SAN ANTONIO (ABP) — A global church planting movement could begin in five to 10 years, Pastor Bob Roberts told a small but passionate gathering of missional leaders who met prior to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.
Meeting late at night to avoid conflict with the pastors' conference, about 300 participants fought fatigue with floor-shaking praise music and mission-minded guest speakers.
Southern Baptists have traditionally shied away from the term “missional,” which has been common parlance in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Some fear it conjures images of “emerging” or “emergent” churches regarded as too accommodating to culture.
The North American Mission Board, however, has embraced the concept enough to sponsor a Missional Network that promotes connection-building and idea-sharing through a website (www.missionalnetwork.com) and holds several conferences during the year.
Mike Cogland, who works with the network, said “missional” is the adjective form of “mission” or “missionary,” an appropriate word to describe those “who desire to engage hearts of people with [the] life-changing message of Jesus Christ.”
Geoff Hammond, who recently became president of NAMB, told participants “this is a conversation we want to be a part of.”
Roberts, founder of the church-planting network “Glocalnet” and pastor of Northwood Church in Keller, Texas, spoke passionately about what it means to be “missional,” relating stories about his church's work in Vietnam and other places.
Missional people don't hesitate to work in “closed” or dangerous places, he said. “To be missional is to know we are dead men, but eternal dead men.”
Missional people don't mind risking their lives for God's kingdom because “to be missional means total abandonment,” he continued.
Roberts rattled off characteristics of “church planting movements,” the rapid and self-sustained growth in the number of churches in given areas. There has never been a “mega-church planting movement,” he said — church planting movements grow from small units.
Church planting movements are not a planned program but a Jesus movement that comes from the Holy Spirit, Roberts said. They are highly personal, they take time, they surge from the young, and they are collaborative, he added.
The good news is that a global missional movement has started, Roberts said. The bad news is that people don't know it. “The movement started in Africa and Asia and is moving this way,” he said.
American missiologists don't need to train Asian church planters, he said, but should “sit down, shut up and take notes” from them.
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