Posted by Ir (Helen) on: 03.28.2007 /
I couldn’t go to Off The Map’s conference Inside the Missional Matrix, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I’d really ‘fit’ anyway. I don’t know exactly what ‘missional’ means (I hadn’t heard that word until I got involved with Off The Map and started reading things that emerging Christians write), but it sounds a bit close to ‘missions’ and ‘missionary’ which are all about converting people to Christianity, which isn’t at all where I’m at these days.
On the other hand I knew there would be some neat people there so I would have liked to go and hang out with them.
The podcasts from the talks were put up impressively quickly (the conference ended on Saturday afternoon and they were up later that day). I decided to listen to them so I could see what ‘missional’ was all about.
I’m particularly interested to hear from the atheists here, but Christians feel free to jump in too, if you have comments: would you listen to podcasts from a conference about being ‘missional’ or would the theme put you off? If you do listen to any of them, I’d be interested in your thoughts - were they what you expected or not?
By the way, one of the podcasts is of Jim interviewing ‘a missionally minded atheist, Eliza in fact, so even if you’re not interested in the rest, you might like to listen to that one.
Comment by: Mike C
1Missional is actually quite different than “missions”. Where missions has to do with a colonial mindset of “us Christian Westerners” taking Christianity overseas to “those heathen foreigners”, missional has to do with the church being relevant to its own culture and being a blessing in its own community and society.
In fact here is how wikipedia describes it:
To put it another way: missional is when the church is more concerned with sending its people out to bless the world with love, generosity and compassion, rather than just trying to draw people into the church to become more like us. (Though in “missional” thinking there still is a desire to encourage more and more people to join this revolutionary way of love and serve the world alongside us.)
Missional is actually (IMHO) best summed up in something Rob Bell often says: “The church is at its best when it is giving itself away.”
Comment by: Jerry
2I would suggest looking at http://www.friendofmissional.org instead of the lame wiki definition
Comment by: Mike C
3Yeah, the whole Wiki definition wasn’t so good. I just quoted that little bit of it to highlight the fact that even Wiki recognizes that it’s significantly different than traditional missions/evangelism.
Comment by: Karen
4To be perfectly honest, I am put off by two things:
1) It sounds like one of those “Christian-ese” words, so I’d probably have to work a lot harder than I want to in order to understand what it means in plain English
and
2) The negative association I personally have with missions, missionaries, missionary conferences, raising support for missionaries and all the time, money and energy I spent on that agenda and now deeply regret.
My sense is that terms like “missional” and other “Christian words” are aimed primarily at those already inside the religious group. Because they’re not in general useage, they’re not readily understood by outsiders. They can also be used intentionally or unintentionally to separate those “in the know” from those who are not.
“Missional” - if it’s trying to transcend that in-group and appeal to a wider audience - may have similar problems as “Bright” does in the nontheist community. Bright was coined with good motivation but hasn’t been successful for some of the same reasons I already mentioned: It’s an insider term with no useage outside nontheist circles and it has an obvious, but unintended association that some people find offensive (i.e. Bright versus Dumb or Dim).
Comment by: Mike C
5You’re pretty much right about that Karen. It’s mainly a theological term that is useful to pastors and churches. There’s not really much need for outsiders to interact with it. I don’t think “missional” is trying to appeal to a wider audience, because it isn’t intended to be a label, brand, group, or denomination. It’s just a concept.
(Which is why, even though I’m officially a supporter of that “Friend of Missional” site, I find the wording rather strange. “Missional” isn’t really an entity that can have “friends” per se. It’s just an abstract concept. It’s like saying I’m a “friend of entropy” or something.)
Anyhow, I don’t think there’s much need for non-Christians to bother themselves with the terminology. All you really need to know is that it is a friendly word. It describes the kind of Christians that you all here probably wouldn’t have any problem with.
And know that it is quite the opposite of all the negative associations you have of “missions”, etc. In one sense, “missional” is the Christian response to all those negative aspects. It’s our attempt to fix what was wrong with our earlier approach and do it better this time.
Comment by: benjamin ady
6Karen,
I’d love to learn more about what sounds like it was perhaps a negative and even painful experience you had with missions, mission conferences, fund raising for missions, etc. It sounds like we might have similar stories.
Comment by: Karen
7Ben,
It wasn’t really a personally painful experience for me. It’s more that I look back now on the very substantial time, money and effort I put into missions and supporting good friends who went on the mission field and realize that it was misguided effort (IMO, of course).
While the missionaries were absolutely all extremely sincere, loving people, they were directing 100% of their effort toward converting “unsaved people groups” to Christ and planting churches. They were not going to poor places to bring much-needed infrastructure, development, medical care, education - all those kinds of things that I think now truly could make the world a better place.
They were bringing religion - their own religion, and religion that was typically in direct opposition to the native religions that were already established in the countries they “invaded.” So, not only were they not directly helping the local populations, they were putting those who did convert into terrible conflicts with their families, their communities and their religions of origin.
And why? Because we all believed, sincerely, that these people were going to hell if they didn’t convert to the kind of belief system we were raised with here in the West.
I should add, however, that most of the missionaries we supported were spectacularly unsuccessful something they would admit only in private amongst their closest friends. Trying to get people to turn their backs on family, friends and community by adopting a foreign belief system (particularly in Muslim communities) is almost impossible.
Of course, that reality is rarely acknowledged and it doesn’t stop people from putting tons of effort and raising tons of money into trying to do it. And I just think about all the good that that same money and effort could do if it were devoted to alleviating poverty, working for justice, bringing clean water and sanitation. Ugh - it kills me just to think about it.
The other reality is that in my last church, a group of us who were involved in the CCDA (John Perkins group) started up a local outreach effort not aimed so much at conversion but at tutoring, a food co-op for the working poor, job training and the like. And the church would NOT contribute any of the general funds for our efforts, because they were concerned that they money would be seen as “taking away” from the international missionary effort - which was more important because it was aimed at conversion, not at the “social gospel” we were trying to implement (that’s sarcasm you hear there, by the way). So we had to rely on special offerings for a very small budget and the group eventually started a 501(c)3 once Bush’s faith-based initiative office appeared.
Okay, so I guess it WAS a personally painful situation, after all! ;-)
What was your experience? I know you were involved with YWAM and the missionary ship, right? Was that the one Keith Green got very high on right before he died?
Comment by: Karen
8Oh, here’s another personally painful story about missions:
We had a wealthy Armenian retiree who led the seniors group to Armenia on short-term missions trips each summer. They went into this terribly poor, deprived population with suitcases stuffed with gifts, toys, and even Western goods. As they went around knocking on doors and witnessing in rural villages, they even handed out cash to help people in dire situations.
Many people they called on wound up attending or at least visiting the Protestant churches that have been established in Armenia. (Why wouldn’t they, when the rich Americans told them to!?)
So, I was listening to a presentation about this at a women’s missionary breakfast one time and I was fascinated. I raised my hand and asked, “What religion are these people converting from?” thinking that perhaps this was a Muslim area of Armenia.
The woman giving the talk replied:
“Oh, they go to that Eastern Orthodox church. But you know that they don’t really know Jesus!
This was just about the time my thinking was starting to change about evangelicalism, and I almost threw up. ALL this effort and money and practically bribing people - and they were ALREADY CHRISTIANS!?!
Unbelievably cruel and unthinking, to me, to pull people away from the beauty and the mystery of the Orthodox church they’ve grown up with by simply declaring they “don’t know Jesus.” How arrogant and mindless is that? That really, really turned me off.
Ben, you see what you’ve done!? Don’t get me started on this stuff! ;-)
Comment by: Jonathan Switzer
9Karen,
Wow. what a frustrating situation. Ever since the Reformation, Christianity has had this internal struggle. The church (in the 1100’s and later) had become very political and money focused. As a result, the reformers, both inside and out, found themselves facing “rituals” that had lost any genuine relationship with the Lord. There was wide spread disenchantment with the powerful Institutional churches. Unfortunately, Franky Schaeffer, who joined the Eastern Orthodox Church after being evangelical, admits that the Eastern Orthodox institution equally struggles with what the Catholic church and the other denominations have struggled: Ritual without meaning. Religion without connection to God. As a result, reformers, who lament the distance between religious ritual and sincere relationships between people and one another and God, find themselves at a loss. How to help those who are caught in relgious environments that have lost the spark?
Comment by: Rachel
10Jonathan, I think you are making some huge assumptions here. How do you know that people in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches are practicing “ritual without meaning” and “religion without connection”? Why do you think that because they have a liturgical form of worship that they do not have a sincere relationship with God?
The Catholic and Orthodox churches together have over 1.3 billion members worldwide. I’m confident that many of those adherents have a vibrant and meaningful faith and do not feel in any way “caught in religious environments that have lost the spark.”
Comment by: Rachel
11It really turns me off as well, Karen. And not only is Eastern Orthodoxy part of their religious heritage, it is part of their ethnic and cultural heritage as well.