The Wheatland Mission

A Missional Church?

We have been discussing on Saturday Nights the idea of missional practices those things that we do in order to follow Christ and participate in advancing his Kingdom. The notion of being a missional church is something we have discussed from the beginning of our time together. Our name even reflects it.

Because of its importance I think it is wise for us to remind ourselves, from time to time, what this whole concept means and why it should be so important to us as a church. Also, like most important things in life, being a missional congregation is not the simplest nor easiest thing to grasp. What I am doing in this space is not only reminding but exploring further what this whole experience is.

Here are some key things we have share in the past about being a missional church:

1) Being missional means being concerned about advancing God's Kingdom.
2) Being missional means recognizing that church is not primarily here for us.
3) Being missional means that we are called, gathered and sent.

Let me briefly focus upon the last word of that last phrase: sent.

Being a missional community means we consider ourselves sent into the world to represent Jesus to a world that needs Him. You may not feel like you have been sent in the sense that missionaries are sent from our 1st World culture (USAmerica) to a 3rd World culture (like Bolivia, Uganda, Haiti, etc.). In order to function missionally we must recognize that we have been sent by God and via our vocations into the world which needs God so desperately.

In our brief little existence as a church we have been able to send money to some other church plants in our city that are working primarily with people who are in a lower socio-economic situation than most of us. One of the plants that we sent money to is also ministering to a largely immigrant community. We send them resources and money. We will continue to do so to a variety of ministries that need our help.

BUT, let's not ignore the fact that we are not merely a sending church but we are a sent church ourselves. God has called us to be a missionary people to our own culture, neighborhoods, places of employment and relational networks. Taking our cue from Jesus and his example of incarnating himself within our experience of humaness we are to follow him further by living "incarnationally" among those whom God wants to reach.

posted by The Wheatland Mission @ 7:32 PM