Shawn Lovejoy and I just got back from Hawaii where we led a Pastor's Conference. On Thursday morning I did a talk on Transitioning Your Church to Missional Ministries. It seemed appropriate since most of these leaders were Pastor's of existing churches and not church planters. In reality church planting and transitioning churches share a lot in common. The key difference is crowd control. In church planting you don't have people so you are really starting with a blank slate, which happens to be my preference. In transitioning a church you begin with a group of people so you have to work through crowd control issues. If you are not up to the leadership challenge then you will find the crowd controlling you right out the door on your head.
At the same time let's face it many of our churches need transitioning. Matter of fact all of our churches need to stay in a state of transitioning. Our world is changing and we must constantly adapt in order to impact the world. In Breaking the Missional Code Ed Stetzer and I talk about the importance of being Biblically faithful, but at the same time culturally relevant. We live in that tension. Change is tough.
The $64,000 question is how do you transition existing churches to missional ministries? Let me say first of all it is harder then you think. As I told the guys in Hawaii, I have transition one and half churches. Half transitions are messy. If you start you want you want to make sure you can get the job done. While I don't have time or space in this blog to cover it all let me start the conversation by posting my main communication points of my Hawaii talk and a slide of the model I've began developing .
When transitioning churches to missional ministry there are four key components:
1. Missional Leader - I believe this is where it begins.
You have got to be a missional leader if you are going to lead a missional church. Here are some of the best practices of of missional leaders...they are healthy leaders, they operate out of a clear calling that comes from God's vision for missional impact, they are committed to resources the mission, they think team, and they rethink discipleship.
2) Missional Church - While the objective is to transition the church to missional ministry the church body has to be up to the task. They have to be committed to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, Biblically faithful and culturally relevant, understanding of their context in terms of mission field, and committed to bring down all barriers between lost people and Jesus. At the end of the day they have to be willing to collectively become the missionary in their community and around the world.
3) Mission Field - All of our churches are sitting right in the middle of a mission field. Understanding our mission field is a key component in becoming a missional church. We need to understand that they are spiritual; they like Jesus, but not the church; they have no Christian friends, and they are searching for meaning, purpose, and acceptance. However it is not enough just to know these things about our community, but more specifically what does this look like for my community.
4) Missional Disciple - Missional Churches exist in a specific mission field, they are lead by missional leaders, they are made up of a missional body, but they make missional disciples. That our goal, that's our assignment. We call it the Great Commission. We are to "Go make disciples". Missional Disciples are those who live like Jesus, love like Jesus, and leave what Jesus left behind which is people who live like him and love like him.
Over the next few days and maybe weeks I'm going to post on this subject. Any thoughts? Aloha!
Great ideas!
There is a process of change required within pastors, churches and believers to experience "missional transformation."
This includes (among other things):
- Seizing Jesus' redemptive mission as your own
- Adopting missional thinking and behaviors
- Removing barriers to missional activity
- Embodying the mission and message of Jesus
- Intentionally exegeting your culture
- Being Jesus to everyone everywhere
- Becoming a disciple-making missionary
- Establishing missional communities
- Multiplying disciples and churches
Posted by: Dave DeVries | February 03, 2008 at 03:41 AM
This type of "missional church" sounds fantastic, but the premise and traits of the mission field referenced is completely wrong.
-These people may be "highly spiritual," but without God, they are also "highly condemned." We cannot praise their spirituality while overlooking their sin nature.
-These people do not like Jesus, but they like their own conceptions of Jesus. If they knew Jesus, like the people in Christ's day, they would crucify Him. Instead, they have their own idolatrous ideas of Him.
-You are right, they probably do not have friends who are "missional." If they did, they would have heard the Gospel.
-These people may be searching for meaning and purpose, but they are not searching for God. The Bible says that no one seeks after God.
We don't need to be culturally relevant to reach people. We need to be obedient in preaching the Gospel to all people. After all, what is more relevant to someone's life than sin, grace, and everlasting life through Christ?
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CS
Posted by: CS | February 14, 2008 at 05:50 PM