Quote of the Day:
God is about a big purpose in and for the whole of creation. The church has been called into life to be both the means of this mission and a foretaste of where God is inviting all creation to go. Just as its Lord is a mission-shaped God, so the community of God’s people exists, not for themselves but for the sake of the work. Mission is therefore not a program or project some people in the church do from time to time (as in “mission trip,” “mission budget,” and so on); the church’s very nature is to be God’s missionary people. We use the word missional to mark this big difference.
Mission is not about a project or a budget, or a one-off event somewhere; it’s not even about sending missionaries. A missional church is a community of God’s people who live into the imagination that they are, by their very nature, God’s missionary people living as a demonstration of what God plans to do in and for all of creation in Jesus Christ.
From the intro of Roxburgh and Romanuk’s The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series)
What say you? I guess my only quip is that the missional thrust of the Church has existed from the very beginning and we’re all acting like it is the new deal. Old is new?
But we have to make it SOUND new… cutting edge and all…
well of course! but Debbie read it and in talking about it it is a pretty good book worth taking the time to read.