Can an established church make the missional church transition? This is a good question.
In The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch says that the missional church “is a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, the real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission.” (p. 82)
So can an established church define itself and organize its life around mission (the outward impulse and activities that are directed towards the redemption of the world)? To some extent, yes. However, there are huge limitations.
An established church can have significant missional expressions, and churches that make this transition may see significant rise in baptisms and impact upon the community. But some who are challenged in this may decided to simply leave and go someplace else where they can sit in a pew and not be challenged.
This points toward the tremendous need for church planting, for only in a fresh start can the church be truly reorganized around mission.
Do you think that established churches can make the missional church transition? What are the limits?
Comment
Allen, I don't want to discourage you in this, by any means. I encourage established churches to work on making this transition, and I love helping churches do this. If I can help your church, let me know.
It is true that not everyone can church plant. And we should not abandon the established churches. I have personally led a missional church transition at two churches, and give seminars around the country in established churches. It can be and is exciting to have these missional expressions. I know at Liberty and at High Pointe, there have been hundreds of people baptized and thousands of people fed and clothed and much more because of this.
I'm simply pointing out the difficulty that most established churches have in truly organizing around mission. This is a radical restructuring that takes time, patience, extremely good leadership, a commitment to following the Spirit's promptings, and a lot of other factors. I don't want to depress you, bro! A lot of good can happen. Watch some of our videos--they are very inspiring,
In my opinion the established church is not as likely to become a missional church. It does happen, but it is rare. One such church was featured a year ago in the Christian Chronicle. The Remmel, Arkansas country church. Established 70 years ago. Now grew recently from 40 to 200 people.
The SteppingStone church here in northwest McKinney goes on what they believe is true that once a church has been established, it loses its missional fervor and starts new churches as the people are converted.
Don't you think that a plant can have some of the same issues? If people come expecting the type of church you described they may be just as unlikely to join the mission. I agree to a degree and definitly with your assesment of issues but I do think it is doable for an existing church. Can you add mission to what you are doing without totally throwing out everything else? One advantage that we have is that we were started with community impact ministry in mind and being the hands and feet of Jesus to the community but I am working with churches that are getting better about being on mission. They may never be what someone calls missional but if they are loving their neighbor should that be okay?
I like your three bullets (maybe four with the next two sentences).
I wonder how many different limitations or limiting factors one could identify--these would represent teaching and development obstacles to overcome.
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