Missional Christian

"Missional" Christian
The term “missional” has gained popularity largely due to a book titled “The Missional Church.” It is an attempt to recapture a Biblical understanding of what it means to be Christian, and thus what it means to be the church. The adjective shouldn’t be necessary, and yet because of the church’s very limited and individualized understanding of the Gospel over the past decades, it has become necessary to qualify the term in order to express an accurate meaning.

There is change underway and it is in our understanding of what God is up to. We could say that the past decades of teaching and preaching in the church have led us to believe that God is up to saving people from Hell - that Jesus came to save me from my sins and to secure my eternal place in heaven upon my death. And it is here that we are made aware of the limits that we (the church) have placed on the Gospel. We have come to believe and teach a very limited and individualized Gospel. Is this the Good News? Surely it is a part of the story, but is it the sum total of what God is up to?

The Scriptures contend that God is up to much more than simply saving individuals from the fires of hell upon their death. In fact, one could argue that this portion of the message of the Gospel is the “in addition to” or the “also included”, and not the main focus of what He is up to. The main focus, the Good News, is that God is redeeming the world and returning His goodness to creation. He has come to “seek and to save what was lost.” He has come to the world in the flesh of Christ, to bring life where there is death, to bring justice and healing and mercy where it is lacking. He has come in the flesh of a man to save the world from itself, and thus to return His goodness to earth as it is in heaven for all of eternity. God is on a mission and has been since before the foundations of the world were put in place. That mission was to assemble a people, a family, a nation… to declare the praise of His glory.

This people, known as the church, are assembled under the head of Christ Jesus from every tribe, tongue, and nation on earth for the purpose of “declaring the praises of the one who called us out of darkness and into His wonderful light.” We are ambassadors of this Good News of what God is up to as though Jesus himself is making his appeal to the world through us. The church is the declarative people, making known that what is true of this fallen, depraved, frustrated, and death-end world is not the intentions of the God who created it. Something new is under way. God is reconciling, redeeming, restoring, and returning His goodness to the earth.

To be a missional Christian is not to be some extraordinary kind of Christian, but rather to simply “be Christian.” There is only a qualifier needed when we lack clarity of definition. We are a people with a mission. To be Christian is to be sent. As Jesus was sent from the Father, so he sends us into the world. The Gospel moves to us and through us to the world. The Good News does not stop with us, but rather moves out from us, the church. And yes, personally, we are all impacted by this Gospel. But it is not only for us as though we have made a transaction with God and no longer need Him for anything.

We have been saved toward the mission of declaring the kingdom of God for the praise of His glory. And we do so wherever we go and with whatever we do. What do we say? Sometimes, nothing. Sometimes our declaration is seen in our hands of service, in our tears of compassion, in our feet of labor, in our eyes of mercy. But when we must use words, and there will come a time, we simply tell the story of God’s act of redeeming wretches like ourselves…of saving us from ourselves in spite of ourselves. And we trust God. We trust that He is watching out for us, keeping our best interests in mind and we know that He can be trusted because of the resurrection. Jesus was rescued and seated next to his Father in glory. The same is true for those who are in Christ Jesus.

What does this mean? It means that with reckless abandon we throw off the old way of thinking and living and we embrace the new way of loving God and loving our neighbors. It means that we choose the narrow road of selfless love, of extravagant generosity, of compassionate service to all people. It means that we receive the love of God and allow ourselves to be conduits of that love for the world. It means that we are Christian.

Church Office - 4550 N. Illinois Street | Indianapolis, IN 46208
P 317.251.1494 | F 317.251.1498
Sunday Services -      Midtown 9 am | 11 am | 7 pm       CGCC-West | 10 am