Theological Thoughts for Thursday - Emergent Missions

I'm a big fan of missions. I would probably put myself in the camp that "missions is life blood of the church." I'm a missionary. I finally feel free to say that. It's like, now that I'm being paid to be here I'm officially a missionary.

So that's the first part of the problem. Mission is such a foreign concept that we create an "us" and "them" mentality. "He's a missionary, I just go to church on Sunday." Now, here's a distinction ... I hate it when people say, "We're all missionaries." Because that's a lie and we're all aware of that fact. We might all be called to mission, but not everyone on the membership roll is a missionary. Some are anti-missionary; even some active members are essentially anti-missionary. They work daily in their lives and ministries to turn people away from the Gospel. It's (usually) not intentional ... but it's a reality.

The Emergent church needs to recapture the heartbeat of mission. Remember when I wrote two lengthy posts about membership and community? I wrote that we don't like membership but that we want to be challenged. This is the challenge. We confirm our commitment to the church of Jesus Christ, not by signing a membership form, but by living out the communal call to tell others the good news. This is the goal - to supplant membership with something far better: community.



If you put two adult elephants in a room for a year to mate, how many elephants will there be after that year? 3. The two original and the baby. If you put two adult rabbits in a room for a year to mate, how many rabbits will there be after that year? Thousands. The established church must be intentional in planting churches without weighing them down with rules, regulations, structures, etc. We must be willing to offer everything we as a church have to the new movement, but allow them the discretion to take what they will and leave the rest.

When modern writers, reporters, and questioners get a Post-modern leader in a room for an hour, the inevitable questions come up. What does the emergent church think about abortion, gay marriage, the green movement, etc. Once a church puts an answer to a highly-divisive issue, the number of possible converts gets cut in half. If we say YES to gay marriage half the population will dismiss us from the get go. If we say NO, the other half will leave us in the dust. I'm not saying these issues aren't important; they're just less important for us and our movement.

The modern mindset needs definitive answers. The Postmodern generation is more okay with grey areas. Let's make a church where both sides of the issue are worshipping together and see if the issue is still more important than unity. It probably won't be.

Recap :: Reclaim heartbeat of mission. Keep it simple. Don't let modern struggles and arguments define the new postmodern church.