I just finished reading Reggie McNeal's Missional Renaissance, and I don't think I've been more excited and scared at the same time since a few weeks ago, when I discovered that we would be having a child in eight short months.
This is one of those books that forces me to look at the church in a whole new light--McNeal asks the church and its leaders to choose between church-ianity and Christianity. One of these is focused on sustaining the church, while the other is reaching out to proclaim the Word of God in exciting and life-changing ways. McNeal is hopeful that the church can be transformed from an institution that looks inward to one that looks out into the world and searches for the places that God is at work. The role of leaders is to set aside all the old assumptions and take up a radical call to a new way of being church--one focused on the development of people into disciples rather than developing programs.
It scares me, because I feel radically unequipped to take up such a task. It scares me because it is new, because it is different, because it requires change, and everyone knows that change is automatically bad, right?
And yet it is so very hopeful, because it recognizes that God is at work in so many places in so many ways, and Christ is inviting us to open our eyes and see what God is doing in the world. McNeal challenges us to set some old ways aside and take up the task of being the church in the world. Missional communities are not concerned with the church as an institution--they are focused on how they can proclaim the living and active Word of God to a world hungry to hear this truth. They are focused on being the church in their homes, in the neighborhoods, in schools and workplaces, etc. A missional communities' heart is wherever the people are, and it is reaching out, eager to spread the Word of God.
It will take work, and it will take prayer and change and hearts willing to be led by the Spirit.
I pray that I am willing to be led.
Are you?
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