A Week of Missional

I have had a week of much information & conversation. I spent most of last week reading Darrell Guder's Missional Church. Then I spent Friday & Saturday at MidAmerica Nazarene University for a Postmodern Youth Ministry conversation with Tony Jones. Although I do some teaching with high school youth, I mainly went to be part of the conversation as one who is preparing to plant a new faith community.

Friday night the KC cohort had dinner with Tony, Mike King, and Tim Keel. I was finally able to attend a cohort gathering since I was already in town for the conference. It was great to hear about all things Emergent. To hear about all of the new titles coming out & the dialogue that they will hopefully begin. Tony was also talking about the importance cohorts are beginning to play in the conversation. Scot McKnight asked a cohort to review the manuscript for his new book, and give their thoughts & comments. This kind of intentional involvement is a testament to the desire of those leading voices of the emerging conversation, to have an ongoing dialogue that includes everyone on an equal level despite their position in the church, academia, or Emergent.

I enjoyed the first part of a discussion about Missional Leadership on Saturday morning with Dean Blevins & Mike King, but I unfortunately had to miss the rest to get back to Topeka.

Monday I talked with one of my profs about a conversation going on between peoples from various denominations and Allelon about seeing a transition towards a missional community of faith within each participating denomination. Everyone involved is looking at the context of their denomination's ecclesiology & missiology, to discern the direction that would best lead their church towards a missional identity.

I look forward to continuing this conversation both at seminary on the denominational level, our Emergent friends nationwide & locally, and with the new gathering my wife & I have started. We continue to meet more people that have either stayed away from God, left the church, or are getting ready to -- all because of Christians. There are so many people who do not have a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ, because of the hypocrisy & ungodly actions of people in the church.

It is my hope that a new look at Jesus through the lense of the missio Dei, and an authentic incarnational community will help them to see the difference between Christ-followers and the Christians that they have experienced.