micn.org

What is Missional?

“Missional is a Shift in Thinking.”

Missional Church: Engaging the whole church in the whole mission of God for the whole earth through contextualised incarnational servanthood.

• Mission is about being sent: commissioned to particular responsibilities by one with the authority to do so.
• Christian mission – discipleship – is being sent into the world by Jesus to serve as He did with the same Kingdom vision and agenda as agents in the mission of God.
• Missional describes the journey of discipleship; a vision towards which the whole body of Christ is called.
• Missional church is church shaped by and oriented around the mission to which Christ has commissioned His followers. A journey or transition towards increasing corporate maturity of discipleship involving ….
• From sending a few out from the church … to all the church sent together as the body of Christ into the world.
• From uncritical consumers of culture … to contextualised participants in culture yet with proper critique so as not be of the world.

“We have ironically done what is seemingly impossible. We have inverted the dictum of Jesus: we are of the world but not in it. We have become ’both captured and intimidated by our culture.’” Don Posterski, World Vision.

• From church for the churched (a refuge for serving ourselves) … to the whole church as an active and transformational Kingdom presence in each culture, equipping one another for serving people and societies in the world.
• From formulaic and institutionalised programmes … to servant, incarnational relationships of word, deed, sign and prayer.

MICN aims to facilitate the creative thinking that leaders need to enable multicultural international churches to be active participants in God’s mission in the diverse and transient contexts in which they live and serve.

• Missional is not a model or a programme or a method. Missional is a way of thinking, a set of perspectives, an orientation, a set of questions, a vision for the Kingdom contextualised. Every context is unique and in each creative wisdom is essential for missional church presence and action in the world.
• Missional is intentional and proactive engagement with the full implications of Jesus being Lord of heaven and earth and ruling to fulfil all that the Kingdom represents. In this way missional shapes thinking and practices for every facet of church life and calls the whole church (as a whole body and not just a few individuals) to contextualised servanthood in the world through Word/Gospel, Deed, Sign and Prayer.
• Missional is a journey towards rather than something that is or is not. No church has ever been fully missional nor will be before Jesus returns. Too many human factors disrupt and turn us aside from the journey. So missional is a resolve to stay on the journey, to keep asking the questions, to stay grounded theologically so that good practice may evolve, to be constantly critiquing culture and ourselves, to keep on exploring what God is doing to fulfil His Kingdom promises in every place and figuring out each church’s particular calling so as to be His agents for His purposes – for persons, for communities, for families, for everything.