Quick Thoughts on Being "Missional" - UPDATED

Just sitting here at the library working on yet another paper. It's shaping up to be about being missional in a postmodern culture. (It better be shaping up to being about something because it's due on Monday...)

Some very quick, unprocessed thoughts... feedback appreciated

• In previous cultures missiology was all about presenting previously unavailable information. (This was true from Paul's time right through modernity.)


• In this postmodern era we live in, the information is available elsewhere. (The internet is more efficient at making information available than we could ever be.)


• If we're still about distributing information, we are redundant.


• Now, we must present evidence of redemption, transformation, etc. In other words, we need to demonstrate that the Good News actually "works".


• This is a stage the modern era never prepared us for - it was all about the information, how to make it appealing to various cultures and times, etc.


• Information (and it's packaging) is time sensitive.


• Transformation, on the other hand, is timeless.


• Love too is a universal, unchanging language.


• The injustices may (appear to) change, but the seeking of justice never changes

So, as the people of God, are we still stuck in information-delivery mode (which has a very short shelf life anyway), or are we seeking to demonstrate the power of the redemptive, transformational message of the Kingdom of God (which is timeless)?

UPDATE: Good feedback from Glenn in the comments section. The church in Acts was certainly missional in that they walked the talk. Perhaps its more accurate to say that the process of modernization turned the gospel into information to be transmitted, received and processed.

Comments

[Wes]

Hey...from Breckenridge...just went past the Roe's house. We are up here with a couple from Florida who are out for some leadership development and mentoring. I'll set an iChat date when we get home on Thursday...woo, hoo!!!

About your paper...of which I would enjoy having a copy...how do we intersect missional...with informational...with relational...that may lead (or may not lead) to transformational. I'm not trying to be cute with all the "als"...but these strands seem to need to be all woven together somehow and not addressed isolation from each other.

Just a thought. Now I'm going to take a nap and listen to the rain.

[wilsonian]

I was thinking something similar... that the only effective way transformation and love can have wider impacts is through relationship. Information delivery permits the "hit and run" approach, which is so ineffective and damaging.

[Glenn Innes]

good thoughts mike, look forward to seeing the finished product (please!)

I wonder though how true your first statement is? Is the whole book of acts not simply a representation of people witnessing to and demonstrating this "new" knowledge?

I agree that we lost this sense for a long time and that the recovery of this is imperative for the church. U am just not sure it is fair to lump Paul et al in with the church of modernity, particulalrly late modernity.

[Mike]

True enough, Glenn. Perhaps in our revisionist since of history that's what it has become. I agree the Acts church walked the talk.

(BTW - I was going to ask for your paper on the subject...)

[John]

Good thoughts, but one corrective to your second point. The Internet makes information accessible but that's quite different to people actually having the information. Being missional will still require us to convey information about Jesus - we cannot assume that people actually know the stories. However, your subsequent points about the need for integrating mere information into a transforming Gospel are crucial.

pax et bonum

[Pete]

Using terminology from two of our favourite people, it is probably true that the church in modern culture has done a good job telling the story. However, in post-modernity, it's about making people feel they are part of the story. It shifts to the relational

[Sivin]

Thanks for deepening the reflection on all things "missional"