Monday, February 11, 2008

Missional?

My grumpy rant for the day:

Ok, so it's firmly established that the new "cool" hip ministry word these days is"missional". Just like "seeker" was in the 90's, "missional" is now what we have to be.

My take:

1. I hate ministry labels. They seem to do nothing but cause confusion since an explicit, unifying definition is often painfully absent. People start using these words and meaning totally different things and soon everyone is just talking past each other. This rarely is how labels get started, but once they hit the mainstream market everything becomes horribly confusing. Take for example the word, "evangelical". Fifty or sixty years ago there was a much more concise and agreed upon definition of this word (take note though that I have no idea beyond general things, what this is). Nowadays, it's anyone's guess what one means when that word gets thrown out. Sure there are some consistent factors, but there would be huge inconsistencies on things that I would take to be essential. Thus, I don't call myself an evangelical anymore because all it leads to is unhelpful assumptions about what I believe that may or may not be true.

2. Why do we need a label "missional" anyway? A church is only a church in so far as they are passionate about God's Kingdom mission in the world. Anyone ever read the book of Acts? Hello!!! In my view any group of assembled believers that fails to be missional, then also fails to be a church. How sad is it that we have to create labels to distinguish those who embrace God's goals in the world and those who don't. It's wack jack I say.

Ok, I am done now...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree, Zach. Whenever I hear about a "missional" church, I think, "Wait a minute, that term is redundant!" Any true Christian church is (or at least, should be) a missions-minded church. There is no need for a new label. If a church is not missional, it is, at best, extrememly unhealthy, or at worst, it has replaced the Gospel with something else.

M&M in Japan said...

Z, you rock. That's all I can say. So true.

Robert Riley said...

Zach, you are right on the money.

I am fed up, as well, with the labels business - its unfortunate, though, that in this era the word "Christian" doesn't hold much water, either. It all comes down to the fruits we bear and our relationship with God.

PS - you're cool for ending your entries with stuff like "whack jack," and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise..

Unknown said...

Labels suck. I agree.

I think the word missional shouldn't be label.

Maybe when believers truly embrace and embody the mission of Jesus, we won't need to encourage missional activity. But until then, I'm glad Christians are discovering what it means to "be missional" by engaging those in the culture with the cross!