A missional
reading of Scripture calls us to become missional communities. We learn to read Scripture to discover what it means
to serve as God’s people on mission. We engage the text to invite persons on
the outside to become members of our community as they explore the life of
faith. Missional communities exist to empower Christ followers to function
fully as God’s people in the world. They, likewise, exist to shape outsiders
into insiders. In our recent past, the approach to community was “believe first
and then belong.” A missional approach encourages women and men to belong first
and then believe.
The more
disconnected and interconnected that
our world becomes the more vital authentic
biblical community becomes. God created humanity for community. God calls God’s people to be part of God’s new humanity:
a missional community. This claim is
rooted in Creation where God forged humanity to live together in shared
dominion for the purposes of fulfilling God’s aims for the world. The
consistent biblical witness is that God’s salvific aims remain tied to a people rather than to solitary
individuals.
Who is My Community?
The most
basic question is this: Who is my community? With whom do I and will I live my life?
Do I belong to a group that loves me authentically and where I can use my gifts
and talents fully for God’s mission in the world?
Mission-centered?
What
kind of a community are we? Do we exist primarily to equip, send, and go into
the world on mission, or are we a community that exists for some other purpose?
If mission is not central to the
perceived and lived-out DNA of the community, then it is not a missional
community.
Barriers to Community
We
must reflect critically on any barriers intentional
or unintentional that block others from access to our community. What does a person have to become as a precondition to hearing the Gospel from us? How open are
the various components of our community to newcomers? How easy is it for an outsider/seeker to become an insider/follower? Are we so
mono-cultural as to be impermeable to persons of different ages, political
views, styles of dress, ethnicity, socio-economic status, or any of the
elements that fracture the wider human community? Are we in the world enough to
be a visible presence or is the chief barrier the fact that we meet primarily
inside of a building separated from the world?
Realigning with God
We
must ask: What kind of community do we need to become to embody fully the
Scriptural vision of a missional community that reflects God’s character
to/for/in the world? As we evaluate our community there must be a willingness
to change in favor of becoming more
permeable to outsiders for the sake
of God’s mission.
© 2015
Brian D. Russell
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