Entering the Mission Field

In talking about the missional church I've found the three themes suggested by Alan Roxburgh to be helpful: Western society as a mission field, the mission of God (missio Dei), and the church as a contrast community. As McNeal urges in Chapter 2 of Missional Renaissance, those themes put our focus on "the" church, not "a" church -- the church as a "who," instead of a "what." In chapter one of Missional Renaissance the Mission of God (missio Dei) theme was at the forefront. That theme continues in chapter 2 ("Missional Manifesto") and also picks up the theme of "Western society as a mission field." In some ways there's nothing new about that theme. Each Sunday as I leave the church parking lot there's a sign that says "You are now entering the mission field." I don't know when that sign was pounded into the ground, but it's been there all through the 12 years I've been back in Michigan.

So what's different? Why a "missional manifesto"? In an increasing number of places, the mission field in the United States is drastically different than it was 50 - 60 years ago. The biblical narrative is less and less part of our collective memory. More and more people have either little or no knowledge at all of the people and events in the Scripture or the God revealed in the Scripture.

"The Missional church is the people of God partnering with God in his redemptive mission in the world." (Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance, p. 24)

In the late 1980's my family was in Japan as part of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School's Summer Overseas Ministries program. Our team was quite familiar with the Four Spiritual Laws. What we learned from the missionaries who hosted us was that there was a lot of work to do before we could say "God loves you..." We had to establish what God we were talking about. That's becoming increasingly the case in the U.S. When we leave the church parking lot and "enter the mission field," it either is or is becoming a cross-cultural mission field. We're in an religious environment that is becoming more and more like the first century than the first half of the 20th Century.

In his chapter "Missional Manifesto," McNeal says that we are in a new time in God's storyline and that we are seeing some unexpected twists in the plot development. He lists nine "plot elements" of God's work in the world as it's unfolding today (pages 34-38). I've selected several of them below. Leave a comment letting us know what you think about them (or one of the other five elements) or give us some examples you've seen or been part of.

• God is up to something new.
• The kingdom is a future that provokes a crisis (we are seeing a new dimension/intensified outbreak of kingdom advance, an intensified outbreak)
• The missional expression of church requires new metrics to measure vitality
• Missional expression can grow out of the current church, but it is not limited to the current church.