The Missional Church

The concept of a missional church is recognition that God is a sending God and we, the church and individual believers, are to live sent. The missional church is shaped by the idea that every believer is to live on mission. Being sent means that we move outside the walls of our church buildings and our Christian homes in order to engage all people with the gospel. The missional nature of the church calls for us to engage in and support the work of international missionaries to take the gospel across the world and the local mission-shaped believers to take the gospel and show the love of Christ across the street. There is a sentness inherent to being a follower of Jesus. It is the way of Jesus in us.

We are not sent on mission alone. God’s people join him on his mission. We are commanded and empowered to participate with him. We know this because Jesus promised, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). We are sent on a mission with the Sender. As believers, we don’t decide if we are on mission. We are by our calling—and because of God’s nature. The only question is whether or not we are living up to the calling we have been given. Is our identity (sent on mission) aligning with our life (living on mission)?

Missional churches engage the people with the redemptive message of the gospel. To do so, the church emulates Christ in the engagement of the mission. He came announcing that he would serve the hurting (Lk 4) and save the lost (Lk 19:10). We are called to join him on that mission and show and share the good news of Jesus to a world Jesus loves. The mis-sional church contends for the truth.

The missional church engages and inhabits the culture while seeking to remain separate from its sin and sinful structures. Jesus Christ was a thoroughly Jewish, first-century man who engaged believers, doubters, scoffers, friends, and foes, yet never sinned. He was truly in the world without being of the world. We can engage the greedy without becoming greedy, the hateful without becoming hateful, and the proud without becoming prideful. The existence of temptation should not hinder us from missional living. Instead, we are to be a culturally relevant, counter-culture community for the kingdom.

Last, being sent by Jesus as the Father sent him means that the seed of the gospel will take root. The seed of the gospel must be sown in the soil of the culture, which necessitates Christians being engaged there. Scripture calls us salt and light and that requires presence and proclamation.

The sending nature of the Father, the commission by Christ, and the empowerment of the Spirit creates a missional church. As believers, we should revel in the invitation by Christ to join his missional people.