Vol 3:21 Understanding Missional: Why is it so Difficult?

For many people missional has come to me what they want it to mean – supporting their view of ministry, supporting the way they have done things, supporting their understanding of God – not necessitating that they need to repent of erroneous views or practices.

Over the past week I have been in an email exchange with another Mennonite pastor who is proposing the use of another term instead of missional because missional has become so misunderstood – the use of the term continues to befuddle. 

In one sense he is correct and has a point – but then again he misses the point – and so I argue the contrary.  Rather than giving up on the term missional, I seek to undo incorrect understandings and appropriations so that we do not lose sight that we have been called and sent by God as the church of Jesus to participate with God in God’s ongoing redemptive mission. 

But why is it so hard for us to understand missional and what is behind missional?

I think in part it is that we are afraid to lose control of the direction of what we deem to be our ministry, our lives, our church, our aspirations, our hopes and dreams – we are afraid of losing ourselves.  Which betrays a certain understanding of how we think God thinks about us.  We may express that God has only the best in mind for us, but when it comes to living in that reality, being open to where God might send us, how God might use us, what God might have us do, or with whom God wants us to engage, we do not really have the courage to risk trusting God.  It is much easier for us to trust ourselves, our interpretations of the Gospel, the setting of our agendas for ministry, than to risk ourselves for God.

We have become too comfortable in shaping our own lives that, though we might cite passages such as Paul’s confession in Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me . . .” or Paul’s admonition in Romans 12:1ff – “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is true worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” we really do not consider these our confessions.

But if we are serious about understanding missional and being missional, then I propose that these and other admonitions and confessions such as these, need to become our confessions.  Yet to make such confessions, we need to hear the words of Jesus as we never have before: “The time has come.  The reign of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). 

What kind of repentance?  Whatever paradigm or worldview shapes our lives, gives direction or meaning to our lives – walk away from it, turn around and follow Jesus, wherever Jesus chooses to send us.  It is not only the rich young ruler of Mark 10 who has a hard time with giving up all he held dear to follow after Jesus – we all do!  We all think we have more to lose than gain if we are to follow after Jesus.

I am reminded of a quotation by Jim Elliot, “he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”  This is rooted in Jesus’ word to his disciples and to us about taking up the way of the cross: “Whoever want to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.  What good is it for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul?” (Mark 8:34-36).

Being missional embraces all of that!  It embraces losing ourselves in God and in the purposes of God – because that is where we find the fullness of our being human.  Eugene Peterson expresses that “we can’t be human without God” (Leap Over the Wall, 6).  It embraces losing ourselves in God and in the Trinitarian community of God – because participating with God in exercising stewardship of the earth is how we were created.  It embraces losing ourselves in God and in the mission of God – because participating with God is how God is at work in reconciling humanity and restoring creation – through Jesus, and then the body of Jesus, the church, filled and empowered with the Spirit of God. 

In embracing missional, we are called to repentance – a complete turning around from walking in our own ways, to walking radically attached and committed to Jesus, walking with Jesus in the direction Jesus is headed, who modeled for us, not engaging in a ministry or mission of his own, but spoke and did what he saw his Father speaking and doing (read through the Gospel of John – that is how Jesus repeatedly describes his ministry).

Yes, it is difficult to be missional, to embrace a missional way of life because it costs me everything, every aspect of who I am, who we are.  Do we have the courage to repent of our ways, our hopes and dreams so that we might embrace and be embraced by God’s dream for us and God’s mission for us.  That is my prayer each and every day.