ACROSS THE STREET AND AROUND THE WORLD:
IT'S ALL MISSIONAL
A Future Together
part 9

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What is Missional?

• Not a program or a department within the church
• Missional describes a community of God’s people that defines itself and organizes its life around God’s mission in the world.
• We are a product of God’s mission, but also participants.
• The church acts like church when it is all missional.

1. Sent vs. Senders

   Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." – John 20:21

   • Jesus is the sender
   • We are the sent

   It is (just) our mission
   

   It is God’s mission and we are gathered and sent – It’s all Missional
   

2. Joining God in His Work
   To read, “The church has a mission” means that the church controls, owns, determines the mission. The mission is the product of the church. The church engages in mission to support the church (recruitment).

   But where did the church come from? What is the purpose and being of the church? The church is the visible sign of God’s work and God’s rule in the creation.

   So it is more accurate to say that the mission (God’s Mission) has a church.

   God’s work in Christ shows us that he is active in our world.
   Acts 10 – the spirit arranged the mission to the Gentiles. We are always catching up to what God is doing.

   • God became flesh in Jesus Christ in order to save us
     – 1 John 4:8-14

   • Acts 10 – Who is running the mission? Peter or Cornelius?

3. Dress Comfortably
   
   • Operational, institutional, geographical considerations are not the “church.”
   • People vs. Place
   • Intent vs. Institution
   • Remember the old verse – “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple; open the doors and here’s all the people.” What’s wrong with that? The problem is that the church and the people are different.
   • The church is no more a building, a location, an operating budget, etc., that we are our clothes. (The clothes make the man – Which clothes? We dress for occasions and our dress can be quite varied.)
   • As the mission’s church we need to dress comfortably if we are going to join God in his work. This means that we regard our operational, institutional, geographical, strategic issues as means to an end and not the end itself.
   • Every ministry, every effort, every group and every role of leadership is oriented toward being faithful to God’s purpose.
   • We are not this place. The goal is not to get more folk “in here” – we count nickels and noses, but is that the right set of measures?
   • When the adjuster came to look at my hail damaged roof he didn’t ask me how much the roof weighed. He didn’t measure its magnetic resonance. He measured the area. If we ask someone about the temperature outside they don’t stick a ruler up against the air. What are we measuring?
   • 1 Corinthians 9:21-23, To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Are we building boundaries or seeking Christ?

Chris Benjamin

West-Ark Church of Christ, Fort Smith, AR
Morning Sermon, 27 April 2008

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