In his book The Nehemiah Factor Frank Page says:
Missional is a buzzword in evangelical circles today. It is so current you won’t even find it in your dictionary. The word has replaced other terms, such as missionary, purpose driven, evangelistic, or socially intentional. It involves a way of looking at Christianity that integrates concern for both evangelism and social ministries. It is a kind of acting out of the faith in daily life. The word encompasses much of what Christians have simply thought of in the past as living out the Christ life.
But what is missional. According to some it is simply serving people, handing out food, helping the homeless, doing social justice. For some, it is another word for evangelism, missions. This has created a lot of confusion.
I will have people tell me we need to be more missional and then tell me it is because we aren’t evangelisic enough. Others will tell me we need to be more missional and then say we need to get into the city and serve people.
So which is it?
Maybe a story will help. I was talking with John Franke recently and he shared a story. He was sitting with some friends and one of them was talking about how his family had reached out to a poorer family around Christmas. They bought this family gifts and food to make their Christmas better because they had a rough year and couldn’t afford to do that. Someone else in the circle commented on how missional that was. John asked, “If that is being missional, than anything can be missional. Is that what being missional is?”
Here is where the disconnect happens for many Christians.
For me, I think missional must be both. It must have aspects of serving and loving our city and surrounding world, but it must also bring people into contact with the cross as some point. Does that mean the first time you serve someone or help somewhere that you have to share the gospel? I don’t know, maybe, maybe not.
Missional cannot just be serving and it cannot be just sharing the gospel. It must be both.
I think the problem for many is that we don’t have a very good missional theology or we don’t know how to read the Bible missionally (a great place to start on this is Christopher J.H. Wright’s book The Mission of God). God is a missional God. Missional has been defined by some as “living sent.” I think this is a great way to think about it. Our whole lives should be missional. How we do family, how we live, how we work, how we rest, how we do money, marriage. The list goes on and on. Being missional is not something we do but something we are.
