The “Missional Monday” Series
1) Introduction
2) Jesus Intensionally Forms The Church
3) Jesus Calls Us Out From A Previous ID
4) Jesus Sends Us Into Mission
5) Jesus Is With Us In Mission

A month ago I wrote about how I was in an intense week long church planting class for my M. Div concentration in church planting. It was a wonderful week where we drunk long and hard on the “vision bottle” and sat at the Bride of Jesus, taking in her fullness, grandur and beauty. It was truly a wonderful week!

What was especially wonderful were the conversations we had on the Church. In one particular discussion, Dr. Fagerstrom (the President of GRTS) asked the question, “what are the marks of a healthy church?” We all agreed that discipleship, evangelism, worship, and teaching are signs of a healthy church. But some of us thought something was missin, so I offered this: “isn’t a core component of a healthy church being missional? Shouldn’t a sign of a healthy church be a local body that takes it’s calling as a called-out and sent people seriously?”

While some people agreed, most people said that missional activity (the notion that we are a sent people on mission by God into our indigenous communities) was an outgrowth of a healthy church, rather than a core identity. Meaning: when a church gets it’s shit together inside the walls, then it will naturally serve the world around it well.

I disagree.

I am firmly convinced that mission is central to the identity of Jesus’ community of followers. Not mission programs or trips or -aries (though those are needed too!) Rather, what makes a church the Church is the realization that they are sent on mission as Jesus was sent on mission.

Unfortunately, the Church (more so the USAmerican kind) has become a place where certain things happen (teaching, singing, eating) rather than being a body and community of called out and set apart people sent on mission.

According to Jesus, the Church is a group of “called out ones” and particularly for a specific purpose (which is the very concept inherent in the greek word ekklesia used by Jesus in Matthew 16). We are called out, set apart, and sent, not as a vendor of religious goods, but as a people for God’s liberation and restoration movement.

The church is a gathered people, brought together by a common calling and vocation to be a sent people. And Luke 5 does a beautiful job at painting this very thing.

In my last post on this topic someone asked what I mean by the term missional. If, as I contend, missional activity is the core marker of a healthy church, rather than a byproduct, then I need to layout what I mean and why I think Jesus had this in mind for His called-out ones from the beginning. So for the next several mondays, I will layout the missional commission Jesus has given his followers. I’m calling it “Missional Monday” and I trust Luke 5 will paint the Church as a called-out people for the purpose of sending them on mission.