What is a Missional Church?

We’re all on a mission of some kind. The question is: what’s yours? What defines what your life is about? That’s your mission. Jesus gave His church, His people, one mission: make disciples (Mt 28:18-20). Calling rebellious sinners to faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of sin, life with God and partnering with Him in his unfolding story is the mission of the church.

However, often the church drifts from this mission. This happens when a church lets something else take over as the primary mission: a building project, an unstated theology of “people should come to us,” personality of the preacher, the size of the church, making budget, keeping programs running or sometimes simple laziness.

Ultimately, when mission drift occurs indefinitely the church stops reaching people.

The term “missional” is simply the noun “missionary” adapted into an adjective. Thus, a “missionary” is someone who acts like a missionary (e.g. understands a culture, proclaims the faithful Gospel in a way that people in culture can understand, and uses parts of that culture to glorify God). A “missional church” is a church that acts like a missionary in its community.

What Do Missional Churches Look Like?

Incarnational – Missional churches are deeply connected to the community. The church is not focused on its facility, but is focused on living, demonstrating, and offering biblical community to a lost world. It means following the example of Jesus, God becoming man. We are now commissioned to become part of the community in which God has placed us as redemptive agents.

Indigenous – Churches that are indigenous have taken root in the soil and reflect, to some degree, the culture of their community. An indigenous church looks different from San Francisco to Senegal to Singapore. This means that churches must become humble students of the varied peoples and cultures surrounding them to communicate the Gospel truth in ways the culture understands.

Intentional – Missional churches are intentional about their methodologies:

• Intentional about producing missionaries instead of consumers in the discipleship process.
• Intentional about equipping people to live every day with Gospel intentionality.
• Intentional about building a great city and not just a good church.
• Intentional about planting other churches to go and do the same.
• Intentional about Biblical fidelity merged with contextual engagement.

Jesus is Our Example

In all this, Jesus serves as our primary example. The incarnation – God becoming man – helps us understand and relate to people. The cross provides the framework for our theology (what we believe and how we relate to God). But it’s the incarnation that provides the framework for our missiology (what we believe and how we relate to culture).

During His earthly ministry we see Jesus loving people, spending time with people, and sharing His life with people. We see an outcast ministering to outcasts, we see grace offered to a prostitute, an adulterer, and a tax-collector. We see a God-man moved with absolute compassion because He sees those around Him are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Mt 9:36). And He says I am here. I am here to “seek and save that which is lost.”

A missional church sees that people and culture are not enemies of the church, but broken treasures that God is restoring. Restoration is only made fully and freely available through the Gospel delivered by God’s sent people, the Church. That’s missional. We have a sender (Jesus), a message (the Gospel), and a people to whom we are sent (real people in culture). These are the themes that we are committed to living out together as Redeemer City Church.

Taken from “What is a Missional Church” from the Redeemer City Church Vision Packet (adapted from “Christ, City, Church?” by Jonathan McIntosh) - download here