(Oh, I was just reading your response and note the “that it should probably appear under nuance.” I like that.)

Using the phase “rather than” does create in my mind a rather “black and white” distinction. For example, if I just read “Near rather than far,” I come away with the feeling that we need to drop “far” and focus on “near.”

“Being rather than doing” and “Mindset rather than set of actions.” I love these two!

I may have missed it, but isn’t being missional also about furthering Jesus message of reconciliation and a whole gospel?

Indeed!

First, post-Christendom. I stuck this one under missionally-purposed since the post-Christendom awareness becomes a motivator for missional methodology (i.e. yes, it’s contextualization). Awareness of this is in fact one of the key factors that first gave rise to missional thought as we know it, so it’s very common to include it as part of missional thought — but strictly speaking, it’s more nuance. I’m certain I actually said that or something like it in my last post, the long one, when I was talking about being missional to moderns and so forth, except that I said it might be moot now since we can’t turn back the clock. I think I was writing too bleary-eyed… I would see this along the lines of my earlier statement and what Cindy-lu and Jamie have stated here, namely that it should probably appear under nuance.

Second, “ahead of” vs. “rather than” — the preamble to the list got dropped or rewritten. The list of characteristics I offer should have a lead-in like, “Missional church emphasizes:” — if you prepend this for each of those bullet points, I think it would clarify my intent that “rather than” refers to a shift in emphasis more than to a complete substitution. In an absolute sense, I’m not in favour of the substitution, even where the two primary distinctives are concerned. The people of God (the church) share in the Missio Dei, but I wouldn’t want to say that no other purposes exist or were served along the way. Similarly, I don’t mean to ditch attractional practice entirely, as I believe that true functioning community is inherently attractive, and that a display of such community will draw people… but that wouldn’t be my only hat-hook, and the emphasis needs to be incarnational.

Concerning an emphasis on the individual, I think this probably bears further comment. The individualism of the Marlboro Man and Consumer Church™ is more the stuff of bootstrapping narcissism. What I have in mind is an individual response, outward-focused for extrinsic purposes rather than self-serving action. Whereas consumer church is others serving me, the individual response I’m discussing is me serving others. You’re right Bill, in that I need to state cautiously (and perhaps I sounded more balanced in my last post) this individual component, as I don’t want it to be misunderstood and viewed through mega-CLB glasses. Part of my concern in this came out in Rick’s comment on my long post, that a missional congregation was not a necessary component of missional action, rather a missional congregation is a concentration of missional action. That is, a missional emphasis places a burden of missional response on each member of the body. That said, there are most definitely aspects of “church” as the body of Christ that cannot be manifested individually, and missional people will I believe gravitate together to express those aspects in concert with one another. Perhaps a good way to say it is that the charge to participate in the Missio Dei is a call to missional action directed not only to the corporate body, but also to each individual within the body.

Better?

Though I struggle with most NA iterations of church “community”, I strongly believe that we are called to live and respond missionally within the context of community. As you state in the “Inclusive rather…” point, the emphasis needs to be on the “we”.

We need to be careful that we don’t just interpret missional through a People Formerly Known As/CLB lens.

Peace,
Jamie