Thinking about the missional church...

I've been thinking again recently about what it means to be a missional church - a sent church. When I first started hearing about and reading about missional churches, something struck me deep in my soul. Perhaps I'm being simplistic or idealistic, but I cannot see any other way of being the church. Check out this post on the Missional Church Network from Lois Barrett's book, Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness -

A proper, biblical ecclesiology looks at everything the church is and does in relation to the mission of God in the world. The church does not exist for itself, but for participation in God’s mission of reconciliation. “Mission” is not just an activity carried out by special people in faraway places. Mission is the character of the church in whatever context it exists.

A missional church is a church that is shaped by participating in God’s mission, which is to set things right in a broken, sinful world, to redeem it, and to restore it to what God has always intended for the world. Missional churches see themselves not so much sending, as being sent. A missional congregation lets God’s mission permeate everything that the congregation does — from worship to witness to training members for discipleship. It bridges the gap between outreach and congregational life, since, in its life together, the church is to embody God’s mission.

See the entire post here