Vol 2:17 Missional Rhythms During the Week

If being missional is all about being attentive to God and God’s activity in the world, then being missional is not merely a Sunday activity, in which we give attention to God in our worship of God, but is also a weekday activity in which we develop the practice or rhythm of living missionally focused on God.

We often separate Sundays from our Mondays through Saturdays. Sunday is an intentional day for focusing upon God, worshiping God, engaging Scriptures, praying for one another and praying to God together – all our listening, hearing, speaking centered in God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The rest of the week is filled with normal days, average days, ordinary days – weekday days in which we do weekday work. These days can and are often days filled with “disconnected acts” (cf. Peterson, The Pastor, p. 156). These are days for driving the kids to school and after school events, taking care of the family, earning a living, paying the bills, walking the dog, taking care of the yard, filling the car with gas – the stuff of life that we do week in and week out in order to make a life.

We may have time for God in our weekday days – perhaps it is through morning devotions, or a quick prayer before an event or presentation. But where are the missional rhythms that shape us in being the people of God who are sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s present and coming reign?

It’s true we can get so caught up in life that we miss life. What did Jesus say in Matthew 6? “Why do you worry about life – what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear?” So many things crowd into our lives that we try to organize that we miss the whole point of living life.

In response Jesus reminds us: “seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33).

This is the essence of living missionally during the week. Before we get caught up in all the doing what we need to do, begin with seeking God, becoming attentive to God as you begin to engage the weekday world. This need not become another item on our “to do” lists, rather it is bringing our Sunday rhythm of focusing on God to the start of our weekday days. This is a relational practice, a missional practice – for attuning our hurried and hectic selves to a different pace, a different rhythm.

I believe we will be amazed as to how we become attuned to God and God’s activity throughout the day in the midst of our ordinary weekday world. We will begin to develop new eyes and new ears to see and hear what God is up to in the most ordinary of places. It is discovering that Sundays are not the only days that are about God, the rest of the week are also days in which God takes center place as we seek to live as God’s people participating with God in God’s redemptive mission. This does not mean we do not do all the day to day things we need to do, but what it will mean is that we will do them in a very different rhythm – one that embraces a way of being missional in the midst of the everdayness of life.

So, let’s live!