Reflections on the “Missional Manifesto”

“Post-evangelical”, “post-liberal”, “post-modern”, “post-colonial”, “post-Christendom”, “emergING”, “emergENT”, “third way”, “organic”, “centrist”… the world of North American Christianity is a landscape littered with words like these like shells scattered across the shore of the sea, now so overused we can barely remember that at one point they actually had positive content.

Among such words is the word “missional”.  Sometime in the last ten years, the word began to be used extensively as a self-description for churches/communities organized and oriented towards “the mission of God” as opposed to something else.  Usually, the term functioned as a sort of “pushaway” – that is, “we” (whoever that is) are defined by our participation in the mission of God “out there” (in the world) as opposed to “them” (whoever they are), who are defined and organized by a sort of “indragging” principle (i.e., get more people in the building).  “Missional” was often set against so-called “attractional” churches.

Somewhere along the line, however, the word began to lose its moorings (if indeed it ever had them).  Pretty soon, folks as diverse as Craig Groeschel and Shane Claiborne were using the term to describe what they were up to.  As the word became more and more diffuse, therefore, it came to have less and less content.  If an indie hipster artist type can use the word to describe what she’s doing with her art, and Steven Furtick can use it to describe what he’s doing with his exploding church in South Carolina, clearly we have on our hands a word in search of a meaning.

Thus, a little more than a year ago, a small group of thinkers, pastors, and practitioners (including Alan Hirsch, Tim Keller, Ed Stetzer, Dan Kimball, and others) got together to draft a document laying out what they mean when they use the word “missional”, entitling the document the “Missional Manifesto.”  (You can read the full text of the Manifesto here.)

In the main I tend to be wary of highfalutin-sounding things like “manifestos”, but I must say that I do appreciate both what the “framers” (that’s also a little highfalutin-sounding for my ears 🙂 ) intended to do (define how they’re using the term) and in fact did (provide, IMO, a nice theological framework for understanding the missionary nature of the Church).

To be specific, some appreciations for the Manifesto:

1. I appreciated the attempt to limit the term “missional” (as it relates to the Church) to our calling to join with God in seeking and saving the lost.  As the Manifesto states: “Missional is not synonymous with movements attempting to culturally contextualize Christianity, implement church growth, or engage in social action. The word missional can encompass all of the above, but it is not limited to any one of these…Missional is the perspective to see people as God does and to engage in the activity of reaching them. The church on mission is the church as God intended.”  Kudos to those statements.
2. I appreciated the distinction between the “Missio Dei” (Mission of God) and the “Missio Ecclesia” (Mission of the Church).  As I’ve already written about here, I think confusion on this point is harmful, and actually diverts the Church away from the specific role she plays in the “summing up of all things in heaven and on earth under one head, even Christ” – that is to say, the “Mission of God.”   I loved this statement: “Although it is frequently stated ‘God’s church has a mission,’ according to missional theology, a more accurate expression is ‘God’s mission has a church’ (Ephesians 3:7-13).”  Definitely.  I might be tempted to say, in further clarification, that “God’s mission has a church which has a mission.”  Missio Ecclesia, in other words, is a subset of Missio Dei.
3. I appreciated that Gospel, Christology, Kingdom, Church, and Disciple-making formed the heart of the “Affirmations” of the MM.  As a people being-formed by the Good News of what God has done for us and for the whole world in Christ Jesus, the people of God together bear witness to a world which has fallen into the hands of the Evil One that the gracious Reign of God in Christ is available to all.  I thought that whole section was well-articulated and theologically precise.