To a large extent though, this is what necessitates the exercise. So far the word missional has been used variously with several similar definitions put forward in long or short forms. As the word gets to the point of having been around long enough, people begin to assume that a particular nuance of meaning is universally indicative of the whole, and it isn’t. Given that it’s a global conversation, it’s even easier to go askew… we saw this with the emerging church (Emergent) labels, where what came out of the USA was different than was was being talked about in the UK, Australia, and Canada. As the EC was then criticized, the criticism only addressed parts as if it were the whole, and was therefore off the mark.

Then too, the fact we’re starting to forget who said what makes it a good moment to stop and summarize. I expect we can end up with a description of missional that rather than being an absolute definition can convey a semantic range within which most of the uses will fall. The fact that the range would have boundaries at all (I’ve suggested two above) is further along than we’ve been so far. There is a sense of the word missional that isn’t geographically (or otherwise) bounded but is more universal; within that, there’s room for nuance determined by geography or denomination or whatever. This is the very thing we’re now trying to describe.

So far, Ed and I are the first (or loudest?) to seriously say, “Hey, we use the same word, but we don’t mean the same thing!” and begin to try and describe the difference. That’s the very point, to end the confusion. If we had started this two years ago, it would have been an easier exercise, but would have made less sense as to why it was needed. I still see it as quite important to do.

I’m beginning to wonder if we might not be missing the forest for the trees. I’m starting to lose focus and not be able to remember all that’s been said, who said it and why. Here’s the thing … I’m becoming more and more convinced that missional is indeed contextual. It’s also cultural and more than either of those it is culturally contextual. So that what is missional to someone in the UK might be vastly or only slightly different to missional for someone in Australia or the US. Which would account for alot of the wrangling we are seeing over this word.

For a great discussion that highlights how the same words can mean completely different things in a cultural context go visit John Smulo’s Let’s Get Political and read through the comments. It was quite enlightening to me to see how differently conservative and liberal were used throughout the UK, Australia and the US … even though one would think they carry the same definitions.

Although a subtle distinction, another way to express the missionally-purposed requirement and the personal responses within it is that missional church is arranged by rather than for its purpose of fulfilling the Missio Dei. It is the community consisting of people fulfilling God’s purpose for the church rather than the community that is joined together for the fulfillment of God’s purpose for the church.

And that’s what I’m getting at… it is formed around and by it’s missional purpose, not merely gathered together to try to express and fulfill a purpose.

I like the stuff about culture there… I don’t know were anybody got the idea that part of the mission was to clobber the culture and replace it with our own! No wonder it isn’t working, eh?

So far my writing toward an understanding of missional is around 8,000 words spread over a few posts here… with more to come. Today’s was a big one…

“Could I suggest that Newbigin saw something about the UK on his return that is much more significant [than mere secularity]. In my discussions with him he was among the first to see that God was at work in the culture and to challenge to idea of society being “secularâ€?. This is revealing when discussing whether “mission-shaped churchâ€? is an adequate alternative for “missionalâ€? as an Anglican who contributed to the initial work on the report. I believe it is flawed – it tends to focus on what the Church should be doing (in a rather earnest way) which is a relatively small part of the picture rather than focusing on what God is doing and joining him, individually and as a Church. Mission-shaped church is already proving to inhibit our missional thinking here so I would hope that others will not adopt it.â€?

Tom reminded me that the discussion of “missional� is conditioned by a certain view of history, a lens or paradigm that determines how .. or whether.. we circumscribe God’s activity in the world. We western believers are generally dualistic… God is at work in the Church, but not in the broader culture. That is a flawed theology and ignores Jesus teaching on the kingdom of God. To quote Todd Hiestand in his recent paper,

“Karl Barth helpfully points out that the church is a part of world history; the gospel takes place in “world occurrence.� Somehow I grew up with the assumption that there were two histories of the world: biblical history and world history. While this was likely never explicitly expressed as truth, it is what I instinctively learned. World history was somehow profane and corrupted and biblical history was holy and redemptive. But, Barth shows that this dichotomized view of history is unhelpful to mission. The church would be “guilty of a lack of faith and discernment if it seriously saw and understood world history as secular or profane history.� 6 Instead, he states that we simply cannot separate the church from world history. He writes, “[The church’s] history takes place as surrounded by the history of the cosmos and is everywhere affected and determined by it. Conversely, it is not without significance for the cosmos and its history that its own history takes place.�

6 Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics, IV.3.2. The Doctrine of Reconciliation. (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 687.