some of the “best of missional”

** Click here for my contribution to the missional synchroblog.

As I was reading the posts from the missional “mega synchroblog”, many many thoughts stood out to me and I thought I’d post some of the best here for my remembrance and (maybe?) your edification.

i honestly do not use the word for one primary reason–the people i know
who are really truly “missional” don’t talk about it too much & the
people who are trying to catch the latest church-trend use it a lot. ~ Kathy Escobar

we have to deconstruct the belief in dualism if you want to be able to
communicate what missional is. Believers need to see their life
holistically and completely sacred before they can begin to grasp what
it means to be missional. ~Rick Meigs

Actual mission must precede any new cultural understandings that the church might develop of itself.
…
If ‘missional’ carries the sense of being ’sent’, then ‘incarnational’
gives definition to the nature of that ’sentness.’ If ‘missional’ means
being thrust into the world as witnesses to the redemption that is in
Jesus, then ‘incarnational’ shows us that we ought to engage the world
in the same way that God did in and through the Incarnation of the Word
in Jesus the Messiah. ~ Alan Hirsch

mission is the overflowing joy of a Trinitarian God manifest in the material world.
…
Missio Dei is nothing more than our participation in the joyful, ecstatic, overflowing fruitfulness of God. ~Len Hjalmarson

You see, to me, missional is about giving hope in a world of gray.
…
Missional is about loving my neighbor and that can be expressed in thousands of ways ~Sonja Andrews

I think that “being missional” is, in part, finding those wells that still exist in our lives today. ~Barb Peters

I hope that those of us seeking to imitate an incarnate God really understand that that means following a crucified One. ~Erika Haub

The idea of mutuality is expressed by doing things With rather than For others.
This necessitates that we take the time to know them. We develop
relationships of commitment, to be with them in their journey rather
than to simply show up for charity work. ~Kingdom Grace (*my note: I really like ALL of Grace’s points)

Missional means practicing the presence of the Holy Spirit. ~Patrick Oden

In short a “Missional” faith is one which
has it’s core value as transformation, it sees the purpose of faith as
more than a place on Heaven guest-list but about being agents of heaven
here and now. Another starting place for us would be the “5 marks of
mission”

• To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
• To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
• To respond to human need by loving service
• To seek to transform unjust structures of society
• To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

~Mark Berry

Missional is a call to a life of justice, a life of deep community and a life of authentic worship. ~Duncan McFadzean

To understand ” Missional”, is to immerse ourselves in the reality of
the gospels and rediscover that Jesus’ church lived in the world and
practiced an outrageous and scandalous table fellowship. ~Ron Cole

It begins with who God is and appreciates what God has done and is
doing; and attempts to reflect and join up in the same endeavor. ~Doug Jones

Missional is like pornography. It’s hard to define but you know it when you see it.

…

An alternative lifestyle where your top priorities are all about
signing on to God’s project to repair the World because you want to do
that work. ~Tim Thompson

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