Being Leads to Action

Excerpts from Ed Stetzer post:  Developing Missional Churches for the Great Commission, Part One 

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We need a shift in the conversation. I am amazed at how many churches (all models, sizes, and locations) are having the same (and often tired) conversations about how many people showed up to attend their services, classes, and events. New churches talk about it. Older, more established churches talk about it. Traditional and contemporary churches talk about it. Sometimes it sounds like the most important thing is how many attended our services and programs. Lots of warm bodies make us feel better about ourselves and what we are doing. Thus, attendance is the primary scorecard for most churches. And, I would add that budget is the close second. We seem content with this as the scorecard. But the term missional is slowly shifting the conversation away from discussions on attendance and budgets to commission and relationships. So, new words are not bad things, because new conversations are needed to engage the new circumstances of culture.


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Missional is a way of being that leads to a way of acting. The missional church is made up of Christians who are called through God's gracious redemption to live for Him and His great mission throughout the world and who are sent out to be co-laborers with God to accomplish His mission in the world. This is the mission that God sent His Son on, and it is the mission that He sends His people on. So, missional Christ-followers and missional churches are joining Jesus on mission. They care about the things that Jesus directed us to care about: serving the hurting and loving others (the Great Commandment), and seeking to proclaim the gospel to the lost (the Great Commission).

If missional churches are joining Jesus on His mission, it includes much more than God's heart for the lost people groups among the nations and your lost neighbor, but being missional should never be pursued in way that excludes, lessens the emphasis upon, or fails to see that what is ultimate is God's heart for the lost. In the name of "missional," we must not lose a focus on just how great the Great Commission really is. Part of being a missional church is to be passionate about what matters to God. So, missional churches should care deeply for the ta ethne' (tribes and tongues) of their community and world. Not only does this mission matter to God. It is the mission that we were created for. God created the world with people who bear His image, and commissions them to fill the whole earth with worshippers of Him. Therefore, it is no surprise that the status quo of the bigger, busier church leaves many (rightfully) dissatisfied. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves--and rightfully so, for we were created for that. And, I believe a global evangelistic engagement in our communities and into the whole world is a significant part of the answer.

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Too many churches and Christians ignore the biblical theology of a sent church and God as a missionary. The institutional church is not the dispenser of salvation. It is the message bearer of that salvation. We criticize Catholics who consider the church a vehicle of grace, yet we embrace an "invest and invite" mentality that requires people to show up on Sunday morning in order to receive the message of new life. The churches that are exclusively working in a solely attractional model may have a passion to see people experience transformation, but it seems to me that they are missing the inherent flaws in the attractional mindset.

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The attractional-only church, whether on purpose or unintentionally, conditions everyday Christians to feel no responsibility to have Gospel-focused, spiritual conversations. The "invest and invite" church makes the institutional church (contemporary or traditional) and their trained platform leaders the dispensers of salvation. If people need to go to the pastor to meet God, someone is confused about "who's who" in the gospel story and its proclamation.

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