In a recent Google search, I discovered more than 304 million results when I typed the term “missional.” I even came across several seminaries promoting master’s degrees in “missional leadership,” “missional theology,” “missional Christianity” and “missional multiplication” (whatever that means).
It took me all the way back to 1999, when I completed my doctoral dissertation and project on the little-known term “missional” in describing the nature of the church. In my “works cited,” the term “missional” appeared only once in 36 referenced titles.
That’s because the word was relatively new and had not yet become a part of our Christian vocabulary. Since I began my research 25 years ago, however, a lot has changed for the good and not-so-good. So, I reluctantly admit the very term I have utilized, and argued for, has become redundant — just another one of hundreds of adjectives used to describe just which kind of church we happen to be or not to be.
Dennis Atwood
I get it. It’s easier to say that we are not like those “other Baptists” or those liberals or those conservatives. But when will all the adjectives finally end?
How can the church not be missional? How can followers of Jesus not love our neighbors? How can churches proclaim the good news of a gospel that is not inclusive? Does this mean there is another authentic form of Christianity that does not require the church to be missional or loving or inclusive of all the people Christ died for? Let’s hope not.
Back in 1999, very little writing existed that utilized the term “missional” — with the exception of Darrell Geuder’s book, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. My thesis was that the church’s identity is inextricably linked to the church’s mission — which is a continuation of God’s mission (mission dei) of redemption that came through Abraham, Israel, the prophets and, finally, through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
“To not be missional is to not be the church.”
Therefore, today’s church is a continuation of God’s mission through Jesus Christ. We participate in God’s mission, not our own. The church; therefore, is inherently missional at its core identity. To not be missional is to not be the church.
But perhaps an innocent little word like “missional” has become redundant. Redundancy occurs when a state of being is no longer needed or useful. In this case, the term has evolved into an overused buzzword creating a perception that being missional is optional according to your version of Christianity. If so, then I am guilty of aiding and abetting the use of the term “missional.”
But that is not the only redundancy at play today. For the most part, both church and society have fully shifted into a binary universe of an “either-or” zero-sum game. It pervades our politics, our religion, our ethics, even our sports. You gotta pick one or the other! Most starkly, we have just witnessed how this plays out in the election of our political leaders, who were once referred to as “public servants.”
I know, in some cases you do have to pick one or the other, and yes this could be just a naïve rabbit hole I am falling headlong into. But what does it really mean for someone to say I go to a “Bible-believing church” or to a church that is “welcoming but not affirming,” or that we can love God with all our “heart, soul, mind and strength” yet pick which of our neighbors we will love?
For starters, it says a lot more about us than about the God who loves and has created every single human that has ever been — in God’s own image.
“Does all of life really have to be reduced to a zero-sum game?”
Here’s why I think this is so important.
I have a dear friend in a former church with whom I played countless rounds of golf in our seven years together — which gave us lots of time to talk, cuss and discuss the meaning of life, family, politics and what we each did wrong on the last swing. Since I moved halfway across the country almost 22 years ago, I have gone back to that city to preside over the weddings of both of his young adult children, he and his wife have traveled to visit us, and we remain in touch to this day — and have even worked in a few more rounds of golf.
But here’s the thing. I am quite positive we voted differently for two extremely different presidential candidates. I doubt we would hold the same position on more than a few political or social issues. I don’t know that we would fall in line together on many deep theological issues. Yet I still consider this friend to be like a brother to me almost 30 years later.
Is this example of friendship a thing of the past? Or maybe just an anomaly? Does all of life really have to be reduced to a zero-sum game? Only if we let it.
Am I the only one who thinks like this? Are there others who are also tired of being defined and described by adjectives rather than the object these adjectives are seeking to describe? Is not love the common thread that runs through the tapestry of the one church that Christ is still weaving today?
Common unity, common sense, common ground, common love — why are these things so uncommon? Because we let them be. May God deliver us from our many adjectives, our tendency toward redundancy and, mostly, from ourselves.
Dennis Atwood recently retired from First Baptist Church of Mount Olive, N.C., after almost 22 years as senior pastor.
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