More Empirical Indicators of a Missional Church

On to #2 of the Empirical Indicators of a Missional Church (my comments in red):

2. The missional church is a community where
all members are involved in learning to become disciples of Jesus.

What it looks like: The disciple identity
is held by all; growth in discipleship is expected of all.

This one challenges some of the assumptions of seeker-sensitive churches.  While their concern that we remove obstacles to the Gospel is praiseworthy, there has tended, in my opinion, to be a deterioration of discipleship in many seeker churches (since in many seeker churches the only way you can actively engage in a process of discipleship is if you "opt in" to pre-existing discipleship classes).  Such models make discipleship a commodity, rather than a calling or a community exercise.  I believe the biggest challenge to discipleship today is consumerism/commodification. 

Persons are not expected automatically to know the ‘way of doing things
in the reign of God.’ Citizenship in the reign of God is learned. The learned
protocol involves primarily those behaviors and processes that witness
to the way of Jesus, who is forming his people for life in the reign of
God. The community does not simply rely on ‘how we’ve always done things
here,’ or ‘that’s how we Baptists/Lutherans/Presbyterians/ Methodists/etc.
do it,’ or even ‘that’s how we do it in the company where I work.’ Rather,
the community seeks critically to integrate already-learned practices with
skills and habits of Christian discipleship. This community shows evidence
of growing, changing, and deepening the skills and habits of discipleship.
Nurturing citizenship in the reign of God is an overall priority of the
church for all members of the community of faith.

 

 New participants in the community indicate that
they are being helped to integrate their life with the practices and habits
of life in the reign of God.
   

This
point, and the paragraph following it seem to be a bit vague on what
the "practices and habits of life in the reign of God" are…any
insights from anyone?

 Existing participants in the community indicate
that they are engaged in a life-long process of integrating their life
with the practices and habits of life in the reign of God.

 Illustrations can be given of how people are
learning how to pray, and are discovering prayer as a powerful resource
for living in the reign of God.

I never
experienced the burdensome need for prayer at anytime in my life as
much as during the last 6 months since Missio Dei has been meeting.
Prayer is essential not only so that we can express our hearts to God,
but so that he can express our hearts to us.  It has been amazing to me
how a group of people submitted to God in prayer can have some of their
plans and strategies pushed aside, to be replaced by a new "plan" which
comes from the heart of God.

 The community demonstrates a variety of ways
in which participants train, mentor, or nurture one another as the community
seeks to develop, across the entire spectrum of participants, the capabilities
(ways of thinking, perceiving, and behaving) required of disciples who
are attempting to follow Jesus Christ.

We need to get creative about
how we "do" discipleship.  It is difficult to take a purely fluid
approach, where people are left to themselves to invite others into a
discipling process.  A purely programmatic or classroom approach tends
to make discipleship informational rather than formational.  We need to
diversify our discipleship portfolios.  At Missio Dei, we are trying to
foster discipleship in our house gatherings, as well as in 1:1 Life
Transformation Groups (which we are having difficulty starting).  But I
am also hoping to implement something like classroom training, training
through ministry partnership, and regular retreats.  Discipleship, as
Brian MacLaren has pointed out, needs to be comprised both of
engagement (on the job training) and retreat, both missionary and
monastic.

 Members can identify several different ways of
thinking, perceiving, and behaving that are characteristic of life in Christ
which differ significantly from the ways of the culture in which persons
find themselves on a daily basis. They can give at least two or three examples
of how those differences are being practiced in the life of the congregation.
(Examples might include rejection of competitive and coercive ways of interaction,
use of language that expresses a Christian worldview, attitude toward money
and possessions that reflect God’s generosity and abundance, exercise of
power through service rather than domination.)

We need to be distinct.  Our ethos is different than the surrounding culture’s.  If we can’t see any real difference in our ethos and its expression, then we aren’t being faithful.  We have to be different in more ways than just the message we proclaim.  Our actions and practices must be different.  We need to treat people differently.  We need to treat money differently.  We need to be different.

 The church organization is characterized by the
participants as one that is ever open to change, to new and expansive ways
of organizational thinking and behaving that enable rather than block the
cultivating of faithful discipleship.

I’m convinced that genuine "systems thinking" is a profound rarity in our day.  We desperately need systems thinkers to develop new ways of doing church unique to their situations.  We too often just take the trendiest model or paradigm and slightly tweak it to our purposes.  This is unacceptable.  We need to discern the expressions of church and the practices of discipleship that best reflect what God is calling us to do in our specific time and place and boldy attempt to live it out. 

for further reading . . .

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