In recent years, I have become
aware of people in our congregation who have significant ministries in the
community—the lawyer who volunteers with the domestic violence center, the
former heart patient who spends time each week visiting heart patients and
sharing insights about how to live with their disease, the busy mother who
tutors at-risk children, the business person who finds himself the
“chaplain” in his workplace. This is what missional Christians
do; they serve in the world. These are not church sponsored activities. These
are ministries they have identified and pursued.
In Missional
Renaissance, Reggie McNeal notes: “People don’t go to church;
they are the church. They don’t bring people to
church; they bring the church to people.” Wherever a believer is, there the church is
present. For some reason, we have erected an artificial dividing line between
“sanctioned” and “unsanctioned” ministry.
The challenge for the church is
to give members the permission to seek out and pursue their ministries in the
world. We value what people do within the walls of the church through
recognition, training, and encouragement, but we fail to do that for those who
are doing Kingdom work outside the walls. In fact, we sometimes make members
feel guilty if they are using their gifts elsewhere! The traditional church
needs to find ways to bless and commission those who undertake ministries in
the larger community.
Missional faith communities, on
the other hand, start out with this approach as a basic premise. They expect
their members to be engaged in ministry in the world. They may be focused on
being the presence of Christ in their neighborhood, their workplaces, or in a
common ministry that all members of the group support. Very often, missional
faith communities form around a particular ministry or a specific neighborhood
in order to make a difference there.
Let us remember that God is
always at work in the world and invites us to join in that activity. Whether we
are part of a traditional congregation or a missional faith community, we are called
to an external ministry focus.
(This is an
excerpt from For Such at Time as
This: Aligning Church and Leadership for
Missional Ministry from Pinnacle Leadership Press. Copies are available from Amazon.com in paperback
and e-book formats.)
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