The October 2007 issue of Bill Dahl’s The Porpoise-Diving Life zine is out. Robbymac is the guest editor for this issue, and he selected the theme of Charis-Missional for this issue. He recruited me, Emerging Grace, and one other person to generate content for the issue, originally slated for publication in July. Our fourth had to drop out due to other circumstances, but Phil Wyman submitted a couple of pieces through Bill to tag himself in at the last minute. This one felt a bit awkward, for a few reasons. First, we rushed through June to complete the issue, but a computer crash around that time left Bill scrambling all summer so that he couldn’t update the site until late August, when the August issue went live and stayed up through September. By that time, Rob, Grace, and I were asking ourselves, “Maybe I should read what I wrote back in June to see if I still agree with it?” I didn’t re-read my pieces, but… no matter.

The edition was launched without fanfare last week and has had little response since (the original launch also included an article that didn’t fit the issue, so it was later removed). Add to that the article I keep checking to see if it’s been fixed, and I’ve not mentioned it until now… my piece titled (Charis-)Missional Evangelism suffered a bad case of HTML-mangling, probably at the hands of Bill’s oxymoronic WYSIWYG editor… the introduction to the article should read: “By Brother Maynard. [next paragraph…] What heady days the 1980s were for us charismatics, regardless which stripe of charismaticism we claimed.” You’ll need to supply that first sentence as you begin the article.

You can head over there and read what “charismissional” is supposed to be about, why Rob in particular likes the term, why Grace proposed it, and why I don’t like it — I’ve duplicated the complete index of articles for the issue below. The intention in putting this whole issue forward was for it to serve as a conversation-starter. The Holy Spirit has not been a major topic (which I note is an understatement) in missional or emerging conversation, though a missional pneumatology is now starting to be discussed in some circles. Given the content of a post-charismatic discussion in which Rob, Grace, I, and others have engaged in as we’ve moved toward missional praxis, this conversation makes perfect sense. That is to say, we want to talk about how the Holy Spirit and the charismata (spiritual gifts) factor into the missional conversation without getting forgotten entirely as we toss out certain other ideas and practices which have not been helpful. So far, there’s not much for conversation on this. Traffic for October PDL is down, as is the feedback loop — though as I think about using PDL as a conversation-starter, it may not be the best format since there’s no comment system over there. This was, I believe, why the Faith in a Dress blog was created to catch the discussion that was hoped for out of the June issue (which, as I noted above, had an extra-long run… and on a worthy subject!).

Here’s the list:

• Editorial for October 2007 — Rob (“Robbymac”) McAlpine
• Book Review: Breakthrough by Derek Morphew — Rob McAlpine
• (Charis-)Missional Evangelism — Brother Maynard
• Chrysalis: From Post Charismatic to Charismissional — Rob McAlpine
• Prophetic Ministry, Reimagined Missionally — Emerging Grace & Brother Maynard
• Why Charismissional? — Emerging Grace
• CD Review: True to Life by Norm Strauss — Rob McAlpine
• A Missional View of Healing and Deliverance — Emerging Grace
• Pentecostals-Emergent-Anabaptists and Icons — Phil Wyman
• We are ALL Daniels — Phil Wyman

So alright, the comments section here is now open for discussion on any of the post-charismatic missional articles in this issue. Some are the articles are a bit more cerebral than typical PDL fare, with a lot more Vineyard-esque material packed in, but along with that, any thoughts on why this subject has been largely ignored are appreciated. And jump in on the issues we’ve attempted to raise concerning “power evangelism”, prophetic ministry, deliverance and inner healing, and more. What do these look like missionally, or are they ideas that just don’t belong in a missional context? If the subject is “off” or not of interest, please say so, or speculate why not. What say you all?