as “following closely and emulating the person and ministry of Jesus.” Knight comments that many of these emerging post-evangelicals “are actually very much in the spirit of an earlier evangelicalism that was rooted in Wesley’s vision of holiness of heart and life… This evangelicialism was committed to ministries with the poor, abolition of slavery, and women’s rights as well as fervently evangelistic.”
2. Emerging churches are pre-eminently missional. They seek to be communities who participate in the mission of God in the world. They understand church structures not as ends in themselves but as means to mission. Wesley believed God had raised the “people called Methodists” “to reform the nation, particularly the church, and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”
3. Emerging churches are radically incarnational. They see all of life as being holy, rejecting the dualisms of sacred/secular, public/private, mind/body, faith/reason that are so central to Enlightenment thought.
4. Emerging churches are alternative communities. The church is seen as a people who do not “go to church,” because they “are the church.” They are frequently networks of small groups seeking mutual accountability as a central practice. “The parallels with Wesley are obvious: a network of small groups, mutual accountability, transformed lifestyles, relationship in community and living for mission.”
5. Proclamation and teaching in emerging chruhes finds truth more in bibilical narrative than a rational/propositional reading of scripture.

Knight also notes one other feature of emerging churches, namely their generous orthodoxy. Read the article. It is good stuff.

“…the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this…” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Extract of a letter written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his brother Karl-Friedrick on the 14th of January, 1935. (Source: John Skinner, Northumbria Community.)