missional

A new initiative of CityTeam:
http://www.reachingtheonlinegeneration.com/

This is a blog post I have to share in its entirety:

At my last doctoral class with Len Sweet last week, he posed a question to us that went something like this: Provide for me the metaphors that will describe how we measure success in the church in the future. We are prone to measure success by how man and how much. And we determine who is a great leader by how many and how much.

A professor at Fuller Seminary posted a relatively short summary of what he’s seen in emerging churches over the last two decades. Some quotes:

Notes from the unconference session on Reaching Non-Church People (Session #1)

Jon wants two things:

• activities outside of Sunday morning that Christ-followers and non-church or anti-church people can do together
• get all groups, from LTGs to small groups to mom’s groups etc., looking outward

Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost are co-authors of the book The Shaping of Things to Come (Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church).

Their basic thrust: Church as we know it was built on social structures that no longer exist. We need to become missionaries to our own culture. Let’s change from being attractional (bringing “them” into our church culture) to being missional (we go out, helping “them” form faith communities unique to their culture).

At the Church of the Chimes 50th anniversary worship bash, I was bracing myself for a dull sermon. I did not expect to hear a strategist basically preaching from The Forgotten Ways! For me, it was a powerful confirmation of the direction I feel God calling me to pursue.

What about you — what did you get out of it? What struck you?

1. Set a daily alarm for 10:02 on your watch or phone.
2. When your alarm goes off, take a moment wherever you are and pray Luke 10:2 (NIV).

I recently resumed this practice.
If you decide to do this, leave a note below; it would encourage me to know that others are praying.

So I know this totally goes against the whole Journey approach up until now. But I have to ask the question:

If the Journey is so focused on reaching people who are not yet following Jesus, why are we spending so much time, energy and money on the Sunday gathering? If Sunday mornings are our primary evangelistic tool, it will not touch my friends or anyone like them. It doesn’t matter how you sex it up, or how interactive you make it; if you build it, they won’t come.