Hiding behind Mission – more on sociological wrappers

By Jason

5 Mar 2004

Thanks for all your recent comment, it’s been helping me greatly.

How many people hide behind the growing term, “missional church”. We can locate ourselves as christians in a post-christian country, and declare we need to be missional.
And we get rid of sundays, teaching, preaching, training, planning, and have candle, ambient music, food, and say we are missional. Or are we just hiding from what the modern church avoided all along, real mission.

As I read Roland Allen, and Vincent Donovan, and Lesslie Newbigin, I think they would see through our smoke screen of postmodern trendiness, and ask, well has getting rid of all the things from the modern church freed you for mission, real mission, serving the community and each other? Or is it great idea we hide behind to fool ourselves and cover our lack of confidence and self centredness?

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  1. Trackback by jordoncooper.com

    5.09 pm on 5 Mar 2004

    Hiding behind being “Missional”

    Jason Clark asks some excellent questions over at his blog about whether or not for our language, are we really being missional.

  2. Comment by pastor draven

    5.46 pm on 5 Mar 2004

    X-posted somewhat from a reply on jordoncooper…
    That very thing had made it difficult for those of us who truly desire to be missional; where even in being called “missional”, people look on in skepticism because of the many out there who merely hide behind the term. Much of there methodology looks the same, but when it comes to both the inward and outward journey’s there is still little being done.

    Thank you for your writings, Jason. We have been able to use some to describe to our supporters what we are striving to be.
    Have you ever read the book, Journey Inward Journey Outward, by Elizabeth O’Connor? It was written in 1968, about The church of the Savior in Washington D.C., and is very relevant when it comes to missional churches, and most of the voiced frustrations of the post-modern/emerging church over modernity. She states it not as a complaint, but more that when she talks of what we are called to be, she talks of the downfalls as an already well-known reality aomng the churched. A great book. Every paragraph seems to be profound and as if she was writing along with the emerging church authors of today.

  3. Comment by Jason Clark

    6.19 pm on 5 Mar 2004

    Hi pastor draven :-)

    That is a great book, and amazing example of what a truly missional community might look like, and we could aspre to.

    For everyone else, link to the church of the saviour at http://theoblogical.org/dlature/categories/churchOfTheSaviour/ and theirblog at http://theoblogical.org/movtyp/archives/cat_church_of_the_saviour.html

    Jase

  4. Comment by URBANarmy

    8.34 pm on 5 Mar 2004

    It’s good to hear your voice on what is obviously the heart beat of the church. Trouble is it seems to me that heart is getting clogged up with the cholesterol of pre-occupation with trends instead of truths.

    Graham Tomlins ‘The Provocative Church’ would be worth a glance to put alongside Roland Allen, Vincent Donovan, and Lesslie Newbiggin

  5. Trackback by chrismc

    10.00 pm on 5 Mar 2004

    Hiding behind a “Missional” smokescreen?

    Great Question. I have been wondering about the same thing. jason clark : emergent-uk: Hiding behind Mission – more on sociological wrappers How many people hide behind the growing term, “missional church”. We can locate ourselves as christians in a po…

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